Secret Blend (Bourbon Springs Book 1)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  “Thanks, Brady,” Rachel said, her gaze in her lap as Sherry began to examine Rachel’s hair.

  “Sure, no problem,” Rachel heard him say from behind her. “Going to the restroom now to tidy up.”

  Brady hurried to the men’s room out in the hall outside the judges’ joint chambers. He was thankful no one was there and immediately locked himself in a stall and sat.

  He was shaking.

  All because of Rachel’s hair.

  Why had he kept brushing it? It was the softest, most exquisite hair he’d ever felt. Like brushing silk, or the clouds…

  He shook his head, trying to snap out of his stupor, trying to talk himself out of a quickly burgeoning and disquieting attraction to the lovely Judge Richards.

  Didn’t work.

  He kept thinking about that hair—the soft highlights in it he’d never noticed—and Rachel…

  How had he not noticed her?

  Where the hell had he been for the past five years?

  He knew the answer. He’d had his head up his ass thinking that she was some junior partner who didn’t know anything. He hadn’t been able to see her any other way.

  But now that she wore the robe, Brady saw her differently.

  And he realized he’d like to see her out of that robe.

  He put his head in his hands, took a deep breath, and looked at his lap.

  How could he have gotten so hard so fast?

  And had Sherry seen that?

  Chapter 5

  “There,” declared Sherry. “Good as new! How does that feel?”

  Sherry’s ministrations to Rachel’s suit and hair with paper towels and the vacuum cleaner proved nothing short of miraculous.

  “Thanks,” Rachel said weakly. The incident had left her tired and rattled.

  Sherry moved the vacuum cleaner near the door to the office. “You should go home, hon. No offense, but you look beat and you don’t have anything else on your schedule for the day.”

  “Where’s Brady?” Rachel asked as she looked into the space where the workers were still knocking around. She rolled her shoulders and felt a crick in her neck pop. “Not back from the restroom yet?”

  “Guess not,” Sherry said with just enough amusement in her voice to leave Rachel puzzled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “He is.”

  “I never thought of Brady as funny. More like interesting bordering on difficult.”

  Sherry grinned. “He liked brushing your hair.”

  “Well, I did ask him to do that,” Rachel pointed out, confused by Sherry’s statement.

  “Hon, he really liked doing it.”

  Rachel blinked several times in confusion. “How do you know?”

  “I could tell,” she said and pointed to her own nether regions, “he really liked it.”

  Rachel’s mouth fell open and her eyes bulged. She even backed up, as if trying to run away from Sherry’s observation.

  “That’s crazy!”

  “I know what I saw, judge,” Sherry said as she turned around and walked out of the office, leaving Rachel stunned.

  Rachel didn’t want to see Brady again that day and, truthfully claiming that she felt poorly after the ceiling fall, decided to go home. During her drive, she tried to figure out why Sherry would lie about what she’d seen. But Rachel couldn’t think of a reason, even though Brady hadn’t shown the slightest bit of amorous interest in her since she’d returned to Bourbon Springs.

  Upon arriving home, Rachel quickly disrobed, put her hair up in a ponytail, and threw on old sweats, thus making herself as unsexy as possible. She figured her choice of clothing was a weird subliminal reaction in light of Brady’s reported arousal. As Rachel kept turning over the issue of Brady in her mind, she realized he wasn’t an issue with which she had to deal; he had morphed into a full-blown problem. She now worked in very close proximity (and soon to be closer proximity when they started sharing the same office) with someone she wasn’t sure she liked but was attracted to her. And she had to admit she was attracted to him. She had been since they had clerked together, and probably as far back as high school.

  She decided on a simple course of action: act as though nothing had happened, be professional, and try to ignore him as much as possible.

  Yet later as she rummaged through her lingerie drawer, looking for clean pajamas as she got ready for an early bedtime, Rachel came across something for which she had intended to search several weeks earlier but had forgotten about.

  Rachel pulled out a small, cube-like, half-filled bottle of spray cologne. She popped the golden plastic top off and took a whiff; it was the same scent she’d worn when she worked for Justice Nolan. She’d casually stashed it with a few other old bottles of perfume next to old lingerie.

  With the cap still in one hand, Rachel sat on the edge of her bed and turned the bottle over several times as she contemplated what to do with it. She spritzed her left wrist with the scent and then gently rubbed her left wrist to her right. The wonderful aroma of orange blossoms and roses filled her senses and transported her back in time to those clerking days. Rachel had worn this every day back then—well, at least on workdays. She couldn’t recall when or why she had stopped using it.

  Rachel stood, put the cap back on, and placed the bottle in a prominent place in the center of her dresser. Time to start using the scent once more. It only seemed right, since she and Brady shared an office again.

  Since she had noticed his sandalwood scent, Rachel suspected that Brady would notice her perfume, even if he didn’t say one word about it.

  But maybe he would.

  Rachel quickly came to the unhappy conclusion that sharing chambers wasn’t going to be the same as when they clerked together. Back in those days, they had been confined to a library-like room that was big and rectangular. The dark wooden shelves lined with innumerable books made the area feel smaller. They each had their own side of the table, and their own computer. It was quaint, almost romantic.

  The same could not be said for the new arrangement.

  The courthouse workers had moved Rachel’s desk to the far left of the office, underneath the three tall windows that overlooked part of the courthouse square. She had insisted on having the windows, and Brady had capitulated to her demand. Rachel loved the windows and the abundant natural light they provided her office, but she had a more practical purpose in wanting to be near them: the courthouse A/C was notoriously unreliable. Being stationed in front of three tall windows had been a strategic choice as well as an aesthetic one.

  Contrary to her original flippant suggestion to string up a shower curtain or bed sheet, the workers had temporarily installed something much more practical—and ugly.

  Dividers.

  Yes, she was again working in a cube, or nearly so. Rachel had had her fill of cube life from working a few years in state government. So even though she was a judge, considered by many in her profession to be the pinnacle of a legal career, she was still in a tiny, cramped space with a fake wall right next to her.

  And Judge Brady Craft was right on the other side.

  Despite their ugly appearance, Rachel was grateful for the dividers since they kept Brady at more than arm’s length. Their plan to go to lunch the day after the ceiling had fallen on her head had been abandoned without comment, and in the ensuing weeks there had been no more incidents (to her knowledge) like the aftermath of the hair brushing. In fact, she and Brady rarely spoke. If she was on the bench, he was typically in his office, and vice versa. Sometimes they’d both be on the bench with one of them using the smaller courtroom on the first floor, the district courtroom usually used by Judge Forrest.

  But they hadn’t been able to completely avoid each other. They were actually barely on speaking terms after another huge fight over Brady’s office. The stupid renovations in the other room were going to take at least a month longer, for reasons which were not readily apparent. Rachel had wanted Brady to return to the grand jury room to u
se as his office, but he had refused. For Rachel, those damn renovations couldn’t get finished soon enough.

  She was already tired of such close quarters.

  Why did she have to start wearing that perfume again?

  Brady had noticed the scent the day after he’d brushed her hair.

  It was so subtle, and she was so distant after that episode—both physically and mentally—that at first he thought he was just imagining that aroma. But during the big argument they’d had over him going back to the jury room, she’d gotten in his face. And close enough to smell.

  Now she was mere yards from him, on the other side of a fake wall, and he could smell that damned perfume all the time.

  A small flicker of hope or whim or insanity fluttered in his stomach.

  Was she wearing that scent for a reason? To send him a message?

  Brady had no idea what to do.

  But he knew he needed to do something.

  Because Rachel Richards had not only invaded his space.

  She had invaded his thoughts.

  “What’s this?” Rachel asked.

  She had gone to the restroom shortly before lunch and when she returned to her office, Brady was there with bags of food.

  “Lunch,” he said, placing the food on the front of her desk. It appeared that he was setting up their little feast so that they could both eat by sitting in the two large wingback chairs. Brady’s tie was loosened and his shirtsleeves rolled up. She noticed his usually messy hair was uncharacteristically neat.

  Why was he being nice to her? Was he trying to make amends?

  If so, Rachel decided he was doing a good job.

  “I remembered you told me once that you loved Over a Barrel’s chicken salad,” Brady said, pulling out something wrapped in several layers of white paper.

  “That’s right,” she said, vaguely remembering making the passing comment. “But they don’t have it every day. In fact, they rarely have it.”

  “I asked them to make it,” Brady admitted.

  “You did? Why?”

  “Well, I knew you liked it.”

  She was stunned, then suspicious. “OK, Brady, what are you up to?” she demanded, fists on hips.

  He stopped in the middle of unwrapping a sandwich and looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’ve barely spoken recently and you come in here with one of my favorite things to eat?” she said with a voice laden with skepticism. “It doesn’t add up.”

  “So what? Can’t I just be nice to you?”

  “That remains to be seen,” she said. Instead of getting angry, he laughed, completely disarming her. “Well, I guess I can at least take you up on your generosity,” she said, smiling and glancing at the food.

  It was one of those days that the A/C was not working at full capacity. Rachel decided to ditch her bright red suit jacket; she’d kept it on the first part of the day since she hadn’t been on the bench and wearing the robe. But now it was so warm in the office it was foolish to keep the jacket on. She slipped out of it, revealing the simple red sleeveless sheath dress underneath. Rachel knew she looked good in that dress. It flattered her figure, but didn’t cling to her curves and it didn’t show any cleavage. It had a slight scoop neck, which was a nice feature on a warm day. Nice and professional, not suggestive.

  Rachel felt Brady’s eyes on her as she walked to her desk chair and placed the jacket over the back.

  “Mind if I open the windows?” she asked him. “It’s stuffy in here again.”

  “Go for it.”

  Rachel raised all three windows, sighed at the incoming breeze, and then fell into her desk chair. She picked up a stray piece of paper and began fanning herself with it. “Heat really tires me out,” she said, keeping her eyes closed and her head on the back of her chair. “But I prefer it to cold weather any day.”

  “I agree with you there,” he said.

  Then she suddenly opened her eyes, sat up in her chair, and began rummaging around in her desk drawer for something. “Ah! There’s one! Just what I need!” She raised both arms behind her head, and with one hand holding her hair, put her hair up with the elastic she held in the other hand. “Yeah, that’s better,” she said. “Should’ve just put it up to begin with today.” With long, delicate fingers, she smoothed the top and sides of her hair. “So,” she said, standing and clapping her hands together. “Let’s eat.”

  As they ate, they reminisced about their clerking days together. In the years they had practiced in Bourbon Springs, they had never gotten together simply to talk. It was wonderful; Rachel felt like she’d been transported back in time ten years to those days they were sharing the library table in Justice Nolan’s chambers. The conversation was easy, fun, and warm.

  One thing that didn’t come up in their discussion was much about their personal lives. Rachel started trying to recall whether Brady had dated anyone during the past few years, but no one came to mind. It was a small town; if Brady had a girlfriend, people would’ve known and there would’ve been talk. She remembered what Mira had told her when she had returned to town: Brady lived like a monk. During that same time, Rachel had dated a few guys, but those relationships didn’t last. Hannah had recently tried to pair her up with a cute pharmacist, but that had been a disaster. Although the guy was quite good looking, Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so bored. All the man wanted to talk about was himself, the FDA, and pharmacy regulations.

  Toward one o’clock, Sherry returned and poked her head into Rachel’s office as Rachel and Brady laughed over the recollection of one of Justice Nolan’s bad jokes. Rachel saw her secretary’s befuddled stare first, closely followed by Brady’s awareness of Sherry’s presence. She and Brady both stopped giggling, and Rachel felt ridiculously self-conscious, like she’d been caught by one of her parents doing something questionable.

  Brady looked at his watch and stood. “Well, I’ve got a suppression hearing at one in our courtroom on this floor,” he said as he began to adjust his tie. “Let me help you clean this up,” he offered, bending over to start tidying up the front of Rachel’s desk.

  “Oh, no need,” Rachel said. “You got lunch, so the least I can do is pick this up. Go on,” she urged.

  He thanked her, nodded to Sherry, and retreated to his side of the partition walls.

  Sherry said nothing but merely grinned at Rachel.

  “What?” Rachel whispered in an annoyed and demanding tone.

  Sherry remained silent, and the two women waited and listened to Brady on the other side of the faux-wall. He was shuffling papers, gathering things, and getting ready for court. Then Rachel heard the soft swishing of fabric and knew he was putting on his robe.

  “Hopefully this won’t take too long,” he said, his footsteps soft against the carpet as he left the inner office.

  The door to the courtroom creaked open and closed, and Brady was gone. Rachel faintly heard a bailiff calling for everyone to rise for Judge Craft, followed by the opening of court.

  “He’s got it bad,” Sherry said, grinning at Rachel.

  Rachel shook her head. “He brought lunch over, that’s all.”

  Sherry cocked her head. “Right. Just a lunch. A lunch in your office. And I assume he brought it—am I right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Did you know that he was going to do this?”

  “Well, no,” Rachel admitted.

  “So he probably knew your schedule was clear for lunch today,” Sherry noted. She looked at the remains of the lunch that still littered the desk. Then her eyes widened and she pointed. “Is that—no way!” she exclaimed. “Did he bring you chicken salad from Over a Barrel?”

  “Yes, he did, big deal,” Rachel sniped and scooped up the remaining trash of her impromptu lunch with Brady and tossed it in the can under her desk. She then took a seat behind her desk and gave Sherry a baleful look.

  “I’d say it is a big deal, considering you two could barely say a civil wo
rd to each other as of this morning,” Sherry said. “Like I said, he’s got it bad.”

  Rachel did not reply to the teasing and asked Sherry to go to the clerk’s office and bring her some files she needed. Sherry seemed to accept she was being dismissed, but she still wore a knowing smile as she left Rachel alone in her office.

  Rachel couldn’t ignore Sherry’s observation. Her secretary had a keen insight into human behavior.

  That meant Brady’s interest was more than professional, more than as a friend.

  And Rachel was willing to admit that she was—maybe—starting to have a thing for him, too.

  But she knew that sentiment wasn’t quite right. Her feelings weren’t a recent development.

  She’d had a crush on Brady Craft for years.

  Brady knew that the attorneys in the suppression hearing thought he was mad at them or in a really bad mood. Throughout the hearing, he barely said a word, and made only monosyllabic responses when necessary.

  But he wasn’t angry. He was distracted.

  Brady couldn’t stop thinking about Rachel.

  About the way that dress looked on her and showed off every curve in her body in a subtle, classy way.

  About how that same dress had tightened over her breasts when she’d raised the windows.

  About how he couldn’t stop looking at her neck after she’d put her hair up.

  About how the scent of her perfume had wrapped around him like an invisible net she hadn’t known she’d cast.

  Buying lunch had been a bit of a risk, but it had paid off; she hadn’t tossed him out of her office and seemed to enjoy herself with him, even if he had kept stealing looks at her. He’d thought for a moment she’d seen him blushing as he watched her putting up her hair, but she hadn’t seemed to notice or mind.

  It frustrated Brady that Rachel was oblivious to the impact she had on him. But what was the next step?

  Chapter 6