Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume III, Books 7-9 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 3)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  After they both devoured their food, they gave in and opted for pie, each of them ordering a piece of the new flavors so they could share and sample the new offerings at The Windmill.

  “I’ll be the first one at work to tell everyone about these new flavors,” Miranda said smugly as she took the first bite of her piece, the bourbon raisin chess.

  Temporarily soothed by the pleasurable activity of eating a luscious piece of pie, Miranda revealed her plan to go into practice with Brad Byrd.

  “A guy that knows my very personal business,” Prent joked. “Oh, I think I forgot to mention how Kurt told the guys that I’d only recently gotten back together with my old fiancée.”

  “In the same breath as he told them about Peter?”

  “Yep.” He speared a piece of his pie and held out the fork, glaring at the tidbit as though he had his uncle’s head on the tines instead of the tasty morsel. “Said that he couldn’t believe it when the woman I left at the altar took me back and openly wondered whether you’d stick around now that I have a son.”

  “He did not say that!”

  “Sure did, even though I told him that I’d already told you about it weeks ago. That didn’t sit right with him,” Prent said, smiling. “Guess he got his revenge when he blabbed about it to his buddies.”

  As the check was brought, Miranda started to feel that little bit of sexual excitement and anticipation she experienced earlier that evening when she’d thought Prent would pick her up and she might get a predinner kiss. She smiled at him, and he returned her grin with a searing gaze.

  “Nightcap at your place?” he asked.

  “If that’s what you have in mind.”

  “I have a lot of things in mind,” he said, snatching the check from the table’s surface before she could take it. “And a bit of bourbon before bedtime is just the beginning.”

  “Let me get a head start on getting home. I have a surprise for you.”

  “How will I get in the house?”

  Miranda reached into her purse, extracted a key, and slid it across the table to him.

  “I think you’ll be needing this.”

  Prent took it. “I still have the old one, you know.”

  “But that old one doesn’t work,” she said. “I got some new locks about a year ago when there was a rash of burglaries in my neighborhood.”

  “Why didn’t you ever ask for my key back?”

  “I trusted you.”

  Prent pulled his keys from his pocket and removed from the ring his old key to Miranda’s house. He placed it on the table and put the new one on his key ring. He held up the old one in front of him, looking beyond it and into Miranda’s eyes.

  “I always hoped I’d get the chance to use this one again,” he said.

  “But that’s a key to the past,” she said.

  “So you just gave me a key to the future?”

  She smiled and put on her coat. “See you at my place,” she said softly and left.

  20

  After waiting ten minutes, Prent left The Windmill, anxious to use Miranda’s small yet significant gift. He had to fight the urge to keep his foot from pressing too hard on the gas as he sped toward town and reminded himself that his driving record wasn’t that great. He still felt the impact of a multitude of speeding tickets and other violations when it came to the insurance rates he had to pay, something his uncle liked to remind him about since Prent often drove company vehicles.

  He pulled into Miranda’s driveway on Main Street, one of the last houses on the northern edge of Bourbon Springs before Main Street became known as Ashbrooke Pike. Just a few houses beyond Miranda’s place, the remnants of small-town life fell away as the landscape opened to the rolling fields of Bluegrass on both sides of the road as it wound north toward Old Garnet and GarnetBrooke.

  He deliberately did not ring the doorbell and used his key, choosing to dispense with the formality of announcing his arrival. The casualness of his activity was not lost on him, and he felt like he was arriving at his own home after a long day’s work. Miranda wanted him to have this comfort, and he surely needed that simple consolation as well as the solace of her love that night.

  He hung his coat in the closet, threw his keys on a small table, and walked into the house. The place was in darkness except for the small light in the foyer and a bit of light thrown into the hall to his right and in the direction of Miranda’s bedroom.

  He slowly walked to her room, a place he had not ventured in over two years, and was thrown back in time as he neared her boudoir.

  A familiar floral scent hung in the air, and the bed, with the same purple comforter upon it, was already turned down.

  Prent’s eyes were adjusting to the dimness of the room when the bathroom door at the far end of the room opened and Miranda appeared. He blinked and stopped breathing as she approached him.

  Miranda was wearing the sheerest, lightest thing he had ever seen. The most substantial parts of the negligee were the thin straps over her shoulders and a small strip of lacy fabric atop her chest, from which cascaded into a shimmering curtain of near-nothingness through which he could see her body.

  “This is why I wanted to get home before you.” She brushed her hand down her nightie, the hem of which touched the floor.

  With effort, he pulled his eyes from Miranda’s body.

  “Glad you did.”

  She moved to him and looked down at her attire, or what there was of it.

  “I got this at one of my wedding showers,” she said. “I was going to take it on our honeymoon.”

  “So why didn’t you save it for when we do go on our honeymoon someday?”

  It was the first time he’d come so close to mentioning marriage since they’d reconciled.

  Miranda smiled.

  “I got tired of waiting to use it.”

  Their first kiss in over a week was bold and passionate, with Prent taking the role of aggressor. He sought her lips and tongue and felt her melting and relaxing under his touch. Miranda’s fingers began to fumble between their bodies at the buttons on his shirt as his mouth paid homage to her neck while he brought his hands up to cup her breasts through the film of her negligee. When she sighed as he stroked her veiled nipples, allowing her hands to drop from her task of unbuttoning his shirt, Prent pulled away and began to strip. Miranda did nothing to help him and chose to watch his performance until he was nude before her.

  “How is it that you’re wearing this bit of nothing,” he said, fingering her gown, “and you’re still wearing more than me?”

  She leaned into him.

  “So take the damn thing off,” she said in a lusty hiss.

  Fighting the urge to rip the thing from Miranda’s body, he slid his fingers underneath the threadlike shoulder straps. He pulled the garment over her head to deposit it on a nearby dresser. At once, he placed his palms across her breasts, causing Miranda to moan loudly and her head to fall back. The sight of her withering so easily at his touch sparked a wave of lust in him he had rarely known.

  He scooped Miranda into his arms and carried her to the bed. She cried out in surprise, then wrapped her arms around his neck, smiling and laughing.

  “I can’t remember the last time you picked me up,” she giggled as he gently placed her on the bed.

  “I need the practice,” he said, moving to her right in the bed and stroking her arm.

  “Practice?”

  Prent drew even closer to her, and Miranda rolled onto her back.

  “For when I carry you over the threshold someday.”

  He brought his mouth down hard on hers, needing her, wanting to taste, feel, and experience everything about her. The past several days had felt like eons, and Prent’s body and soul craved the release that Miranda offered.

  Miranda responded to his attack by opening her mouth wider and relaxing, and Prent brought a hand to her breast where he stroked her nipple while his tongue swept and battled with hers. She broke the kiss with a gasp, and Prent�
�s hand skirted along her torso, down to her stomach until his fingers found her folds, wet and swollen and waiting for his touch. Miranda’s legs spread a little wider, and when he stroked her gently before slipping a finger into her walls, the moan she made along with the little clenching action around him made Prent want to take her right there.

  But he realized he couldn’t.

  He cursed, and his hand fell away from Miranda’s body as he rolled onto his back.

  “Wh-what?” she asked, disappointment thick in the question.

  He sighed and put his head back into the pillow, closing his eyes.

  “No protection.”

  As a precaution they had continued to use condoms since Miranda had missed those pills over the New Year’s holiday.

  She laughed, and he turned his head to see her staring and smiling at him.

  “No need for that anymore.”

  “Oh—you mean—”

  “Mother Nature told me while you were gone that I’m not pregnant. I’m back on schedule with those certain pills, so no backup plan is necessary.”

  “Best news I’ve heard all day,” he said and began to sit up.

  “Oh no,” Miranda said, placing a hand on his chest, pushing him back down onto the bed. “I like you better on your back.”

  With a smirk she straddled him, and Prent laughed as he put his hands on her thighs, his hardness pressed against her belly. She leaned to kiss him, her lips slowly traveling to his cheek, neck, and chest. Her tongue raked across one nipple as she rolled the other between her thumb and forefingers.

  Prent groaned and gripped Miranda’s hips, his fingers sinking deep into her soft flesh as his own hips moved upward, instinctively wanting to claim her. When she moved her mouth from one nipple to the other, Prent’s self-control began to weaken. He slipped a hand between their bodies and found her clit with his thumb, instantaneously causing Miranda’s entire body to jerk and her mouth to leave his chest.

  He rubbed in circles, watching her face move and twitch as he pleasured her. Her eyes were closed, her mouth opened, and he savored the power he had to give Miranda such bliss.

  Wanting to intensify her experience, he brought his other hand to her breast and stroked her nipple with his thumb. Panting, Miranda leaned back and grabbed the sides of Prent’s thighs as she opened and surrendered to him.

  “Let me feel you around me,” he said, moving both of his hands to her rear where he squeezed her tightly.

  Leaning forward, she placed her hands aside his face on the pillow, positioned herself over his erection, and enveloped his full length in one quick movement.

  Neither moved at the moment of their connection, and they locked eyes at the moment of their complete intimacy. When she smiled and clenched around him, he could no longer be still.

  He grabbed her hips and thrust even deeper into her, causing Miranda to lose her balance. She steadied herself and took control, riding him slowly. With her body above him, Prent brought his mouth and hands to Miranda’s breasts. Suckling and caressing, he felt himself getting closer to his climax and knew from Miranda’s insistent movements that she was very close.

  He moved a thumb once more to her clit, causing her to freeze as she sucked in a sharp, surprised breath. In the next second he felt her walls spasming around him as she cried out and came hard against his hand and his length. As she rode her climax, Prent grabbed Miranda’s ass, thrust upward hard twice, and emptied himself inside her.

  Miranda draped herself over his chest, and Prent wrapped his arms around her, gently stroking her back, her skin speckled with gooseflesh. As fatigue claimed them, they both remained entwined, connected, and enraptured as they both drifted into the delicious oblivion of postcoital sleep.

  As he felt himself slip from Miranda’s body, Prent hoped he would have at least one more chance that night to make love to the woman he longed to make his wife.

  Thank goodness that there weren’t any patients that Friday morning at GarnetBrooke. For the first time in weeks, no farm employee showed up at the little clinic (housed in a small room of the visitors’ center), needing the services of the good Dr. Chaplin.

  Miranda had waited for half an hour, sitting outside the room, sipping coffee and chatting with the tour guide/visitors’ center manager, Markie. She had pretended to listen as the young woman nattered on about her boyfriend, allowing Miranda to sink into a state of grogginess, which apparently passed for concern in Markie’s not-so-observant eyes.

  Prent had not left the previous evening until close to midnight, after they’d made love twice. Although she didn’t get to sleep that much later than usual, Miranda still felt the exhaustion of an intense sexual and emotional experience.

  As she left the farm, she hoped there wouldn’t be many distillery patients to see that morning. If she could get away early, she could get home and steal a little nap before heading to her office after lunch. But before she did that, she needed to call her sister and give her the heads-up that the paternity petition was going to be filed that day in Van Winkle County.

  Miranda had already told her family about Prent’s fatherhood, receiving very different reactions.

  The revelation had necessitated a trip to Perryville to deliver the news to her mother in person one Saturday afternoon during one of Prent’s absences. Miranda did not want to disclose the existence of Peter over the phone, knowing that if she did so, she’d still have to go Perryville to “talk about it” with her mother.

  To say that it had not gone well was an understatement.

  Her mother had burst into tears and begged Miranda to see that Prent was a scoundrel who would only end up breaking her heart. She had declared that Miranda could do a hell of a lot better and that she should stop wasting her time with the fool. Mother and daughter ended up in a screaming match, with Miranda fleeing in tears.

  She’d driven straight to Maisie’s small home on the outskirts of Perryville and dumped the news on her sister. Although shocked by the news, Maisie was otherwise quietly supportive, telling Miranda their mom had been out of line in telling her to dump Prent. As a result, Miranda was estranged from her mother and felt guilty for putting Maisie in the middle.

  When Miranda arrived at the visitors’ center at Old Garnet, there were already several cars in the lot that bright and chilly morning. Upon exiting her vehicle, she saw a small tour bus bouncing down the road toward the center. It wasn’t even nine in the morning, yet people were showing up on a cold midwinter day to tour the place.

  As Miranda entered the lobby and headed toward the hall leading to the clinic, Prent’s comments about his business came back to her. How was it that a cooperage couldn’t be making money hand over fist in the middle of the biggest bourbon renaissance since Prohibition? She reasoned it had to be those quality-control issues Prent had been worried about.

  “Hey, Doc!” shouted a familiar voice.

  Miranda turned to see Hannah Davenport striding through the middle of the visitors’ center with baby Jamie on her hip. The redheaded babe was grabbing at his mother’s long strand of pearls with a fat little fist.

  “Hello there, little fella,” Miranda said, offering Jamie a forefinger. He readily took it and squeezed it, looking at her with big brown eyes. “You were in a bassinette in your mommy’s hospital room the last time I saw you.”

  “He’s gotten a little bigger since then,” Hannah said proudly.

  “And looking healthy as a horse.”

  “I have him here today because Lucy has a cold,” Hannah said. “That woman is wonderful with kids. She’s beside herself that Lila and Bo are about to give the world another Davenport.”

  “Is Lucy going to take care of both babies?”

  Hannah nodded. “Going to keep them at Bo and Lila’s house during the day, and Albert’s coming along as well. Says he’ll go inspect barrels if he gets bored. He was a cooper back in his day.” Hannah smiled and eyed Miranda. “Want to hold him?”

  Miranda said yes, and Hannah ha
nded her son over to the doctor who’d delivered him.

  “You be nice to Dr. Chaplin,” Hannah cooed at her son. “She delivered you and helped save your daddy’s life.”

  “Only one of those statements is true, Hannah. I still have no clue what happened that night with Kyle.”

  “I know what happened,” Hannah said, standing straight and looking directly at Miranda. “You and Mack Blanton performed some kind of miracle, and that’s all I’ll ever need to know.”

  Miranda didn’t argue and smiled at Jamie, admiring the child’s hair.

  “Where did he get that red hair?”

  “My mother was a redhead,” Hannah said, beaming. “I can’t wait to see Angelica’s coloring.”

  “Two little redheaded Davenports running around in here.” Miranda shook her head and stroked Jamie’s hand as he grabbed at the zipper pull on her coat. “That would be quite the scene.”

  “You look to be in your element there,” Hannah said. “You look more like a pediatrician than a gynecologist. Or are you practicing?”

  “Practicing?”

  “To be a mom yourself soon? Very soon?”

  “Maybe I am,” she allowed, then pursed her lips. “Let me guess how you heard about that. Mr. Hensley told his wife, who in turn told Harriet, who in turn told you. I heard about that little scene at the golf course.”

  “You got it,” she said with a laugh. But Hannah’s happy demeanor soon started slipping away, and Miranda sensed Hannah wanted to talk. She suggested they go down to the clinic room, and Hannah agreed.

  Miranda found the room locked and used her key to open it, allowing Hannah and Jamie inside first. Hannah took a seat where the patients usually sat, next to the counter and cabinets while Miranda shrugged out of her coat and put it on a hat rack behind the door. She stowed her purse under the cabinets and watched as Hannah held Jamie’s hands and bounced her son on her knee.

  Hannah was the perfect picture of contented motherhood, and it was an absolute joy to see.

  “So are you doing okay?” Hannah asked. Miranda understood the meaning behind the on-the-surface simple question.