“I’ll wait however long it takes. But you have to know that I’m going to be impatient.”
“You said you’d been fighting these feelings for a while. How long have you felt this way?”
“Since Bo and Lila’s wedding,” he admitted, dropping his head a little. “I can remember the moment. It was when I was helping you into your coat and we were about to leave. I brushed your hair away from under your coat.” He touched some of her hair which was strewn across the pillow. “It was something about your hair. This wonderful red hair…”
“Same old hair.” Pepper watched as he ran his fingers through her tresses.
“But very new feelings.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“At first I was so surprised, even afraid, and I didn’t know what to do. I thought what I was feeling might go away, but that definitely didn’t happen. Then you won the lottery and I went off and made you mad. I was trying to think of some way to tell you, to talk to you, and still had absolutely no plan when we came here together. It was just that tonight I couldn’t keep it inside any longer.”
His expression must’ve betrayed his insecurity. She moved closer to him and put a hand on his cheek.
“I’m glad this happened, Jon. Very glad.”
“How glad?”
He kissed the soft skin below her ear and she sighed and tilted her head, giving him better access. As he trailed soft kisses over her neck and across her collarbone, he brought a hand to one of her breasts, gave it a squeeze, and slowly stroked the nipple with his thumb.
Pepper threw her leg over his hip, placed her hands aside his face, and pulled him to her.
“Let me show you.”
6
Hannah awoke to the smell of something decidedly yummy cooking.
She knew Kyle wasn’t around, despite the exceptionally hot dream she’d had about him. She’d reached for him in the night and nearly cried when her hand had touched the cool, smooth, and empty sheets. Hannah had read that a pregnant woman’s libido often increased, and she had definitely not been an exception.
They’d found out the first week of January that she was pregnant again, and soon thereafter her level of horniness for her hunky-hot husband had exploded. Kyle had eagerly accepted the gift at first, but in recent days and weeks she’d noticed a little bit less enthusiasm for pleasures of the flesh. She suspected that Kyle had wanted to go out of town to some boring-sounding sheriff’s conference in Lexington just so he could get a decent night’s rest since she’d been disrupting his sleep patterns quite a bit.
And despite her own diminished amount of sleep, the quality of it was great, and she was feeling wonderful. This fact cheered her since she’d felt so horrible during her last pregnancy, which had ended in miscarriage. This time was just different, and Hannah had a feeling that all would be well. She was secretly hoping for a girl so she could name her Emma, after her mother. The thought that her mother wouldn’t be here to see her grandchild arrive was the only small spot of unhappiness in Hannah’s otherwise perfect life.
She was anxious to tell the world she was distilling and maturing her own little small batch, due to be unbarreled in the late summer, but she and Kyle had decided to wait until she’d made it to the second trimester. It was going to be hard to keep avoiding offers of bourbon balls and explaining away all those declined sips of the family stuff, especially the most recent Garnet Center Cut the master distiller had just selected from some choice barrels.
Hannah was ravenous, and finally remembered that she actually had a houseguest. She got up and went to investigate the aromatic goings-on in her kitchen below.
“Oh! Good morning!” Pepper greeted her as Hannah stood in the hall at the edge of the kitchen. “I made breakfast for you since you had such a late night, and you’ve been so kind to let me crash here for a while.”
Hannah pulled the collar of her fluffy red robe up around her neck. “Of course I don’t mind. Thank you! But you really shouldn’t have done this.”
“I wanted to do it. It was the least I could do.”
Hannah entered the kitchen and saw fresh fruit in a basket, a gallon of orange juice on the counter, a bag of bagels, and an open box of frozen cinnamon-apple waffles. Hannah realized that it had been the aroma of those waffles in the toaster that had greeted her upon awakening.
“Wait a sec—where’d you get all this food?” Hannah grabbed a banana from the basket and moved toward the table at the far end of the kitchen.
“We went to the grocery last night,” Pepper said as she removed a bowl of scrambled eggs from the microwave.
“We?” Hannah asked, and moved toward the windows beyond the table to look out over the backyard.
“Jon and I went to the grocery for you after grabbing dinner at The Windmill,” she explained as she fluffed the eggs with a fork. “He mentioned you’d said something about not having much in the house to eat, so we stocked up for you.”
“That is the sweetest thing, Pepper. I appreciate you two doing that. And I’m sorry I got home so late that I didn’t get to see you before you went to bed.”
Pepper brushed off the apology, looking extremely embarrassed (what was with that blush?), and asked her hostess what she’d like for breakfast.
“Everything! I’m starving. Only had a stale sandwich at the café last night at the distillery. You didn’t miss much,” she griped. “Hope you and Jon had better luck.”
“What?” Pepper asked, nearly dropping the bowl of scrambled eggs as she toted it to the table.
“At The Windmill,” Hannah said, rising to take the bowl of eggs from her. “You went there, right?”
Pepper confirmed they did, and returned to the kitchen to retrieve more breakfast fare as Hannah sat down again.
“I hope to be out of here in two weeks, Hannah. If there’s another stupid problem with the closing, I’ll find another place to go. I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”
“No way! I love having company! Besides, this is a great opportunity for me to get to know Old Garnet’s new neighbor. So glad you bought that farm. A brilliant thing to do.”
“Brilliant?”
“And setting up that place as a thoroughbred retirement farm? So generous! Have you considered opening it up for tours again?”
Pepper nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. The gates of GarnetBrooke have been closed far too long to the public, and especially to this community. It’s a part of Bourbon Springs, and I want people to come back and see it, to enjoy it. And see the horses, of course.”
“That’s great. I can’t wait to see it again.”
“You can be one of the first. But I have more ideas than just tours of the farm,” Pepper said.
“I’m all ears.” Hannah got up and entered the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea.
“What if we did joint tours? The distillery and the farm. It’s perfect—bourbon and Bluegrass. I think people would flock to see Kentucky’s two premier products side-by-side. What do you think?”
Hannah slowly put her mug down on the kitchen counter and her mouth dropped open. “That is the best idea I’ve heard in years! When can we get started?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure we need horses first.” Pepper explained that the retirees should be arriving sometime in the early-to-mid spring. “But that will give us some time to start on the plans.”
“Who’s your attorney?” Hannah asked.
“Drake Mercer.”
“Hmm, we have a bit of a problem. Jon represents the distillery and Drake’s now at that firm. One or both of us will have to get new counsel for any deal we make about tours,” Hannah said.
“I’ll hire another attorney. You stick with Jon.”
Hannah filled her mug and put it in the microwave. “Jon does know our business, although we do miss Harriet.”
“Miss her?”
“Well, doing our legal work, that’s all. She’s around the distillery all the time now since she’s engaged to Goose. By th
e time she left the firm, she and Jon were pretty much doing all of Old Garnet’s work. Harriet really understood our business well. That’s not a knock on Jon, mind you. He’s great.”
“Then definitely stick with him. I don’t mind getting other counsel.”
Hannah extracted a teabag from a box on the counter and returned to the table with her mug.
“Say, you want to come to the distillery with me today? I’d love to give you a tour.”
“Bet I could do one myself.” She reminded Hannah that she’d been a tour guide at Old Garnet many moons ago.
“Bet you couldn’t,” Hannah challenged her. “The visitors’ center was added since you were a guide, and we have more mash tubs now. And we’ve turned that old building into a museum, and built a nice porch on the back for events, although we use the visitors’ center for almost everything.”
“Sounds like I need to check out my new business opportunity.”
Hannah grinned broadly at her clever houseguest. “I’ll give you the best damned tour anyone ever got. You’re going to love it—partner.”
* * *
Pepper told Hannah that she was going to visit her mother in the morning, but would love to come by later for her personal distillery tour. They made a lunch date, finished breakfast, and Pepper returned to her room to change clothes. She had already showered and dressed but was in sweats; she wanted to visit her mother in nicer clothes.
When she returned to her suite, she had a voice mail from Jon asking her to call. The simple knowledge that he’d called thrilled her, and her thoughts drifted to the previous evening.
Bathed in the light of a full moon shining in through the open curtains, they’d made love a third time. After putting the sheets in the wash, they’d then gone to The Windmill where Pepper felt like she’d eaten everything not nailed down. All that hot sex had produced an appetite in her that she’d never known, and she ended up having a large cheeseburger, a large order of fries, a chocolate shake, and a piece of bourbon chess pie. Jon was no slouch in the eating department, and had ordered the same as Pepper, except he’d downed an extra burger.
As they’d waited for their food, Pepper had kept her eyes on the table’s surface most of the time. Jon had wanted to hold hands on top of the table, but she demurred, leaving him disappointed. Instead, she felt the heat of his gaze until the food was delivered. She’d tried to make small talk, but Jon’s lingering look had left no doubt about the things passing through his mind.
After eating, they had briefly returned to the house, put the sheets in the dryer, and then had gone to the grocery store together. Pepper had told him that she could manage the grocery run by herself, but Jon refused to leave her.
“I don’t want this day to end,” he’d said in Hannah’s laundry room as he hugged her from behind.
“You realize you’re romanticizing a trip to the grocery store?”
“Yes, because I’ll be with you.”
Pepper wasn’t about to deny Jon his happy little outing, and they had gone to the store together, deliberately taking their time as they strolled through the aisles. She hadn’t wanted the day to end either.
They had returned to Hannah’s house, put away the groceries, and placed the clean sheets on the bed. And she’d been sorely tempted when he suggested they crawl between those lovely clean sheets once more.
And she’d cried after he left.
After the intense, sudden, and fantastic sexual experience they’d shared that night, she had been left confused and exhilarated. Jon hadn’t said it to her—she knew.
He was in love with her. And she was in love with him.
That should be enough, but it wasn’t.
She had tossed and turned all night long, with one thing on her mind, the thing that was haunting her.
Why?
Why now, after all this time?
Why had his feelings changed?
Why had hers suddenly changed—or, rather, been revealed—in the course of just a few minutes after he’d poured his heart out to her?
She had no answers.
And teachers liked answers, needed them, demanded them.
She put uncertainty out of her mind as she sat on the edge of the bed and returned his call.
“Is something wrong? Your message didn’t say anything except to call you,” she said. Her hand smoothed the comforter as images of what had happened in that bed only a few hours earlier started popping into her mind.
“No, nothing’s wrong… I just… damn, this is awkward.”
“Spit it out.”
“I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Hello,” she said shyly.
“Where are you?”
“Um—sitting on the bed.” She giggled.
“Wish I was there with you.”
“No, you don’t. Hannah’s here. Not like we could—well—you know…”
“No, I don’t know,” he teased. “What’s on your mind?”
“Probably the same thing that’s on yours right now, so snap out of it. And speaking of Hannah, I just had breakfast with her and brought up the joint tours idea. She loved it.” Pepper then explained how she had agreed to get new counsel for the joint tours project.
“Can I go with you to see your mother and the distillery?”
“But I told you that I didn’t want to go off and be a public couple so soon.”
“Please. I want to see you,” he said. “It would just be the two of us going to see your mom. And I do legal work for the distillery all the time. Nothing suspiciously couple-like about either of those things.”
She closed her eyes. What had she gotten herself into?
Pepper knew she wanted to see him, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for the burden of him needing her so much—and vice versa. But she also knew that her body was quite clearly telling her that it needed his body again, and as soon as possible.
“Okay, but tell Drake to meet us at the distillery,” Pepper said. “If we’re going to be talking about planning the joint tours—and that’s what Hannah is expecting me to talk about—it’ll look a lot more reasonable if you both come along.”
“But we can’t talk about tours—I mean, Drake won’t be able to give you any advice or anything because of the conflict of interest, remember?”
“I know that,” she said impatiently, “but this is just preliminary stuff.”
He was quiet, and she was at first irritated by his petulance.
Then she was amused.
Jon was still jealous of Drake.
“I’ll pick you up at your office in twenty minutes and we’ll go see my mom together,” she acquiesced, knowing he’d be happy to have a little time alone with her. “But tell Drake I want him at the distillery at lunch.”
Fifteen minutes later Pepper was standing in the foyer at Colyard and Borden, anxiously awaiting Jon. On the drive to town, she’d gotten more and more excited at the prospect of seeing him again. But instead of seeing her new lover arrive in the reception area, Drake appeared.
“Jon says you want me at the distillery later today?” he asked after a quick greeting which involved an awkward hug.
“Yeah, just some business issues to resolve. It will likely be very brief. I’ll tell you more when we get there.”
Drake smiled. “Looking forward to it.”
“Me too,” Pepper said, but she wasn’t looking at Drake.
Her eyes were focused on Jon, who had appeared out of a hallway and emerged into the reception space. Drake excused himself, unaware of the unspoken communication between his client and law partner.
Pepper and Jon presented the nervous smiles of new lovers. She felt herself blushing, but he was completely calm—and probably undressing her with his eyes.
“Ready?” she asked in her most chirpy voice.
“Yes.” He made no attempt to hide the desire in his tone.
After a moment’s hesitation wrought by his response and all it promised, Pepper turned on her heel and wal
ked out the door, knowing he was right behind her.
“Thanks for letting me come along with you today,” he said once they were in her car and on the road.
“You’re persuasive, counselor. Hard to turn you down.”
“I discovered that yesterday.”
She opened her mouth in surprise, but was a little turned on by the mischievous version of Jon.
“Aren’t you the naughty one?”
“After last night, I think it’s fair to say we’re both very naughty.”
“You’d better be nice or it could be some time before I bestow my favors again, counselor.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with mock politeness and gave her a little salute.
They caught a traffic light, and Pepper let her right hand drop to her lap. Jon reached for it.
“Thought I’d make the most of our time alone,” he said.
She smiled and looked down at their clasped hands. Her gaze migrated to his crotch.
“Seriously?” she said as she slipped her hand from his and put it back on the wheel. “Holding my hand did that?”
“No. Just being with you did that.”
“What are we gonna do about it?” She glanced at the distinct bulge under his khakis.
“Oh, I know what we could do. My house isn’t too far from here, remember?”
“As if,” she said with a smirk.
“I mean it. Let’s go to my house.”
“I seem to recall there could be a problem with the tidiness of your place?”
“I put clean sheets on my bed before I left my place this morning,” he boasted.
“Sure you did,” she said in a disbelieving tone, but secretly hoped he was telling the truth.
“Want to find out?”
Pepper pulled into the parking lot of the nursing home, parked the car, and took the keys from the ignition. Looking straight ahead, she took a deep breath and didn’t dare look at him. Jon put his hand on her thigh, and moved it up her leg until she put her own hand on top of his.
“You do know what would happen if we were alone right now, don’t you?” He stroked her leg with his thumb.
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2) Page 67