“We do?” she said, nearly dropping the drink.
He nodded and loosened his tie. “I want to take you somewhere else after The Tavern,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, seemingly disappointed.
“What did you think I meant?” he asked and leaned toward her.
CiCi’s answer was to brush her knee against his leg.
Walker put his hand on CiCi’s thigh under the table. “I promise we’ll have plenty of time for everything we want to do tonight.”
“Good.” She slipped her foot under his pants leg.
He blushed and looked down at CiCi’s hand on the table, which he took in his.
They sat silently, happily, until the food arrived. Hannah had steered them right on the pot roast. The meat was tender and savory and steeped in a thick, spicy sauce. Chunks of carrots and celery were generously added to the portion as well.
“Wish I had this recipe,” CiCi said as she took the last bite from her dish.
“I always enjoyed eating here when I worked in Bardstown,” Walker said. “Although it wasn’t that often. And I don’t know how I managed to never order this dish.”
“Save room for dessert?” she asked. “I’m getting that bread pudding.”
“Going to try to test me and see if I can recognize the bourbon?”
CiCi shook her head a little too enthusiastically, and he suspected she was feeling the effects of the bourbon.
“No, I just really want bread pudding. Although the added bourbon will be a nice bonus,” she added, and winked at him.
After their plates were cleared, they ordered the treat, which was served in a large bowl, piping hot, with a dollop of whipped cream on top. This particular form of bread pudding looked a lot like a dull-colored, gooey and iced cake and was topped with a sprinkling of chopped walnuts over the whipped cream. They plunged their spoons in at the same time and scooped out generous bites.
“Can you tell if it’s Garnet?” She then called the waitress over and ordered a shot of Old Garnet while Walker moved the second bite around in his mouth and considered his answer.
“I can’t tell,” he said. “Too many other flavors.”
The waitress returned with CiCi’s shot and placed it on the table, whereupon CiCi took the glass and dumped half its contents over the bread pudding.
“That’s better,” she announced, nodding once. The waitress stared at her, wide-eyed. “Really, you shouldn’t skimp if you’re going to claim this is bourbon bread pudding,” CiCi declared archly. Walker had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the waitress’s annoyed expression. “Now you’ll have no trouble telling whether there’s Garnet in this.”
“And I’d better get it right in just one bite after all that bourbon you just dumped on it,” Walker said. “I have to drive us home.”
“You’re only gonna eat one more bite?”
Walker stuck his spoon into the dish, scooped out a small sliver of the confection, and slipped the spoon into his mouth. “Definitely Garnet. And I am definitely done eating.” He placed his spoon on the table.
CiCi pressed her lips together tightly and studied the remaining portion of the dessert, which was substantial. “I guess I can get a box to take this home since there’s no way I’m going to finish all of it by myself.”
“I bet that’s the kind of thing that tastes a little better after a few days,” Walker said, nodding toward the bread pudding.
“And this will help preserve it.” She picked up the shot glass and poured the remaining bourbon over the dessert. Walker laughed as CiCi took another bite. “You’d hate me if I let that Garnet go to waste,” she said in her defense.
Walker watched her with amusement. He could tell CiCi was having fun enjoying the food as well as his company. And even though she’d consumed a good portion of liquor that evening, it had been spread over a considerable amount of time and with a hearty meal. She was not drunk, which was a good thing because he wanted her to be quite wide awake and ready for some fun when they returned to Bourbon Springs. But that return was going to be delayed by a short side trip he had planned. He had something to give her, something to share, that couldn’t be obtained in any shop or restaurant.
After boxing up the remains of the bread pudding, Walker paid the bill—the first time he’d ever paid for a meal for CiCi and hopefully not the last—and they went to browse in the small gift shop. CiCi was greatly amused by a T-shirt bearing the phrase Real Women Drink Bourbon, and pulled one out from a stack. She held it over her body and asked how it looked.
“You don’t need it,” Walker declared.
She held the shirt out at arm’s length and examined it. “Why’s that?”
Walker sidled up to CiCi so he could whisper in her ear. “I already happen to know you’re a real woman, CiCi,” he said. “I kinda confirmed that the other day, don’t you remember?”
CiCi teetered a little bit and closed her eyes. Walker saw her reaction, grinned, and took the shirt from her hands. He folded it neatly and replaced it on top of a stack of other T-shirts.
“Let’s go,” she said and headed for the door.
Walker led CiCi out of The Tavern and offered her his arm once they were on the street. After walking the half block to his car, he opened the door for her, and she stood for a few seconds, lingering and looking at him with parted lips.
“Soon,” he said in response to her tacit invitation to kiss her.
“Then let’s get the hell out of here,” she said in a husky whisper. After CiCi slid into her seat, Walker closed the door, walked around the car, and took his place behind the wheel. “Where to now, Mr. Cain?” she asked as Walker put on his seat belt. “Spiriting me away to Bourbon Springs?”
“Not yet. I have someplace I want to show you. Hope you don’t know about it.”
“Good chance I do,” she said, her words slightly slurred. “Lived around here my entire life except for going away to school.”
Walker pulled out of the small parking lot and into the traffic circle, heading east in the direction of Federal Hill. “If you know about it, it’s guaranteed you’ll like it.”
14
The sun was still well above the tree line when they hit the Bluegrass Parkway and sped east.
“I thought you weren’t taking us straight home,” CiCi said. Her bourbon buzz had subsided, and she was very aware of her surroundings, which looked a lot like Craig County with lush rolling fields surrounded by the hilly Knobs.
“I’m not. Honest.”
Walker drove a few miles east until he took an exit at a particularly hilly and remote spot.
“If I didn’t know better,” CiCi said while they drove along a winding road which hugged the edge of a Knob, “I’d think we were in a low-budget horror movie. First date. Marginally inebriated woman. Remote location. Sounds suspicious, Mr. Cain.”
“Nothing so sinister, I promise. I’ll be on my best behavior,” he said as they rounded a curve. “Well, at least until we get back to Bourbon Springs.”
She sighed, and her head fell back on the headrest. He was teasing her, taunting her, dangling himself out to her as a sexual prize, and she was sooooo ready to claim it.
He was prolonging the longing, and she was willing to go along with it—up to a certain point. CiCi started thinking about just what would happen when they got back to her house. Invite him in—and then what? They weren’t the type of people to just rip each other’s clothes off and go at it. And—shit—did she have any condoms around? It wasn’t as though she needed them for pregnancy prevention purposes, but they were still necessary. It had been years since she’d had any need for the things, and she hadn’t even accidentally come across one in the depths of her bathroom cabinets for ages. Or would Walker have one—or more? Since he was already making all kinds of suggestions about how he wanted the evening to end, there was an excellent chance that he’d be prepared for a long night.
A very long night, she hoped.
Walker drove on, and CiCi had only
the vaguest idea where she was, but she didn’t care. Judging from glimpses of a valley below she could catch through the thick trees, they were pretty high up, and they were in the middle of absolutely nowhere. So when Walker finally pulled over, she thought he’d either gotten lost or something was wrong with the car.
“Here we are,” he said.
“You’ve brought me to… an abandoned gas station?” she asked, looking at the decaying station sign near the road. Chunks of the plastic were broken and missing, and the last time the thing had been lit up was probably sometime during the Ford Administration. “Really know how to charm a girl, don’t you?”
She started to get out of the car until Walker admonished her to stay put. “You’re my date, remember? I open the door for you.”
“Even at a place like this?”
“Even here,” he insisted. He came around the car and helped her from her seat.
The view out of the vehicle wasn’t any better than it had been from inside.
The asphalt was broken and discolored, and large clumps of weeds poked through a mazelike pattern of cracks over the rough, gray surface. The gas pumps had no means to pay by credit card, and the faded inspection stickers were at least thirty years old. The small station building itself was completely boarded up, and a small sign declaring NO TRESPASSING was dangling from one of the boards.
Strangely, there was a nice smell to the place. CiCi caught a whiff of honeysuckle and pine on the wind.
Walker took her hand and led her toward the dilapidated station.
“We’re going in there?” she asked and pulled his hand to stop his progress as she pointed to the derelict structure.
“No, we’re going around back.”
CiCi’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Trust me,” he told her and tugged on her hand.
She allowed Walker to lead her past the station and into a thicket. “I can’t walk very far in these shoes, you know,” she complained.
“Almost there,” he promised.
CiCi walked behind him, picking over rocks, around tree stumps, and between the trees. Walker’s hand reached back for her at the same moment she saw the view before her, and she felt the joyous tug of awe as it sucked the breath from her body.
They were standing on a high Knob overlooking a wide valley; they could see for miles and miles in three directions. Below was a river or broad stream, glowing and writhing like quicksilver as it snaked through the fields and rolling hills below. The sun was putting on a fantastic explosion of colors in the far west; intense magentas and fire-oranges surrounded the low, melting orb, which was almost touching the horizon.
CiCi looked at the landscape for any signs of habitations or buildings but found nothing except for a few barns and farmhouses dotting the fields in the distance.
“What is this place?” she whispered to Walker, who was standing behind her. He wound his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. She shivered in the wind, which was brisk that high up on the exposed peak.
“Only what you see before you,” he said. “Just a spectacular view. No resorts. No viewing areas. No parks. Just all this. Kentucky. The place we choose to call home.”
She swallowed hard, surprised that she could get emotional over a landscape.
But it wasn’t just a landscape. It was a slice of home. Even though she didn’t live within twenty miles of this particular spot, CiCi still felt connected to it by some intangible and ethereal sense of place. It was still recognizable as a wonder that belonged to her as a native of this area. The wind, the water, the smells, the quality of the light in the sky at that time of day and year, the colors of the sun as it dissolved in the west into fiery pools of liquid cinnamon fading to deep blues—all these things she had sensed before to a different degree in Bourbon Springs or some other wonderful corner of central Kentucky. This was her home and shelter even though she’d only first seen this vista that very day. And she claimed it as her own by her reaction—through the lump in her throat that had been pushed up there by her heart.
“How did you know about this place?” she asked.
“My dad used to take me fishing at a small lake nearby. We’d stop all the time for gas, snacks, bait. I used to love to come here just to see the view. Discovered it completely by accident when my dad was in the station talking to the attendant or going to the bathroom. I’ve loved it ever since.”
“I don’t understand why someone hasn’t bought this land and built a house or hotel,” CiCi said. “Although I’m glad that hasn’t happened since this place is unspoiled.”
“This is the middle of nowhere, remember? No one wants to live out here, I guess.”
They found a fallen tree and sat on it, and CiCi put her head on Walker’s shoulder as he wound an arm around her waist. They watched the sky turn from pink to purple to blue as the sun slipped away and stars began to peek through the darkness above them. As anxious as she’d been to get home, CiCi didn’t want these moments to end.
“Still fish with your dad?” she asked, glancing at the river below.
“A little,” Walker said, and CiCi sensed tenseness in his voice. “He’s getting on in years now, so he doesn’t get out as much. Neither does my mother. I don’t see them as much as I used to,” he admitted.
He looked out at the view, but CiCi could tell that his mind wasn’t on the view. And his comment about not seeing his parents surprised her since he’d spoken warmly of them to her when previously talking about his family.
“I’m sensing that work isn’t the thing to keep you away,” CiCi said. “You’re not a workaholic, from what I’ve seen, although you do love what you do.”
“No hiding anything from you, is there?” he joked.
“Not a chance. Observation is a survival skill when you work in the legal system. So what’s the problem?”
He waited several seconds before answering. “My divorce,” he said in a voice so low that CiCi wasn’t sure at first whether she’d heard him correctly.
“They have a moral problem with it?” A rare attitude in the times, but it still existed, she reminded herself.
“In a way,” he said. “It’s really my dad. He doesn’t understand why I got divorced. Thinks I should’ve tried harder. Like multiple reconciliation attempts weren’t enough,” Walker said in an irritated tone. “Said couples have arguments all the time but get through them, so he’s never completely accepted that Jana and I couldn’t work it out.”
“So he’s mad at you?”
“At first he was. Now it’s just this constant sense of disappointment in me. It’s there every time I visit them. I try to ignore it, but it’s hard. Especially when he asks questions like whether I’ve heard from Jana lately.”
“How the hell could he be disappointed in you? A master distiller, at the top of his profession in one of the state’s premiere industries? Sorry, Walker, but he sounds like he needs a lesson in gratitude.”
He chuckled. “I think it will be a while before I take you to meet my parents. And let me say that I certainly am grateful for what I have.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
As another breeze chilled her and she inhaled the crisp, clean air, CiCi grasped how wonderful and unique Walker Cain really was. He was someone still hurting from a divorce, and his own father’s lack of sympathy kept that wound fresh. Yet instead of trashing those who had hurt him, all she could hear in Walker’s voice was regret for his fractured relationships. And then he had the courage to express his gratitude for the new relationship he was building with her.
“You would’ve liked my mom. We used to go on hikes,” CiCi said and took Walker’s free hand in hers. “We went to the state nature preserve along Old Crow Creek, Perryville, or Bernheim Forest. Those are some of my best memories. I really miss those outings.”
“What about your dad?” he asked. “You haven’t told me much about him.”
CiCi stiffened but kept her head on his shoulder. “He left when I was four,”
she said flatly. “I rarely saw him. He came to my high school graduation—I hadn’t seen him for three years, and then he has the balls to show up. I told him where to go and never spoke to him again.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
She took her head off his shoulders. “No, you need to know what happened because it explains a lot about me.” CiCi paused and turned to consider the dying light in the western sky. She rarely told this story; most of her friends already knew it, and it was difficult for her to recount. She turned to Walker and looked at him while continuing to hold his hand. “My father was married before he met my mother. He’d married someone from Lexington, moved up there for several years, but that marriage broke up. Then he returned to Bourbon Springs and kind of swept my mother off her feet, from the way she told the tale. They got married, and I came along. But then the former wife—she stayed in Lexington—came back into the picture. My father went back to her, left my mother and me. He went back—so he claimed—because the first wife said she’d had his baby, even though she’d never told him about the child.”
“Wait… she kept this hidden from him for how long?”
“Years,” CiCi said. “I was already four when he left; the child the ex claimed was his was a few years older.”
“And he believed her?”
“I don’t know about that,” CiCi said, “but he left us. I think what really happened was my dad got tired of family life in tiny Bourbon Springs and reconnected with the ex, looking for familiar fun outside his marriage. That’s when he supposedly learned about the child. I saw her—my half sister, allegedly—a few times. I guess there was a resemblance.”
“Where’s your dad now?”
“He died a few years ago. I saw the obit in the Lexington paper,” she said coldly.
“And your half sister?”
“She died about seven years ago. I never got to know her. She never reached out to me, and I never reached out to her. I just couldn’t do it,” CiCi admitted and looked down at their clasped hands. “She died right around the time my mother died as it turned out.”
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