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

by Jennifer Bramseth

“I heard that,” Pepper said, holding up a hand.

  BB responded with an exasperated sneeze, which had Jon scurrying backward and trying to catch up with his lovely hostess as they continued down the muddy lane.

  The other thoroughbreds were not nearly as grumpy as the irascible BB, and Jon fed every last one of them without a problem, grunt, or sneeze (from human or horse).

  Even though a native Kentuckian, Jon had not been around horses that much. He enjoyed going to the races at Keeneland (rarely went to Churchill; too big for his tastes), but wasn’t one of the horse crowd kind of people. But he could easily understand why people fell in love with the gentle beasts (with perhaps the exception of BB).

  They were quietly majestic and emotive creatures, able to communicate with a snort, a hoof to the ground, a flick of their ears, or merely a glance from beautifully round and dark eyes. This was their home too, just as much as Pepper’s. They were at ease with each other and, he noted, particularly in her presence.

  Jon felt like an outsider, an intruder in the middle of the field as the horses warmed to Pepper and he held the pails.

  Then he took a deep breath.

  Mingled with the mud and manure was the pungent and welcome tang of that mash wafting across Ashbrooke Pike from the distillery. That smell definitely made him feel like he was in the right place, even if what he was looking at made him feel like a stranger in his own hometown.

  The pails were emptied and Pepper told him to follow her to one of the barns.

  “We can drop them there and I want to get out of the wind for a little bit,” she said.

  Her cheeks were red and a little wind chapped. They had both been out in the cold for significant chunks of the day, and Jon yearned to return to Pepper’s house and build a fire.

  And then cuddle with her in front of it, if she’d allow it.

  The shelter from the elements was welcome, and he felt himself immediately warm as the barn shielded them from the wind.

  Jon had been in plenty of barns in his lifetime, but nothing like this one. It wasn’t so much a barn as a palace.

  All around and above him were polished, gleaming surfaces. The stall doors were a light lacquered wood and above were white brick walls. The floor was not dirt but dark brick, tidy save for the stray bit of hay, alfalfa, or horse’s hair. Toward the middle of the structure was a high doorway topped by three narrow parallel windows, further topped by a triangular window. The passage beneath opened up into a small courtyard beyond with a skylight overhead. The form allowed abundant light to flow into the structure; even in the dimness of that day, he could see the dust motes shimmering above them like tiny angels as the sun broke through the clouds.

  He was reminded of the rickhouses at Old Garnet. Many times he’d heard Bo express his love for the old rickhouse, claiming it was a special place, his own cathedral.

  Now Pepper had her own. An equine cathedral. This entire farm. A place she could finally call home.

  Per Pepper’s instructions, Jon dumped the pails near the wide doors. Pepper took a seat on a stack of hay bales, wrapped her barn jacket around herself, and put her hands under her arms. He glanced out the barn doors again; it was going to be a long walk back in the cold to the house, and it looked like the weather was getting worse. The barn door faced the west, and darkening skies lined the horizon. Something told him that snow was in store, and that they should probably be heading back to the house soon. Another cup of coffee was starting to sound really good.

  “Go ahead and say it,” she urged.

  “Which part? I have a lot I want to say to you,” Jon said, his gaze on the landscape.

  “Start with my dad.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “And he knows it.”

  Jon turned from the barn door, walked inside, and took a seat on the hay next to her.

  “Good.”

  “Why don’t you trust him?” she asked.

  “Better question is why you seem to trust him.”

  “I’m not sure that I do. But I forgave him. And for what it’s worth, he’s not asked me for anything but that.” Jon pursed his lips and cocked his head at her. “I can hear you screaming yet inside that head of yours. I get that, Jon.”

  “So forgiveness and trust are two different things for you?”

  “Yes, but you haven’t answered me,” she said. “Why don’t you trust him?”

  “Too damned coincidental he shows up today, Pepper. You were doubtful yourself, remember? Then he made a scene for everyone to see, and I’m sure that everyone in Bourbon Springs has heard by now what happened. And there’s no way to confirm his story now that your mother’s gone. How convenient.”

  “Damn, you’re suspicious.”

  “I’m a lawyer, remember? I don’t get paid by the hour to trust people. I’m trained to spot the holes, the problems, the pitfalls.”

  “The lies.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but thought the better of it. Instead, Jon stood and paced on the straw-covered floor of the barn.

  “I really don’t like the fact that there’s no way to prove what he’s saying your mom told him.”

  “There’s the lawyer in you. Gotta prove it, don’t you?”

  “When it comes to some people, you bet.”

  “Jon, I had the same doubts you did when I heard his story. But I’ve had some time to think about it. Mom barely mentioned my father’s existence for the past twenty years. She wanted to crawl in a hole after he left. We both did. So, on some level, what he said is believable.”

  “Pepper, he wants his law license back.”

  “Like I could help him with that,” she snapped. “But he’s not asked for money, and he’s not asked me to be a witness.”

  “I should think not,” Jon said and stopped pacing. “What could you tell them? That he’s been gone for twenty years then shows up? If I were his lawyer, you’d be the last person I’d want to call to show that he’d changed his ways. Some recent reconciliation—”

  Pepper held up a hand to quiet him. “I know, Jon. And he knows too. He told me the same thing. And he warned me that the bar association could still call me as a witness to testify to all that.”

  “Everything I know tells me he’s lying, Pepper. Goose saw it.”

  “I’m sure he saw what he wanted to see,” she added. “He’s hated my father for years for what he put Lucy through.”

  “Okay, bad choice,” Jon acknowledged. “But if you still don’t believe me, ask Harriet.”

  “But she’s engaged to Goose! Hardly unbiased when it comes to the bona fides of my dad, and I’m sure she remembers what happened.”

  “No, I mean talk to Harriet about dealing with people, with clients.”

  “I’m not some babe in the woods.”

  “Just talk to her, please? Dealing with clients, with litigants—it’s not the same as dealing with students and the schools.”

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “When you went into the classroom, did you have in the back your mind that little flicker of doubt that your students were lying to you? That they couldn’t be trusted?”

  “Well, there were always bad apples,” she allowed.

  “No, Pepper, totally different worlds. Kids go to school to get an education, to make friends. But that’s not why people hire lawyers or go to court. They try to get what they can, and sometimes they aren’t entitled to what they want. And some people are willing to lie to get what they want. So call Harriet. Get her opinion on what she saw at the cemetery today.

  “Because I don’t want him to hurt you again. I won’t want anyone to hurt you again, and I’ll include myself in that group since I’ve demonstrated I’m capable of that very thing.”

  “But I forgave you.”

  “And you just told me you don’t equate forgiveness with trust. You still don’t completely trust me and that kills me. I understand why, but that doesn’t make it any easier. But you can believe me when I tell you that
I’m going to keep working on that.” He put his hands on her cold cheeks and looked into frightened eyes. “I don’t want to scare you. I want to earn and keep your trust. I want to redeem myself.”

  “You’re already on the road to redemption,” she whispered.

  He moved in and kissed her lightly, and immediately sensed her hesitation. She was trembling, whether from desire or fear or some combination he knew not.

  He dropped his hands from her face, thinking that his overture was unwanted. But instead she removed her gloves and grabbed his hands.

  “That’s better,” she said.

  Encouraged by her gesture, he smiled, and knew he had to ask the question which had been gnawing at him for the past week.

  “Is there any way we can go back to where we were when we left Hannah’s house together and met her at the distillery?”

  She smiled, blushed, and looked down at their clasped hands. “I don’t know. But I do know I love you as my friend and always will. I’m not some cold-hearted bitch who’s going to push you away after everything you’ve done for me this week and through my whole life. It’s the next step that’s scaring the shit out of me, Jon.”

  “So this isn’t a case of just wanting to be friends again?” he asked with hope.

  “No,” she said, closing her eyes. “It’s me being scared of losing what we already have. Because after you’ve told me how you can spot a liar, I’d be a fool to deny that I can only think of you as a friend anymore,” she said as Jon leaned closer. “So, yes, we can try to get back to where we were, Jon, but I don’t want to go all the way back to the bed. Not yet, at least.”

  He silently thanked the Almighty that she’d said those two little words: not yet.

  “So are more kisses allowed on the road to redemption?” he asked until their lips were nearly touching.

  “They’re required,” she said as she wound her arms around his neck.

  She felt wonderful, better than before, because this time he held and kissed her with the knowledge of what it was like to fear he’d lost her. Her hands were under his coat, and he reveled in the feel of her palms on his chest. Jon gradually leaned against her until she was pushed back onto the hay bale and he was over her, with her hands in his hair.

  Jon pulled away.

  “I’m starting to have a very vivid fantasy about you against this hay. So unless you want this to be that bed you were referring to,” Jon said, patting the hay, “we’d better get back to the house.”

  “A roll in the hay with you actually sounds fun, but not just yet, and definitely not in the middle of a snow squall.” She stood and pulled him to his feet.

  He glanced out the barn door. Snow swirled in the dimness of the twilight.

  “I can hardly wait for warmer weather.”

  Pepper slipped her gloved hand into his and smiled before giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Seasons change, and spring is coming.”

  They walked out of the barn together hand in hand, into the swirling snow and toward Pepper’s house, glowing invitingly like a haven in the storm.

  15

  For someone suddenly wealthy beyond her wildest dreams, Pepper was working awfully damned hard.

  Horses were arriving about three times a week at the farm, and she greeted every van, making sure that she saw the horses and they saw her. She considered herself their guardian and wanted to impart the feeling that this was now their home, they were safe, and they were loved. As more and more horses arrived, she hired more staff with Rolly’s able assistance. He was an absolute delight to have as an employee and friend.

  The remainder of her time was consumed by getting the farm’s nonprofit foundation established, working on an agreement with the distillery about joint tours, dealing with the probate of her mother’s estate, donating money for the local rescue group’s new shelter, and starting an investigation into the circumstances of her mother’s fall and death.

  She’d hired the same Lexington law firm to do the work on the foundation and the investigation about her mother. But upon Jon’s recommendation, she decided to hire Jorrie Jones to work on the agreement with the distillery and do her mother’s probate.

  She liked Jorrie, a young local solo practitioner, and trusted her to do a good job on both matters. Jon said Jorrie was respected in Bourbon Springs, and the Commonwealth Attorney had been sorry to see her go when she’d left to start her own private practice. Pepper enjoyed having Jorrie over to the house, and they were becoming friends.

  And Pepper was again called upon to help her friends across the road.

  “I know this might be a really big imposition, but you were one of the first people we thought about when we realized we were in a tight spot,” Bo said over lunch one late march day at the distillery café.

  Goose had been ordered by his doctor to reduce his hours to help with his recovery from his accident. Naturally a hard worker and in love with (or, as Harriet and Hannah said, obsessed) with working at Old Garnet, he had tried to keep a crazy work schedule and had exhausted himself.

  According to Bo, things had finally come to a head in an epically hilarious confrontation in the gift shop with both Harriet and Hannah (“I just want to put the new shot glasses out and then I’ll leave!” he’d reportedly cried as they successfully wrested the box from his grasp). Goose finally had backed down in the face of combined female fury and wisdom and decided to go part-time for a while until he started feeling better.

  Hannah had finally revealed her pregnancy to her already suspicious family and friends. Her frequent bouts with morning sickness had made it increasingly difficult for her to work on some days, and most mornings saw her absent from the distillery grounds. While Bo could take over some of her duties in her absence, he admitted he’d been struggling to handle her work as well as some of Goose’s jobs. Juggling their tour guide duties was especially difficult. All the owners regularly gave tours, and they took pride in this fact because no other distillery the size of Old Garnet boasted this level of personal owner involvement. Even Lila gave tours, just not as often as the other three owners since she still was working full-time as a high school history teacher.

  But of the four owners, Hannah and Goose gave multiple tours each week instead of just one or two like Bo and Lila. As a result, although Bo thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the tourists and welcoming them to his distillery home, he was quickly becoming overwhelmed.

  “I’d love to help. It’s good business—and just being a good neighbor too,” Pepper added. “But I’ll need some training. Hannah took me on a tour recently, and I was a tour guide here in my teens, but I don’t think you should rely on that thin body of knowledge if you want me walking around telling tourists about Old Garnet. Things around here have changed a lot since I was a guide.”

  “Goose is coming in after lunch,” Bo said. “He’ll talk to you and show you the training video.”

  “You have a training video for your tour guides? That’s big time.”

  “Well, we decided to do the video because Goose scared some of the tour guides off.”

  “Scared them?”

  Bo chuckled. “Scared them only in the sense of how crazy he is about working here and being an owner. He’d talk to the guides like they were a bunch of football players or soldiers about to go into battle. Thought they needed to be pumped up. I mean, we need enthusiastic guides but not zealots. Hannah took him aside and told him that Old Garnet was wonderful, but it was a business, not a religion. So he toned it down and made a video. But since you’ll be a live audience of one for him today, I thought I’d warn you about his enthusiasm.”

  “How’s Hannah? I guess she’s not here today?” Pepper asked as they finished their sandwiches.

  “At home again today, poor thing,” Bo said. “We’re all worried about her.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  Bo nodded. “It’s not like her at all to be so sick, so this has us all a little rattled. And she told us her doctor is worried about her
blood pressure. If it doesn’t improve, she could have to go on bed rest. Can you imagine what that would be like?”

  “I’d hate being confined to bed like that.”

  “Yeah, but God take pity on Kyle Sammons if Hannah has to take to her bed. That man—he’s already a saint to me, and I don’t mean that in any facetious way. He’s a good man. But to have to deal with Hannah, pregnant in bed for who knows how long…” Bo trailed off, shuddering at the thought.

  “Then it’s a good thing he’s a good man,” Pepper quipped.

  “How’s Jon?”

  Pepper smiled shyly at the question. It was common knowledge in Bourbon Springs that the two longtime friends had moved beyond being merely friends.

  When they’d returned to the house from the barn that snowy evening after Glenda’s funeral, Pepper had made soup and biscuits, a perfect and quick dinner for a dark cold night. And Jon had made a roaring fire in the fireplace, the first one she’d enjoyed at GarnetBrooke since making it her home. They’d cuddled on the big leather couch while nibbling cookies for dessert, and he asked whether they could finally go public with their relationship. She’d agreed, but reminded him she wasn’t ready to sleep with him again yet, and pointed out that he needed to tell Drake before his law partner heard about them on the active Bourbon Springs grapevine. He had been thrilled, and although they did enjoy a pretty intense make-out session which got him as far as getting his hands over her bra-covered breasts, that’s as far as it had gone. They both pulled back before clothes started getting ripped off and bodies started slapping against each other and the leather couch. For Pepper, it had helped douse her desire that she was bone-tired and still sad from the day’s ceremony.

  “Jon’s great,” she said. “When I told him that you wanted to meet me for lunch, he acted all curious. I guess he doesn’t know about this?”

  Bo shook his head. “No, he doesn’t, but Hannah did make sure to call Jorrie and let her know that we were talking to you since this little endeavor does touch on the plans for joint tours.”

  Pepper picked up her cup of coffee and smiled as she looked around the bustling café. Being at the farm was fun, but it was a little isolating too. One had to walk about to find someone, and sometimes that someone wasn’t even human.