Secret Blend (Bourbon Springs Book 1)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  “Well, she called me yesterday and told me something crazy.”

  Rachel held her tongue, expecting Hannah to relate some cockamamie story Cassie passed on.

  “She’s been telling some tale about you hooking up with Brady Craft.”

  “What?” Rachel cried. She swallowed hard and could feel the blood draining from her face. Hannah nodded, looking sympathetic; she apparently thought she was being a good friend and making sure Rachel was aware of some vicious rumor.

  “Yeah, she said that late on the last night of the conference that she saw you and Brady together, like around midnight. Claimed you two came out of the woods together and were holding hands and then walked to your rooms. I told her she was nutbucket batshit crazy—my exact words— and that she’d better shut up.” Rachel said nothing, trying to figure out what to say as Hannah started spreading some cream cheese on a bagel. “But here’s the part where her wild story completely breaks down—she said that both of you then just stood outside your rooms, said ‘bye to each other, and went your separate ways.” Hannah shook her head and began looking around for a napkin. “That’s just stupid. If it’s a hookup, the parties in question would’ve gone into a room together. End of story.”

  Hannah looked at Rachel at the moment she was about to take a bite of the bagel, and Rachel knew that her face had given herself—and Brady—away.

  Hannah dropped the bagel but her mouth stayed open and her eyes widened until Rachel thought they must hurt from the strain.

  Rachel tried to think, to say something. She remembered that she and Brady had agreed that if they were discovered, they wouldn’t deny the fact. But they hadn’t discussed a strategy beyond admitting the truth if they were confronted with it.

  Hannah already knew the truth.

  And Rachel had no Plan B.

  Chapter 23

  “You…and Brady Craft?” she hissed. “Seriously? Seriously?” Hannah cried, her tone exponentially increasing in its shrillness with every word. She pushed her chair away from the table but didn’t get up. It looked as though she needed the distance, an actual physical space between Rachel and herself. “I can’t believe you’d hookup with him at Judicial College!” she cried. “I mean, how stupid is that, Rachel? You were bound to get busted! And in the woods? That’s kinky—but really?”

  Hannah stood and put her hands on her hips in a schoolmarmish fashion. Rachel readied herself for a lecture, but was relieved that Hannah’s wrath wasn’t as bad as she feared. Maybe she should’ve come clean with Hannah weeks ago. She had expected much worse from her friend.

  “You go off and bang my opposition and now you’ve got to work with him every day like nothing happened between you two? How can you do that, girl? When were you going to get around to telling me? And how the hell are you going to put a stop to the rumors that you had a fling with him?”

  Hannah didn’t see the full picture.

  That’s why she hadn’t gone ballistic.

  Yet.

  Time for the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  Rachel dreaded the necessary revelations she was had to make, but she was just as angry that Hannah assumed that her relationship with Brady amounted to nothing more than a one-night stand. Rachel stood, planted her feet widely apart, and held her hands in fists at her sides.

  “Because I didn’t have a fling with him, as you call it,” Rachel said.

  Hannah visibly relaxed. “Oh, God—are you saying it’s not true?” She put a hand on her chest, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I am so, so, sorry Rachel. I totally jumped to the wrong conclusion when I saw your reaction. I didn’t even give you a chance to say a word in your own defense. I’ll call Cassie right now and—”

  “I’m not having a fling with Brady,” Rachel interrupted.

  “Well, good to know,” Hannah said, apparently confused that Rachel was restating what she thought they had just established.

  “Hannah, Brady and I—” Rachel said, stumbling over her words and noticing how Hannah’s brow wrinkled when she used the term Brady and I.

  “What are you saying?” Hannah asked slowly, suspicion thick in her voice.

  Rachel exhaled a short sigh and spat it out.

  “Brady and I have been together for the past month or so. It’s a relationship, not a fling. We haven’t told anyone because we didn’t want it to impact the judicial race. And we didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially you. We were going to tell after the race was over.”

  Hannah’s expression was inscrutable.

  “So this is how it feels to be cheated on,” she said in a flat tone.

  “Cheated on? What the—?”

  “How the hell could you do this to me, Rachel?” Hannah screamed. Her voice rebounded throughout the building, and the pretense of calm acceptance was gone. “You’re my best friend!” Hannah cried, and the tears started. “Or you were.”

  Rachel took several steps backwards in the full face of Hannah’s unrestrained rage.

  “Hannah, I’m in lo—”

  “You’ve been screwing him all this time? All this time I’ve been sharing with you my thoughts and dreams and plans to be a judge?” Hannah said between sobs. “How convenient for you to say that ethics don’t allow you to help or care or even think about my campaign. Or was that just another lie?”

  “Lie?” Rachel said, and she started crying as well. “I never lied to you, Hannah. Never!”

  “You didn’t tell the truth! That hurts just as bad!”

  From the hallway several yards beyond them, at the edge of the café entrance, three people emerged. Bo Davenport, Hannah’s brother, led the way into the café. Tall, muscular, and dark-haired, Bo looked a little like Brady except Bo was paler and his hair wasn’t as curly. Closely following on his heels was Emma Davenport, Bo and Hannah’s widowed mother, and Lila McNee, the distillery’s neighboring landowner.

  Hannah spun around when she saw that Rachel was looking at something behind her.

  “Well, hello, all!” Hannah enthused, and held an arm out, gesturing toward Rachel. “Guess what Judge Richards just told me?”

  “Hannah, what’s going on?” Emma asked. “We were down the hall and heard you both.”

  Hannah ignored her mother’s concerned question.

  “Judge Richards has revealed that she and the right honorable Judge Brady Craft are in a relationship,” Hannah mocked, using little air quotes. “That’s right, my best friend and my judicial opponent apparently have been screwing around for the past several weeks!” Hannah turned on Rachel, who by now was sobbing. “Do I have that timeline correct, your honor?”

  Emma’s eyes widened and she put a hand to her mouth. Lila emitted a soft cry of surprise or disgust.

  “Hannah,” Bo said, casting a glance at the still-crying Rachel, “You need to stop.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hannah said, sneering at her brother. “We need to get the word out. This is big news for the campaigns!” Hannah looked back to Rachel. “I think the public has the right to know about the candidates. About their morals, their families, their fidelity, don’t you?”

  “Hannah, don’t do this,” Lila said softly.

  Rachel was sobbing so uncontrollably that she became unsteady on her feet. She grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself and Lila rushed to her side. Lila pulled a chair out for Rachel, took a seat next to her, and put an arm around Rachel’s shoulders.

  Hannah took a few short steps until she was standing directly in front of her former best friend. Hands on her hips, she tilted her head and plastered an ugly smirk across her face.

  “I get it, Rachel. He wanted to keep it a secret, right? Had that upright, law-and-order reputation to protect, didn’t he? And you went along with it.”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, it was my—”

  “Tell me, is he any good in bed? Is he really such a good fuck that you had to fuck me over instead?”

  “Hannah!” her mother exploded. “How dare you speak to
her like that!”

  Rachel doubled over. She was crying so hard that her entire torso hurt and she couldn’t bear to show anyone her face for a moment longer. Lila rubbed her back and said supportive little things.

  Hannah sniffed. “I need to get to work.” Rachel heard Hannah snatch her purse from the table. “I have a lot to do and there’s no one here I want to be around right now.” She strode across the hardwood floor until Rachel could no longer hear her footsteps.

  Inconsolable, Rachel remained with her face in her lap, and Lila and Emma gently pulled Rachel up into a better sitting position so they could talk to her. She had stopped crying, but only because she felt like she was going to collapse, and felt numb.

  “Rachel, are you good to drive?” Lila asked. She covered one of Rachel’s hands with her own.

  “I could take you to town. You could leave your car here,” Bo volunteered.

  Rachel managed to compose herself enough to decline Bo’s generosity. She looked at her watch. “I need to go,” she said, standing. “I have court this morning.”

  It took a few more minutes to convince her companions of her ability to operate a motor vehicle, and she left, accompanied to the front door by all of them. Before the door closed behind her, she distinctly overheard Emma saying she’d never been more ashamed of one of her children.

  Once in her car, Rachel fought off another bout of crying and pulled out her cell phone. Brady didn’t answer. Just as well. She was in such a confused and overwrought emotional state she doubted whether she would’ve been able to coherently convey what had happened.

  Instead, she sent a simple text.

  Hannah knows

  It’s bad

  By the time he reached the courthouse, Brady realized he’d left his cell phone at home. He checked the time; not enough of it to run back home before court to get the damn device. He could live without it until he had a chance to pop out at lunchtime—and maybe he could get Rachel to accompany him for a more than a bite to eat.

  Sherry was already at her desk when Brady walked into the office. Sherry asked—and a little too knowingly for his liking—how Judicial College was.

  “Five speakers and a day too long,” was his honest answer. “And if you ask Judge Richards the same question, I’ll bet you lunch she’ll give the same answer.”

  Sherry chuckled and Brady retreated to his office; in a few minutes, Sherry followed with a stack of orders for him to sign. After whipping through them, he got up and headed to the coat rack next to Sherry’s desk and retrieved his robe, which was hanging next to Rachel’s.

  “Looks like a long criminal docket this morning,” Brady said as he put on the robe. “I probably won’t be out of court until the middle of the morning at the earliest.”

  But Brady breezed through a spate of arraignments, motions, and guilty pleas and was off the bench a little earlier than he had anticipated. He reasoned that he’d pushed through and gotten his work behind him due to a combination of excitement and anxiety. He eagerly anticipated seeing Rachel, but he was also fretful about the purpose of her morning meeting with Hannah.

  With a little time on his hands before a pretrial conference, Brady thought it would be a good idea to get a box of donuts and put in an appearance in the clerk’s office. He’d seen Rachel do that once in the past few weeks, and knew that he needed to be seen as making a genuine effort to get to know the courthouse staff. Brady expected that an offering of fresh donuts would be welcome and get him a little further down the road as being seen as a nice guy.

  Although by mid-morning there were slim pickings when it came to the variety of donut choices at Over a Barrel, there were still enough of the sugary treats to fill two boxes. Brady was greeted like a hero when he walked into the clerk’s office with a large white box in each hand, and CiCi emerged from her office to take charge of the donuts and put them on a table next to a photocopier. Leaving the boxes, she returned to the public filing counter where Brady stood chatting with one of the deputy clerks.

  “If you bring us chocolate next time,” she said, “we’ll nominate you for sainthood.”

  He laughed. “I’m hardly a saint.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Brady turned and saw Hannah standing in the door to the clerk’s office. Hannah sauntered toward him, stopped, and stood a few feet away while Brady looked around and behind Hannah, expecting to see Rachel.

  “Looking for your girlfriend?” Hannah asked, crossing her arms over her considerable bosom.

  “Excuse me?” Brady said, nearly choking on his words.

  “I left Rachel at the distillery. I figured that’s who you expected to see with me, right?” Brady’s face flushed. “Aw, isn’t that cute?” Hannah cooed, and pointed to Brady’s visible embarrassment. “He’s blushing at the mere mention of her name! Look at that!”

  Brady was terrified and angry. How did Hannah know? Had Rachel told her?

  And where was Rachel?

  “I don’t recall Rachel blushing like that,” said Hannah as she scrutinized Brady’s face. “No, she got deathly pale when she realized I knew about your secret little affair.”

  CiCi’s jaw dropped and Brady saw her looking from Hannah to him, likely expecting to hear a denial of Hannah’s allegation.

  Recovered from the initial shock, his stomach was in knots and he knew he needed to try to take control of the situation before things got completely out of hand. “Hannah, where’s Rachel?” Brady asked.

  “I told you,” Hannah said breezily. She dropped her arms from her chest and raised her chin. “I left her at the distillery. Last time I saw her—and I hope it really was the last time—she was crying her eyes out and trying to explain away—”

  “Hannah, can we take this somewhere else, please?” Brady interrupted, hoping to forestall the revelation. He looked to his right and noticed that all the deputy clerks had completely lost interest in the donuts he had just delivered. All the clerks, including CiCi, were totally transfixed by the nasty exchange unfolding before them.

  “Guess what, everyone?” Hannah shouted over him, ignoring Brady’s plea.

  “Hannah, don’t…” Brady said feebly, but didn’t continue, accepting that he couldn’t stop the train wreck.

  “I had breakfast this morning with Judge Richards,” Hannah continued, ignoring Brady’s weak plea and addressing her rapt audience of shocked clerks. “I wanted to warn her about an ugly rumor,” Hannah said, and furrowed her brow. “But instead, she told me it was true! Can you imagine! And just what was that ugly rumor, you ask? Why, that Judge Richards and Judge Craft are more than just professional colleagues. In fact, they’re much, much more than that.”

  Chapter 24

  She turned to face Brady as she revealed the truth, and Brady stood there and readied himself to hear Hannah smear the name of the woman he loved. He didn’t care so much about himself, but Hannah had said she’d left Rachel in tears, so he knew Rachel was already hurting. Any further dissemination of existence of their relationship was going to be like pouring salt into an open wound.

  “That’s right!” Hannah said, spinning to face the clerks. “They’ve been screwing around for the past month or so! And they couldn’t even keep their hands and other parts off each other at Judicial College last week—”

  The clerks gasped in unison.

  “Hannah!” CiCi exclaimed, interrupting Hannah’s tirade. “Even if any of that crap is true,” and she shot Brady a glance of sympathy mixed with suspicion, “why are you doing this? Why announce your discovery of something so—so—personal?”

  “Because the good people of Craig County have the right to know what kind of judicial candidates they get to choose between when they go to the polls this fall,” Hannah declared. “On the one hand, there’s happily-married, boring-bank-attorney, little old me,” she said, and put a hand on her chest. “On the other hand, however,” she said, gesturing to Brady, “there’s Judge Craft, who’s been banging his officemate and m
y best friend behind my back.”

  “So what?” CiCi challenged her and came out from behind the filing counter. She stood with Hannah to her right and Brady on her left, looking like a mom breaking up a fight between siblings. “Why shouldn’t Judge Richards and Judge Craft—” and she looked to struggle for a polite way of putting her thoughts together. “Well, they’re both consenting adults, after all!”

  “You mean why should anyone care, besides the typical prurient interest that’s endemic to every resident in this little county?” Hannah hissed. CiCi opened her mouth, but Hannah got her words out first. “I’ll tell you why, Madam Clerk,” she said, and looked from CiCi to Brady. “Because they were deliberately keeping it from me! I wasn’t supposed to know that my best friend was screwing my opponent. And, like I told Rachel, I consider that nothing better than a lie. And I would certainly expect a judge—or two of them, for that matter—not to be liars. But alas, I was proven wrong.”

  Hannah’s accusations and revelations had quieted all in the office, and she looked at her audience with head held high. Then she turned once more on Brady.

  “I suppose you and Rachel never were going to tell me, were you? That tells me it has to be a completely physical thing, a friends-with-benefits situation. Rachel never would’ve kept her mouth shut if she’d really felt anything for you, and it’s not like she told me out at the distillery this morning that she loved you. Nope, didn’t hear her say anything remotely resembling that.”

  Brady felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him at Hannah’s revelation, and he could tell that Hannah enjoyed seeing him upset by her statements.

  She pressed her advantage.

  “Well, maybe the little idiot does love you,” Hannah allowed, “but then the question is obvious, isn’t it?” she asked, and paused for dramatic effect. “Do you love Rachel Richards?”

  Brady couldn’t speak and felt the eyes of everyone in the room upon him. He was still reeling and hurting from the news that Rachel hadn’t told Hannah that she loved him. Then Hannah had the audacity to start laughing very loudly at him, probably (and correctly) thinking that she’d gotten the better of him, but wrongly thinking that there was no way that he could really be in love with Rachel.