Angels' Share (Bourbon Springs Book 3)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  “How do you become a master distiller?” a student asked.

  Walker had opened his mouth to respond when CiCi’s voice rang out.

  “What are you two doing back there?” she demanded in a shrill but amused voice. Everyone turned to see CiCi pulling a very pink-faced boy and a girl from behind a door that led to a storage closet under a flight of stairs. “Seriously, kids, do you think we’re stupid and blind?” she said, and marched them forward, holding each by the elbow, until they had rejoined the group. “I thought you two were honor students, so use those brains that God gave you sittin’ there on top of your heads and behave!” The other students broke into laughter and Bo and Lila joined in. Walker looked taken aback at being interrupted in such a manner and stood with his mouth slightly open and staring at CiCi. “Sorry for the disturbance,” she apologized, and waved to Walker. “Go right ahead, please.”

  Walker’s gaze rested on CiCi for a few more seconds before he cleared his throat and began talking about his career path. Lila had heard from Hannah that the new master distiller was charming individually but when he started lecturing, the kids quickly became bored and began to fidget. Lila and Bo both saw what was going on, cut short Walker’s soliloquy, and ushered the students to the level below, where Bo showed them how to fill a barrel. He plugged it with a bung, put it on the barrel run, and led the kids outside to follow the barrel’s path.

  “And now on to the rickhouse,” Bo announced, and pointed away from the distillery building.

  The group walked along the barrel run and headed to the limestone warehouse where Bo had taken Lila a few weeks earlier on her personal tour. The kids were duly impressed upon entering the rickhouse, and craned their necks to admire the towers of barrels. Bo launched into a small sermon about how the barrels are stacked and stay there to age up to nine years.

  “Do you ever open them up?” a student asked as she gingerly put a hand on the side of a barrel that rested next to her.

  “Yes, we pull selected barrels and check the product from time to time,” Bo said, and pointed to tiny wooden plugs on the sides of some of the barrels, which rested on their sides and not on their short ends. He also described how they inserted into the bunghole a device called a whiskey thief, which was a long-handled copper extractor, which allowed the whiskey to be removed from the barrels for testing and tasting purposes. “The master distiller tastes it, and we have other tasters as well.”

  “How do you get a job as a taster?” a tall young man joked.

  “Call me when you’re twenty-one,” Bo said, and the kids giggled, “and maybe I’ll give you a job steaming out the mash tubs,” he finished, causing the crowd to break into laughter.

  “Don’t the barrels leak?” a girl asked. “You said that they don’t have any nails in them. How do they stay together?”

  “They have to be precision-made by coopers—skilled craftsmen who make barrels,” said Bo. “Sometimes they do leak, but we deal with it. Actually we lose more bourbon in a very different way. Can anyone guess how?”

  At the far end of the entrance to the rickhouse, Lila saw Walker appear in the doorway. He was either interested in hearing the kids’ questions or maybe he was interested in a certain someone. Lila had noticed how Walker’s eyes had followed CiCi as she walked past the stills and out of the distillery. And the crazy thing was that CiCi had utterly failed to notice that she was the object of the master distiller’s interest. Granted, it was a little hard to ignore CiCi even on the most ordinary day. But Lila had seen something in the way Walker had looked at CiCi that went beyond a mild sense of shock and amusement at her holiday garb.

  CiCi was standing at the back of the group of kids, presumably to keep an eye on any other couples with amorous intentions in search of privacy. Walker was a few yards behind her, watching.

  “Oooh!” CiCi exclaimed and raised her hand “I know!”

  “Yes, Ms. Summers? Do you happen to know the answer?” Bo called out, pointing to her.

  “Of course I do. The loss is due to evaporation. A barrel can lose up to four percent of its liquid each year due to evaporation, depending on the conditions, like the humidity and heat and cold throughout the year. After all those years aging, a barrel could end up losing over a third of its volume, or more.”

  “And what do we affectionately call this phenomenon?” Bo asked, likely knowing CiCi had the answer on the tip of her tongue.

  “The angels’ share,” she answered just as proudly as though she were in class.

  “Yes, we like to say—as does every other distillery—that we have some very happy angels around here, considering the number of barrels we have aging right now. Take a whiff—you can smell it.” The kids all duly inhaled.

  “But does the evaporation hurt the bourbon?” someone asked.

  “No,” Bo said, and shook his head. “It’s something that’s part of the process, an expected loss that we absorb. And what happens if part of the liquid evaporates from the barrel?” Bo asked. When no kids answered, CiCi again raised her hand. “Yes, Ms. Summers?”

  “The proof goes up, meaning the percentage of alcohol is higher.”

  “Exactly,” Bo said. “As we like to say, the angels take their share, but they leave us with the really good stuff,” he joked, causing more laughter. “Ready to see the bottling area?”

  The group moved into the bottling operation, and Lila headed to the back of the group and CiCi’s side. She watched as Bo gave the same description of the bottling process he had shared with her during her tour. She tuned out what he was saying and enjoyed watching him.

  Although she suspected he didn’t often give tours due to being so busy—and she knew that he had only done this one because of her involvement—Bo was completely in his element, just as he had been when he had shown her the distillery. He was comfortable, relaxed, and happy in this place. It was his home.

  “Any questions before we return to the visitors’ center?” Bo asked.

  A boy raised his hand. “Are all of your warehouses full?”

  “Getting there,” Bo said. “And we call them rickhouses.”

  “What happens if you run out of room?” a girl asked.

  “Haven’t quite worked all that out yet, but we’re trying,” Bo said, and Lila could almost feel his heart sinking as the issue which divided them finally popped up during what had heretofore been a perfect tour. “Now, who’s ready for a bourbon ball or two?”

  The group trekked back to the visitors’ center through a swirling mass of snow. It was just enough to be pretty and wasn’t sticking to any surfaces. As the kids entered the building, Bo led them across the lobby and to the door of the tasting room.

  “Wait!” Lila cried and scurried to the front of the group. “A word, please, Mr. Davenport,” she said a little menacingly, and grabbed his arm.

  “Sure,” he said, looking confused.

  Lila pulled him over to the café entrance where hopefully the kids would not overhear them.

  “Why the hell are you taking them in the tasting room, Bo? They can’t drink!”

  “I know that! I’m going to serve the bourbon balls in there, Lila. I put all the booze away and locked it up. The only thing to drink in there will be bottled water if they want some.”

  “Oh,” she said, and released her grip on his arm. “Well, I just had to be careful.”

  “I understand,” he said. “And you can certainly have as many bourbon balls as you want,” he said, and winked at her.

  Bo went to the door of the tasting room, opened it, and instructed the kids to walk around the U-shaped table and take a seat. When the inevitable question arose regarding where the bourbon was, Bo turned to the small fridge under the cabinet against the far wall and pulled out several little gold boxes, still encased in plastic wrap.

  “I’m afraid that the only bourbon you’ll be tasting today at my distillery will be in these,” he said, and put them down on the barrel-table in the center of the room.

 
Bo started fiddling with the wrappings, and Lila realized he needed some help.

  “Want a hand with that?” she asked.

  Bo thanked her and Lila joined him at the front of the tasting room and helped him unwrap several boxes, which by her count must have totaled around ten. After the boxes had been opened, Bo went to one side of the table and Lila to the other and served the students.

  “Take two, please,” Bo said. “I’m assuming they all have permission to eat these things?” he said to Lila over his shoulder.

  “Signed slips are all on file at the school and I have copies in my purse if you need to see them,” Lila told him, without looking up from serving the kids.

  CiCi ended up sitting the closest to the door. Lila suspected this was by design so she could keep an eye on the kids from that vantage point. CiCi’s acumen about dealing with teenagers and her knowledge of bourbon had impressed Lila, and she was trying to think of another way to get CiCi involved with her classes at school.

  CiCi was chatting with the boy sitting to her right when Walker came in, surprising Lila, although CiCi took no notice of him.

  “Can you get drunk eating bourbon balls?” the boy asked in all earnestness, his question tinged with worry.

  CiCi took one bite of her bourbon ball, leaving an exposed white chunk of the candy. A bit of the dark chocolate coating had chipped off and fallen onto the table. CiCi held the confection in front of her face, ready for the next bite, as she considered the student’s question.

  “I don’t know, but I’m willing to find out,” she said with a mischievous grin, and picked up the fallen tidbit of chocolate and popped it into her mouth.

  Behind her, Walker laughed and CiCi swiveled in her seat to see the person whom she had amused. When she saw it was Walker, she smiled pleasantly at him, but quickly turned her attentions back to her candy and her conversation with the student who was eyeing his bourbon ball with suspicion. Lila noticed that Walker seemed a little disappointed in CiCi’s failure to at least say hello to him.

  Not all of the kids liked the candy, and several didn’t finish the first piece they were offered. Lila helped Bo serve seconds to the kids that wanted another piece, and then assisted him in putting the boxes back into the little fridge.

  “Well, I hope you enjoyed your trip here,” Bo said, “and I’d love to see any of you come back at any time.”

  After Bo said goodbye to the group, he asked Lila to come out into the lobby with him for a moment. She knew what the subject would be, and had her speech already prepared.

  “So what about Christmas dinner?” he asked her once they were outside the room.

  “Please tell you mother and Hannah thanks, but—”

  “Don’t say no, Lila,” Bo begged her.

  “I’m sorry, Bo, but I don’t feel comfortable with it.”

  Clearly disappointed, Bo nodded. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  She promised she would do so, but knew there was little chance of that. Lila wanted to spend the day alone and go to the springs like she had in the past. She was sad every time she visited the site, although she always left with a certain feeling of peace.

  And as much as she would have liked to spend time with Bo, she was worried about the increasing level of her attraction to him. She had decided that it would be best to stay away from him as much as possible at least until the lawsuit was over. If, after that thing was dead and buried, they could still find a way to be friends—or more—so be it. But getting further romantically involved with him in the middle of the litigation seemed like a guaranteed recipe for heartbreak, despite his self-avowed attempt to change her mind.

  Lila went back into the tasting room and told the kids that they had half an hour to kill before the bus arrived to take everyone back to school. She suggested they either stay in the tasting room or spend some time in the gift shop or café, but they were not to leave the visitors’ center.

  The kids started drifting out of the tasting room and scattered to the gift shop, the lobby, and café. Lila took a seat on one of the couches in the middle of the lobby, which was a perfect spot to watch most of the students as they spent their free time. Lila saw CiCi leave the room and head to the café, closely followed by Walker. But then Bo called Walker back into the tasting room, saying he wanted to talk about something. Lila smiled as she noticed the little flare of irritation on Walker’s face as he did what Bo requested.

  CiCi soon emerged from the café with a steaming paper cup of something and sat down next to Lila after throwing her coat and purse into a nearby chair. “I should’ve asked if you wanted anything,” CiCi said as she crossed her legs and brought the cup to her lips. Lila told her to forget it, and asked what she had. “Hot chocolate,” CiCi replied, and looked down into her cup. “There isn’t any bourbon in here, but I wonder what it would taste like in cocoa.”

  “Just ask one of the Davenports,” Lila said. “I’m sure they’ve put bourbon in everything and know what does and doesn’t work.”

  “And speaking of Davenports, what is the deal with you and Bo?”

  Lila stiffened and crossed her legs. “There is no deal.”

  “Not from what I know,” CiCi said, and took a sip.

  “Who told you—”

  “Nobody,” CiCi claimed. “But like I yelled at those kids—I’m not blind and stupid.”

  Lila sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, and gave CiCi an amused and incredulous smirk. “Really?”

  “Are you saying something isn’t happening between Bo and you?” CiCi asked, her eyebrows raised.

  “Forget that for a minute. I’m questioning your self-assessment. You know, that blind-and-stupid thing.”

  CiCi shrugged. “I don’t get it.”

  “You didn’t see it?” Lila asked, grinning broadly and leaning forward. “You, of all people?”

  “What the devil are you talking about, woman?”

  “Not what. Who. As in the master distiller.”

  “What about him?” CiCi asked, and blew on the surface of her hot chocolate, making the little trail of steam rising from it temporarily disappear.

  At that moment, Bo and Walker exited the tasting room, and Bo gave a little goodbye wave to Lila, which she returned. The two men continued walking together across the lobby toward Bo’s office on the opposite side of the building. Bo was talking and making animated gestures, while Walker cast his eyes downward, ostensibly listening to Bo as they walked. But when Walker looked up, Lila saw his eyes immediately fall on an oblivious CiCi, where his gaze rested for several seconds beyond what could be called a passing glance. When Bo and Walker turned their backs to the lobby and headed down the far hall, CiCi finally turned to see the two men walking away, completing missing Walker’s furtive look in her direction.

  “That was him, right?” CiCi asked, and pointed over her shoulder.

  “I can’t believe you don’t get what I’m telling you.”

  “About what?” CiCi brought her cup of hot chocolate back to her lips.

  “CiCi, the man couldn’t keep his eyes off you!” Lila whispered since a few students were nearby.

  “Walker Cain?” CiCi asked. She turned around to see if Walker was still in the hallway, but he had already disappeared into an office with Bo. “I think I would know if the guy was checking me out, Lila. I have a pretty good radar for stuff like that.”

  “Maybe when it comes to others,” Lila admitted. “But I think it’s a little bit faulty when it comes to yourself.”

  “No way,” CiCi said, and took another sip of her drink.

  “He followed us into the rickhouse and showed up in the tasting room!”

  “So what? He works here!” she said dismissively, and turned her attention to her warm beverage.

  Lila shook her head, flabbergasted that CiCi—the woman who knew all and saw all—couldn’t see what had been right in front of her. There was absolutely no mistake in her mind about the kind of looks Walker gave CiCi; Lila had imm
ediately recognized them as the same kind of looks Bo gave her.

  Chapter 14

  Bo knew he wasn’t going to change Lila’s mind about coming to Christmas dinner. After he delivered the news of Lila’s declined invitation, both his mother and Hannah got on his case to keep after Lila to coax her into joining them, but he knew the effort would be futile. As much as he wanted to be with her that day—or any day, for that matter—Bo knew that Lila had her limits and that he had pushed her to the edge of hers. He didn’t want to push her so far that he pushed her away forever; it was a delicate balancing act for him since he desperately wanted to be around the woman he loved.

  He had confessed to Lila that he loved her, surprising himself as much as her, and at least she hadn’t rejected him. But he hated being in some kind of suspended animation when it came to the status of their relationship. She had held out hope for him—that essentially when everything was over, maybe they could find a way to be together. But that was ultimately cold comfort to a man in love.

  Christmas arrived, and the day at his mother’s house went mostly as it had on Thanksgiving, except with a lot more food, presents, and no Lila. Bo had always enjoyed Christmas, but that day he was fidgety and out of sorts. He had felt his mother watching him through the day, and he suspected she perceived the source of his restlessness.

  “I have an idea, Bo,” Emma said when they were alone together in her kitchen.

  Bo had just helped his mother put all of the dishes in the dishwasher and was preparing to take out the trash, which was stuffed full of discarded wrapping paper and other torn and mangled victims of the frenzy of present-opening. Kyle, Hannah, and Kyle’s father had left, all of them claiming they had eaten way too much and needed to get away from Emma’s kitchen, which was still full of food, especially sweets.

  “Tell me,” Bo said as he drew the cinch on the garbage bag, causing sharp edges of cardboard to poke dangerously from the plastic bag’s interior.

  “Why don’t you call Lila and ask whether she’d like me to fix some food for her? We have more than enough, and I’m sure she’d enjoy a homemade Christmas meal. She was most grateful for the food I gave her after our Thanksgiving together.”