Distiller's Choice (Bourbon Springs Book 4)

by Bramseth, Jennifer

  “So, CiCi?” Brady asked as he took his robe off and threw it onto a nearby chair. “How long?”

  He was asking for her guess on how long the jury would be out. Even though it was a risky assessment, CiCi had seen enough criminal jury trials to get a feel for how long jurors would take in their deliberations.

  “Two hours, just after they finish eating,” she said. “Manslaughter, first degree. What do you think?”

  “Don’t know, but the sooner the better,” he said, loosening his tie.

  “Amen to that,” CiCi said as she glanced at the clock on the wall, idly wondering where Walker was that evening.

  Ten minutes later, Carver arrived with dinner from the deli. CiCi took her food to her office and ate alone, but the meal did little to lift her spirits. Feeling awful, she returned to Brady’s chambers.

  “Can I take a quick rest on Rachel’s couch?”

  “Of course, no problem,” Brady said as he eyed her. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “Just tired.” CiCi went into Rachel’s office and closed the door behind her.

  The sandwich from the deli—turkey and cheese, pretty damned plain—hadn’t agreed with her. So this was how it started? Nausea plus aches as well? CiCi put her head down on a small cushion on the couch and thought how long Rachel had suffered with morning sickness. It had been several months before she shook it off, and CiCi knew that some women suffered their entire pregnancy. She made a mental note to call Miranda about it before she drifted off to sleep, still rolling around scenarios in her mind how to tell Walker that he was going to be a father…

  Chapter 33

  Was she going to shut him out forever?

  It had been nearly ten days since Walker had last seen or spoken with CiCi. She hadn’t returned his calls or texts in the immediate wake of their breakup, but he hadn’t kept trying to contact her because he’d been distracted with getting Jana out of his house.

  He’d hoped she’d be the one to try to make contact, but now he was tired of the silent treatment. Walker wanted to talk. He needed to know whether it was really over. And that wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have over the phone or in scraps of text messages. It was time—past time, really—for a face-to-face conversation.

  Walker left the distillery late that Thursday and drove directly to CiCi’s house, intent on learning the truth. He had thought about bringing flowers, but ditched the idea, thinking it too clichéd and awkward for the encounter he wanted to have with her that evening. Instead, he brought another flask of Garnet Center Cut. He knew the one he’d given her several weeks earlier was nearly drained, and he thought the gesture would be practical (free super premium bourbon—like a reasonable person would reject that) as well as symbolic. The gift was a message: he was not going away and he loved her.

  But when he pulled up to her house that evening and didn’t see one light on, he knew she was either deliberately keeping the lights off to keep people (like him?) at bay or elsewhere. Walker thought it unlikely CiCi was in there trying to keep the world out unless she was worse off than he realized. Walker glanced at the courthouse a few blocks to his left and saw the lights on and several news trucks parked around it.

  She was there.

  And that’s where he was going.

  “CiCi?” Brady asked, his head near the door. He knocked lightly, wondering why she hadn’t answered when he’d rapped on it the first time. “Kyle says the jury has a verdict. Looks like you were right about how long it would take them. Almost exactly two hours.”

  He got no answer, knocked again, and slowly opened the door without waiting for a response. The lights were off and he entered a completely darkened office.

  The first thing he heard was a sob, then a groan.

  Brady went to her side, nearly tripping over the hem of his robe as he knelt beside his friend. The light from the outer office hit CiCi’s face, casting a harsh glare on her features, which were twisted with pain.

  “Brady,” she sobbed, clutched at her midsection. “Walker doesn’t know…”

  Walker had just reached the front doors of the courthouse when an ambulance pulled up at the front curb, and he backed away at once, allowing the EMTs to pass into the building with a stretcher. They were greeted at the door by Kyle himself who, after allowing the EMTs entry, saw Walker standing a few yards away from the doors. Kyle motioned to him, and Walker joined the sheriff at the door.

  “How’d you know?” Kyle asked, looking astonished.

  “Know what?”

  Kyle lowered his head and stared at Walker. “Why are you here?” he asked slowly.

  “To talk to CiCi,” he said defensively. “Is that a problem?”

  After a long pause during which Kyle seemed to be struggling with what to say, the sheriff told Walker to stay put. “CiCi will be out in a minute. But be prepared.”

  “Prepared? Why?”

  “Because we had to call that ambulance for her,” Kyle said and was gone back into the courthouse before Walker could ask another question.

  At least there hadn’t been a mistrial because she’d had a miscarriage, although it apparently had come pretty damned close.

  She remembered—barely—being carted out of the courthouse through the front door on that stupid stretcher. Brady had held her hand as Kyle called Hannah. And she remembered Walker had been there too. How the hell he’d known to be there was still a mystery to her, even three days after her miserable event.

  She’d bled all over Rachel’s couch (thank goodness she’d been wearing a dark skirt and the couch had been a dark brown) and had generally embarrassed herself.

  And fuck had it hurt!

  Dr. Chaplin had told her that the pregnancy had been fated to fail; it was an ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo attaches outside the uterus in a Fallopian tube. The condition was not unheard of in women suffering from endometriosis, and CiCi figured it was just another way of nature telling her she couldn’t have kids.

  At the hospital, Walker had wanted to see her, but she wasn’t ready to talk yet. She’d felt like a bitch for sending him away—maybe she had been—but she had been in a lot of emotional and physical pain, and she hadn’t wrapped her head around what she was going to say to him. That whole time in the hospital was such a blur in her consciousness—like the past few weeks, really. CiCi hoped she’d be able to forget most of it but doubted she’d be that lucky.

  She had conveyed her preference to Walker through Hannah and Lila, both of whom had urged her to talk to him, but CiCi had delayed and said she’d talk to him after her discharge. Hannah and Lila both thought this a mistake and tried to get her to change her mind, but CiCi would not relent, choosing to recover as well as sulk in her hospital room.

  But after she returned home and started to feel a bit better, she realized her friends had been right. She had to talk to him. So two days after getting back from the hospital, Walker was coming over. She’d texted him the previous night, asking him to come by, and had gotten a terse acceptance in response indicating he’d be there early in the morning before he headed to work.

  CiCi still didn’t feel great and found herself sleeping a lot (she’d lost a lot of blood) and was actually pleased when Lila dropped in that morning to check on her before Walker arrived.

  “I was on my way to school and thought I’d look in on you,” Lila explained as CiCi let her in the front door.

  “I’m fine,” CiCi said as the two stood in the foyer. “But not sure for how long.”

  “You need me to stay?” Lila offered “Or do you need to go to the doctor? I’ll take you.”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s just that Walker’s on his way over here.”

  “So this will be the first time you’ve talked since…”

  “Since the breakup. Since the miscarriage,” CiCi confirmed, nodding.

  “Then I’d better get out of here before he arrives.” Lila hugged her.

  “You and Hannah were right. I should’ve talked to him.”
/>   “Well, now’s your chance,” Lila said, smiling.

  “I have no idea what to say, Lila. Where do I even begin?”

  “He was really upset at the hospital, so maybe you should let him start the conversation. Just listen.”

  CiCi told Lila she was going to nap on her couch and to leave the front door unlocked as she expected Walker to enter that way. After another hug, Lila departed, and CiCi retreated to the sitting room at the back of the house. Hoping to clear her mind and calm her mood, she curled up, anxious yet hopeful as sleep stole over her.

  When Walker arrived on the sidewalk in front of CiCi’s house, he immediately spotted Lila heading to her car in the driveway. After quick greetings, he learned that CiCi was well but likely dozing and that Lila had left the door unlocked at CiCi’s instructions. After a quick hug, Lila left, and Walker marched to the front porch and opened the door slowly.

  It was the first time in weeks he’d been in CiCi’s home.

  The smells, the light as it came through the windows that looked out onto the backyard, and simply knowing she was there—all of it was overwhelming. He’d tried to rehearse what he was going to say, going through several different versions of expressions of hurt, concern, and love.

  His emotions were a tangled, nasty mess as he walked back through the hall toward the back of the house where he knew he would find her.

  Walker stood over the couch and studied CiCi, who was out like a light. She was pale and looked tired—but also looked as beautiful as he remembered. Her characteristically curly hair partially covered her face and dangled into her open mouth, moving as CiCi took slow, deep breaths.

  He fell into a chair next to the couch and took the opportunity to study her.

  How did he feel about her in that moment?

  He missed her. He loved her. He wanted to reach out and touch her face and caress her and hold her in his arms.

  Yet he was still extremely angry with her.

  The woman who had claimed she couldn’t get pregnant.

  The woman who hadn’t told him she was pregnant.

  He stood, plagued by anger, doubt, and the realization of where he was and why he was there. With nothing better to do and unwilling to wake CiCi, Walker paced for a few minutes and finally went to the kitchen, needing a drink of water to banish his dry mouth.

  The soft rush of water roused her, and CiCi sat straight up, frightened and suddenly hyperaware that she wasn’t alone. The blanket she’d been using slipped from her lap and onto the floor, and then she could smell Walker. He’d been in that room. She recognized the scent of the soap he used and the bourbony, yeasty smell that was always about him.

  She stood, ready to meet him, and he emerged from the kitchen. Their eyes locked, and she wanted to run to him but held back. His face was tense, his jaw set. Taking Lila’s advice, she let him speak first and readied herself for his words.

  “So when were you going to get around to telling me you were pregnant? When were you going to tell me the truth?”

  She couldn’t breathe. The accusation stung, cut, hit—the comparisons to violence were appropriate, as a physical pain shot through her body upon hearing what he was thinking and feeling.

  Walker had just confirmed her worst fear: he didn’t trust her.

  “So now it’s mutual,” she hissed.

  “What’s mutual?”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “I gave you plenty of reasons to trust me. Time for you to give me a reason to trust you.”

  She shivered, took several deep breaths, and summoned up all her rage rather than despair to get through this showdown with him.

  All the rage she’d been carrying for a lifetime.

  Now was the time to unleash and let it serve some purpose.

  “I’m about to give you plenty of damn reasons, Walker Cain. Not that I need to prove myself to you. But get ready. The truth is gonna hurt.”

  He waited for her story and moved to stand at the opposite end of the couch from where she was with her back to the windows.

  “The truth is that I realized I’d been an idiot to turn you away. The truth is that I loved—love—you,” she said, stumbling and choking but willing herself to continue. “And that I was going to call you. But I was feeling horrible. I was sick and under stress from the stupid trial at work. I didn’t want to talk to you in that frame of mind. So I went to the doctor and learned, much to my surprise, that I was pregnant.

  “And I freaked out. I was terrified you’d think I’d lied to you about being unable to have kids, that you’d think I was just like Jana—telling you I was preggers, oh please come back to me. I had no fucking idea what to do, okay?”

  “But what about not being able to have a child, CiCi?” he asked, edging toward her. “You told me in the creek—”

  “I didn’t lie to you about being infertile,” she snapped. “I thought I was. I probably am, the way the doctor described it.” She explained the pregnancy was ectopic and there was no way it could have successfully continued. “And so while I’m trying to get my stupid head together and get through work, I end up having a miscarriage in a very public and painful way. I lose the baby, feel like I’m going to die—and now you show up all pissed off because I hadn’t figured out what the fuck I was going to tell you—how I was going to work through that fear.”

  “Fear?”

  She nodded. “First it was the fear that you were still in love with Jana. That was stupid and silly, I know. And I was getting over that, moving beyond that stupidity. It was hard, but I was getting there. But then I learned I was pregnant, and the fear became something much worse: that you’d reject me like Jana because you wouldn’t believe me, that you wouldn’t trust me. The fear… that I’d lose you forever,” she whispered but managed not to cry.

  “But—but—” he stammered, “it’s not like that—Jana was different.”

  “No? Just moments ago it sounded to me like you thought I’d misled you about my infertility and that I had kept something wrongfully from you—those sound like lies, doncha think? I saw that look on your face when you saw me just now—it was the very same look you gave Jana the first time I saw you both together at the distillery—that sad, soulless, vacant look. The complete loss of trust—bordering on hate.”

  “I—”

  “You do understand that I only confirmed the pregnancy about a week ago, right? Do you get that? And that I’d been working my ass off leading up to the miscarriage? And can you see how I might have been rather upset, reeling, unable to even fucking think? And now you come here to my own home, call my honesty into question, and demand answers when I’ve barely had time to think about what’s happened to me?”

  She was shaking and felt so completely infuriated she had half a mind to try to pick him up and physically throw him out of her house.

  “So this hasn’t been all about you, Walker,” she snapped and took several steps toward him. “And I’m not Jana, and I didn’t lie or keep something from you.”

  “I’m sorry,” was his feeble response.

  She turned away from him and walked to the windows. “Please leave,” she said in a hoarse voice.

  “CiCi, no,” he said, nearing her.

  “Go,” she said firmly, her back still to him.

  He stopped in front of the couch before he reached her. “You’re right. I should’ve trusted you. And I love you. That’s what I wanted to tell you today.”

  Further enraged, she spun to face him. “I don’t seem to remember hearing that when you first opened your damned mouth a few minutes ago.”

  “And that was the wrong choice. I’m sorry,” he said, his apology a plea.

  They were still yards apart.

  “We all make stupid choices,” she said. “They litter our lives.”

  “There’s one choice I will never regret, because it was the best one I’ve ever made.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Falling in love with you.”

  Th
ey stood looking at each other for several seconds before he left through the front door.

  CiCi turned to the windows, looking out at her backyard, wishing that she could see Walker there, trotting through the dew-covered grass on his way home as though nothing had changed between them.

  Chapter 34

  Forgive me

  Wear garnet

  That’s all I ask

  That was the only communication he had sent CiCi in the past weeks—a simple text message—but he prayed she knew exactly what it meant.

  It was a Saturday afternoon in early September, and Lila had asked him as well as Bo, Goose, and CiCi to accompany her on a hike along Old Crow Creek to pinpoint a few spots along the waterway which were reputed to be the proposal sites. Although the weather had been slightly cooler than usual for late summer in Kentucky, this meant it felt merely hot instead of hotter than the devil’s own trousers, the colorful phrase Hannah sometimes used which made Walker wonder whether his boss was channeling an eighteenth-century Scotsman.

  Walker had been dreading the hike because of the memories one particular spot held. And because CiCi was going to be there.

  Since their disastrous reunion at her house, Walker had constantly rebuked himself for giving in to his anger that day instead of leading with love. He’d failed to see CiCi’s struggle or at least give her the chance to explain herself. In the following painful days, he’d been unable to forgive himself for his arrogance, which he feared had cost him the love of his life.

  So he had challenged her: wear garnet.

  Tell me that you can forgive me and love me.

  It was not a marriage proposal. He had tried to make that clear in his message so as not to freak her out. But if she wore the deep red color he longed to see, he would know there was a chance for such a proposal some day.