Hannah rattled off a jumble of facts and figures sufficiently informative that Jon could tell that while his salary would be just a little lower, the benefits would more than make up for it.
And then there was the priceless benefit of working with people you loved.
“I accept!” Jon said before Hannah finished talking about some kind of pension plan the distillery offered. “When do you want me to start?”
“You don’t want to talk to Drake first?” Bo suggested.
“No,” Jon said, “nothing’s finalized and I actually haven’t spoken to him in a few days. I think he’ll be fine with this.”
Drake had been talking about bringing in other attorneys to the firm, a prospect which Jon didn’t like and had been resisting. Jon knew he could get along with Drake; they’d done fine at Colyard and Borden until the problem with Pepper, and Jon knew that Drake respected him after what had happened with Walt. But Jon had a feeling that Drake wanted Jorrie Jones to join the new firm, and he wasn’t so sure he was on board with the idea. He liked Jorrie, but getting used to another person in a small office wasn’t something he wanted to do.
Bo checked his watch, apologized, and said he needed to go.
“Going to the high school to talk to Lila’s students before their tour tomorrow,” he explained. “And I get to eat lunch with my lovely wife, something that rarely happens during the school year.”
Bo and Jon stood, shook hands, then pulled each other into a hug.
“Glad you’re going to be here with us,” Bo said, patting Jon on the back. “Welcome to the Old Garnet family.”
Bo left and Jon retook his seat.
“Hannah, thank you,” Jon said, realizing he’d failed to express his gratitude for the job.
“You’re welcome,” she said and stood with a struggle. “I’ll show you to your new office now, if you’d like. And I have a surprise—oh, that reminds me. Forgot to mention this—you won’t be working on anything to do with the joint tours with GarnetBrooke. We’ll farm that work out to someone else. I think you understand the reason.”
He did. The reason was Pepper.
He would be happy to have someone else do that work. It was going to be hard enough to drive to Old Garnet every day knowing that she was just across the road yet out of reach.
Jon nodded, and Hannah walked out of her office, turned left, and pointed to the door to her immediate left.
“All this will be yours.” She opened the door to reveal a small messy space that was used for storage, yet had a window overlooking the creek. She pointed to a closed door at the end of the hall. “Goose is in that tiny spot down by the door. He likes being there so he can get outside in a flash.”
Hannah and Jon stood in the hall for a few minutes talking about when he could start and how soon they could get the office ready for his arrival. Hannah’s feet started to hurt, so she moved the conversation back into her office.
“I guess you’ve heard about Harriet and Goose getting married next month?” she asked.
“Yes, she told me a few days ago. And in the visitors’ center?” he asked, pointing in the direction from which they had just come.
“They have a thing for the bourbon flavor wheel,” Hannah said as she lowered herself into her chair. Jon retook his seat after Hannah was comfortably in hers. “They got engaged there, so they’re going to get married there. It’s cute—and it’ll be one more thing we can tell the tourists. In just the past year, this distillery’s seen one baby, one wedding, and three proposals. Come next month, we can add another wedding to the list. I love being able to tell tourists about the continuing history of this place. I love living it.”
“Good for business?”
“Yeah, but it’s just fun too. The wedding’s on a Saturday morning so as not to interfere with everything going on at the distillery. I told Goose that we could shut down the visitors’ center for the day, but he wouldn’t hear of it. So it’ll be a small early morning ceremony. Different, but it somehow suits them.”
“Sounds nice,” Jon said.
“Will you have a date?” Hannah asked pointedly and raised an eyebrow.
“No.”
“She still won’t talk?”
“I gave up,” he admitted with a shrug. “I think she’s staying at the farm almost all the time.”
“Except when she’s here giving tours,” Hannah said with a hint of suggestion.
“And if I tried to talk to her here, she’d stop doing that for you—for us, I guess I can say now—so that’s out of the question.”
“Did you see the new tour bus in the parking lot?” Hannah asked excitedly as she changed the subject.
“Missed it. I was a little preoccupied when I drove in.”
“That’s the thing I wanted to show you.”
Hannah turned and glanced out the window, remarked it had stopped raining, and declared it the perfect time to go check out the new tour bus.
But before they did that, Hannah turned back to him, her demeanor pleasant yet serious.
“Jon, what you did about Walt Montrose was nothing short of heroic. As a lawyer and Bourbon Springs native, you have my eternal admiration and respect.”
“Thanks, but it wasn’t heroic,” he said, looking down at the floor.
“Yes, it was,” Hannah insisted. “You were willing to risk losing your job—and you did. You even risked Pepper.”
“And I lost her too. My reward for telling the truth. My reward for keeping my promises,” he said bitterly.
Hannah sighed. “I love me an honest man—any woman should. And I’ll wager Pepper will figure that out soon.”
Jon knew Hannah meant well, but the conversation was making him feel cheerless.
Perhaps sensing his melancholy, Hannah rose and urged him to follow her outside to check out the new tour bus. She paused in her doorway before leaving her office, and pointed to a chart on a board hanging to the left of her door.
“This is the tour schedule beginning next week,” Hannah said. “All the joint tours are fully booked, including Pepper’s first owner-led tour.”
“How often are those tours?” Jon asked.
“She’s only doing them once a week,” Hannah said. “She told me that if there’s enough demand, she might think about adding another one. She’d dropped a hint about maybe wanting to delay a week or two, but I gently reminded her that the contracts specified when those joint tours were supposed to begin.”
Jon glanced at the spot for Pepper’s owner-led tour for the following week, and placed a finger on the day her tour was to occur.
“Has this tour sold out already as well?” He tapped his finger on the calendar.
“No,” Hannah said. “I guess it could take a while to catch on. They are more expensive. Costs twice as much. That one’s got no takers so far.”
They left the visitors’ center and walked to the new bus, parked at the far end of the lot. It was short and small, the kind of sightseeing vehicle tour companies often used for small groups. Hannah had been correct about the logos: they were painted together so that Garnet was at the center, flanked by Old on the left and Brooke on the right. It was a clever design.
Jon pointed to the logos.
“You designed that, didn’t you?”
“No, it was Pepper’s idea. She sat down and sketched it in one try a few weeks ago. I about fainted when I saw how great it was, and I think she actually made Goose jealous—it’s that good. He’d gotten awfully smug about his bourbon flavor wheel and the design for the Elijah’s Choice bottle.”
Jon put a hand on the side of the rain-slickened bus, over the painted logo. As he neared, he saw the tiny print underneath the GarnetBrooke portion. RIP GiGi not forgotten.
“Jon, if you think that I could help—you know, to talk to Pepper, to get her to come over to the distillery, whatever—please don’t hesitate to ask. I hate to see you so sad.”
“She’d sniff a plan of yours a mile away, Hannah. No one can make he
r magically appear to me here at Old Garnet. If we tried something, she’d probably start canceling the distillery tours she’s supposed to lead and—”
And then he looked at the bus again, and knew that if Pepper wasn’t going to come to him, he was going to go to her.
Jon felt Hannah’s eyes on him, and he turned to see that she was staring at him in wonder.
“So that’s what it looks like,” she said.
“Say what?”
“I just saw your face as you got a great idea. Don’t deny it,” she said and poked his arm. “Your face just went from all tense to looking like a kid on Christmas. So give it up! And you’d better tell me your idea has something to do with the woman across the road.”
He splayed his palm over the joint logo before telling Hannah his plan.
“It has everything to do with her.”
28
Pepper’s first thought on the morning of her second owner-led tour was that at least it wasn’t raining.
If it had been, every person on the bus—all twenty of them, because Hannah had told her the tour had sold out—would have been allowed to borrow a pair of muck boots from the farm, and that would’ve been ridiculously complicated.
Like it had been on her first owner-led tour.
She wasn’t sure how she’d survived that disaster. Six people had fallen into the mud, one person had gotten left behind in a barn, and a man had gotten bitten by a horse after repeatedly being told the horse was prone to bite.
And after the group had departed and the remaining muck boots counted up, a total of nine were missing.
“So what’s this group like?”
Pepper had made Hannah promise to call her as soon as the Old Garnet portion of the tour ended and the bus was about to depart the distillery grounds. She didn’t want any more nasty surprises and thought it advisable to have a heads-up regarding any possible troublemakers, whiners, or overly excited types headed her way.
“Quiet, no problems at all over here. I think you’ll have a much better experience this time,” Hannah promised.
“I should hope so since it couldn’t get any worse.”
Pepper knew the routine, although she’d only gone through it once.
The bus would first stop at the small visitors’ center at the front of the farm. Rolly would greet the bus, introduce himself, answer some questions, and encourage guests to browse in the gift shop for a few minutes. Pepper’s favorite items were the bracelets made from horse hair harvested during routine groomings. There weren’t that many for sale yet since they did take some time to make. She’d had one crafted from BB’s hair as a memento and wore it often.
After a bit of shopping, the guests would watch a short film about the farm’s history up to its recent conversion into a retirement facility. After about a fifteen- or twenty-minute visit at the visitors’ center, the guests would get back on the bus and go up the drive to Pepper’s house, where it would stop and all would head out on foot from there.
Pepper stood in her front yard, watching the bus as it slowly crept up the long drive toward her. For the first time she was wearing a GarnetBrooke branded shirt: a white polo with the farm logo in blue and red over the left breast. She also wore khakis, knowing that they would likely get dirty and smudged with dirt and who-knew-what-else even though the legs would be tucked down into her boots. Khakis were nicer than jeans, and for the kinds of guests on these owner-led outings, Pepper knew she needed to look a little spiffier than usual.
The bus came to a stop slightly beyond the edge of her backyard, and Pepper strode to welcome her guests. She squinted at the windows and met her own reflection; the sun was bright, and she couldn’t get a good look inside the vehicle.
But then she put a hand over her eyes and kept peering at the windows.
Something was off.
The bus was empty. Not one tourist.
After standing agape for a few seconds, she took a step toward the bus door just as it opened.
Jon disembarked. Alone.
It was the first time they’d seen each other since her father’s hearing.
Pepper’s mouth dropped open wider as Jon stepped forward. He was smiling but looked very nervous. And he was dressed much like herself—khakis and a polo—except he was wearing the Old Garnet version of the shirt.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” she snapped. “Where are the tourists?”
“I’m all of them. Here are my tickets.”
He took her hand and deposited twenty tickets into her open palm.
“Why—what—”
“I bought every ticket on this owner-led tour so I could see you, Pepper. I couldn’t think of another way to get you alone.”
“Where’s the driver?”
“I’m the driver. I still have a commercial driver’s license and am completely authorized to drive this thing,” he said. “And I have my boss’s permission, so it’s no use thinking you’re going to call Hannah on me.”
“Your boss?”
“I’m the new general counsel for Old Garnet as of last week.”
Pepper almost congratulated him but then remembered she was supposed to be mad at this trespasser. She had known that eventually she’d have to face Jon, but she’d be damned if he was going to corner her on her own gazillion-acre farm.
Pepper turned her hand over, and all the tickets fluttered to the ground.
“Get the hell off my farm.”
“I’m not leaving, Pepper. I paid for my tour. Twenty of them, in fact.” He stooped and picked up one of the tickets. “Keep your promise,” he said and waved the ticket in the air. “Live up to your end of the bargain and give me my tour.”
“No.” She turned to march toward the house without a look back.
“And if you do that, I’ll be obligated to tell Hannah that you’re breaching the tour contract.”
She spun about, her hair whipping around her head.
“Maybe I’ll just call Hannah myself right now and work this out.” She pulled out her phone.
“No need to do that. Hannah’s totally in on this. She told me to call her if you didn’t take me on the tour.” He pulled out his phone and prepared to make a call.
They stood there a few feet apart, cell phones in hand, looking like two latter-day gunslingers, ready to battle.
Pepper put her phone in her pocket and walked toward the garage.
“Follow me,” she barked over her shoulder.
She gave Jon his damn tour.
After changing into boots, they went to every spot the owner-led tour was supposed to go. Pepper took Jon to the barns, introduced him to at least a dozen horses he’d never seen, and showed him BB’s old stall.
At first Pepper had her guard up; she was expecting him to make a move on her, offer some lame apology, or make some profession of love.
But nothing like that materialized. He was Mr. Perfect Tourist. There were no leers, no double entendres, nothing that could possibly be construed as untoward or out of place. He asked questions, admired the views, and appropriately commented on the aroma of fresh hay and clover.
Pepper even extended the tour, just a little, and let him pet the goats. She needed time to think about how to end this encounter—he probably had something up his sleeve and she wanted to foreclose the possibility of a trap.
And, truth be told, she didn’t mind being with Jon if he was otherwise behaving himself.
But as he dawdled with the goats, Pepper realized that she couldn’t think of a nice way to send him on his way after the tour was over. Merely saying see ya or get off my lawn, as the mood might suit, was inadequate, and that’s not what she wanted.
But Pepper didn’t know what to say to him. She still hurt and blamed Jon for it. That was the thing she couldn’t get beyond.
Yet she knew she still loved him. She just didn’t know how to bridge the gap—that betrayal she still felt.
Lucy’s words came back to her.
Pepper had
a choice. The man she loved was right here with her. She could try, she could talk to him, she could forgive.
Time to talk, she decided.
No more hiding behind the gates of GarnetBrooke. His gatecrashing via a tour had worked, if his intention had been to simply get her talking.
“Jon—”
“So!” Jon rubbed his hands together. “I guess that’s the tour, is it?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then it’s back to the bus, I suppose.” He began heading down the lane toward the parked vehicle.
She scampered after him to keep up, and they walked that way, side by side, for the next few minutes until they reached the bus. She decided walking and talking wasn’t appropriate for what she wanted to say, so she decided to keep her mouth shut until they came to a stop at the edge of the backyard.
“Would you like to see the cemetery? I’ve done some planting,” she said, gesturing to her backyard.
It would be a good place to talk. Slightly secluded and close to the house, but still outside.
Jon nodded and glanced in the direction she indicated.
“The roses are a really nice touch,” he noted. “But before I ask you to show me those things, I need to make a phone call in private. Give me a few minutes, please.” He turned and disappeared into the bus.
Pepper stared at the bus door for a few seconds, momentarily befuddled by his abrupt disappearance. But she didn’t believe for a second that he was merely making a quick call.
Something was up.
Not content to wait for what she felt was some big reveal, Pepper wandered over to the cemetery.
The new roses were lovely, and she was proud that she’d thought of the idea. They were all a deep red as close to the true color of garnet as she could find. At that time of year, with the abundance of spring rain combined with warm temperatures, the rosebushes were awash with color and bursting with their classic fragrance. There was only one rosebush that wasn’t red: a yellow one planted at the head of GiGi’s grave. It hadn’t been a mistake. Pepper had pointedly chose the color as a symbol of remembrance.
Pepper hoped the roses would look as nice in about two more weeks, when the memorial service was scheduled during the Memorial Day weekend. She started chewing on her lip as she thought about that event. Now that Jon was general counsel at Old Garnet, Pepper figured that Hannah, Bo, Goose, and Lila would expect that he be allowed to attend the ceremony since he was an important distillery employee. Her plan of avoiding him had been thrown into confusion now that he was working across the road for a major business partner of the farm.
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2) Page 87
