Distiller's Choice (Bourbon Springs Book 4)

by Bramseth, Jennifer

  Walker shot a glance at a wall clock near the door to the back deck. “If it’s already four o’clock, this must be afternoon tea.”

  “I suppose it is,” she said. “Kentucky style.”

  “In that case, where’s the bourbon?” he asked, making her laugh. “And are we still going to make that cornbread tonight?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “A little too hot for it today.”

  He shrugged and picked up his lemonade glass and poured some for himself and CiCi.

  They talked about Walker’s upcoming jury duty; he was to report on Monday morning.

  “Have you ever been on jury duty?” he asked, taking another cookie from the plate between them.

  “Sure have. Can’t say the system is rigged when the clerk herself—the one who runs the jury pool system—gets called for jury duty.”

  “You pulled your own name for jury duty?”

  “Well, the computer did,” she admitted. “I’ll admit I was a little shocked when I got called. And I actually sat on a criminal case. The attorneys in the case obviously knew who I was and probably could have gotten me stricken from the panel, but they didn’t. I’m glad I got to serve. It was a good experience and a funny one too.”

  “Funny?”

  CiCi laughed. “Yeah, when Judge Richards saw me sitting in the gallery waiting with the other jurors, she was baffled why I was there. She actually called me up to the bench to ask me whether anything was wrong. When I told her that I’d been called, she burst out laughing.”

  Walker finished his snack and asked to use the restroom, and CiCi pointed him to the bathroom off the hall between the kitchen and front of the house. While he was gone, CiCi cleared the lemonade pitcher and cookies from the table and placed them on the kitchen countertop next to the spot where Walker had deposited his sunglasses, keys, and phone. CiCi stood at the edge of the counter, looking out the large windows which afforded a wonderful view of the backyard. Contemplating how nice it might be later that evening to sit outside with a glass of Old Garnet and a book, she reached for the lemonade pitcher and accidentally knocked Walker’s phone to the floor. She hastened to pick it up, hoping it wasn’t damaged, and as she retrieved it from the floor the phone vibrated and a message appeared.

  Even though the text had only briefly flashed on the screen, there was plenty of time for CiCi to see it.

  And plenty of time for it to be burned into her memory.

  So great to see you today. Think I’m going to get the job. Please call me. Miss you.

  All his protestations to the contrary, there most certainly was something between Walker and Jana. And even if he thought it was over—and she wasn’t completely sure that she believed him about the nature of his feelings for his ex—Jana didn’t seem to be done with him.

  She didn’t need this kind of complication in her life, and she felt like a fool for getting herself into this position. There were reasons for rules—they’re supposed to protect people from harm—and she’d gone off and violated the rule she’d created to guard herself.

  Walker returned to the kitchen and startled her; she still had the phone in her hand, which she hastily replaced on the counter next to his keys.

  “Sorry. I’m such a klutz. Knocked your phone off the counter trying to put this away,” she said, rushing to return the lemonade to the fridge.

  “Thought I heard a phone hitting the floor. I drop the thing all the time myself.”

  He retrieved his items and announced his departure.

  How should she handle this? She wasn’t sure she wanted to go out with Walker again, no matter how hot and bothered he’d gotten her when they were behind the distillery. She’d thought she could deal with the divorce thing; but the divorce thing had gotten right into her face when she’d met the ex at the visitors’ center. Even though Walker had talked her off the ledge after that uncomfortable encounter, seeing the text message had pushed her back over it.

  “Yeah, me too.” She walked into the hall toward the foyer, not looking at him.

  “Uh… something wrong?” He trailed her to the front of the house.

  “No, I just… I think I may need to beg off our date for The Tavern,” she said.

  “But I thought that—”

  “I’d like to put that off for a little while.”

  “Okay,” he said, conceding to her request. “But what about The Windmill next Saturday instead?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and opened the door for him.

  “I hope you’ll reconsider about The Tavern,” he said as he stepped onto the porch.

  “I’ll think about it. And The Windmill.”

  As she shut the door behind him, it felt as though she’d not only kicked him out of her house, but out of her life.

  What the hell had happened back at CiCi’s place? The question buzzed in Walker’s brain all the way home, but he had no answer. Once he arrived back at his apartment, he dropped his keys and sunglasses on a small table in the foyer of his apartment and headed for his couch. He was tired and needed to think. And he had a notion to call CiCi and simply ask her what the hell was going on.

  He tumbled onto the couch, pulled out his phone, and knew at once what her problem had been.

  No wonder CiCi had given him the bum’s rush out the door. She’d seen Jana’s text as she’d picked up the phone and assumed the worst.

  He had to nip this in the bud and called Jana for the first time in years. She picked up on the third ring.

  “Hi. Didn’t expect you to call so soon,” she said cheerily.

  “Jana, why’d you text me? What do you want?”

  “And hello, to you too,” she snapped back. “I only wanted to say hi and talk to you. Because it looks like we’re going to be working at the same place again. Thought you might want a heads-up.”

  “I didn’t really need one,” he said. “But that’s not all you put in the message. You said you missed me.”

  “Well, I guess I do,” she said softly. “It’s been a while since I saw you, so that sentiment was real.”

  Walker knew how she worked. He’d gotten tired of that game and had finally called it quits on the marriage after a few reconciliations—and her final betrayal that he could not get over. He’d hoped that a divorce would end the cycle.

  “Jana, why are you interested in this job?” he asked. “I thought you were working in Danville.”

  “I did work there. But Wilderness Trace is eliminating my position, so it’s not like I had a choice to stay put unless I wanted to stop eating.”

  “And you just had to come to Old Garnet? Really?”

  “Yes, really. I happen to be qualified, live in the county, and am in desperate need of a job. I’m sorry if it upsets your little world that I might be around, but that’s just too damned bad if it does.”

  “You live in the county?”

  “I live out in Mackville, near the county line. Made the commute to Danville shorter than living in Bourbon Springs.”

  So she’d moved to Craig County and he hadn’t even known it.

  Was she really going to try to restart the cycle of break up and make up? The question was whether he could resist the pull she still had on him. She was, after all, someone he had loved. He’d promised to spend the rest of his life with her and she with him. They had a past, and there was no ignoring it.

  And some small part of him would always be wondering whether he’d done the right thing, even though in his eyes she’d done the wrong thing and he knew he’d never get over the hurt.

  “Look, Walker, I’m not back trying to get into your life if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “You nailed it.”

  “Don’t worry. I know we won’t be going down that road again. But we can work together, can’t we?”

  “Looks like that’s what’s going to be expected of us,” he said. “But whether we can live up to those expectations is a different story.”


  The scraping, the scratching of the key against a lock, was what she heard first, followed by footsteps on the carpet. She’d hoped Jeff would come home early. CiCi felt terrible—the cramps were particularly bad that month—and she simply needed a little TLC.

  But the footsteps were not only of one person.

  Then she heard the giggle of a woman.

  “C’mon, Brynn,” whispered her husband. “CiCi will be home soon.”

  “Just gotta get my… there it is! That lipstick!”

  “Not that you should be needing it tonight. If you put it on, it’ll just be a waste.”

  The giggle again, followed by some low moans.

  “Let’s get out of here, babe,” said Jeff.

  The door closed.

  She couldn’t move for several seconds, then fury propelled her from bed. CiCi reached the window in time to see a couple embracing by a car in the parking lot of the apartment complex. The security light from the building cast a harsh glare down on the couple, and there was no doubt CiCi was looking at her husband and his so-called ex-girlfriend. The woman before her, the woman he’d claimed up and down he no longer cared about when she’d caught them having lunch together in a cozy little café about a month earlier.

  The scene dissolved into tears and nothingness, and she saw her father standing by that damned brown car again, staring at the house but not at her.

  CiCi bolted awake, her pajamas sticking to her, her head throbbing. Although she was rattled, sweaty, and panting for breath, she took some small comfort in the fact that after this bad dream she at least hadn’t thrown up.

  Gathering her knees up to her chin, she wrapped her arms around her legs and stared into the dim early-evening twilight of her room. She knew why the dreams had returned. They always came back when she started to date someone. But this time, they were more vivid, more intense, more disturbing.

  More frightening. Like something was reminding her of how much she had to lose.

  Her heart.

  Chapter 9

  What had started as a very promising weekend turned into a big stinking pile of disappointment.

  After CiCi had shown Walker the door that afternoon and suffered through her dream-disturbed nap, she’d spent Saturday evening confused and lonely. Although she’d happily discovered that underneath his somewhat dull exterior Walker was a pretty hot guy, she didn’t need a guy with issues. She already had those to spare.

  And after the incident with Walker, things only went downhill.

  First, Harriet called Saturday night and warned that it was possible the auditors could show up unannounced on Monday morning and demand to see whatever they wanted, from accounting books, to e-mails, to whatever tickled their fancies. Harriet had heard from an old friend in the state auditor’s office that there was a rumor some clerk was about to get a surprise audit the very next week, and Harriet wanted to give CiCi the heads-up.

  Sunday morning and early afternoon turned out to be a rainy, dreary time fit for nothing but staying indoors and cleaning or moping about. CiCi chose the moping option since she was still upset about how things had turned out with Walker. At least she hadn’t gotten in too deep before she’d discovered the ex-wife issue.

  By midday on Sunday afternoon, things got marginally worse.

  “There’s been a water leak here at the courthouse,” Rachel revealed and told the tale. After a late lunch at Over a Barrel, the two judges had gone across the street to the courthouse to look for a book Rachel thought she’d left in her office. Instead, upon hearing the persistent echo of water running through pipes, the judges had investigated and encountered a small flood in the basement.

  At hearing this news, CiCi ran from her house to the courthouse to find Sheriff Sammons, city cops, and the fire department all on the scene, along with Rachel and Brady and District Judge Cara Forrest. The mayor even showed up to poke his nose into the court’s business and act like he had some kind of responsibility. Fortunately, the leak was confined to the basement. About a year or so earlier, the courthouse in Lexington had suffered a catastrophic leak when a toilet overflowed during a long weekend. The leak was only discovered when a passing motorist noticed a waterfall spilling out from a third floor window of the courthouse and cascading onto the street below.

  Yet while the harm was confined to the basement of the Craig County Courthouse, there still was damage and very unpleasant consequences.

  Some old financial records were compromised, although it appeared they could be salvageable. And the air-conditioning in the courthouse had been somehow impaired; that meant no A/C for at least the first part of the work day on Monday.

  The forecast for that day was for temps in the lower nineties, and it was possible that the temperature could set a record for so early in the season.

  And when CiCi thought about Monday, it hit her that Walker was going to be in the courthouse. The new jurors would be coming in that day for orientation. He’d find out if he was on the grand jury or petit jury.

  She hoped he’d get selected for grand since those meetings were regularly scheduled. That way she’d know when he would be in the courthouse and could take care not to be about. Because after a lot of deliberation over the weekend, she’d decided that she couldn’t continue to see him. No more little dates at The Windmill, and despite his request, she wasn’t going to go with him to the Old Talbott Tavern. Time to stop things before they got any more serious.

  And that was a big problem for her. She had liked where things had been heading with Walker. Oh, well. It had been fun while it lasted, she supposed.

  After leaving the courthouse at around nine Sunday night, CiCi called her staff and told them about the problems at the courthouse, including the fact that the auditors could be there in the morning. She also advised her clerks to bring their own fans, clearly marked with their names so they wouldn’t get wrongfully claimed by another. After making those calls, CiCi hopped in her Mini and sped to the Walmart in Lawrenceburg to buy as many fans as possible. No stores in little Bourbon Springs would be open at that time of night on a Sunday, and even if there had been, said stores wouldn’t have the number of fans she needed to buy.

  She didn’t get home and into bed until well past midnight, although her trip was successful and she’d stuffed about a dozen or more fans into her car. Before falling into bed, CiCi laid out the outfit she planned to wear the following morning: a simple khaki skirt that hit at the knee and a sleeveless purple silk tank top. It was about the coolest thing she could think to wear short of wearing nothing at all.

  Come Monday morning, however, the heat was the least of CiCi’s worries at the courthouse.

  When she came through the front entrance after parking in her reserved spot, the first sensation upon setting foot in the courthouse wasn’t the oppressive heat.

  “Good Lord! It smells like the devil’s outhouse in here! What the hell is that stench?” she cried as she arrived at the sheriff’s station at the courthouse entrance.

  “We think it’s a dead raccoon up in the attic,” Kyle said. “But I’m not going up there to check, and I’m not sending any of my deputies up there either.”

  “If there’s one raccoon, there’s probably more,” CiCi lamented. “I hope Rachel’s not here today.”

  Kyle shook his head as he continued to screen a few people filtering into the building. “No, I already checked with Brady. She’s at home. Has no business being here pregnant and in this heat. And now there’s the smell,” Kyle said as he handed a woman’s purse back to her after he’d examined its contents during the security check.

  CiCi asked Kyle to call her as soon as a certain disabled juror arrived, and he agreed. After reviewing the juror forms the previous week, she’d discovered one juror who used a wheelchair. She always made a point to come to the sheriff’s station and greet anyone who might need assistance. She wanted every juror to fully participate in the process, and if someone needed extra assistance doing that, CiCi was going to
be there to help. It was part of the job and simply good government at work.

  CiCi took the stairs to the second floor, and the dead critter smell became more powerful as she ascended. Once in her office, CiCi looked up the number for a pest control company, CrittersBGone!, and called and requested they get to the courthouse at once.

  After getting that task done and listening to the gripes of the deputy clerks as they trickled into work, CiCi ordered all windows to be opened. She grabbed the stack of juror questionnaires, her rule book and keys, and headed to the circuit judges’ office on the third floor to check on Judge Craft. She found Brady opening all the windows in the office suite he shared with Rachel. After helping him and inquiring after Rachel, she reported critter control had been called and crews were on the way to work on the A/C and the basement flooding.

  “Oh! I almost forgot the fans! I’ll see you in court in a few,” CiCi said and turned to leave.

  “Don’t you want to have one of your deputies assist me today with jury orientation? It’s going to be miserable in that courtroom in this heat.”

  “And that’s exactly why no deputy of mine will be doing it. I’m the boss. I’ll suck it up and do it. That’s why I get paid the medium-sized bucks,” she said with a wink and left.

  CiCi went back down to the sheriff’s station and charmed the sweet but dim-witted Deputy Carver into helping her get the fans from her car. Within a few minutes, all the fans she had purchased the night before were in the courtroom. She directed the deputy to start setting them up as she went to the bench and started reviewing the juror questionnaires and seeing how many jurors had actually returned the required form. As she flipped through the stack and began to cross-reference names against a printed list, she stopped when she came to a familiar one.

  Walker Cain.

  CiCi couldn’t resist looking at his information. Even though she’d known for a few weeks that Walker was going to be on jury duty, she’d never pulled his questionnaire to review it. That would’ve been snooping. But today, as she sat there in the courtroom and with jury orientation about to begin within the half hour, she felt perfectly comfortable taking a look at the somewhat personal information Walker had provided. It was just part of the job, she told herself, trying to assuage any feelings of guilt for her nosiness.