“Nice,” I said. But Audrey Kidder in a kitchen? That was something I had a real hard time visualizing. She might chip a nail.

“I took the job at Boston Premier Group because I want to start my own restaurant. That’s really hard to do—you need backers. If I kiss the ring for a while, they can help me get started.”

Interesting. But now she was just buttering me up in order to get what she needed from me. She worked for a bunch of corporate slimeballs who took advantage of everyone they could. And she wanted my approval? Not happening.

“Why don’t you ask your parents for the startup money?” I asked. Audrey was a rich girl. That’s why the sorority types had liked her so much. “Can’t they help?”

“No, Griff.” Her voice dipped. “As a matter of fact they can’t.” And a flash of something dark crossed her face.

Whoops. I’d stuck my foot in my mouth again. “Well,” I grunted. “Let’s talk about my ciders while Zach fixes your car.”

“Cool! Can I see where you make them?” Her face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas, and I felt a twinge of unfamiliar kinship in my chest. Cider was my passion, and whenever anyone expressed interest, it made me happy.

Then again, the girl really had enjoyed getting drunk back in the day.

“Yeah. Of course. This way.” We passed the farmhouse on our right, then I steered Audrey between the bunkhouse and the dairy barn toward my pride and joy—the cider house. My father had always made artisanal cider, but he made it for himself. Every year he’d sold a few gallons just for fun.

But I’d grown Dad’s tiny operation into something much bigger. Pushing open the door to the barn-like building, I flipped on the old soda lamps overhead.

“Whoa,” Audrey said, her voice hushed. “Those tanks are serious.”

“They are,” I agreed, fighting off the rush of pleasure I felt whenever someone admired my babies. “My cider wins awards.” Okay, one award. But I was just getting started. “Any yokel can brew a decent beer in his garage, but it’s difficult to create a cider with any complexity. And there’s a lot that can go wrong, chemically speaking.”

“Uh-huh,” Audrey said, wandering over to my bottling machine and picking up an empty bottle. “Nice label.”

The label was the least interesting thing in the room. “Thanks,” I said tightly. “My brother designed it.”

She looked up quickly, a grin on her face. “I know you don’t give a fuck about the label, Grouchy Griff,” she said, putting it down again. “But marketing matters to buyers. People need to feel good about plunking down a lot of cash for premium goods. They want a story, because the story lasts longer than it takes to swallow something.”

“Uh-huh.” This was the kind of mumbo jumbo that made me crazy, because people should be willing to pay for organic quality simply because it’s the right thing to do. “So you’re saying the pretty picture means more to your customers than the fact that my orchard isn’t poisoning Vermont’s groundwater with chemicals and petroleum-based fertilizers? And that I pay my employees a living wage?”