He stopped short of saying the obvious: that he couldn’t give her his love because he’d given it to another. Walker wasn’t that cruel.
Jana sat, stunned. If possible, Walker thought she got even paler than she usually was.
“I… I understand.” She began to sob.
Walker put his arms around her and let her cry into his chest.
* * *
CiCi should’ve known better than to come back.
She stood at the edge of Walker’s lawn, the scene unfolding like another nightmare. There they were, hugging, with Jana crying and Walker stroking the back of his ex-wife’s head.
After she had reached her backyard, CiCi had been overwhelmed with regret and shame at her behavior and had returned to apologize to both Walker and Jana.
Instead, she was watching history repeat itself.
Her father.
Her ex-husband.
Now Walker.
He’d said he wasn’t like them.
He’d been wrong.
And she’d been wrong to trust again.
She felt stupid for feeling stupid about doubting him.
She should’ve trusted her gut, that fear of rejection and abandonment that was always there, and conformed to her rule.
Because rules had reasons behind them. They helped to protect.
Now she was left in that familiar, lonely, abysmal, and unprotected space: standing alone with a broken heart.
She turned and ran just as she caught Walker’s eye.
* * *
“Shit,” he said, releasing Jana.
When Jana expressed confusion, he told her that CiCi had seen them.
“You’d better go to her,” Jana said.
“I know, but before I do I need to tell you one more thing. Maybe you already know this.”
She held up a hand. “You’re going to tell me I need to find another place to live. I get it. In fact, I spoke with Hannah last week about moving in with her for a while because I knew I was intruding on your good graces and I can get around a little better,” Jana said, astonishing him. “I know I have to leave now, Walker. I think it would be for the best. For all of us.”
“All of us?”
“I’m including CiCi in that equation,” she said. “Now go after her,” Jana said, a sob escaping as she pointed away from the house.
Walker kissed Jana on the head and ran off after CiCi.
* * *
CiCi was on her back porch, sitting in partial shade, drinking Garnet Center Cut on the rocks. She usually reserved her bourbon drinking for the evening, that mellow time of day that could be made mellower by reasonable application of the water of life. Her almost-drained flask—Walker’s gift—sat on the table next to her glass.
She’d finished half her drink when she saw him striding purposefully into her yard. Damn, he had a lot of nerve showing up here. She stood, pulled her keys from her pocket and began to fidget with the ring.
CiCi removed the key to his house from the ring and held it out to him as he approached.
“What’s that?” he asked as he climbed the stairs to her porch.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the thing into his face. “It’s the key to your house.”
“Why are you giving me—wait—CiCi, what do you think happened with Jana and me?”
“I saw enough to figure it out,” was all CiCi said, and her eyes swam with tears. How dare he come here? He had to have walked over to give her the talk.
That it was over. That he finally realized he loved Jana. That they were getting back together and he could only love CiCi as a friend.
All that bullshit that she’d tried to avoid and deny and talk herself into believing wasn’t true.
“Jana’s moving out.”
“Really?” she said, surprised at the news but still being as snarky as possible.
“I thought you’d be a little happier about that.”
“Yeah, but big fucking deal.” CiCi put the key on the table since it didn’t appear that Walker was going to take it from her.
“Why are you like this? Jana’s leaving. I can’t be around her now that I know how she still feels about me.”
“You knew before today, Walker,” CiCi accused him and pointed. She sat up in her chair and squinted at him. “You knew she was still in love with you, and she was right there in your house. But you don’t kick her out until she admits it to the new girlfriend. Not very smooth.”
“That had nothing to do with—yes, I’ll admit it—I knew what she was feeling. But it hadn’t been a problem until today.”
“A problem? As in girlfriend discovers the truth? Yeah, that’s a problem.” She grabbed the flask and opened it.
“And as long as we’re being completely truthful here, I’ll tell you exactly what I told her—the same thing I told her when you were probably looking at us.”
CiCi poured the bourbon from the flask over the ice-and-water mixture remaining in her glass. “And that would be?”
“That I had forgiven her, that I still loved her as a friend, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be her husband again.”
“All the right things to say,” she muttered, nodding and looking at the bourbon as it dissolved into her drink and turned the liquid from a sparkling tan to a deep copper.
“What the hell does that mean?” he yelled, startling her. “You don’t believe me? I was honest with you, CiCi—those weren’t easy things to say to Jana, and they sure as hell weren’t easy to say to you. And now you say—what?—I’m lying?”
She put her finger on the key, which had remained on top of the table. CiCi slid the small object to the edge of the table.
“Take it.”
“Are you really—this is how it ends?” he spluttered. “CiCi, please believe me. Please trust me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a raspy whisper. She pulled her legs up to her chest, clutched her drink, and looked away.
She had trusted him. God, she wanted to keep trusting him.
But that image of Walker and Jana on the porch was burned into her retinas.
As was his admission that he did love Jana. That was the important part. That’s all she heard.
Because the friends stuff was bullshit. Experience had taught her that hard lesson. Her ex-husband had given her the same line when she’d started to suspect he was cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend. And she’d heard her mother tell the story of how her father had claimed he’d only been friends with his ex-wife.
Lies.
Walker reached into his pocket, pulled out his own keys and removed CiCi’s house key. He placed it next to the key already on the table.
“There,” he said, and pointed to it. “Take it. I can’t bear to think you don’t trust me with it. But you can keep my key. I don’t want it back.” He left the porch and stopped after a few steps into the yard. “Remember two things, CiCi. First, I’m not leaving you. You’re the one pushing me away. I came over here to try to make things right. Second, I… I love you,” Walker said, his voice breaking.
He left, but not through the back yard, instead taking a path around to the front of the house, and was gone.
CiCi was shivering even though it was close to ninety degrees. She threw back her drink, drained it, and reached for the flask. Picking it up, she shook it to assess how much Garnet Center Cut still remained.
She heard a tiny splash and began to unscrew the cap. But something held her back.
CiCi looked at the flask, and the memories of the night Walker gave it to her started coming back to her.
Leaving the few drops still in it, CiCi screwed the cap on again, put her head in her hands and wept.
32
After drowning her sorrows on the porch for a considerable amount of time, CiCi retreated indoors and fell onto the couch, alternately sleeping and crying during the remainder of that horrible afternoon. She finally called a friend for support.
Within twenty minutes, Hannah was on her doorstep along wit
h Lila. After hugs all around, Hannah declared that it was not good for CiCi to hole herself up at home and time with the girls was what she needed.
“But I don’t feel like going out anywhere,” CiCi groaned as they pulled out of the driveway.
“Then to Casa Davenport it is,” Hannah declared.
Hannah took them all to her house for pizza and beer. “Or, of course, Garnet if you’re so inclined,” she said as the three women walked into the house.
This offer made CiCi weepy, thinking of the time she’d had pizza and bourbon with Walker. She didn’t explain the sudden reappearance of tears (she’d gotten it together a little bit in the back of the car), and Lila ushered her into the kitchen and told her to sit at the table. They’d already called for pizza delivery from the car, and it was expected to arrive soon.
Hannah asked who wanted bourbon, and both Lila and CiCi readily chose it instead of beer. “Go on outside to the deck and I’ll bring it out,” Hannah said.
The setting was lovely, even though CiCi felt miserable. Hannah’s sprawling backyard rolled down in a lush green expanse to Old Crow Creek, the stream traveling a twisty route northward, and in the far distance to the west, the Knobs loomed in a fine mist of midsummer haze. To the south and behind them was the distillery, and the smell of the mash was prevalent that evening. CiCi idly wondered whether Walker was there or at home. With Jana.
Hannah was outside in a few minutes toting a tray laden with a bottle of Old Garnet, unopened; three glasses; an ice bucket and tongs; and a small flask, which was wrapped in dark brown leather and embossed with a large, ornate D.
“If you want water, I’ll go get some,” Hannah said as she took a seat and reached for the bottle of bourbon, “but it’s already so hot that this ice is gonna melt fast anyway.”
Neither CiCi nor Lila wanted water and filled their glasses with ice.
“What’s with the flask?” Lila asked as Hannah replaced the now-opened bottle of Garnet on the tray.
“That,” Hannah said, pointing to the flask with a broad smile across her face, “is a rare gem. Pun intended.”
“Garnet Center Cut,” CiCi said.
Hannah’s arm hovered in midair as she reached for the ice. “How’d you know that?”
“Walker… he… told me about it,” was all CiCi got out before she dissolved into another wave of tears.
Lila pulled CiCi into a hug, and CiCi blubbered like a baby on her friend’s shoulder. The doorbell rang, and Hannah retreated indoors, leaving the sobbing CiCi in Lila’s care.
Lila gently peeled CiCi away from her chest. “Want to talk? I only know what Hannah told me, and that was pretty vague.”
CiCi spluttered through the same version of events she’d provided Hannah, ending with Walker returning her key but not taking his. She didn’t mention the last words Walker had said to her as he’d walked away.
She sniffed and grabbed a cocktail napkin off the tray. “You think I’m overreacting, don’t you?”
“No, I’d say you’re frightened. And I can get that, CiCi, believe me. It takes time to get over being scared, to be able to trust again.”
“So you’re saying if you can do it, anyone can?” CiCi joked.
“No, but I will tell you that living life scared really sucks.”
The flask was left untouched as Lila poured from the bottle. CiCi found comfort in the sweet warmth of the bourbon even though the taste and sensation reminded her of Walker. Hannah’s flask remained on the table, and the object brought to mind her own nearly empty vessel back home.
“I hope you’ll still help me with my classes this upcoming school year,” Lila said, pulling CiCi from her self-pitying thoughts. “I need you as much as I did last year. You were great.” CiCi muttered something self-disparaging, but Lila rejected her comments. “You’re wonderful with the kids and you enjoy history,” Lila told her. “I want to take the kids on an extended hike this year along Old Crow Creek to the reputed proposal spots. I’m going to focus a lot on folklore this year, and the Old Garnet origin myth is a perfect example.”
“Will Walker be involved?”
“I hope so, since he’s the master distiller and has already learned so much Old Garnet history. But if you’d rather not be around him, I’ll understand,” Lila said sadly.
And be epically disappointed in you, was Lila’s tacit yet clear message.
“I’ll deal with it.”
“Will you?” Lila asked pointedly. “Can you?”
“I’ll try,” CiCi said unconvincingly.
“Don’t let it define you, CiCi.”
“Let what define me?”
“Fear.”
“It’s not easy to get away from it,” CiCi said, now irritated.
“I know,” Lila acknowledged, gripping her glass. She looked with unfocused eyes at the creek. “But I finally figured out that fear doesn’t define us, but rather our response to it.”
“You make it sound like a choice.”
“Of course it’s a choice! Our reactions are always a choice! Our circumstances can be dire, but our choices—there are always choices, CiCi—they give us something incredible.”
“What?”
“Power,” Lila said. “Power to forgive, to ignore, to love.”
Lila took another drink, and CiCi poured a little extra bourbon into her glass when Hannah appeared with the pizzas. After devouring the food, the trio lounged on the deck, watching the sun melt behind the Knobs and gossiping about high school friends and thinking up silly ideas for Rachel’s baby shower. She felt better when Hannah dropped her off at home near eleven that night, and she thanked them and pulled both of her friends into a tight, teary hug on her front steps.
“Anytime,” Hannah said after the required group hug. “Just promise me that you’ll take care of yourself and won’t hide in your house. And remember we’re here for you. But for the record, I think you’re being stupid,” Hannah concluded.
“What?” CiCi and Lila said in unison.
“I know you saw Walker hugging Jana. But he doesn’t love her, CiCi. He loves you. The man wouldn’t take his key back from you.”
“Hannah,” Lila said warningly. “Not the best time…” She put a hand on Hannah’s arm, trying to tug her gently away from the front of CiCi’s house and to the car.
“No, now,” Hannah said, shaking Lila away. “I almost lost Kyle because I was an idiot and ran away from him, angry and confused. I can’t keep my mouth shut and watch one of my dearest friends make the same mistake,” she said, tears in her eyes. Hannah pulled CiCi into another hug. “Don’t run away, don’t let him go,” she whispered in her ear.
Hannah and Lila left, and she was alone.
And she felt it in every fiber of her being.
She ached. Every muscle seemed to throb, from the top of her head to her feet. Her heart hurt. And it was as though her body couldn’t be bothered to make the effort to properly breathe rather than taking in raspy, desperate breaths.
CiCi retreated to her bedroom and fell into bed without changing clothes, hoping but doubting that sleep would overtake her and the horrible day would at last be dead.
* * *
Finally, some good news.
“I can’t believe it!” Harriet cried into the phone that following Monday morning. “I thought you’d get monitoring slapped on you for sure! I’ve never heard of a situation like this.”
The final audit report had been issued by the state auditor, and CiCi’s office had actually escaped.
The report was mildly critical of a few practices, but found no financial malfeasance and reported in glowing terms how well CiCi got along with her staff, other courthouse personnel, and the judges. Rachel and Brady were quoted in the report, and their words reduced CiCi to tears. Rachel had said CiCi was “as devoted a public servant as I have ever met.” Brady had echoed his wife’s sentiments by acknowledging that CiCi was a friend, but that she was “competent, trustworthy, and always has my back.”
&nb
sp; With the report’s release, what had been one of the biggest crises of her public service career was relegated to an annoying memory.
So while the audit was over and the freaky gods of fate had smiled on her, she hardly felt cheered by the news; CiCi was still very upset about Walker. He’d tried to call and text on Sunday, but she hadn’t replied, and he’d stopped trying to contact her at all by that evening.
But he still hadn’t asked for his key either.
Yet that Monday following their breakup, CiCi had little time to indulge her confused emotions; she had to focus on being the elected Craig Circuit Court Clerk.
Judge Craft had a multiday murder trial that had been set for the next two weeks beginning that Monday, and the event had attracted significant press attention. And since she was an elected official working in the courthouse daily, she would have a major presence and role during the trial, making sure the press didn’t get out of line and helping with bench clerk duty as needed. There was one small silver lining in the work ahead. Serious trials usually went late, so she wouldn’t have to go home during these sad days—the worst of the heartbreak—to an empty house and even emptier heart. Work would be a refuge.
But by the second week of the trial, CiCi wanted to strangle the attorneys and was reasonably certain she could get Brady to help. The rude antics of counsel put everyone on edge, needlessly prolonging the trial due to a basic inability to play nice and get along. As a result, CiCi decided to act as bench clerk most of the time, saving her staff from the rudeness and pressure of the courtroom.
But being in the courtroom that much took its toll. Long hours sitting in trial left her physically and mentally weak. She had never recovered from the post-breakup and post-audit anxiety and was going to need several days off after the trial to rest and start to feel like herself again. She was tired, achy, and irritable, and her periods had become irregular again.
She blamed stress for what she recognized as yet another flare-up of her condition and knew she would soon need to make an appointment for a checkup. At the end of every trial day, which usually was well after six o’clock, she plodded home, fell onto her couch, and tumbled into a sleep which afforded her little measure of actual rest.
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2) Page 29
