Angels' Share (Bourbon Springs Book 3)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  “Yes, but the word can apply to a lot of people,” she muttered as she gave him a look and sat down behind her desk. He stood in silence as Hannah read. “What? He gave you the springs?” she cried out, and turned the page. “And because why?” she asked, and kept on reading.

  “I’m not really sure but it looks like something to do with—”

  “Well, that’s just plain wrong,” Hannah said to herself. “There was no survey from 1889. And Marshall Berry didn’t own the properties until ten years after that—this judge has his dates all mixed up, Bo! He’s got his facts wrong!” Hannah threw down the opinion and rose from her desk. “He’s made a decision based on—”

  “Based on Jon’s arguments,” Bo said, interrupting her.

  “But they’ve both got their facts wrong, don’t they? If this judge has based his cockamamie decision on the wrong stuff, this,” she said, and pointed to the opinion she’d thrown onto her desk, “will never hold up on appeal.”

  “Jon disagrees,” he said, and sat down. “He thinks she’ll appeal, of course, but we’ll be fine.”

  Hannah leaned her rear against the front edge of her desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you telling me that you’re not going to settle this thing?” she asked him. “That you’re really going to try to hold onto this crazy ruling?”

  “But I just won the case! Neither of us—Lila or myself—thought that anything like this was going to happen! Even Jon said the likelihood of the judge changing his mind was pretty remote. I thought we’d just have to live with that original decision the judge made and not appeal.”

  “And did you discuss that with Lila? Did she tell you that?”

  “I tried to talk to her,” Bo insisted. “Remember what happened? We broke up!”

  “Only because you wanted to keep talking about buying,” Hannah countered. “Can you imagine how she’s feeling right now, Bo? I can’t believe you, wanting to defend this judge’s order! I thought you were in love with her!”

  “I am!”

  “But you’re still willing to fight her or take this decision? If you don’t settle—come back to the middle, maybe agree to her original boundary—can’t you see it’s over between you two?”

  “No, I don’t see that but—I don’t know what to do, OK?” he cried, and stood. He scratched the back of his head. “This whole thing—the decision, Lila, Mom’s death—everything’s thrown me for a complete loop. So much change at once! All I know is that this judge’s decision has suddenly been dropped into my lap and it’s everything I need!”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, it’s not, Bo. What about Lila?”

  “I don’t know right now. But I can’t ignore that this is almost the best-case scenario as far as the land problem. It’s what Dad always wanted, will help us expand.”

  “I thought you’d gotten past that crap, Bo,” Hannah told him. “You don’t have to run this place like you’re still trying to impress Dad!”

  “That’s not—”

  “Don’t try to deny it,” Hannah said. “You can’t get away from his shadow. I don’t know if you’re still trying to impress him, or afraid that if you don’t do what he thought was right, that you’ll somehow screw this place up. So are you afraid or an asshole?”

  “Shut the fuck up!” he screamed at her. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Just walk away from this opportunity? And you’re forgetting that maybe—just maybe—Lila will understand.”

  “Not a snowball’s chance she’ll do that, Bo. I know she loves you. But she’s going to feel betrayed if you try to hold onto this decision. If she was willing to dump you just for bringing up the subject of a sale, you have to know that she’ll go nuts if you expect her to accept the judgment or your defense of it.” Hannah stopped and shook her head, glowering at him. “I still can’t believe that you two got back together. Only because Mom died did she—”

  “SHUT UP!” he yelled, but Hannah didn’t flinch. “That’s really low, Hannah. Are you really saying Lila only came back around because she thought she needed to comfort me?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying! I’m trying to point out that she’s a good person who’s in love with you and wanted to be with you in your hour of need—but you’re willing to risk losing such a unique woman just to get what you want.”

  Bo started pacing and nearly was hyperventilating. Hannah was in his face; he’d just won a case he probably should have lost; and Lila—damn—what was he going to do about her? Was he about to lose the woman he knew he wanted for the rest of his life?

  “You can’t be Dad. I don’t know why you’d even want to try, considering how he ended up. So how about it? How much of yourself—your good self—are you prepared to lose before you’re not you anymore, Bo? Because if you choose the distillery over Lila—”

  “That is not the choice!”

  “It sure as hell is, and I am floored you can’t see that.”

  He dropped his head. “So what I am supposed to do, Hannah? What should I tell her?”

  “I’ve already told you what to do, Bo,” she said. “But as far as what to tell Lila, I think you’d better think fast and choose your words carefully,” as she nodded her head in the direction of the door behind him.

  Lila was there, staring daggers at him.

  Chapter 25

  “You’re just all talk, aren’t you?” Lila hissed at Bo as she entered the office, trembling and crying. “It’s still all about that damned land and what you want. All this talk about changing—I can’t believe I fell for that! I came here to talk to you because I just found out about the decision—what we should do—but you already think my land is yours! What did you call it? Best-case scenario? Everything you need?”

  “Lila—”

  “I’m not listening to another thing that comes out of your damn mouth! I don’t need to—I just heard you say you got everything that’s important to you! Well, you can have it, Bo. You won. Enjoy your new rickhouse.”

  She spun and ran from Hannah’s office, with Bo on her heels. He caught up to her near the front doors of the visitors’ center and grabbed her arm, a plea on his lips to stop, but Lila immediately wrenched it from his grasp and glared at him.

  “Do not touch me. Do not talk to me. If you have something to say, you can say it to my lawyer. We are done, Bo Davenport.” Lila pushed through the doors, sprinted to her truck, and sped away.

  As Lila fled, Bo watched helplessly and fought the urge to run to his truck, jump in, and follow her. He knew she was on her way to her house and even if he caught up with her, she wouldn’t let him in. He turned and saw Hannah, looking shaken by what she’d witnessed, standing at the edge of the hall between the visitors’ center lobby and their offices. Bo strode back across the lobby, wordlessly passing his sister, and went directly to his office. Hannah followed, and by the time she entered Bo’s office he was already on the phone.

  “Bo, what are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer and turned his back to her.

  “Jon, Bo. I’ve looked at the decision. I want to settle. Give Lila whatever she wants…that’s right, the boundary line she demanded in her counterclaim…I don’t care…do it and let me know what they say.”

  Bo hung up, grabbed his parka from a nearby chair and put it on.

  “Bo, that might not be enough to get Lila to forgive you,” Hannah said in a low voice

  “I know,” he said as he walked out the door with Hannah in tow. “But it’s what I had to do.”

  Hannah watched him as he jogged out the door at the end of the hall and headed in the direction of the old rickhouse.

  “I hope you’re out there today for him, Mom,” Hannah whispered as a tear fell down her cheek and her brother disappeared from sight.

  In the span of a week, Bo had lost his mother and Lila and had given up the dream of a new rickhouse at the southern end of the distillery property. He thought things couldn’t get much worse until Hannah reminded him that they had to start going
through their mother’s house to start getting the estate in order. Brother and sister had delayed this unhappy task, unable to deal with it in the immediate aftermath of their mother’s very sudden death.

  “And we need to find her original will,” Hannah said. “She always told me that it would be in a shoebox in her closet along with some other papers.”

  A few mornings after the blow-up with Lila, Bo met Hannah at their mother’s house to start looking for necessary documents and to tidy up. They figured that Emma had left the house to one of them (probably Bo, considering his own rather humble dwelling and Emma’s dislike for it), but they needed to go through clothing, personal items, and pretty much everything to prepare an inventory for the probate case.

  “I’ll start looking for the will,” Bo said, and headed to his mother’s bedroom.

  Hannah agreed and said she wanted to go out to her mother’s car and make sure the insurance information was current. “Let me know if you find the car title,” she said as she went outside.

  Bo opened the doors to his mother’s closet and was immediately assaulted by her scent, a light talcum smell, and the olfactory memory was so intense that he immediately teared up. The fragrance was not really a perfume, but probably some kind of soap and powder combination, very subtle and pleasant, just like his mother. He felt the blanket of his grief weigh on him and sensed his mother’s unseen presence just by being there in her room and standing where she’d stood thousands of times.

  Bo’s throat constricted when he faced the long rack of her clothing. Everything that he’d seen her wear over the years, mostly casual clothes, neatly hung before him on white plastic hangers. He thought he even recognized the last thing she wore, although it was in a small heap in the bottom of a clothes hamper in the corner of the closet.

  Bo knelt and started picking through the meticulously-stacked shoeboxes. He opened several, finding in each a pair of gently-worn and cared-for shoes, until he finally came to one marked in black marker with the word “MISC.” The marking wasn’t too much of a giveaway that the title would tip off a burglar to the contents, but was sufficiently informative for someone like him, who was looking for information in the very place his mother had hinted it would be.

  He pulled the box from the stack and sat on the edge of his mother’s bed. Inside was a small collection of papers, including a life insurance policy, a deed, and Emma’s will with an attached letter. The envelope was addressed to My children in his mother’s handwriting.

  “Bingo,” he said, and started picking through the contents.

  Everything that should be there was there, and Bo felt a sense of relief at the discovery of these few but important papers.

  The last thing he examined was the will and the letter. The envelope with the letter wasn’t sealed, and he slipped it out and read it.

  And after he’d read the letter, Bo unfolded his mother’s will—dated only a few weeks earlier and drafted by Harriet Hensley—and read it. He sat there on the bed, in a daze, trying to comprehend what his mother had done. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  “I get it, Mom,” he whispered to himself. “But it’s too late.”

  “Get what?” Hannah asked as she entered the bedroom. She glanced at the shoebox and the contents strewn across the bed. “Found it already? That’s good. I’ve got some of the car information on the kitchen table.”

  “Take a look,” Bo said, and handed his sister the letter and the will.

  Hannah read them in short order, and Bo saw to his astonishment a broad smile spread across his sister’s face.

  “Well, Mom did you a good turn, didn’t she?” Hannah said, and folded the papers and replaced them in the envelope.

  Bo took the envelope from Hannah. “How’s that?”

  She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. “Because she’s ensured that you and Lila aren’t done with each other.”

  “Thanks for meeting with us,” Hannah said as she ushered Lila into the small conference space next to the tasting room.

  A week had passed since her last disastrous visit to the distillery and Lila expected this one to be her last visit ever. When Hannah had called and invited her to Old Garnet to meet, Lila had flatly refused, strongly suspecting Bo’s involvement. She had not been moved by his complete surrender in the lawsuit, and figured that the invitation was nothing more than a ruse in an attempt to get back together. But after Hannah informed Lila in a strained voice that Emma had named her a beneficiary in her will, Lila was interested, then alarmed. What had Emma left her? Did Hannah and Bo want to argue about that? She was legally a stranger to them and in no way family. Did they resent that their mother had left her something? When she asked for details, Hannah refused to divulge anything over the phone, saying Lila needed to come learn for herself. Lila grudgingly acquiesced, but insisted the meeting be on a Saturday afternoon. She’d already taken off a lot of work, and didn’t want to burn any more of her leave time.

  As she entered, Bo had his back to the door and did not turn to greet her. He only moved away from the window when Hannah indicated all should sit. Even then, when Lila shot him a glance, his gaze remained determinedly fixed away from her. Hannah handed Lila a folded sheet of paper.

  “Read it,” she said in a near-whisper. “We found this—along with my mother’s will—when we were going through her papers and personal items.”

  Dearest Bo and Hannah,

  Not that I really owe you an explanation, I still thought it might be wise for you both to know my reasoning for bequeathing my shares in the distillery to Lila McNee.

  Hannah, this is no reflection on you. Please understand that. I had intended until very recently to give you all my shares—that was in the last version of my will. But when Lila entered the picture recently, I knew that I had to make a change.

  I’m not giving my shares to a stranger. I am not giving away my shares to someone who is not family. If you think long enough about what I mean, you will understand.

  Hannah, I am completely convinced that you and Lila will get along just fine. I foresee that you two will see eye-to-eye on the big picture when it comes to operating the distillery. Whether you two will get along with Bo—well, that’s the real question.

  And Bo—you cannot do this all by yourself. Listen to your sister. Listen to Lila. Now you will be forced to do that very thing, so you might as well get used to it.

  Maybe you’re both thinking (well, Bo not so much as Hannah) you can buy out Lila, but somehow I doubt it. She wouldn’t sell her land, remember? You really think she’ll sell her shares now that she’s got them? That is not going to happen. And it’s not like her shares would be attractive to some big company—such a small slice of control isn’t going to be very interesting.

  So all three of you need to get along.

  If you don’t, the three of you will lose Old Garnet. I know the three of you don’t want to see that happen.

  Yes, I included Lila in that mix. Because she cares about the distillery more than the two of you realize.

  Because she loves you both so much.

  Love,

  Mom

  Lila read the letter three times and still couldn’t comprehend what it meant.

  “Your mother left me her shares in this distillery?” Lila said, staring at the surface of the table.

  “Welcome to the family,” Hannah said.

  Lila looked up. “You—you’re not going to try to buy me out?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, we’re not. Mom got it right. She got it right on everything in that letter,” she said, and turned to Bo, who still would not look at Lila.

  “I didn’t know about this, Hannah,” Lila said, feeling incredibly guilty. “Emma never told me that she was doing this and if she had told me, I would’ve told her not to do it.”

  “And she would’ve done it anyway,” Bo said, finally looking at her.

  “But I don’t want to interfere in your business,” Lila said, trying to ignore Bo’s sad star
e. “I don’t know anything about how to run a distillery.”

  “Well, it’s not interfering. You’re a part owner. And I guess you don’t have to do anything about making any changes to the way things are around here unless you really want to.”

  At this point, Bo excused himself and left the room. Before he went, he gave Lila a nod with a cheerless smile.

  “Why’d he leave?” Lila said, sensing something in the offing.

  “Have you done the math, Lila?”

  “What math?”

  “You and I—if we so wished—have the controlling interest now in this distillery.”

  “Like if we voted against Bo on something?” she asked.

  Hannah nodded. “Yes. And he didn’t want to be in the room when you and I had this discussion.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t want you to think he would try to influence your decision.”

  “What decision? I don’t understand what’s going on, Hannah,” Lila said, exasperated.

  “The bottom line is that if you and I agree, we could replace Bo as chief operating officer.”

  “Why would we want to do that? Is that what you want?”

  “No, only if you want me to do it instead of Bo. Then I’ll vote my shares with you.”

  “So you’re putting this decision on me?”

  “No, I’m pointing out that you have the power to make that decision if you so wish. You can abstain or agree to keep him in charge.”

  “Well, I think that’s what should happen. I mean, we can always override his decisions if he does something stupid, right?”

  Hannah laughed. “Right. We can do that. Like if he wants to file some stupid lawsuit.”

  Lila’s face fell. “I guess you talked him into the settlement at last, didn’t you?”

  “I did no such thing.”

  Lila tilted her head and her mouth dropped open a little. “But he called my lawyer and wanted to settle.”