by Kris Calvert
“What,” I began in a breathy gasp, “are you talking about? Look, I know you’re upset. I understand you’re upset, but you ruined me, Win. Do you understand? You ruined me. And now you want me to set all of that aside because now…now you need me? We both know that once this is over, you’ll go back to your old ways. Maybe not right away, but eventually. It’s like you said when you broke up with me—you’re not made for the long haul.”
“Ginny,” he began, his voice still a whisper. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do, Win. Look, I’m sorry,” I said, taking his face in my hands and forcing him to look me in the eye. “I’m sorry your father is dead. I’m sorry your little sister is now in a relationship with a man thirty-some years older than she is, I’m sorry you didn’t have the best childhood—I am. But mostly I’m sorry I wasn’t enough woman to make you see how amazing you truly are.”
“What?” he asked. “No.”
I shook my head at him, brushing a blonde ringlet from his forehead. “It’s okay. I’ve come to terms with it. I have. But I can’t go down that road again. I’d be enough for you today and maybe tomorrow or the next day, but the shine will eventually wear off our relationship and you’ll be searching for a sparkly new toy.”
“Ginny, no. It’s not like that,” he said, placing his hands over mine, taking them from his cheeks. “It’s not like that at all.”
I stared him in the face as he threaded each of his hands in mine, dropping them to fill the tight space between us. My heart was beating so fast I could feel it pulsating the blue oxford shirt across my breasts. The veins in Win’s neck began to throb and I watched his Adam’s apple sexily glide up and down as he swallowed. A whisper away from my lips, he dropped his shoulders, opening his mouth to speak.
“Ginny, I –”
“Good morning, every—” Lena rushed into the kitchen, stopping in her tracks at the sight of us toe to toe—hand in hand, “one.” She finished her broken thought, giving us both a percipient stare.
Without hesitation, I pulled away from Win, only to have to him grip my right hand even tighter. He allowed me to step aside, but he refused to let me go.
7
WIN
“Good morning Lena,” Ginny began. “I need to speak with you as soon as you can give me some time.”
“Okay,” Lena said with a nod, focusing her attention back to me. “We need to meet with the funeral home this afternoon—to make arrangements.”
I wanted to tell her I didn’t care. I wanted to yell at her. She didn’t ask my opinion on sleeping with our father’s best friend, why would she ask me what I wanted for our father’s funeral? “Whatever you decide is fine with me.”
“Winnie.” Her voice was childlike and the high pitched whine was grating on my nerves and hangover. The problem was, I still felt as if I needed to handle Lena with kid gloves. It was a delicate balance that I could never master—expressing my true feelings without sending her over the edge and into another state where her eyes were lackluster, downcast and holding not one ounce of promise. It was a tightrope act and I was as clumsy as they came.
“They’ll be here around two. We can have the funeral in the old family chapel and then the reception at Winter Haven. I only hope the caterers can pull something really wonderful together on such short notice.” Lena placed her hands together as if she was praying, pressing them to her lips with a scowl. “I usually like a couple of weeks with them to go over menus.”
“Reception?” I realized as soon as I said the word as a question I was in for a very long explanation that would culminate with me being an asshole.
“Yes, Win. A reception. I know you didn’t like Daddy, but there are a lot of people who did and they will want to pay their respects.”
I began nodding as soon as she started her tirade. It was my usual tactic while at home. Just agree. Don’t make waves. All of it would be over soon. The only thing I wanted to take back with me from Winter Haven was Ginny, and right now that was going about as well as my conversation with Lena. “You’re right. I know you’re right,” I’m just trying to process all of this.”
“You’re trying to process. You?”
Lena’s tone turned sarcastic and I hoped she wasn’t gearing up for one of her lectures. I had a few things I wanted to air out too—number one on the list was banging our dad’s best friend who was thirty some years her senior. “Yes, me.”
“Win, just a day ago I found Daddy—” Lena paused to catch her breath for a moment as the tears began to fall. “Dead. Can you cut me a little slack?”
“I’m going to leave you two to discuss family business,” Ginny said, taking her coffee cup and heading for the door.
“C’mon, don’t go, Ginny.” Sarcasm dripped from my lips. “It’s good you see the kind of messed up crap that goes on around this house—around this place,” I said, melodramatically circling my hands. “Look Lena, I love you. You’re my sister and I care about you. But for the love of God, can’t you see how wrong and twisted all of this is? Dad was murdered exactly the same way Mom was twenty-three years ago. There’s still blood all over the main staircase, you’re sleeping with a man who was his best friend and what you’re really worried about is how the caterer will work on short notice? That’s insane.”
Lena dropped her face into her hands and began to cry. Looking to the floor I sighed, waiting for my next tongue-lashing. Whether it was coming from Lena or Ginny had yet to be determined.
The three of us stood silent in the kitchen and I wondered if my exchange with Lena was enough to prove to Ginny my family was dysfunctional. She didn’t look my way, only watched my sister from the corner of her eye.
“You’re an asshole, Win,” Lena said as she walked toward the door. “And I can’t believe you called me insane. I know I’m crazy, Win. Right? Everyone knows I’m crazy!”
Lena stormed out. Ginny shook her head at me and walked away without saying a word.
I stood alone in the kitchen, staring out the floor to ceiling window behind the breakfast table, trying to gather my faculties and calm down. I took a cleansing breath and looked out at the farm and distillery. It was all so beautiful in the morning fog. Too dark to appreciate it last night, I sighed at the thought of generations of Winterbourne men breaking their backs and testing their wills to keep the stills running through wars, prohibition and government regulations.
Part of me wanted to come back to Valley Springs and like my grandfather and his before him, learn the business from top to bottom. Now that my father was gone, I wondered how far I could take the brand. We made the finest bourbon in Kentucky and therefore, the world. Between our unique blend of corn, wheat and rye and the unmistakable advantage of our limestone rich water in Kentucky, I could take Winter Bourbon global.
The other part of me wanted to sell and walk away. I could keep a place in Kentucky as a refuge from the city, but I wouldn’t have the headaches of running the day to day business or the legacy of Winter Haven hanging over me. Whatever I chose, I knew I wanted Ginny by my side for the rest of my life. At present, I didn’t think she even wanted to be in the same room with me.
Dad and Magnus were the masterminds behind the back office, leaving overseeing the stills and barreling process to the supervisors. The whole lot of them were watched like a hawk by Cee Cee. The old man protected the bourbon business his ancestors forged out of old fashioned ingenuity and grit like a mother grizzly protecting her cubs.
Cee Cee didn’t trust my dad, let alone Magnus Page. In fact, I was unsure of whom my grandfather trusted—Vernon, maybe me. Lena never showed any real interest in the business side of things. She acted more as an ambassador to the Winter Bourbon brand, showing up whenever and wherever she was needed and when she felt up to it. That usually meant social occasions and sponsored events. At this point I didn’t know who would take over the business or what the future of Winter Bourbon might look like.
The spring sunshine was beaming through the window
and I left the kitchen and walked out the back entrance and onto the property. The winding paths that lead to the stills, labeling and packaging areas as well as quality control and the many rickhouses that held the endless barrels of aging bourbon, dotted the landscape below. Except for the main estate, all the structures on the property were painted dark brown—although they looked black. Instead of fighting the charring of the buildings from the the ethanol burning off during the bourbon making process, the Winterbournes just went with it and painted everything brown with the exception of the doors. The entrance to every building on the property was gold—an homage to the gilded doors that were the grand entrance to Winter Haven.
I looked to the bank of golf carts charged and ready for use by anyone who needed to get around the property without walking. I’d need to go back inside the house, shower, deal with the investigation and then the funeral arrangements. What I wanted was to simply stand in the Kentucky air and breathe.
“Do you need a cart, sir?”
I opened my eyes and turned to greet the voice. A blonde headed security guard in his twenties was dressed in what looked like a police officer’s uniform, packing a sidearm at his waist. The gold W patch on his left breast let me know he was official security. “No. I think I’ll walk.”
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I wondered when we started arming security guards with Glocks. “Thanks anyway,” I replied, taking notice of his name—John—also embroidered on the shirt.
I made my way down the steep path that led to the first building—the fermenting house. Opening the door, I watched the employees checking on the hundred-year-old cypress vats filled with sour mash do a double-take at my presence. The distiller’s beer fermenting in the vats made the entire building feel like a sauna and smell like bread rising.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said looking to one of them.
“No, not at all…ah, Mr. Holloway.”
“I was just taking a stroll this morning and thought I’d stop in.”
“Of course,” he said. “And let me say on behalf of everyone how sorry we were to hear about your father. He was a real nice guy.”
I gave the man a handshake and a pat on the back, but I knew he was lying. No one liked my father. He was a bastard to work for and an asshole to anyone he didn’t think worthy of his time and attention—and that list was long.
“Your granddaddy was just in here. Were you lookin’ for him?”
I wasn’t, but the idea of talking to Cee Cee alone quelled my anxiety about the day ahead of me. He always had the right amount of wisdom and common sense to settle my scattered mind.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where he was headed, would ya?”
“Check the stillhouse. He’s pretty methodical on how he makes his daily rounds.”
“He’s down here every day?”
The surprise in my voice was amusing not only to him but every other worker. “Why, yes sir,” he answered with a huge smile. “There’s not much that keeps Mr. Cecil from working.”
I was at first, taken aback. But then again not at all surprised at Cee Cee. He was one of the strongest men I’d ever known. The Winterbourne stock was proud and tenacious and I knew my bull-headed resolve had a lot to do with my DNA. I also knew I came by my ability to be an ass honestly too—although it was the Holloway side of the family I had to thank for that. “I appreciate it fellas.”
“Anytime, Mr. Holloway.”
“Please, call me Win.”
“Good to have you home, Mr. Win.”
I opened the back door to the first building and surveyed all that was below, hoping to spy Cee Cee either entering or leaving one of the houses. I wasn’t disappointed. I shouted to him as he exited the first of the fifty barrel buildings on the property but he didn’t hear or see me. Suddenly, I wished I’d taken the golf cart.
Picking up my pace, I jogged in my loafers and wrinkled clothes to the bottom of the hill and into the building. The damp smell of the barrels aging took me back to my childhood—running around the farm and playing hide and seek inside the rickhouses. Cool nights and the warm days of spring in Kentucky were only a part of the aging process. The cold winters and scorching hot summers all played a role in the perfected Winterbourne technique for aging bourbon. Right now the building smelled like a mixture of charred white oak and cool earth.
“Cee Cee!” I called out through the rows of stacked barrels. “Cee Cee are you in here?”
Without saying a word, he stepped from the passageway and into a strong beam of sunshine leaking through the top of the hundred-year-old building.
“Hey,” I said, walking toward him. “I was looking for you.”
“Were you?”
Looking at my grandfather in the sunlight, I could see the age on his face. I’d never thought of him as someone who was old—he’d never acted like an old man even though he finally was one. I only thought of him as wise. At ninety-four, his life was beginning to show on the outside everything he’d overcome on the inside.
“I wanted to speak with you,” I said, leaning into a barrel and feeling the rough oak under my palm.
“About what?” he asked, turning his back on me to continue in his morning routine.
“What do you mean about what? About everything that’s happened here.”
“You’ve never cared what happened here before, why start now?”
Hurrying to catch up with him as he walked the building to eyeball each barrel of bourbon, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Wait. Please?”
He turned and looked me over from head to toe. “How’s life in the big city?”
I shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”
Cee Cee continued to walk and I trailed along knowing there was no other way to talk with him but to follow. He had no intention of slowing down for me—not today—not any day. “Who’s the pretty FBI agent leavin’ you with your John Thomas in your hand?” he asked with a gruff.
“You mean Ginny? Yeah,” I sighed. “I was just trying to embarrass her. Sorry.”
“You did a damn fine job, son—” he said before turning to face me again. “Embarrassing yourself. You weren’t raised to act like that and you know it.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now tell me what you really want Win. I’m old and I only have so much time left on this earth. I have no intention of wasting it on anyone who doesn’t respect themselves enough to act like they’ve got some sense.”
“Yessir.”
Suddenly I slipped back into my familiar southern drawl—the one I mostly used to lure women in the city back to my apartment.
“What’s goin’ on with Lena and Magnus? Did you know they were in a relationship?”
“Yup.”
“Did Dad know they were together?”
“Yup.”
“And he approved of it?” I asked. “I mean, it’s ridiculous. He’s more’n thirty years older than she is.”
“You’re assuming your daddy cared what Lena was up to.”
I paused. Cee Cee made a valid argument. Dad didn’t care. “I see where you’re going with this.”
“You can’t see anything, boy because you’ve got your head too far up your own ass. Open your eyes. There’s a whole world out there you know nothin’ about because you’re too worried about yourself. You left and never looked back and that’s fine, but if you’re not going into the family business, then at least be good at what you are doing.”
“I am an excellent agent, Cee Cee. You may not know it, but I—”
“Yeah yeah yeah,” he replied, using his hand as a sock puppet. “All talk boy. A man is known by his deeds, not his words. Now, I know you’ve been gone a long time and have lost your way but there’s a time to cast away stones, and there’s a time to gather stones together.”
“I get it, I get it. Ecclesiastes three, four.” If there was one thing I knew from growing up at a parochial boarding school, it was the Bible. “What are you really trying to say to me, Cee Cee?”
“So you had a rough childhood,” he rasped. “Lots of kids do—and they don’t have the benefit of a trust fund to catch them when they screw up. Grow up, Win. Be the man you’re supposed to be. Your family needs you to straighten some things out. So do it. Don’t walk away from it. You’ve walked away from everything that’s good and decent in your life, including that FBI agent back there,” he said pointing toward the house. “Yeah, I know all about her. I’m silver, but I’m a silver fox. There’s nothing that goes on at Winter Haven that I don’t know about.”
Suddenly ashamed of myself, I looked to my feet. He was right. I knew he was right. I didn’t want to run away from my life, but old habits are hard to break. An emotional pit of contempt and self-deprecation formed in my stomach. I realized, without my grandfather saying it, my saint of a mother wouldn’t be too pleased with me. And I’d only ever wanted to make her proud.
“So now what?” I asked.
“Take responsibility son. Own it. Believe in it. If you don’t, nobody else will.”
“Cee Cee,” I said, my throat tight with a twisted knot of emotion. “Just out of curiosity, why did you wait until now to tell me all of this?”
“There’s a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”
8
GINNY
Standing at the foot of the grand staircase, I examined each blood stain, taking pictures with my own camera. I had the official photos, but soon the rent-a-goons from Louisville would be back and the evidence would be gone—a special cleaning service removing any sign of the gruesome death.
My jacket pocket buzzed and I answered quickly when I saw it was Agent Powell back in New York. “Grace,” I answered, looking around to see if I needed to make my way outside for privacy.
“Agent Grace. How’s it going?”
“Okay, sir. I’m meeting with the team from Louisville in a half an hour and I’m interviewing the family members and staff one by one today—that is as soon as I’ve given the Kentucky boys some leg work to do.”