Distiller's Choice (Bourbon Springs Book 4)

by Bramseth, Jennifer

  He looked around, wondering whether she was alone. Not another soul was there, and he noted the absence of a second glass indicating she had a companion.

  Goose couldn’t exactly enjoy the view; she was wrapped in some pink girly thing that covered her shoulders and the tops of her breasts.

  So instead he sat and took the time to study her features.

  He’d always considered her a very good-looking woman; he’d asked her out plenty of times to have his opinion known on that point. But as he sat there with her in the silence of the warm evening, Goose realized he was looking at a rare beauty.

  There was a certain serenity about her that he’d not seen in a woman before; not that he’d taken much time to consider such things. Usually when he looked at a sleeping woman, it was right before he left her after they’d had sex—if he bothered to give a backward glance at all, which was not how he operated. He got in, got out. Goose Davenport definitely wasn’t the cuddle-and-kiss-in-the-afterglow type.

  But here he was, watching the slow rise and fall of Harriet’s chest and shoulders under that pink wrap, mesmerized by the little twitches her lips were making and nearly having to sit on his hands so he wouldn’t reach out for a long strand of shiny black hair that had fallen into her face.

  He was transfixed, enchanted. This was something beyond the basic low-level lust he’d always directed toward Harriet Hensley.

  But the lust was definitely still there, considering how he’d gotten hard in just the few seconds he’d been gazing at her. Harriet looked ripe for the picking: sweet, supple, and sultry.

  A breeze washed over them, stirring Harriet awake in a tiny shudder. Goose didn’t have time to look away before she was suddenly wide awake and looking right at him.

  Harriet gave a little yelp, surprised to be awake, but more surprised to see Goose Davenport in front of her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, scared and confused—and cold. She shivered and looked around her, mildly alarmed to see they were alone.

  “And good evening to you too,” Goose sniped, and sat back in his seat. “I saw you sitting over here alone and thought something could be wrong.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I saw you drinking Pitted Garnets, Harriet. And it looks like you’ve polished off most of that,” he said, and pointed to the wineglass.

  Harriet wrapped the scarf around her a little tighter. “Again, I’m fine,” she repeated, although she did feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. How fair was that? She hadn’t even gotten to bed yet and her hangover was already starting.

  Goose nodded and glanced at his watch. “Nearly midnight now. You need a ride anywhere?”

  She gave him a wary look. Harriet knew this man’s reputation. “I’ve got a room here.”

  He rose. “Well, good to see you again,” he said, sounding like he meant it. “By the way, where are you now? You work out of town, right?”

  “Nope,” she said and her body tensed at the question. Harriet picked up her wine glass and finished it, quaffing the scant remaining drops. “Came back a few weeks ago. I’m going to be working at Colyard and Borden come bright and early Monday morning.”

  “Congratulations. But you don’t sound too happy about it,” Goose observed and sat down again.

  “I am—or will be, I guess.” She knew that required an explanation, because he just sat there awkwardly. “My boyfriend was supposed to move back here with me and practice at the firm together. But he ditched me,” she said in a rush. Saying it faster made it seem like she was ripping off a bandage. Do it quick and get it over with. That’s how she’d been explaining Cameron’s absence when nosy people asked.

  “What an asshole.”

  “Yeah,” Harriet said in a choked voice, swallowing hard. “You could say that.”

  He nudged her arm as Harriet turned her face and bit her lip “Hey, sorry. Wanna go get something to eat? Go over to The Windmill?”

  “In this getup?” Harriet turned back to him and gestured toward her dress. “Sounds like something I did after prom with half the senior class,” she said, laughing.

  “Not what I did after prom,” Goose said, joining her laughter. “Not quite.”

  Harriet squinted at him, thinking he was crudely alluding to some sexual conquest, but then she remembered the incident. Only because it had nearly given her father, Charlton Hensley, the Craig County Schools Superintendent, a stroke.

  “Ah,” Goose said, pointing at her. “You remember, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” She started giggling in spite of herself.

  Why was she hanging out with Goose? And how had he gotten her to laugh?

  “I swear on my granny’s grave,” he said, holding up one hand and placing the other squarely in the middle of his chest, “that I did not know that thing was a skunk.”

  She laughed but quickly became serious and skeptical. “You got a dead grandma?”

  He blinked a few times. “Well, yeah. Why would l lie about that?”

  “Sorry. My trust reserves are running rather catastrophically low, as you can imagine,” she said, returning to her snarky-sad demeanor.

  “Fair enough,” he allowed. “But it’s true. I thought it was a groundhog.”

  “Just how drunk were you?”

  Goose’s antics had become the stuff of high school legend. He and a couple of friends had nabbed a few buses from the county bus lot, parked them in front of the high school, toilet papered them, and put a dog in one of them, a cat in another, and a skunk in the last. And while the dog and the cat buses suffered considerable damage from the trapped animals’ excretions, clawings, and chewings, the bus with the skunk was declared unsalvageable. The stench was just too great; students refused to board it, and drivers hated it. Two drivers had reportedly gotten into a fistfight over who was supposed to drive the bus one school morning, making a number of students late and a lot of parents unhappy. Harriet remembered her father cursing and yelling over the phone about the debacle. During a lunch break one day in junior high, she’d gone to see him in his office (on the large high school campus), and he’d been shouting words such as “coverage” and “deductibles” and the like. She had been a smart kid and thought it had something to do with one of their family cars, and had actually started to cry, thinking someone had been in an accident.

  “Probably the drunkest I ever was in my life,” Goose admitted with nostalgic admiration in his voice, “and that’s saying something. I still don’t understand how we got those buses there.”

  “I don’t understand how the skunk didn’t spray you—or did it?”

  “Nope. I escaped unscathed.”

  “My dad wanted your head on a platter, you know.”

  But there was no way her father would’ve ever received that prize. Not when the delinquent you loved to hate’s father was Fuzzy Davenport, the Craig County Sheriff.

  “My dad nearly got it, but for himself,” Goose admitted, and ran a hand through his unkempt black hair. “You have any idea how long it took me to pay that restitution?”

  Harriet sat up. The silk scarf slipped from her shoulders, and she saw him take a peek at her cleavage.

  “I never knew you got prosecuted.”

  “I didn’t get prosecuted,” Goose said a little angrily. “But I still paid restitution.”

  “Oh, I see,” Harriet said, embarrassed at her presumption that Goose had suffered no serious consequences for his conduct.

  “Well, if you don’t want to go to The Windmill, why not get something here?” he suggested. “I’m starving. All that finger food at the reception did nothing for me. I need some real grub.”

  Harriet shifted in her seat, uncomfortable but not because she was cold. Goose Davenport had the worst reputation in Craig County. And they were alone, and he was being awfully nice to her. She was pretty sure she knew what he wanted.

  “Look I won’t bite,” he said, clearly sensing her wariness. “Unless you want me to,” he
added with a leer.

  He was far from harmless. But she wasn’t scared of him either. It was just too bad that he wasn’t from out of town. If he had been, and had been more or less a stranger to her, she’d be taking him back to her room right now for the very adult playtime her body, mind, and soul desperately needed.

  Because Goose Davenport was one handsome son of a bitch. He knew it too. That self-awareness was in his walk, the way he moved, and in the way he looked at women. Like the way he’d been looking at her during that evening. Strange he’d not put a move on her tonight.

  Until now, she had to remind herself.

  He could not have been waiting for this chance. The party was long over, and their meeting in this strange little spot was mere happenstance.

  So what the hell? Nothing to lose, as long as she kept her wits about her. She stood, and he followed suit.

  “So what’s the plan? Because I still don’t want to go to The Windmill.”

  Goose grinned like a little kid—and it hit her just how much he still was one, even in his thirties.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  He held out his hand and waited. Harriet looked at the proffered hand for a split second, but took it, and smiled at him. Goose gave it a little squeeze and then led her back into the main building of The Cooperage. So he wasn’t trying to get her into a room.

  Yet, she told herself.

  “I don’t want to go back to the reception. It’s got to be over by now. And I don’t want to go to the bourbon bar. I just left that place,” she protested as they entered the building.

  “We’re not going to either of those places,” he promised, and led her down the long hall toward the main lobby of the resort. Once there, he pulled her to the left and into the cavernous, unoccupied restaurant.

  “This place isn’t open,” she said, stating the obvious.

  From the far left, a lone busboy pushed through the two swinging doors which led to the kitchen.

  “Hey, is Goldie around?” Goose asked the kid, and released Harriet’s hand.

  She realized with a start that she hadn’t been the one to let go once they encountered someone.

  “Yeah, in the kitchen,” was the drowsy youth’s response as he went to a table and started to remove some dirty dishes.

  Goose marched to the kitchen doors, and Harriet followed mutely. Who was this Goldie chick? What the hell did Goose have in mind?

  “Hey, man,” Goose cried out and raised a hand in greeting.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Davenport? And in that thing?” He pointed to Goose’s tux.

  A gangly man wearing a chef’s hat and who had to be close to seven feet tall revealed himself from the depths of the kitchen and shook Goose’s hand vigorously.

  “Oh, sorry,” the chef said. “Didn’t know you had a date,” he said, pointing to Harriet.

  “No worries,” Goose said, not bothering to correct the chef’s misconception.

  Or was it a misconception? The notion confused Harriet, although it didn’t upset her.

  Goose introduced her to Val Pennington, one of the chefs at The Cooperage. She didn’t get the story on how those two knew each other but figured it had to be an interesting one.

  “Got any grub?”

  “For you and your lady? You bet!”

  “It’s not what you think—oh, never mind,” Goose said as Val told them to stay put and retreated into the mazelike kitchen.

  Fifteen minutes later, Harriet and Goose again sat together on the patio overlooking the creek, dining on the incredible feast given to them by Goldie. The scrumptious food which had been bestowed upon them was, according to the chef, scheduled to be tossed anyway and he loved it when he was able to give it away. That didn’t happen very often, because law enforcement—usually the folks which were the late-night beneficiaries of the goodies—didn’t make it out to The Cooperage very often.

  “Knew him back when he worked at The Rickhouse,” Goose explained. “Used to stop by there a lot on late shift, and he’d give us all kinds of awesome food. Only been out here once to do this, and it wasn’t nearly as much stuff as what he gave us tonight.”

  Val had given them not merely one but several meals, packed into four paper bags. Goose dined on steak, and Harriet enjoyed a large chicken breast, perfectly seasoned. There were veggies (fresh asparagus, one of Harriet’s faves), three kinds of rolls, and bourbon chocolate cake. Unbeknownst to them until they returned to the patio, Val had also thrown in a few minibottles of white and red wine, along with plastic glasses. He had apparently seen them as a couple off on some romantic late-night lark.

  Harriet was ravenous. She’d only had a few bites of reception food in the past several hours, and a real meal was just what she needed. Harriet was sleepy, but she no longer felt ill, and the incipient headache she’d suffered before Goose had stumbled upon her had disappeared.

  She even dove into a piece of that decadent bourbon chocolate cake. Bourbon in the icing and in the cake, she could tell. It was sprinkled with little red crystals, and she figured that touch was an homage to the bourbon used in the confection, the same bourbon which was made just a few miles north along Old Crow Creek—Old Garnet.

  She saw Goose wasn’t eating dessert but was having fun watching her stuff her face.

  “What?” she asked, picking up her napkin. “Do I have icing all over my face or something?”

  “No, just watching.” He smirked and took a sip of wine.

  There was a little bit of the perv in his remark, but it didn’t really bother her. She sort of had been expecting that kind of behavior from the moment she’d popped awake with his big mug in front of her face. And while there had been flashes of his lascivious ways, he had mostly been quite the gentleman.

  And she was baffled.

  “You know, this doesn’t really match up with your wild ways, Davenport,” she said, spearing a piece of cake.

  “What doesn’t?” he said grumpily.

  “This.” Harriet gestured with a sweeping hand around the patio. “Midnight picnic on the porch after a wedding.”

  “Not planned. And maybe I have ulterior motives,” he said, finishing his wine.

  “That’s what I’m assuming.”

  “And you’d actually be wrong.” He fingered the stem of his glass, his eyes averted.

  Harriet pushed the cake away, wiped her mouth, and studied him.

  Had she insulted him? He’d admitted that he might be thinking about more than sharing a meal with her that night. And when she thought about the other things they could share—like a bed and their bodies—Harriet felt a frisson of lust crackle across her body. Her nipples hardened, and she was glad for the layered fabric across her breasts so Goose couldn’t tell that her headlights were on full bright. And if he knew that she could feel that little shiver of wetness between her legs—damn, what the man would do to her.

  No.

  Not him.

  Anyone but him.

  “Why am I wrong?” she dared to ask.

  His brows lowered, and Goose started to gather their trash from the table.

  “Harriet, I’ve asked you out more times than I care to remember. After a guy gets turned down about a hundred times, he gets the message.” Goose stood with the trash and went to a can near the walkway and tossed everything, even the half-finished wine bottles.

  “And what was that message?” Harriet pulled her wrap around her and stood to face him.

  “That a fuckup like me has no chance to get a woman like you. I get that. I got that a long time ago, actually. So I’m not even trying, okay?”

  “If you call this not even trying, I’d love to see it when you do give a damn and try,” Harriet challenged.

  “I didn’t say that I didn’t give a damn, Harriet,” he said hotly. “I’d love nothing more than to—” He stopped and looked her up and down, then took in a long breath. “But I’m a realist,” he concluded.

  So he was interested in her. But he was su
ffering from something she never would have suspected: a lack of confidence.

  Why?

  Because he was the Bad Boy and she was the Good Girl?

  Because he knew she’d continue to reject him based upon that stereotype?

  But that hadn’t been the stereotype she’d seen that night.

  “I’m sorry, Goose. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “You didn’t,” he said coolly, and his tone told her that he was fibbing. She’d wounded his pride. “Come on, let’s go. I gotta get out of this stupid tux.”

  They reached her room first.

  “Thanks,” she said, pulling her key card from her small black clutch. “It was nice.”

  Wait.

  Damn.

  That’s what you say at the end of a date.

  This had been a date!

  How did I just have a date with Goose Davenport?

  And if this is a date, then…

  She swallowed, then blushed.

  *****

  BITS ABOUT BOURBON!

  FOUR ROSES DISTILLERY

  The Old Garnet naming myth is explored and explained in this book, and I freely admit that I took Four Roses’ naming legend and adapted it for my own purposes. More on that in a bit.

  Four Roses, a member of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, is one of two distilleries in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky (the other being Wild Turkey, featured in the back matter of ANGELS’ SHARE). The distillery sits along its water source, the Salt River, several miles south of town. It is very easy to find, with quick access off the Bluegrass Parkway. The distillery, built in 1910, is a National Historic Landmark and is famous for its design, Spanish Mission Style. The building is a very distinctive yellow.

  The distillery has gone through several different names, including the “Old Prentice” moniker (and now you know where the hero in Book 8 got his first name). Tour guides still tell the story that the distillery and bourbon got its name when a long-ago owner fell for a local belle and asked her to marry him. She said she would wear four red roses to an upcoming ball if her answer was yes. She did appear with those roses, they married, and the Four Roses legend was born. The four-rose motif is found on the bourbon’s label (at least three different expressions), on the distillery buildings, in advertisements old and new, and within the visitors’ center itself (fresh long-stemmed red roses are plentiful in the gift shop).