The Barrel House Series: Boxed Set: Bourbon Love Notes, Bourbon on the Rocks, Bourbon Nights, Bourbon Fireball

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “We marched forward toward our next destination. We received communications on expected threats, but a lot of times, we didn’t know how, or where the damage would be. We didn’t even know the difference between the good guys and the bad guys sometimes. They would try to fool us. I never knew what to think, so I had watched for unusual twitches and eye movements. I learned their behaviors and tried to seek out the danger before they had an opportunity to pounce on us.”

  “They don’t report those kinds of updates on the news,” Melody says.

  “The public shouldn’t have to bear witness to a lot of what we saw. Your imagination is enough.”

  “Are all of your letters to me like this one?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, looking down at my hands. “I needed to tell someone.”

  “I would have written back. I would have sent you care packages. I would have sent smiles. I would have been waiting for you the minute you got back. If you think I’m not angry that I didn’t receive those letters, Brett, you’re wrong. It eats away at me all the time, knowing I could have been there—knowing I would have jumped through hoops of fire to be there for you. All I can say is, I’m here now, and I hope it’s never too late to talk to me or ask for a smile.”

  I kiss Melody’s forehead. “I shouldn’t have written all that stuff in the letters. You didn’t sign up for that kind of truth. I did. Maybe there’s a better reason you didn’t get those than Ace being a bastard.”

  “Yes, you should have,” she corrects me. “I’m glad you did.”

  “If you wrote back, I would have fallen in love with you right there and then. I would have thought about you morning, noon, and night, more than I already was. I would have gotten distracted and it could have ended badly.”

  “You know, I thought about you all the time too. My parents told me you had gotten deployed, which made me watch the news every night, scared to hear something happened to U.S. troops. I never knew anyone who enlisted, you were the only one, and the more I learned, the scarier it became. You were over there fighting to stay alive and to help others do the same, and there were people here who had no clue what was really going on.”

  “I think the reporting was skewed a bit too. There was more happening than even the press knew.”

  “Well, if there was one thing I could change, at the very least, it would be that I was waiting there for you when you got home safely.”

  The thought brings a smile to my face. “Oh yeah? What would you have done?” I ask.

  She twists around to face me, wrapping her legs and arms around me from the front. “I would have searched through the crowd of Marines, waiting to see your face amongst the rest of the Marines. It would have been like one of those movie scenes where there isn’t talking, just cinematic, uplifting music. The second I spotted you, I would have run like hell to you. I would have thrown my arms around you and kissed you like I knew of all the times I might have lost you. I wouldn’t have let you go, Brett.”

  “I can almost see that moving playing in my mind. You would have been running toward me, the most beautiful face in the crowd, in slow motion. I would have lifted you up and spun you around as your hair wrapped around my neck, and then I would have looked you into your stunning green eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, and that it was really you. I would have told you I loved you and asked you to marry me right then and there.”Melody kisses me sweetly, folding her arms around the back of my head. “And yet, here we are: in love, married, with a second child on the way. I don’t know, Sergeant Pearson … it looks like we might have made it after all.”

  “I love you so damn much, Mel,” I say.

  “I love you even more than that,” she says. “All parts of you—the secrets, stories, and the memories.”

  28

  A Year Later

  A year of therapy. A son, Quinn, who has fire-engine red hair like his mom and a great giggle, a sassy ten-year-old who might or might not have a boyfriend (still up for debate), and the most incredible wife in the world. Some might say I’m doing pretty damn well.

  It looks that way from the outside.

  Those people don’t know that I read my old letters every single night before I go to bed so I can revisit the war in my dreams to do over what I did in another lifetime. I’m positive I’m not okay, but that’s only one part of my life. The other parts make up the difference. Melody knows the pain I sleep with, and for some reason, she continues to love me through it day after day.

  Even days like today.

  A car accident at a four-way intersection in the middle of our suburban town plays out in front of us from three cars back. I blink, and the collision consists of an armed vehicle and a U.S. hummer. I jump out of the truck to help the innocent.

  I help the drunk instead.

  The innocent is rushed away in an ambulance.

  I screwed up again.

  The scene is being cleared up, and I tell Melody to take the kids home. She doesn’t ask any questions; she just does as I ask after kissing me on the cheek.

  I’ve been sitting here on the curb of the intersection, trying to understand how I saw something completely different than what happened. How did I get things so wrong? Why was someone drunk in the morning?

  I open the box full of memories because it is supposed to heal me, but I don’t know how long this healing process takes or how many people will be affected by it. The therapist says we can’t put a time limit on mental healing, but I wonder if he says that as a milder way of saying “never.” I’m not a stranger to what wars have done to men and women in the past. The battered souls live among us with faces made of bravery and courage, hiding the pain buried so deeply inside.

  If I close my eyes, I can feel the sand scuff beneath my boots, and I smell the rotting flesh float through the thick air, smoke filled air. There’s dirt on my hands, and they feel like they haven’t been washed in a month. Maybe someone is coming up behind me for a surprise attack. Perhaps the accident was a distraction to punish me for all I’ve done in the past. I shouldn’t just sit here. I should keep moving. It’s the only way to survive.

  I stand up from the curb and walk for over an hour until I reach the hospital. I want to check on the innocent man from the accident.

  I don’t know his name.

  The registration desk can’t help me.

  They tell me to take a seat.

  So, I sit, and I stare at the wall until Melody comes to get me. Somehow she knew where I would go, but I’m not sure how.

  Now I’m in my kitchen, drinking a glass of water so that I can flush the thoughts from my mind.

  “Brett,” Melody says. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  I’m not okay. I shouldn’t be okay. I killed people. I squeeze the glass in my hand until it breaks, feeling the shards slice across my palm. It was an accident.

  I look up at the terror in Melody’s eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

  She remains calm, though I can see the thoughts running through her beautiful eyes. She leaps at me with a towel and takes the glass carefully from my hand, then wraps the towel around the laceration. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

  “I should have just stayed there. I’m being punished.”

  “Brett, don’t talk like that.”

  “I didn’t mean to break the glass.”

  “I know. It was an accident,” she says.

  “What about the kids?”

  “I’m going to go put them in the car and take them to my mom’s. Sit down on this stool until I come back for you,” she says, pulling the stool out from beneath the kitchen island.”

  “It’s okay.”

  I watch Melody escort the kids out of the house, doing all she can so they don’t see their wreck of a father sitting in the kitchen with blood pooling out of his hand. “What’s wrong with Dad?” Parker asks.

  “He just needs a couple of stitches. You know how Dad’s a big baby when it comes to blood, right?” Melody says.

  “
Yeah, he’s the biggest baby I’ve ever met,” Parker replies.

  Melody is stronger than me.

  I need her more than she needs me.

  She’s my hero—the real kind of hero.

  Melody races back inside and wraps her hands around the towel. “Ready?”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her.

  “For what?”

  “Today.”

  Melody places her hand on my cheek. “It’s just another day. There’s always tomorrow.”

  “It’s never going to stop,” I tell her.

  “And if it doesn’t … I will get really good at picking you up when you fall.”

  “How are you so strong?” I ask her, standing from the stool.

  “Eh, I pushed out a ten-pounder. You can take the blame for that, okay?”

  “You did that like a champ,” I say.

  “Okay, let’s get moving before you lose any more blood.”

  “I love you,” I remind her.

  “You know I love you, Brett, and you might not think so, but this is the longest you’ve gone without one of these flashbacks. I call it progress even though you’re beating yourself up right now.”

  She’s right about how long it’s been. It’s the longest I’ve gone. I’ve kept track. It’s been six months. “I’m trying my best.”

  Mrs. Quinn took the kids from the car and blew me a kiss as Melody thanked her with a hug. She has Quinn waving at us as we back out of the driveway. I wave with my good hand and mouth the words: I love you, to both of the kids.

  It’s a helpless feeling, being out of control, just like it was, in the middle of a war. “We’re going to get there, you know,” Melody says. “To a point where you can see through the darkness.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Everything takes time, especially the hard parts in life—the ones worth working toward and never giving up on.”

  I’ve let my guard down. I’ve let her in entirely. I hide nothing. She knows the raw wounds inside of me and the way my heart beats for her. She lets the bad times go with the wind and holds onto the good times like old, treasured photos. She smiles when things are shitty and laughs when I get mad, which kills the anger and fixes everything. I never knew I needed someone so much until I realized she had been there all along, waiting for our time to be right.

  “My mom will keep the kids tonight. I think there’s a bottle of bourbon with our names on it.”

  “You mean, the one with our actual names on it?” I ask.

  “That one,” Melody says. “The one that says: Melody and Brett—drink this one night after you’ve had a bad day, a day that should be brushed under the carpet.”

  “He always knew it was you and me.”

  “He also knew we’d enjoy those bottles of bourbon he left behind,” I say.

  When we have a bad day, we stay up late and open one of Harold’s custom bottles of bourbon. We sit on the kitchen floor, facing each other and we talk about ridiculous topics that make us laugh like idiots. Sometimes, we make unrealistic plans for the future, and other times, we act out the dramatic scenes featuring the two of us getting together after being apart for a long time. The bad days are hard, but the bourbon nights we share, keep us going, and magically erase what should be forgotten.

  Epilogue

  Three Years Later

  I know what you want to hear … The PTSD is gone. I don’t experience any more flashbacks. The horrors from the war are fading into the background like a distant memory and I don’t have moments where the world might think I’ve lost my mind, but that isn’t real life, not in my book anyway.

  Sorry, but that isn’t the real kind of happily ever after. Not in my book.

  Dealing with PTSD is a matter of acceptance rather than waiting for the day they will stop. The therapy helps tremendously, and I rarely have moments of distress during daytime hours, but if I do, I use the coping skills I learned in therapy to help me through the thick of it. I will always have nightmares and thoughts of the what ifs. I will always miss my best friend, and the fact that Parker doesn’t have her biological mom to watch her grow into the beautiful young lady she’s becoming.

  What I do have … is a loving wife, a wonderful marriage, and two beautiful children who tell me I’m the best dad in the world. It’s more than I ever could have asked for and more than I feel I deserve, despite what anyone might say.

  “Brett, did you know Brody was coming over?” Melody shouts from the kitchen.

  I look at my watch, seeing it’s ten in the morning on a Sunday. “No, he didn’t even text me,” I say.

  Brody opens the front door before I can even get off the couch. “Dude,” he says.

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “You look like Mr. Rogers. Is that what you wore to bed last night?” Brody jabs me.

  “Breakfast, Brody?” Melody calls out with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Nah, I already ate for two.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Remember that thing from when I was twelve or thirteen …”

  I look up in thought, wondering what he’s talking about. “Uh.”

  “Seriously? I almost went to ‘juvie’ for this.”

  “Oh, that,” I play along.

  “Let’s just say that ‘special’ location we used to spend our time at … apparently, it reopened, and my daughter, you know—your fourteen-year-old niece, was the one to find it and bring it back to life. I’m going to need your help closing it back up somehow. Can I borrow you for the day?”

  “Wait, what are you two talking about?” Melody asks, crossing her arms over her robe.

  “And you … you look like Mrs. Rogers. How cute.”

  “There was no Mrs. Rogers,” Melody snaps back. She has no problem giving Brody grief, which is one of my favorite things about my wife.

  “It’s nothing important,” Brody says.

  “I’m going to need to tell her where I’m going if I’m disappearing for the day.”

  “It’s just a thing—a place where kids hang out. There’s nothing to worry about. I just need to put some dirt on the ground and tie a few things up. No biggie,” Brody says.

  “Yeah, sounds fun,” Melody replies.

  “If you don’t want me to go, I can tell Brody to go shove it,” I offer.

  “Bro, seriously? Come on. I rarely ask you for help.”

  “Just in the days that end in ‘y’ usually, right?” I add.

  “You know what kind of trouble that place caused me, and not just—me. Please.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We get to have one last hurrah there with a little Fireball tonight. Hannah can babysit the others. It’s quite perfect, actually.”

  “I like the sound of this,” Melody chimes in.

  “Journey is not going to like the sound of this,” Brody continues.

  “Journey doesn’t know either?”

  “No, and I’d like to keep it that way,” he says.

  “Oops. Just texted her. It looks like we’re all going tonight. Go make it look pretty, boys, whatever this place is,” Melody chimes in.

  This is most definitely going to be the best, worst idea ever. “I’ll clink a bourbon glass to that.”

  * * *

  ________________________

  Brody’s story is next. Keep an eye out for Bourbon Fireball!

  Bourbon Fireball

  BOOK FOUR - BRODY

  Prologue

  This is the story of my life … starring me, Brody Pearson.

  The journey all started tonight. No, wait, it technically started twenty years ago. It was a pleasant summer day, and I was a cute baby—a whopping ten pounder with a set of pipes meant for competing in the world’s loudest baby contest. Fast forward two years and, for some odd reason, my parents decided on another one like me, so along came my brother, Brett.

  People might say, I’ve paved the way for him with my wor
ldly wisdom, or I’m giving myself a pat on the back.

  Anyway, the meat of this story started tonight, but the last few hours may be the culmination the shortest story known to man. I mean, I can’t complain about the thickening plot, but damn, things aren’t going too well.

  To make a brief story even shorter … because really … who wants to hear the long, drawn out version, I ran into a family friend I hadn’t seen in a while because Brett “Mr. Popularity” (or so he thinks) received an invitation to this New Year’s Eve high school bash. Since I graduated two years prior, my plans were sketchy and limited at best, so I tagged along with the bro. Plus, I needed to watch the guy like a hawk. He’s always causing trouble wherever he goes.

  Pfft. Right. I’m kidding. Brett’s the good one, the well-behaved, yet under-achieving-successful. He is the definition of an oxymoron (emphasis on the moron part)—who gets by on his good looks and ability to whip a fastball at ninety miles-per-hour. Brett is Mom and Dad’s pride and joy, but to me, he’s just a dweeb which is why I need to watch his back tonight. God only knows what could go down at this rager in the basement of a bourbon distillery.

  I walked into the distillery—a restored firehouse—earlier in the night as if I was, in fact, a big deal. I guess that sounds cocky. I am a little cocky, or—at least I was—until right at that moment. I’ve referred to myself as an opportunist—a guy who finds intriguing methods of acquiring what I want, but tonight, I wasn’t expecting what happened, nor was I prepared with my usual tricks up my sleeve to make the night a little less bumpy.

  In fact, I wasn’t aware I wanted her until tonight. The “her” in my story is Journey Quinn, the bourbon distiller’s daughter. She is the wild child of the owner’s two daughters and therefore, not surprising to find out she doesn’t play along with daddy’s rules, one of which would be not allowing a killer party around an endless supply of booze.

  Our families have known each other my entire life, but we live in two separate towns and only see each other a few times a year at parties our families throw. Actually, it’s been a few years since I’ve gone to one of those popped-collar events, and now I see that Journey has aged as beautifully as the bourbon in the barrels we were standing around all night. I’m not sure if Bourbon is hot, like that, but Journey, she’s hot with her stark red hair and gorgeous green eyes.