Distiller's Choice (Bourbon Springs Book 4)

by Bramseth, Jennifer

  There was nothing remarkable—until he came to the final résumé.

  “Jana Pogue,” he said aloud and peered at the paper in his hands.

  “You know her?” Hannah asked excitedly. “She looks pretty good on paper. Worked at Barton’s in Bardstown, did PR for them. And some time at Four Roses doing similar work, including event planning and coordination. She’s at Wilderness Trace down in Danville now.”

  “Yeah, I know her.” Walker dropped the résumé, his lips pressed together tightly.

  “How? Did you work with her at Barton’s or Four Roses when you were there?”

  “Yep, worked with her at both distilleries.” He shoved the papers across the table to Hannah. “But I was also married to her for about five years.”

  “Oh,” Hannah said, her eyes becoming wide. She picked up Jana’s resume, tucked some of her blond hair behind an ear, and studied the document further.

  “Look, if you’re not good with the idea of her working here, we can throw out the résumé right now, Walker,” Bo said, picking up his coffee. “Completely understandable.”

  “Lord, I couldn’t imagine working with Josh,” Hannah said, and a disgusted look passed over her face as she referenced her unfaithful ex-husband. “Fate worse than death.”

  “If she’s what this place needs, I have no problem with her working here,” Walker said. “And it’s not like we’d be working in the same office or anything.”

  “But you’d be seeing her from time to time,” Goose pointed out, “like at a meeting such as this one.”

  Walker shrugged. “So? I’m a big boy. She’s a big girl. And the divorce was a few years back. We’ve moved on.”

  Bo frowned at Walker. “Amicable divorce?”

  “As much as it could be,” Walker said. “We broke up a few times before we ended it. Figured out we weren’t meant to be married to each other. No other party, nothing like that. Just didn’t work out.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you right now she could be exactly what we’re looking for,” Hannah said. “We might advertise, but she does seem to be a good fit for us.”

  After a little more conversation about problems involving tourists in the distillery getting lost, the meeting broke up and Walker and Goose headed for the door, leaving Hannah and Bo to finish their breakfasts.

  “Oh, wait,” Goose said when he reached the door. “Need to talk to you two about a problem.”

  “Need me to stay?” Walker asked.

  “Not unless you have a magic solution for how to get rid of a massive mole infestation out near Rickhouse Nine.” Goose chuckled.

  “Can’t help you there,” Walker said and disappeared through the door.

  Goose closed the door behind Walker and waited a few seconds, listening for Walker’s retreating footsteps.

  “Okay, folks,” Goose said, and he placed his coffee back down on the table but didn’t retake his seat. “He’s full of shit.” Goose pointed over his shoulder at the door through which Walker had just departed.

  “Excuse me?” Hannah said.

  “That crap about being okay if his ex-wife came to work here… total bullshit, y’all.”

  “How do you know?” Bo asked and stood to get himself some more coffee.

  “I was sitting right next to the guy when he saw that résumé of what’s-her-name… Jana? Got stiff as a board. Totally uptight. He is not good with it, I’m telling you right now. I’m former law enforcement, and I have a decent grasp of body language.”

  “And what was he saying?” Hannah asked.

  “Well, a rough translation would be fuck no, in my semilearned opinion.”

  “It might not matter since it’s still early days on this. We might find ten or twenty more qualified people,” Bo said after refilling his coffee cup.

  “I hope so. Because if you do end up hiring her, I hope she’s damn near perfect.”

  “That’s a bit dramatic,” Hannah claimed.

  Goose retrieved his coffee cup from the surface of the table. “Write it down. It will not work out,” he declared and left the room.

  Chapter 4

  No way.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  How could she work here? With me?

  I feel like I’m finally free of her and now this?

  Walker retreated to his office in the distillery with his cup of coffee to sulk after getting the news about the possibility—he hoped it was remote—of his ex-wife coming to work at Old Garnet.

  He paced in the small space, and for once he wished he had a bigger office rather than a one-windowed room in the back of the distillery’s second floor. The indoor temperature was reaching unreasonable heights; there were two or three tubs full of fermenting mash, and they were steam cleaning two tubs. He was hot and bothered in both the mental and physical sense.

  Time to go outside.

  Time to call CiCi.

  Time to go to… what had she called it? His happy place?

  Fleeing his sauna-like office, Walker flew down the back stairs to the ground level and behind the building. Making sure to keep the door cracked open with a chunk of limestone that had fallen off the side of the structure, Walker exited and found the old half barrel to his left next to an overgrown honeysuckle bush. Walker brushed some leaves and debris from the top of the old barrel, pulled up the legs of his khakis, and took a seat with his cell phone in one hand.

  He’d never called CiCi simply to chat. Their calls had been entirely functional and necessary, such as when and how to meet for their Windmill outings. But it was time for that to change.

  “Walker?” CiCi answered.

  “Hi,” he said, putting a hand over his eyes. “I just called to see how you were doing.” It was true enough. He wanted to hear her voice and have her push away thoughts of Jana from his troubled mind.

  “It’s sweet of you to call and ask,” she said, which gratified and surprised him. “I’m fine, really. I met with Harriet early this morning about the audit.”

  He realized she thought he was calling to offer support, which he was happy to do. “Right. How did that go?”

  Dumb question, he thought to himself. She had a way of making him feel like a geeky teenager trying to ask the most popular girl to the homecoming dance.

  “Harriet did talk me down,” CiCi said. “She thinks the auditors will be here in a few weeks, but that’s a good thing. Means it will be over quick, and I certainly hope that’s the case. But sometimes they can take their time getting a final report out. That will be the real nail-biting time through all this.”

  Even though she was fretting, Walker loved hearing her voice. CiCi always sounded so alive, happy, and optimistic. All the things he wanted to be.

  “Would you like to go to dinner tonight?” he asked impulsively. “Just The Windmill, of course.”

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, and he braced himself for rejection for some trivial reason. “Both Rachel and Brady have trials today that are expected to go late. When that happens, I like to stay around the courthouse until the jury comes back. Never know what could happen.”

  Not exactly a petty reason, and it sounded like she’d wanted to meet him tonight.

  “Not sure I can wait to see you until Saturday,” he said before thinking. How did he let that slip out? It was true, but something like that was bound to spook her.

  “Well, you might not have to wait that long, Mr. Cain,” she said without missing a beat. “I’ll be out at the distillery on Thursday for lunch with Hannah and Lila. They already want to start planning Rachel’s baby showers, and I’m supposed to be there.”

  “Sounds like a select group. I’m not about to crash that party.”

  “But there’s no reason you can’t walk by and say hello if you want. If it’s true you can’t wait to see me, that is.”

  “Oh, that’s true,” Walker admitted. She was flirting with him—finally!—and he was more than willing to play along. “And I hope we’re still on for Saturday at The Windmill.”

&n
bsp; “Absolutely,” she said. “I think on Saturday they’re supposed to have strawberry pie. Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Me neither, Walker thought to himself as visions of large strawberries on the tip of CiCi’s tongue popped into his mind.

  “Thanks for letting me tag along,” Harriet told CiCi as the two women got into CiCi’s Mini Cooper, parked in her reserved spot on the courthouse square. Being the elected clerk had its privileges, and having a reserved parking space was one of them, even though she rarely drove to work since she lived only a block away. But that Thursday morning she’d driven the short distance since she’d known she was headed out of the downtown area in the middle of the day.

  “Glad to have you, but be aware that Hannah and Lila will likely ask you to help plan Rachel’s showers.”

  “Showers?” Harriet asked as she fastened her seat belt.

  “You know Hannah,” CiCi said, pulling out of the spot and heading north on Main Street. “Always go big.”

  Harriet had asked to briefly meet during lunch that Thursday to review some documents, but CiCi had told her she needed to head to the distillery for the lunch meeting. To CiCi’s pleasant surprise, Harriet asked to come along, saying she needed to deliver some documents to Hannah and Bo and had other business at the distillery as well.

  It was a hot early May day, affording a pleasant drive through the rolling Bluegrass of central Kentucky. As they neared the distillery going north on Ashbrooke Pike, the smell of the mash greeted them as the jewellike green fields rolled by. The distillery was busy again that afternoon, although not as bustling as it had been the previous Saturday.

  “Been a few months since I’ve been here,” Harriet remarked upon entering the lobby. She looked around admiringly at the light-filled space which was filled with chattering tourists. “This is actually quite a treat.”

  CiCi and Harriet walked across the lobby together, chatting about the upcoming BourbonDaze festival over the sound of Harriet’s high heels clicking loudly on the hardwood floor. How the woman could always look so put together was remarkable. In fact, she couldn’t understand why Harriet wasn’t a model and off in exotic locales rather than practicing law in tiny Bourbon Springs. That day, Harriet looked her usual stunning self: her sleek black hair was up in a tight bun, and she was wearing a black suit with a knee-high skirt and red blouse underneath. Classy and very lawyerly. By contrast, CiCi was dressed more casually in a black knit skirt and teal twinset and sandals.

  From the corner of her eye, CiCi caught sight of Goose Davenport standing off to the far right at the entrance to the hallway that led to some of the offices. She waved to him, but he failed to wave back, and for a moment she thought he was blowing her off—although she could think of no reason why Goose would be so rude to her. Then she realized Goose hadn’t actually seen her even though he seemed to be looking straight at her; the man only had eyes for Harriet.

  She doubted whether Goose could see it from a distance, but CiCi put the biggest smirk on her face she could manage and continued to head in the direction of the café with Harriet beside her, who had not noticed Goose’s presence. They had no trouble finding Hannah and Lila sitting near a window overlooking Old Crow Creek.

  “So you want in on this shower-planning fun?” Lila asked Harriet after greeting her.

  “Just how many showers are we talking about?” Harriet asked in response as she handed an envelope to Hannah, who looked as though she expected it.

  “I’m thinking three,” Hannah said.

  “You’re never going to get Rachel to agree to that!” CiCi exclaimed. “We barely got her to agree to the one bridal shower!”

  “Okay, okay,” Hannah conceded. “Two. One planned that she knows about and the other could be a surprise.”

  “Is it really a good idea to give a pregnant woman a surprise baby shower?” Lila asked. “I mean, when you’re pregnant, don’t you want to cut down on surprises?”

  “Not the fun stuff,” Hannah insisted.

  At that moment, a café worker came to the table and deposited several boxed lunches and drinks. The group soon was happily consuming chicken salad sandwiches on a variety of breads.

  “Damn, this is good!” CiCi exclaimed as she struggled to return her very large sandwich to the box. “I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this on the menu.”

  “That’s because it’s not,” Hannah said. “We’re testing a few new things. Lila’s idea,” and Hannah nodded to her cousin-in-law, who was soon to be her sister-in-law.

  “Please put this on the regular menu,” Harriet urged in agreement. “People would flock here just for the food.”

  “That’s part of the plan,” Lila said. “We’re thinking about putting a few fancier choices on the café menu.”

  “All for that,” CiCi said as she took another bite and watched as Goose entered the café.

  The man could not tear his eyes away from Harriet, but CiCi suspected she was the only one to have noticed the one-way attraction. The other women at the table were focused on their meals and the conversation and not paying Goose one bit of attention.

  “Give it up, CiCi,” demanded Hannah just as Goose disappeared into the café line. “How are things with Walker? He seems to be happier than usual these days.”

  “We’re sort of going out, I guess,” she said noncommittally.

  “Sort of going out? How many times have you two been to The Windmill?” asked Lila. “Ten? Twelve? Twenty?”

  “Not that many!”

  “Is that the only place you two go?” Hannah asked. “It’s nice enough, and… the pie is to die for. Kyle and I go there a lot.”

  “That’s the only place so far,” CiCi said, choosing not to reveal the date she had with Walker at the Old Talbott Tavern for the next weekend.

  But there was no fooling Hannah Davenport.

  “So far? Sounds like something’s afoot,” Hannah said. CiCi reluctantly revealed their next lunch date at The Windmill and the dinner date at The Tavern. “Oh, The Tavern!” Hannah sighed. “Haven’t been there in so long! If they still have it, be sure to get the pot roast. Melts in your mouth! And order the bourbon bread pudding, of course.”

  “But what if it’s not made with Old Garnet?” CiCi asked.

  “Get it anyway and get a shot of Garnet to soak it,” Hannah reasoned as Lila nodded. Harriet did not participate in this banter but seemed happy to eat in silence and listen to the chatter. “So you finally have a thing going with Walker,” Hannah continued with approval in her tone. “About damn time. Man’s been eyeing you for months.”

  “We do not have a thing,” CiCi objected over the giggles of Hannah and Lila. “I… well… I guess we’re thinking about it,” she stammered.

  “Thinking about having a thing,” Hannah said slowly as she nodded her head. “You know, Lila, a thing, like you and Bo had at first.”

  Lila looked scandalized, and her mouth dropped open. “Yeah, just like you and Kyle, right?”

  “Ladies!” CiCi interjected, not expecting to see Hannah and Lila get into a silly verbal tussle. “Walker and I have been out a handful of times. That’s it.”

  “Handful? What’s he managed to get his hands full of so far, CiCi?” Hannah asked, making Lila giggle.

  CiCi frowned at Lila. “Seriously? Are you turning into her or something?” she asked, and dipped her head in Hannah’s direction.

  “I think I am,” Lila admitted. “It’s fun.”

  “Not when you’re on the wrong end of that tongue of hers,” CiCi said pointing at Hannah

  “Back to Walker,” Hannah interrupted. “Who cares how many times you’ve been out? Numbers don’t really matter, do they? For example, one time before they actually started dating, I caught Bo and Lila in the tasting room after he’d given her a special private tour and—”

  “Hannah!” cried Lila. “Shut it!”

  “Told you so,” CiCi said, nodding at Lila. She picked up her drink as Hannah laughed so hard tears leaked from t
he corners of her eyes and smeared her mascara.

  “That happened to be our first kiss, if it really must be said,” Lila said. She was now a deep shade of red but smiling.

  Hannah’s face brightened, and she stopped her giggling. “Really? That’s so sweet! I didn’t know that! And for the record, I didn’t actually see you kiss!”

  Now it was CiCi’s turn to laugh as Harriet watched in mild shock.

  “How the hell did we get so off topic?” Lila demanded to know. “I thought we were talking about her,” and she pointed to CiCi, “and the thing she’s got going with our master distiller.”

  “I don’t have a thing!” CiCi protested.

  “But do you want a thing?” Harriet asked, surprising everyone with the query. “Sorry. I just had to get a word in edgewise here. The rest of you were having way too much fun, and the lawyer in me couldn’t resist asking a question.”

  Lila and Hannah were in stitches, with the latter grabbing a napkin to wipe away the tears streaming down her face.

  “I… I’m willing to find out. There. Everyone happy now?” CiCi picked up her sandwich while the others laughed.

  “What’s so funny over here?” Goose strode up to the table with a small white bag in one hand and a fountain drink in the other.

  “Speaking of things,” CiCi muttered before taking a bite of her sandwich, causing Hannah to shoot her a glance.

  “Girl talk,” Lila told Goose and smiled at Hannah, who kept laughing.

  Goose offered general greetings to the group, but his eyes lingered on Harriet.

  “What are you doing around here?” Harriet asked Goose.

  “I work here,” he said proudly.

  Harriet’s eyes bulged. “Since when?”

  “Oh, sorry,” Hannah interjected. “I thought you knew. I’m sure we mentioned it to Bruce and Jon, but I guess you were out of the loop on some of the personnel matters since you don’t handle that work for us. Goose is now our director of security and groundskeeping.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” Harriet said, addressing Goose and smiling. “I knew you weren’t at the police department any longer, but I thought you’d gotten a security job out of town. Congratulations. Nice that the Davenports keep it in the family.”