Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume III, Books 7-9 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 3)
Page 28
He dropped to his knees.
“I’m not too proud to beg for your forgiveness, Miranda,” he said. “I—I don’t know what else to do. All I can say—as stupid as it sounds—is that it wasn’t you, it was me. Nothing has changed from what I told you in that cemetery at Perryville. I was afraid. I was afraid you’d see me as some idiot, the pretty rich boy—that you’d see right through me and leave me.”
She put her hand over her mouth. Hit the nail on the head with that one.
“I can’t,” she repeated and turned her back on him.
Prent got to his feet and wordlessly walked to the front door as Miranda remained in the kitchen, crying.
“Are you going to tell me to go to hell?” Prent asked, his words echoing throughout the foyer.
She froze, breathing heavily. No words came.
“Then I’ll see you later.” She heard him open the door. “I love you, Miranda.”
The door closed behind him. Miranda stumbled into a chair at her kitchen table and doubled over, crying and sick at his words and her own hypocrisy.
“This is a strange way to repay a debt,” Jorrie griped.
“I know, but Hannah Davenport has her ways. And I’m not about to get crosswise with that woman.”
On that icy December afternoon, Jorrie and Mack traipsed hand in hand across the distillery grounds toward the open field where the concerts had been held the previous summer and fall. Mack was toting his guitar, and she knew that he was going to perform, supposedly at the direction of Hannah Davenport.
Mack had explained that Hannah had paid his debt and that she firmly believed Mack had saved Kyle’s life. She only had one requirement for repayment. Mack said he knew exactly what he had to do to get right with the boss and would provide no further details, despite persistent questioning by Jorrie.
So there they were, walking across the frozen Kentucky ground on a windy winter solstice day under a sky the color and feel of limestone—grey, ragged, cold, and hard. While she was full of curiosity about their destination and purpose, Jorrie knew that whatever was about to happen was tied to his music and knew better than to question his process when it came to his craft.
Outside of work, they had spent the past weeks almost constantly in each other’s presence. After being apart for so long, they had joyfully renewed their physical relationship repeatedly, and Jorrie spent an increasing amount of time at Mack’s house. She sensed that Mack was a little lonely now that his grandfather had moved out, even though the man only lived across town.
She also knew that Mack was upset because Gary had pleaded guilty to a litany of criminal charges and had been sent to prison for years.
Even though the kid was only seventeen years old.
He’d confessed to attempted murder, as well as the attack on Mack and Jorrie in the parking lot. He claimed not to know anything about the mailbox destruction and bullets fired at Mack’s house, although the authorities thought he’d been the perp. Mack had been in the courtroom when Gary made his guilty plea in front of a special judge, and Jorrie was right beside him, holding his hand.
The only good thing to come out of the situation was that in exchange for a bit of leniency Gary had given up Sims.
But not for the expected crimes.
Gary had confessed that he’d been helping Sims steal bourbon from the distillery.
Bourbon by the barrelful.
Upon Gary’s information, the state police had discovered five barrels of Old Garnet behind Sims’s house, all covered with thick tarps. Sims, with his wide access to the Old Garnet facilities, had been selling barrels for years, apparently getting help in his thievery as he could from a few former as well as current employees.
Gary had been a great accomplice. Stupid, strong, and mean. In addition to naming two distillery workers, he’d even given up several of Sims’s black market buyers, allowing authorities to shut down a significant illegal trade in bourbon. The network Gary had revealed was extensive, far beyond a few locals swiping a few barrels here and there.
But the barrels weren’t the only stolen things that had been discovered.
Three missing bottles of Wedding Bourbon were found in Sims’s house. He’d been the one to steal the precious, ultra-rare bottles after the stash had been discovered by the Davenports in Lila and Bo’s backyard over the summer. The family had suspected an inside job, and their suspicions had unfortunately proven correct.
So when Sims had been fired, he’d not only lost his job, he’d lost a major source of illegal income from stolen bourbon. That had been the real source of his anger at Mack. Kyle suspected that Mack and Jorrie’s slashed tires were a reflection of that anger. The tires of the other distillery workers, Kyle surmised, had been slashed as a distraction so Sims and his accomplices could pull off one more heist.
Mack had confided to her that he felt like he failed Gary in some way, but when she asked him to articulate what he would’ve done differently as Gary’s teacher, Mack drew a blank. When she suggested that maybe he could put his feelings into a song, Mack told her he’d tried to do that and failed. Instead, he’d decided to reach out to June Vinson and Gary’s siblings to get some counseling and support for them.
He’d also taken the full-time bottling manager’s job at the distillery. Mack was too sad to go back to teaching. But at least the school system’s loss was Old Garnet’s gain.
Mack was happy at Old Garnet. He loved the place and his coworkers. It was, he had told her repeatedly, a new home.
Squinting, she saw in the distance a small platform and one folding chair.
“Take a seat.” He shifted the guitar to his chest as he mounted the tiny platform.
“I’m the audience?”
“You’re it,” he confirmed and began to strum his guitar as she sat.
Jorrie looked around, feeling exposed in the open field. She strongly suspected they were being watched from afar from the distillery or bottling house, both of which were some distance off but within a clear line of sight.
“Do you remember when you found that grocery list? The one with the lyrics on the other side?”
“Well, you said there were lyrics on it,” Jorrie pointed out. “I never did see them, unless they were in that notebook you showed me.”
“No, that song wasn’t in there.” Mack tucked his hand inside his jacket. “It’s here,” he said, and waved a folded piece of notebook paper. “I still have that list—that was just the beginning of the song. This is the completed version.” He put the paper back in his coat.
“So why wasn’t it in the notebook?”
“It wasn’t finished.”
“Now it is?”
“Not sure yet,” was his cryptic answer.
“Is there a title?”
“Wipe the Slate.”
Love unearned yet love recalled
You came to me and tore down my walls
The song of life you teased from me
You rescued my heart; my soul is freed
Wipe the slate, we start anew
Wipe the slate, a life with you
Debt erased and love unbound
Life renewed in hope resounds
Another chance, as one we soar
Will you fly with me forevermore?
The pain of need, that burden gone
I need you now and always, my love
Wipe the slate, we start anew
Wipe the slate, a life with you
Debt erased and love unbound
Life renewed in hope resounds
Listen to my earnest plea
There will be no other for me
You are my music, my soul soars and sings
I pledge my troth, take this ring
As Mack sang the last line, he stepped from the platform, removed his guitar and placed it on the ground. Tossing aside his hat, he dropped to one knee in front of Jorrie, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a ring—a simple diamond solitaire in white gold.
Trembling
and holding her breath, she watched as Mack struggled for the next words.
“I started writing that song within weeks after we met,” he admitted, looking down at the ring he held then up at her. “I was so relieved that you didn’t read those lyrics that day you found that grocery list. I thought if you saw what I wrote, you’d get scared off. I was even afraid to write the song—and I’ve never been afraid to write a song before—because I thought that if I put it down, if I made it real, it somehow could be taken away from me.” He looked down at the ring and shook his head. “But it only made me want this all the more.”
Mack looked up at her, took her left hand, and presented her with the ring.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
He immediately slipped the ring on her finger.
“My grandmother’s,” Mack said in a thick voice. “I asked Pa for it a few days ago. When I discovered he was getting married, I was afraid that he might give the ring to Lucy, but he told me that he’d never do that, as much as he loves her. He said that after he saw us at the clerk’s office, he went and pulled the ring from a small safe in our house. Claimed he knew I’d be asking for it soon.”
Mack stood, took Jorrie’s hands, and pulled her to him. Wrapping their arms around each other, they stood kissing in the middle of the field for several minutes. When they finally broke apart, Jorrie looked puzzled.
“So how did this little performance—and I’d have to say it’s the best ever in my opinion—clear the books with Hannah?”
“Hannah told me that to call it even, that I needed to claim the same gift she says I gave her.”
“What’s that?”
“Happiness.”
She beamed at him, and the memory of their first meeting flooded into her consciousness, filling her with joy.
“…when we find ourselves in the place just right…,” she whispered. Jorrie smiled as she saw his face light up with recognition at her recitation of the special lyrics.
“…’twill be in the valley of love and delight…”
Jorrie buried her head in Mack’s chest to shield herself against the stinging winds, content in the knowledge they could bend and not break, and they were where they ought to be.
’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right…
Also by Jennifer Bramseth
THE BOURBON SPRINGS SERIES
SECRET BLEND
(Bourbon Springs Book 1)
SECRET SAUCE
(Bourbon Springs Short Stories #1)
FILTERED THROUGH BLUE
(Bourbon Springs Book 2)
STANDARD EQUIPMENT
(Bourbon Springs Short Stories #2)
(available exclusively to newsletter subscribers)
ANGELS’ SHARE
(Bourbon Springs Book 3)
DISTILLER’S CHOICE
(Bourbon Springs Book 4)
CEDAR AND CINNAMON
(Bourbon Springs Book 5)
DISTILLED HEAT
(Bourbon Springs Book 6)
LITTLE TREASURES
(Bourbon Springs Short Stories #3)
(available exclusively to newsletter subscribers)
BOTTLED BLUEGRASS
(Bourbon Springs Book 7)
TOAST AND CHAR
(Bourbon Springs Book 8)
WATER OF LIFE
(Bourbon Springs Book 9)
THE BOURBONLAND SERIES
SINGLE BARREL
(Bourbonland Short Stories and Novellas #1)
(novella; free to newsletter subscribers)
SHARP PRACTICE
(Bourbonland Book 1)
STAVE AND HOOP
(Bourbonland Short Stories and Novellas #2)
(novella; free to newsletter subscribers)
NOTICE OF APPEAL
(Bourbonland Book 2)
BACKSET
(Bourbonland Short Stories and Novellas #3)
WHERE THE FIRE IS HOTTEST
(Bourbonland Book 3)
(late 2017)
BARREL PROOF
(Bourbonland Short Stories and Novellas #4)
(early 2018)
BOTTLED IN BOND
(Bourbonland Short Stories and Novellas #5)
(2018)
BOURBONLAND BOOK 4
(title to be announced; 2018)
WHITE DOG
(Bourbonland Short Stories and Novellas #6)
(2018)
BLISSFUL THINKING
(Bourbonland Short Stories and Novellas #7)
(2018)
Afterword
Thank you for reading my book!
Ready for a sample of the next one?
Read on for the first chapter of Toast and Char, Bourbon Springs Book 8.
Prent Oakes left Miranda Chaplin at the altar over two years ago. He’s been after her ever since, begging forgiveness. She can’t forget what he did to her, and she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to forgive.
But the stupid thing is that she can’t tell him to get out of her life.
Buy Links for Toast and Char
Check out the Pinterest board for Bottled Bluegrass
TOAST AND CHAR-Excerpt
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Thirty months ago…
“Keep the ring.”
Those were last words she heard before hanging up on her fiancé.
Wait—former fiancé.
Miranda looked down at her left hand and the glittering hunk of stone still resting on that certain finger. She knew the two-carat oval-cut solitaire in a platinum setting would fetch a tidy price at some fancy jewelry consignment in Lexington or Louisville. From the first time she’d seen the glittering and huge diamond, she’d wondered how much it cost.
Today she found out.
The price was a broken heart.
She dropped the phone into her satin-and-lace encrusted lap, swallowed, and looked at her mother. Celia Chaplin stood in front of her, a sick mélange of mortification and rage.
“He won’t… be here,” Miranda said, reaching up to remove her veil. “He said he already called his mother and uncle and they’ve left the church.”
Shaking, Celia sank into a chair and began to cry.
“We need to tell,” Maisie said. Her sister nodded in the direction of a door beyond which the guests waited in the sanctuary.
Miranda pulled in a deep breath and stood, her wedding gown rustling around her like the hiss of dead leaves scattered by the fall wind.
”No.” Maisie put a hand on Miranda’s shoulder. “This is my job.”
Miranda collapsed back into her seat as a mascara-streaked tear splashed onto her wedding dress, leaving a distinct gray mark. She felt a fleeting bit of annoyance at the stain, but then realized it would go unnoticed since she would not be putting the dress to further use. Miranda recalled one of her mother’s favorite sayings about the nature of such minor imperfections.
It will never be noticed on a galloping horse.
Miranda shuddered. She was the filly who wouldn’t cross the marital finish line that day, if ever.
And certainly not with Prentice Oakes III as her bridegroom.
“I don’t seem to remember that being part of a maid of honor’s duties.”
“Then it’s a sister’s duty,” Maisie said in a firm voice. She gave their mother a quick look and proceeded into the sanctuary to deliver the news.
Curious to hear the eulogy for the demise of the wedding ceremony, Miranda rose and crept to the door to listen an odd calm descending upon her.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” her sister began in a booming voic
e that harshly echoed through the tiny church. “On behalf of the bride and her family, I am here to announce that there will be no ceremony this afternoon. We appreciate your attendance and apologize for your inconvenience. We request that you respect the parties’ privacy in the days to come. If you brought a gift, please take it with you. We will make arrangements for the return of the other gifts. Thank you.”
Miranda fingered her engagement ring and chuckled. She got to keep this gift, something she never wanted to see again after this hot and miserable day. She took the ring and moved it from her left hand to right and resolved to stuff it into her jewelry box as soon as she got home.
Thank God the wedding had been small, she thought as she slipped out of her gown.
Most of the guests had been very close friends and family and not her extended network of friends and acquaintances in Bourbon Springs. If she’d invited some of the patients she considered friends, like Hannah Davenport and CiCi Summers, news of her disaster already would’ve reached Craig County before those two even hit the county line.
She was sure every soul in Perryville already knew she had been left at the altar, including the unearthly ones that still walked the battlefield at the historic site. The image of ghostly Yankee and Rebel soldiers sitting on the banks of Doctor’s Creek swapping gossip about the amorous travails of the living back in town almost made her laugh out loud.
After changing back into the shorts and T-shirt she’d worn to the church, Miranda stuffed her wedding gown back into the garment bag. Why was she even bothering to take care of the thing?
Maybe she should just leave it there, a monument to futility and ego, a reminder of the price of pride and hope. It could be a useful tool for a minister, she mused, and stepped back from the garment bag to seriously consider abandoning it right there in the parlor, as the ladies of the church called that particular room. She liked the idea a lot better than going off and burning it or destroying it, like many a jilted bride might do.