Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  Oh, how she wanted that man.

  She was finally going to find out what that next would be with Goose.

  It was just going to take a little longer to discover it.

  He opened the door, saying he needed to get back to work. “I—I’ve missed you, Harriet.” He gave her another long, searing stare before he left.

  * * *

  Upon his return to the distillery, Goose duly reported to Hannah he’d made the deliveries and Harriet was on the mend. Yet he was so out of sorts during his debriefing Hannah asked whether he was getting sick. He told her he was just tired but thought he might go home and catch a quick nap, a remedy she encouraged.

  So Goose took an extended lunch break and went to his place on the distillery grounds, distracted, fretful, and hopeful.

  And hard and horny.

  After he had returned to his house on Friday night after being with Harriet—the naked-under-those-blankets-in-front-of-a-fireplace-and-slightly-damp version of Harriet—he’d stripped and taken a cold shower, trying to keep his lust and desire at bay. One would have thought the bitingly cold rain he and Harriet had driven through on the four-wheeler would have crushed those kinds of feelings.

  Quite wrong.

  After he’d jerked off in the shower not once but twice that night, he’d had to get up at around three in the morning after a very, very lucid dream about the woman beyond his reach. He’d actually gone outside to physically cool off, but that had done nothing for him. Naked and still hard, burning inwardly and outwardly like his soul and skin were on fire, he’d gone outside to the small deck he’d built that summer and paced as the rain kept falling. Feeling like a caged animal, he’d left the deck and walked down to the creek, naked and in the dark, not sure what he was doing but knowing he needed to feel something: the cold, the rain, the wet earth under his bare feet.

  He’d shut out feelings for Harriet for so long it was as though all his thoughts, fears, and desires had threatened to overwhelm and drown him that night. He had walked to the edge of the creek and had seen its rising waters flowing and swirling beneath him, a perfect metaphor for his shattered emotional state. Grasping the trunk of a tree, he’d gripped himself and stroked with abandon until he came as hard as he could ever remember at his own hand, his body crying out for Harriet, wishing she had been clenching around his length instead of his own fingers. His climax had been so strong that his knees had given way, and he’d fallen to the ground on all fours, panting, gasping, and crying for the woman he thought he could not have.

  His lunchtime trip home that day was not nearly as dramatic but produced similar physical results. Goose stripped, went straight to the shower, and pumped himself until he came, calling Harriet’s name as he did it. He wasn’t nearly as desperate as he had been on Friday night—that long dark night without any promise of Harriet in his future—but he was still fucking frustrated with the whole situation.

  She wanted him. He’d gotten that answer on Friday night.

  Now she was available, but not quite yet.

  So he had to wait.

  He’d waited five years.

  But now that he had hope, he could wait a little longer.

  Although he was probably going to be taking a lot more showers to pass the time.

  * * *

  “Are you sure it’s over, Harriet? You and Mark were such a great couple.”

  Harriet had put off telling her parents about her breakup until Monday afternoon. She hadn’t been emotionally ready for that kind of exchange, particularly since she expected they would be disappointed and gently nudge her toward trying to reconcile with him.

  Her expectations were met.

  Harriet’s mother insisted she come to the house that Monday evening for a family dinner, but Harriet resisted. So her parents upped the ante by offering to take her to The Rickhouse instead. She relented, but only because she wanted a decent hot meal. While there, they ran into CiCi and Walker, who had ordered takeout and planned to go back to their home a block up the street and eat on their back porch that lovely fall evening. After the happy couple left, Harriet’s mother openly lamented how nice Walker was. Her regret, Harriet knew, was because nice meant nice catch.

  “Anyone else at the distillery you know?” her mother asked as salads arrived at their table.

  Harriet was annoyed at her mother’s attitude toward her breakup and her simultaneous, contradictory inquisitiveness about prospective beaux.

  So she decided to mess with her parents.

  “Yes,” Harriet said. “And you both know him.”

  “Oh, really?” her mother asked eagerly.

  “Goose Davenport,” Harriet said, keeping her eyes on her salad as she speared a bite.

  She let that sink in, savoring the silence her tidbit had wrought before daring to look at her parents’ faces.

  Her mother looked like she’d bitten into a lemon, and her father’s face was red.

  “That’s not the least bit funny,” her father huffed as he poured some dressing on his salad.

  Harriet grinned and shrugged. “Well, she asked.”

  “I cannot understand how Bo and Hannah Davenport would trust that man to do anything for them,” her father grumbled. “He’s crazy.”

  Harriet’s mother clucked her tongue in agreement with her husband’s judgment on Goose’s character and added her own misgivings. “And he was up to his ears in that scandal of his father’s, as I’m sure you well know.”

  Harriet couldn’t tell them—or rather scream at them—that's not true!

  Goose’s reputation already hadn’t been the greatest—his own father had dissed him, after all—when the audit had hit the Craig County Sheriff’s office five years ago. And while other deputies had escaped with their careers and reputations, Goose had not been as lucky since he was the sheriff’s son. Tarred with the same brush because of the family relationship. Not fair, but there it was.

  Harriet knew her parents wouldn’t be happy about their little girl choosing to have Goose Davenport in her life—whenever that day came along. At least she had some time to think about that moment, to plan how to drop that news. It would not be a pleasant scene.

  But she was done with trying to keep up appearances for appearances’ sake and trying to please others instead of doing what was best for herself. After breaking up with Mark, she realized that’s what she’d been doing most of her life.

  Well, no more.

  Time to live and love, leading with her heart.

  13

  Like most sane people, Harriet hated meetings—conferences, get-togethers, working lunches—whatever label one wanted to slap on them to make them sound more palatable. Harriet likened them to little turds on the ground: avoid or get away as soon as possible, and definitely don’t get stuck in one.

  Yet she had decidedly mixed feelings about the meeting scheduled for that Friday afternoon: Bo, Hannah, Lila, and Goose were all coming into the office to talk about the newly discovered boundary issue regarding Old Crow Creek. She was going to handle the meeting since she had been working with the clients on the history project and was happy when Bruce Colyard told her that he couldn’t make it. Although he’d done a lot of legal work for the distillery back in the day, most of that work had fallen to Jon and herself in recent years, and they’d both been happy to take the baton being passed to them. But Bruce liked to feel involved, even if “semi-retired,” and occasionally still nosed in on some of the distillery’s legal work if only to see what was going on.

  But this meeting would be different because there was one reason Harriet was actually looking forward to it.

  She’d get to see Goose.

  They hadn’t seen each other since Monday at her condo, although they’d talked on the phone a few times—but those conversations had been related to the application and devoid of personal chatter, except for small expressions of happy anticipation at seeing each other again soon. Since they’d agreed not to jump into a relationship due to her sti
cky ethical quandary, they’d also agreed to not let others know their sentiments and hopes for the future.

  Although it was freaking hard not to think about the future with Goose sitting right next to her in the conference room.

  The group was going over maps and surveys, trying to figure out whether there really was a boundary problem. Bo displayed a similar attitude from his lengthy border dispute with his now fiancée and insisted there wasn’t a problem and that the island moonshine base was obviously on the Old Garnet Distillery grounds. Everyone else in the room was unconvinced by his logic and couldn’t figure from the documents where the boundary was.

  All the looking at papers involved a lot of standing and leaning and generally getting in one another’s way. And when Goose would lean near or across her as they considered the documents, it was hard for Harriet to ignore him. She felt the heat from his body and could smell him. During these fleeting encounters, she kept a close eye on Hannah. From just being around her as well as hearing some of CiCi’s stories, Harriet was aware Hannah’s radar about interpersonal dynamics and relationships was highly attuned, and she didn’t want to give anything away when it came to her feelings for Goose.

  Fortunately, Hannah seemed completely immersed in the tasks at hand and gave no indication she was clued into anything. She’d even failed to comment on Harriet’s lack of jewelry on her left hand. Harriet had not announced to anyone except family that she’d broken her engagement and had asked her parents not to tell anyone for a few more days.

  “I think we need to get a new survey as soon as possible,” Harriet recommended as she fell into her chair at the conference room table. She’d been intermittently sitting and standing for the better part of an hour and was tired from getting up and down as well as the complicated land discussions they’d all been having. Most of that discussion had involved her and Hannah arguing with Bo while Lila and Goose looked on as amused spectators, although they eventually aligned themselves with Hannah and Harriet’s side of the argument.

  Hannah agreed. “We need a new survey as soon as possible. And if there’s a problem, we can approach the state and see if we can come to an agreement on the boundary. Although I’d hope they wouldn’t try to take something away from us that was clearly distillery related.”

  At Hannah’s words, Harriet noticed Goose frown and cross his arms over his chest.

  “But I don’t want this to slow down the application to expand the historic site grounds,” Lila chimed in. “When can you get to Frankfort to make that presentation?”

  “I called yesterday,” Harriet said. “I have an appointment a week from today with the curator of state historic sites. First appointment I could get.”

  “But what about this boundary problem?” Bo asked. “Won’t Harriet be wasting her time if she goes up there only to be told the boundary issue is going to put the brakes on everything?”

  “I thought I’d go along, too,” Goose said. “I’ve been up to my ears in this project for months now.”

  Harriet nodded, looking from Goose to Bo. “Goose should absolutely come along with me. I might be an attorney, but I’m technically not in on the landmark application project as your counsel. And Goose knows the property lines quite well and could help with any questions in that area. If you all want to go, you could, but to keep it simple, other than myself, there really ought to be only one representative of the distillery there. So who’s it going be?”

  All eyes fell on Goose, and Harriet smiled.

  As the meeting was breaking up, Hannah pulled Harriet aside.

  Uh-oh. Had Hannah picked up on something?

  “CiCi’s coming over to my house tomorrow to help me plan the showers for Lila and Rachel, and I wanted to invite you as well.”

  “I’d love it. Need me to bring anything?”

  “Only yourself. We could use a good mind for organization.”

  “I’d say you already have two of those if you and CiCi are involved,” Harriet said. “But count me in. I’ll be there.”

  Bo reminded Hannah that they needed to leave; there was a meeting at the distillery regarding the brand launch of Garnet Center Cut, which was to be released shortly after Thanksgiving, timed to be available for holiday gift giving. Just before Hannah was about to turn and go, Bruce Colyard entered the room in all his bloviating glory.

  “Hannah! Dear girl!” he exclaimed and pulled Hannah into a bear hug.

  “Hello, Bruce,” she sighed and tepidly returned the embrace.

  After the requisite amount of backslapping and questions about the family and the distillery, Bruce asked another question.

  “Harriet treating you right?” he asked and eyed his junior partner.

  Man, did that piss her off.

  The old man coming to check up on her, making sure all was well, trying to justify his existence. Most days Bruce either sat on his ass in his acre-sized office, reading newspapers or calling old buds, or was out on the golf course after which he’d retire to The Cooperage’s bourbon bar to toss back Garnet and sober up before he drove home in a luxury car that her billables mostly paid for.

  But here he was, dropping in just as the client was going, making himself known and marking his territory.

  Without answering, Hannah smiled at Harriet, and Harriet knew exactly what was going to go down.

  Because Bruce Colyard, for all his charms, had forgotten something.

  He was dealing with Hannah Davenport.

  Hannah walked around Bruce to stand at Harriet’s side and give her a sideways hug. “Harriet is perfect,” she declared. “I wouldn’t have anyone else doing this work for us right now, Bruce, and that would include Jon and you too. Sorry.” Harriet saw Bruce’s face fall just a teensy bit at this announcement, which was like a firebomb thrown right into the man’s ego. “She just gets this thing with the boundary issue and our bigger plans as far as the historic importance of the distillery. I’m sure you know just how lucky you are to have her as a partner?”

  “Well, yes, yes, of course,” Bruce splutteringly agreed and gave Harriet a carless pat on the shoulder. “Uh, yes. Glad to see all is well.”

  And he turned and fled from the room.

  “Oh, girl, you are good, aren’t you?” Harriet said after Bruce was assuredly out of earshot.

  Hannah sneered at the door and in the direction of Bruce’s retreat. “What a load of bullshit,” she said. “First that asshole insults you, and then he insults my intelligence by piling on that crap! Like I couldn’t see through it! Idiot. I know what it’s like to feel brushed aside,” Hannah said, glancing at Bo, “and I won’t stand for it when I see it happening.”

  “Thanks,” Harriet said and hugged Hannah.

  “Anytime. I don’t mind doing a good deed now and then,” she said. “I need to do a lot of them, in fact.” Hannah’s eyes became unfocused, and she was lost in thought.

  When Harriet gave her a quizzical look as they walked into the reception area of the law office together, Hannah changed the subject and told Harriet when to be at the house on Saturday.

  “I promise it will be fun,” Hannah said as she walked out the front door with Bo, Lila, and Goose.

  Goose looked over his shoulder at Harriet as he left, and she knew they both had the same thought.

  It won’t be as much fun as I could have with you.

  * * *

  Despite being fairly well known in Bourbon Springs, Harriet wasn’t the type to have many close friends, so it meant a lot to her that Hannah had asked her to help plan the two showers. Being busy with a law practice over the past five years, she’d drifted away from a lot of friends. Hannah, Lila, and CiCi were now the women to whom she considered herself close in addition to Pepper Montrose, whom she occasionally met for lunch on weekends after Pepper finished with her part-time job at GarnetBrooke Farm.

  Even though Hannah had told her not to bring anything, Harriet thought it would be fun to bring something, from candy and junk food to something healthy like
the fresh apples she’d picked up at the farmer’s market on the courthouse square that Saturday morning. She loved living in downtown Bourbon Springs since it meant being able to walk to work, to the courthouse, to the deli, the library—almost anywhere. The times she needed her car were usually for large grocery trips or to go to the distillery.

  But she’d probably need to drive it on Friday for the meeting in Frankfort unless Goose drove. That wasn’t a possibility she enjoyed entertaining since she recalled his method of driving—textbook maniacal—in the four-wheeler that fateful Friday night.

  She arrived shortly before noon at Hannah’s sprawling home, a McMansion, as Harriet had heard Hannah herself call the place. Hannah fussed about Harriet bringing food they didn’t need, and Harriet quickly understood the reason for the mild consternation; there was lasagna, salad, veggies, and dips in addition to several kinds of cookies and what looked to be a few pies.

  “My contribution,” CiCi said, pointing at the pies. “From The Windmill. I’m addicted to their bourbon pecan.”

  “Where’s Kyle?” Harriet asked as she filled her plate. “On duty?”

  “No, off fishing with his dad.” Hannah gestured toward the back windows, which overlooked Old Crow Creek and had a great view of the Knobs in the far distance. “Perfect day for it. Not likely to have weather like this for much longer this year.”

  “Aren’t we going to have to be planning for her shower soon?” Harriet said and nodded to CiCi. “Have you and Walker finally set a date?”

  “June,” CiCi said as she took a seat at the dining room table. “A small church wedding here in town.”

  Hannah snorted and sat, glass in her hand. Judging by the coppery hue to the liquid, Harriet surmised Hannah was drinking Garnet.

  “That’s an oxymoron,” Hannah claimed.

  “What is?” CiCi asked.

  “A small church wedding. It’ll grow and get bigger and bigger,” Hannah declared. “Like some kind of social event kudzu.”

  “Walker and I really don’t need a thing. Two households coming together and all that, rather like Lila and Bo.”