A Taste of You (Bourbon Brothers)

by Teri Anne Stanley

  Mason tipped the beer he held into his mouth, belched, and grinned. “Just thought I’d come shoot the breeze with you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I bet you need a beer, doncha? After all that lovey-dovey stuff, a guy needs to rehydrate.”

  “No thanks.”

  Mason, who had been reaching into the cooler at his feet stopped and stared, mouth hanging open. “Did you just say ‘no’ to a beer?”

  Nick sighed. Why he thought he’d be able to avoid this was anyone’s guess. “I don’t want one, thanks.”

  “You all hoity-toity now that you’re doing the Blue Mountain girl? Only the finest bourbon and branch water for you, huh?”

  “No, that’s not it,” Nick said, reaching the top of the steps, wanting to get inside and put on clean, dry clothes more than anything—except that he didn’t want to invite Mason and his cooler full of beer into his house. His dad’s house. There hadn’t been any alcohol to clean out when he’d arrived…Dad didn’t leave any bottle unemptied, so Nick had gone around throwing away dead soldiers. It wasn’t that he thought he’d drink if there was beer around, it was more that—well, he didn’t want to tempt fate.

  Or spend the evening watching his best friend get sloppy drunk. Or explain everything about what happened when he left town, and why he’d gone to rehab, and what it was like to live sober, and if he ever really just wanted to get shitfaced, and if he’d gone this long, surely he was okay and could have just one… “I don’t want a drink,” he finally said.

  “Okay.” Mason shut the cooler. Just like that.

  Nick jerked in surprise. Huh. Maybe it was more of a big deal to him than it was to anyone else.

  “You gonna sit down and enjoy the evening, or you going to stand there all awkward and make me feel unwelcome?” Mason leaned back in his seat, feet propped on the porch railing.

  “Don’t you have a family to get home to? Kids to put to bed or something?”

  “Nope. Misty took the kids to her sister’s for some kind of Disney something-a-thon, and they’re all spending the night.”

  “So here you are.”

  “Here I am.”

  “What did you do with your spare time for the past five years?”

  “Watched SportsCenter. So you see, you’re obligated to make up for lost time and entertain me for a couple of hours.”

  Nick considered his jeans, still mostly wet and beginning to bind uncomfortably in places. Oh, what the hell. It’s not like he was going to have many more opportunities to shoot the shit with Mason like this. Once Raleigh was back in business, Nick was out of there.

  “Man, the bugs are making a hell of a racket, aren’t they?” Mason tilted his head. “Remember that time them seventeen year cicadas came?” He shuddered. “There were millions of ’em, and they were as big as a fuckin’ blue jay.”

  “More like a hummingbird, but yeah. They were big sons of bitches, weren’t they?” The cyclical insects swarmed up out of the ground every seventeen years, and it was such a huge event that the local news stations had a field day—people wore cicada T-shirts, masks, had cicada eating contests— “Remember the time I convinced you I’d been stung by one?”

  Mason hooted. “Shit. You colored on yourself with a marker, made this big red and blue spot on your leg, and poured honey on it so it looked like it was oozing pus.”

  “You were freaking out. Gluing a thorn to the dead bug’s ass was genius.”

  “I called 9-1-1 and the operator didn’t believe me, since cicadas don’t sting, but then I told them about the marks and the pus, and they sent the squad, and your mom was soooo pissed!”

  “Yeah.” Nick smiled at the memory of his mother running outside to see why there were sirens screaming in her front yard and how she’d tried to punish him but couldn’t stop laughing about it.

  “How is your mom?” Mason asked. “She doing okay down there in Tennessee?”

  Nick hesitated. Questions about his mother always tripped him up. But then he said, “She is,” and realized he meant it.

  “That’s good. I remember hearing she went through some bad stuff right after she left your dad.”

  “Yeah.” Bad stuff Nick could have prevented, if he hadn’t had his head so far up his own alcoholic ass. “She had a stroke right after she got to Tennessee.” Which wouldn’t have happened if Nick had been sober and available to help her move.

  “That sucks. She almost escaped unscathed, huh? Well, that’s cool that you were able to go down there and take care of her until she got better.”

  But that’s not what had happened. She’d asked Nick to help her move, and he’d promised that he would—and went on a bender instead. And just as she’d carried her last box herself into her new apartment, she’d collapsed. By the time Nick sobered up enough to realize what had happened, she’d been on the road to recovery and ready to help him check into rehab. But the damage was done. It had taken years of physical and occupational therapy before she could work again.

  But, as she constantly reminded him, she was fine now and more than able to live her life without him standing guard over her.

  “She’s a teacher now and loves it.”

  “I can see your mom in a pair of those little glasses, holding a ruler…”

  “Jesus, man.” Nick punched Mason in the shoulder, but he was laughing. “Have some respect.”

  “Not my thing,” Mason said. “Since I’m being inappropriate, what’s with the Bourbon Babe? Damn, boy, you don’t come around for years, and when you do, you score the best filly in three counties.”

  Nick wasn’t about to compare Eve to a horse—even a thoroughbred. But he thought three counties was a little narrow. The whole state of Kentucky, at least.

  Well, hell. Here he’d gone and decided she was special.

  “She’s a nice girl, Mason. Don’t forget that.”

  “I could see for myself that she’s nice.” He blew out a breath and fanned his face.

  “You also need to remember that she’s the boss, too.”

  “Kinky.” Mason dodged the punch Nick aimed at him this time. “And I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “I know you will.” He did. He’d been so afraid of falling victim to his friend’s bad influences, that he hadn’t given him a chance to still be his friend. Maybe he needed to start trusting other people a little more. Maybe even trust himself, too.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nick managed to make himself scarce around Blue Mountain for the next week, but Eve didn’t take it personally.

  Yes, she did. She was a nervous wreck and had resorted to organizing her magic closet to keep herself from driving to his house. She’d decided she was going to go for him, no holds barred, just see what came up, so to speak, and he played the invisible carpenter on her.

  Oh, she knew where he was. He texted her pictures several times a day. She was having trouble mustering enthusiasm for every single nicely re-milled and sanded piece of barn wood, though. After waxing admiringly over the first ten or twelve beams, she’d resorted to emoticons.

  If Eve didn’t know any better, she might think Nick was avoiding her. And to be honest, she didn’t know.

  After the last picture, she responded with, If all you can do is send me photos of your WOOD, I’m going to change your name in my contact list to ALL SHOW AND NO PLAY, because her plan to let things happen naturally didn’t seem to be…happening. Only he hadn’t responded yet.

  She wanted Nick Baker. Even though it would only be for a few weeks. Maybe it was the pressure of this job—Lorena, who was always edgy and nervous, was a basket case about this event and driving both Eve and Allie crazy. Even Allie’s husband Justin, who never let Lorena get to him, had sent her a text yesterday griping about his mother-in-law. And leaving it up to Eve, as usual, to calm her down.

  Unfortunately, the reason Lorena was driving Justin and Allie crazy was because Eve’s diversion methods were backfiring. A few years ago, out of desperation, Allie had said, “God,
why don’t we give her something easy to worry about so she’ll leave us alone about all this stuff we can’t change?”

  And the concept of Lorena’s Worry Assignment was born.

  The previous evening, Lorena had come into the Blue Mountain offices holding her phone in her hand. “Would you look at this?”

  “Sure, Mom.” Eve looked. Lorena showed her a gallery of images of…the inside of the tasting center. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing in there. Your carpenter has done nothing since he brought you home half-naked from his little barn-busting party last week.”

  “That’s not true.” Eve had been a little frustrated herself, because all she’d gotten from Nick were updates about his progress on prepping the wood, but wasn’t about to admit it to her mother. “But you know what,” she said, “I heard Allie and Justin talking about using some of the leftover wood to decorate the baby’s room. To, you know, give it some Blue Mountain homey feeling. They were talking about making a cradle out of an old bourbon barrel.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Well, they had joked about it.

  “I’ll talk to you about the lack of progress later,” Lorena turned and hurried out, probably to gather her collection of home decorating catalogs. “I’ve got to make sure Justin and Allie know I’ve ordered the crib they picked out last week, and if they’re going to change their whole scheme—well, they can’t. Not to that. Can you imagine? All the dust and mold that could be in one of those barrels? I don’t care if they cover it in seventy coats of polyurethane, they’re not putting that in my grandchild’s room.”

  Eve gloried in her success at worry diversion until Justin sent the text:

  Do you know how much free babysitting you’re going to have to do to make up for this?

  It wasn’t like Eve had a crazy active social life, so spending the next fifteen years of Saturday nights home with someone else’s kid wasn’t going to ruin her.

  Bzzzt.

  Oh, yay, another one.

  But it was a real text this time.

  I’m coming over in a few. I’ve still got some more to go here, but Raleigh’s getting released today. I need to bring him somewhere so I don’t kill him.

  This had been a bad idea. But Nick couldn’t bring himself to take the old man home and dump him in the living room with the remote. Raleigh’d be ordering liquor on the internet within fifteen minutes, and if Nick took him out to the workshop with him, just the two of them, he’d be tempted to chop the sonofabitch up into little pieces in even less time.

  Because Raleigh, who was a good natured, if incredibly irresponsible, drunk, could be a nit-picking pain in the ass when he was sober.

  “Slow down, boy. Just because the sign says you can go forty-five doesn’t mean you should.”

  Nick sped up.

  “Damn it, are you trying to put us both back in the hospital?”

  “It’s crossing my mind,” Nick muttered.

  “I heard that. I’m not as deaf as you think I am.”

  “I wouldn’t expect any less.”

  “Did you bring water for Franklin? It’s too damned hot out. You should have left him at home.” This, in spite of the fact that the old man held the dog on his lap and kept bending his head down to kiss it every time he thought Nick couldn’t see.

  “They have water at Blue Mountain. It’ll be fine in the shade. He’ll be with you.”

  “He’d be more comfortable at home.”

  “And he craps in my shoes every time I leave him home alone.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t like you.”

  Nick eyed the dog, who smiled at him and panted. “He likes me just fine. It’s my shoes he’s got an issue with.”

  “If you put them away, he wouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “Let’s play the quiet game, okay?” Nick knew part of his edginess was sexual frustration. Damn that Eve McGrath and her thong in the driveway. And his memories of the texture of her skin in the cab of his truck during a thunderstorm. And the taste of her kiss in an abandoned barn. The way her eyes sparkled when she laughed.

  He had it bad, and apparently not just for her sweet little body, if he was getting schwingy for her laugh.

  Staying away from her hadn’t helped. There were several times over the past week when he really could have used a trip to Blue Mountain to double-check a measurement or to see whether one particular beam would be better for the back bar than another, but he needed to give it some space. To give him a chance to remember he was a visitor in Eve’s world. Surely if he stayed away for a few days, her allure would dim, and he’d be back to regarding her as just someone he was working for.

  Of course, he hadn’t thought of her as “just the boss” since he’d met her, but that was beside the point.

  “You should have put that wood in the covered trailer before you brought it out here. It looks like it’s going to rain. If it gets wet, it’ll wreck the finish.”

  Nick looked at the endless blue sky. “We’ll be there in ten minutes, and I’ll put it all in the building right away.”

  “It’s gonna take you longer than ten minutes to put it all in there. You got a tarp in the back of this thing?”

  “Do you need me to explain how the quiet game works?” Nick took a deep breath and counted to ten.

  His AA sponsor had reminded him that he was always supposed to be making living amends to people—part of his recovery had been to try to repay, fix what he’d ruined, or whatever was asked of him by everyone he’d wronged during his life—but also to continue to help the people who were still in his life. Even though he could spend hours recounting every fucked-up thing Raleigh had done that affected Nick, that wasn’t Nick’s problem. His goal now was to keep from letting the man screw him up any further, while doing his best to help him when he could.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that in the past five years he hadn’t puked for days on end or woken up with unexplainable bruises, a strange woman—or a strange jailer—Nick might have thrown AA’s dumb suggestions back in their faces right about now. As it was, he could make it through a few hours with his father in tow.

  The Blue Mountain entry sign appeared on the left and he bypassed it to go through the second gate, where the family properties were accessed.

  “You missed it.”

  “No I didn’t. I’m going in the back way because I don’t want to drag this trailer over the new asphalt. They just painted lines on the parking lot.”

  “Hmph. It’s gonna get mucked up sooner or later anyway. Might as well be you.”

  “You got your pain meds with you?” Maybe his father would pop a couple and stone out for a while, letting Nick work in peace. As peaceful as he was going to get, knowing Eve would probably be around any minute.

  “I thought you were Mr. Clean and Sober? You changed from liquor to pills now?”

  “No, I meant for you. Isn’t it bothering your leg to be moving around so much after all those days of being in the hospital?”

  “Hell no, this is the longest I’ve been allowed to sit still since this whole thing happened. Damned physical therapist, occupational therapist, motivational recreational situational therapists don’t leave you alone for five minutes. No wonder it costs so damned much to be in the hospital.”

  “Well then, hopefully you’ll be able to get some rest sitting in the shade with a glass of iced tea.” Please, God, let Eve have found a reclining lawn chair to plop the old bastard into. If anyone could procure a comfy perch on short notice and have it in place, it was Eve. God bless her over-organized little heart.

  He swung the truck around the bend and there she was. Standing in the shade of an ancient maple that overlooked the property—fifty feet from the front door of the tasting center, with a big ass Adirondack chair—with cushions—and a little folding table and a pitcher of iced tea next to a cooler.

  “Iced tea.” Raleigh huffed. “I’ll be gettin’ up to take a leak every fifteen minut
es.”

  Nick hadn’t thought of that. Maybe he should ask Eve to ration the beverages.

  “But that’s okay. That’ll give me plenty of opportunities to check on your progress and make sure you aren’t fuckin’ it all up.”

  Great. This was going to be just great.

  Chapter Twelve

  Raleigh and Nick’s bickering would have been funny if it hadn’t all been about details of the building of the bar—Eve’s very important bar. Every piece of wood Nick lifted from the trailer was discussed.

  “Where you putting that one?”

  “This one is for the front of the main bar.”

  “You should use that on the cabinet underneath the end there.”

  “Well, I’ve already got a piece there, and this one fits better on the front.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Thank you for your opinion.” Nick twisted his head to the left and Eve could hear the bones crackle from her stool in the future gift shop. She was inventorying shot glasses, making sure there were enough for Lorena’s event on opening day. And watching to make sure there was no violence on Blue Mountain property.

  “Whose job is this, anyway? I thought you said you were turning it back over to me when I’m ready to take over.”

  Eve stilled, her pen poised above the page in her notebook, straining in vain to hear Nick’s response.

  “Well, then, I think you need to pay attention to what I’m saying,” Raleigh complained.

  Nick was still planning to leave. Damn. She’d hoped he was staying for good—well, she’d hoped he’d be there at least until the job was finished. That’s what she meant. She knew better than to wish for more. Maybe there wasn’t anything to wish for anyway, since Nick had disappeared and not even flirted a little with her since he dropped her off at her house on Saturday afternoon.

  Although she had caught him looking at her butt a while ago when she’d been refreshing Raleigh’s iced tea.

  Go with the flow, she reminded herself. And for God’s sake, stop analyzing the hell out of every little thing.