Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  “I’m pretty sure it would involve us getting naked. And naughty.”

  “Then let’s go.” He slid his hand to the inside of her thigh.

  But Pepper removed his hand. “Later. We’re here already and I’m going in to see my mother.”

  “But I can’t get out of the car like this!” He gestured to his lap.

  “Awww,” she drawled and tilted her head. “You’ll have to stay here, won’t you? Join me in the waiting room once you get your little friend there under control.” She nodded at his nether regions and put her hand on the car door handle. “And here’s a naughty little thought that won’t help you with that problem. I’m wearing that blue bra again. I could tell you had a thing for it.”

  Pepper saw Jon’s eyes widen as he clenched his jaw. She laughed and exited the car but held the door open.

  “You’re evil,” he said. She leaned over, resting one of her arms on the top of the car as she held the door open with the other. “I’m definitely evil. In fact, I’m so evil that I’m going to leave with another naughty thought to occupy your mind—and your parts.”

  “And that would be?”

  “I’m wearing the panties that match the bra.”

  7

  Her amusement didn’t last long because as soon as Pepper entered the building, that institutional health care smell—antiseptic, a lingering food odor, and some kind of cleaner—hit her senses and she was jerked back into reality and the purpose of her visit. She’d originally planned to return to see her mother last night, but her extended sexual escapades with Jon had put that idea to rest. It was only the second day her mother had been in the facility, and Pepper was already feeling guilty for not visiting.

  Pepper found her mother in a bright, open common area with several other residents. People were playing cards, watching television, reading, or dozing. Glenda Montrose was sitting and reading, and immediately perked up when Pepper arrived. She stood and hugged her daughter.

  After they both sat, Pepper apologized for not returning the previous evening, but her mother stared at her blankly; Pepper could tell she couldn’t remember what had happened. When Pepper explained to her mother that she’d moved in yesterday, Glenda gave her a quizzical look but did mention how it had been nice to see Mona Buckler.

  Pepper chatted about temporarily moving in with Hannah and how she’d soon be moving to the farm. They talked briefly about horses, and Pepper was debating whether to mention Jon’s name when he appeared in the common area and approached them. Glenda smiled broadly at him, rose, and gave him a hug.

  “Oh, Jon, it has been so long,” Glenda said, “a few months, right?” She patted him on the back before releasing him from the embrace. And she was in the ballpark on when she’d last seen him: it had been Christmas Day, at Mona’s house.

  They sat, and Glenda lost her balance and stumbled back into her chair.

  “Careful, Mom,” Pepper warned.

  “Just a little unsteady this morning. Tired.”

  Glenda was dressed appropriately, in knit pants and a sweatshirt, and her bobbed gray hair was neatly combed. But Pepper noticed the circles under her mother’s eyes and the slight stoop in her posture, and wondered how poorly her mother had slept the previous evening.

  “So nice to see you,” Jon said as he moved his chair closer to Pepper and sat facing Glenda. He slipped out of his coat and hung it on the back of his chair.

  Glenda patted his knee like he was a small child. “Tell me—how’s your wife doing? Haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “Uh—”

  On Christmas Day, Glenda had asked a few times about Leigh’s whereabouts, but the question hadn’t been nearly as awkward as it was that morning.

  “Mom, Jon and Leigh have been divorced for over five years now,” Pepper said and shot a quick glance at Jon.

  “Oh… oh, yes,” her mother said distractedly.

  They chatted for a few more minutes about the weather and Pepper’s need for a new coat before Jon excused himself.

  “I’ll be in the car.” He kissed Pepper on the cheek before standing. “Oh—uh—” he stammered.

  “It’s okay,” Pepper assured him. She grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze as he stood. As for Glenda, she smiled a little too knowingly for Pepper’s liking, but said nothing until Jon had left.

  “He’s such a nice man, Pepper. Is he your boyfriend now?” Pepper reddened and was unable to respond. “Oh, I see he is,” Glenda said and pointed to her daughter’s face. “That’s sweet. How long now have you two been going out?”

  “Mom, Jon and I—”

  “You say his name is Jon? Jon what?”

  Pepper managed to establish his identity as Jon Buckler, longtime family friend. Glenda seemed to recall him, and Pepper thought it time to leave before Glenda revisited the subject of Jon being her boyfriend.

  With promises to return the next day, Pepper gave her mother a hug and left. By the time she was in the main lobby of the care facility she was again teary-eyed, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as the previous day.

  Pepper took a seat in the lobby to compose herself before returning to the car. She was a bundle of conflicting emotions—guilt, sadness, amusement, and lust—and wanted to calm herself before seeing Jon again. She knew he’d been quite serious about going to his house. But she wasn’t sure whether she literally and figuratively wanted to go there, notwithstanding the pleas from her body that it was more than ready to be subjected to the pleasures which Jon could bestow.

  She had stilled her thoughts and was about to get up and leave when her phone rang. Pepper pulled it out and checked the number, but it wasn’t one she recognized. Suspecting the caller could be Hannah with some news about the lunch meeting, she answered.

  “Hello? Is this Pepper?” came an eerily familiar voice.

  Her brain couldn’t quite identify the caller, but it had sufficiently identified the man as someone with whom she did not want to speak.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s your dad, honey.”

  She physically reacted upon hearing those words.

  Her stomach hurt, her chest clenched, and a wave of scorching heat—a physical eruption of pure rage—washed over her from head to toe.

  Pepper had expected that Walt Montrose would get in touch once he discovered she’d won the lottery, but that anticipated call hadn’t come in the days and weeks right after her win became public. Now it was over a month later, and he was finally contacting her after years of silence and apathy.

  Her natural instinct was to scream what the fuck do you want?!

  But she decided to be stiff and formal.

  “This is Pepper,” she said in a businesslike tone.

  She heard him sigh on the other end as though he were disappointed in her.

  “I just wanted to say hi and congratulations,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She waited for the inevitable plea for financial help.

  “I guess you must think I’m calling because you won the lottery.”

  “That would be correct, since you haven’t bothered to acknowledge my existence or my mother’s existence in years.”

  “I’m not calling because of the lottery, honey. But I do have a reason for contacting you now. I wanted to let you know that I’m trying to get my law license back, and—”

  “W-what? How the hell could that be possible? I thought you were disbarred.”

  He explained that he’d been indefinitely suspended from practice, which many simply called being disbarred. “But the law allows me to apply again for my license. And I think that after all these years, I should have a chance to do that.”

  She said nothing, yet clearly broadcast her sentiments. The world could do without Walt Montrose as an attorney.

  “I guess you don’t agree,” he said wearily.

  “What do you want?” she snapped. She was tired of the intrusion.

  “Just to say hello and to tell you that I’m trying to get relicensed. I expect that t
he bar authorities will contact you about me and ask what you think. I wanted to give you the heads up. That’s the real purpose of this call. I didn’t want you to get completely blindsided by the bar contacting you.”

  “And you want me to tell them exactly what?” she asked, her voice rising. “What a great dad you were? How you were always there for mom and me?”

  Pepper could not resist humiliating him and venting the anger that had gnawed at her for nearly two decades.

  She felt more than entitled to rip him another one since he’d called her and further disturbed her already unsettled day. She walked outside, because she knew that the remainder of the conversation she was going to have with him was not going to be polite or in a soft voice.

  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  “I’ll talk to you any fucking way I please, you son of a bitch! Do you have any idea what our lives have been like for the past umpteen years? Do you? No, you don’t,” she said, not giving him a chance to lie. “You’ve been in prison and then wherever the fucking hell you went after they let you out. And now you call me about your law license? Something about you? Give me a fucking break!”

  “Don’t use language like that with me!”

  “I’m not a teenager, Dad, although I can understand why you might think so since it’s possible that was the last time we spoke.”

  “And do you know how much I’ve wanted to call, to talk to you? Do you really think that I’ve stayed away just because I didn’t give a damn?”

  “That’s exactly what I think! That’s what I’ve lived for years and years! That’s been my life!”

  “Pepper, I’ve stayed away because that’s what your mother wanted!”

  “How dare you blame her!”

  “It’s true! She said to stay away. And I agreed. I knew you were ashamed of me. The whole damn town hated me—probably still does, if they even remember me.”

  “What a convenient little story.”

  “How is it convenient?”

  “Because I can’t ask Mom whether it’s true.” She explained that Glenda was now in a home due to her medical condition.

  “I had no idea that—that Glenda had Alzheimer’s,” Walt said in a halting voice.

  “Dad, I need to go,” Pepper said, now more tired than angry.

  “She told me to stay away, Pepper,” he insisted. “And I honored her wishes. Please believe me.”

  She had no way of confirming his tale, but a big part of her wanted to believe him. Because up until the time he’d gotten in trouble, Walt Montrose had been a great dad.

  He had been at every school event, every dance recital, every last thing to do with his daughter. He hadn’t slaved away late at the office but had returned home at a reasonable hour. That was what had been so difficult for her to reconcile through the years—the two very different versions of her father.

  She tersely thanked him for letting her know that she might be contacted by the bar association and abruptly ended the call. Pepper stood outside the front entrance for a little while, shivering from the cold as well as rage. After some indeterminate period of time, she felt an arm go around her shoulders and she jumped away, terrified.

  “It’s me, Pepper.” Jon backed away from her with his hands up. “Just me. What’s the matter? I watched you from the car and could tell that—”

  She handed Jon her keys. “You need to drive.”

  “What’s wrong? Is it your mom?”

  “No. It’s my dad.”

  * * *

  Instead of going to his house, which was close, Pepper wanted to return to Hannah’s place, which was closer to the distillery and thus their lunch date. Pepper didn’t want to go to Jon’s place lest she be tempted to get naked and naughty with him, although she thought there was little chance of that considering her fragile emotional state.

  She explained to Jon what her father had told her, and Jon listened to the story in silence until they reached their destination.

  “You believe him?” he asked as they entered the house.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I don’t believe he didn’t know about Mom’s Alzheimer’s though. He’s got quite a story—and she’s the only one who could possibly refute it. Too coincidental.”

  All she wanted to do was to sit quietly and be held, and Jon was more than happy to oblige. For about half an hour, Pepper snuggled up to Jon’s chest on the couch in Hannah’s great room with her feet tucked under her body and covered by a red blanket. The scenario was so familiar and comforting—this had been a regular occurrence for them when Pepper had been going through her divorce and her ex-husband’s legal woes. It was only when Leigh had left that the two of them had stopped the cuddling.

  Calm and comforted despite a terrible morning, Pepper fell asleep on Jon’s chest as he rubbed her back and stroked her hair. Although being so close to him again was arousing, the overwhelming sensation was a deep sense of serenity—something she could easily identify as love.

  She nodded off but was awakened when Jon slipped his fingers inside the waistband of her pants.

  “Hey!” she said and sat up at once. “That tickles! What’s up?”

  “Trying see if you were telling the truth about those panties.”

  She scooted away from him toward the opposite end of the couch. “You’ll have to wait and see,” she said with a seductive smile.

  “Will I get to see tonight?”

  “Maybe,” she teased.

  “I wasn’t suggesting that we retire to your room again this evening, of course. I don’t think we can count on Hannah working so late all the time.”

  “So do you really have clean sheets on your bed?” she asked.

  “You’ll have to wait and see,” he parroted, and moved toward her on the couch.

  Jon took her in his arms and tried to kiss her quickly. But Pepper needed more, and her need surprised her. She’d not wanted to return to Jon’s place, because she was afraid they’d end up in bed together again. But now that she was with him and he had held her, reassured her, and kissed her, Pepper felt the heat between her legs aching for release and she wanted him to douse that fire.

  She wanted him.

  When he tried to pull away, she grabbed the back of his head and gave him a scorching look before kissing him so long and deep that she left him panting.

  “I need you,” she said, holding his face in front of hers.

  “What about our lunch date at the distillery?” He slipped his hands up her sweater and stopped when he reached her bra.

  “Don’t you want to make sure I was telling the truth?”

  “The truth?”

  “About whether I’m wearing the matching set.”

  A smile spread across his face, and Pepper swiped her phone from the table and called Hannah, telling her that she had to come back to the house because she’d forgotten something and that they’d be about fifteen minutes late to lunch. She handed the phone to Jon and told him to text Drake with the same news. While he did so, Pepper stood and retreated to her room.

  Jon joined Pepper in her suite to find her wearing nothing but the blue bra and the matching panties, which were lacier than the bra. She was by the window, closing the blinds to darken the room.

  “I see you were completely honest with me,” he said, closing the bedroom door and locking it.

  “Of course I was,” she said as he set to disrobing. “Why’d you lock the door?”

  “In case the good sheriff arrives home early from that conference Hannah mentioned.”

  After stripping every piece of clothing from his body while keeping his eyes on her, Jon stood beside the bed. Pepper went to him, put her hands on the back of his neck, and drew him against her. She wanted to tell him how much she needed him and how frightened she was of that growing, insatiable need. Less than twenty-four hours earlier they’d just been friends moving her stuff. Now they were about to make love again—and she’d already lost count of how many times.

  Jo
n kissed her and removed her bra, then slid his fingers down the sides of her body until he touched the edge of her panties. He broke the kiss and moved his right hand under the fabric to her hot wet center, and rubbed her clit until she grabbed his arms to support herself and moaned.

  “Damn, you get wet fast,” he said.

  “Yeah, lucky you.”

  She grasped his erection and began to stroke his hardness, but he brushed her hand aside and proceeded to remove her panties. Jon then got on his back on top of the bed, stroked himself, and beckoned.

  “Straddle me, make love to me,” he ordered. “Show me how quickly you can come on top.”

  She complied, sliding down on his shaft easily until he completely filled her.

  “Remember, we don’t have much time.” He gripped her hips and started to move inside her.

  Pepper propped herself up on her hands, placing them next to his shoulders and began to match his rhythm, then set her own until she was in control. Jon moved his hands to her breasts and caressed, kneaded, and cupped them as Pepper ground against him harder and harder.

  “Do it, Pepper,” he groaned as she closed her eyes. “Come for me, come hard on me again. Let me feel you come around me before I fill you up again.”

  She was lost.

  Feeling Jon inside her as she built toward another orgasm was the most exquisite sensation Pepper had ever experienced. Jon was big, and she reveled in the knowledge that no man had ever filled her so fully. She badly wanted to come but also wanted to extend the experience as long as possible. She slowed just a little, allowing herself the delicious pleasure of clenching against him a few times and listening to his groans.

  But then the ripple of her orgasm started deep inside her, spreading rapidly from her core. She moaned Jon’s name and rode him as waves of pleasure threatened to consume her. As the last spasms of her climax twitched around his length, Jon flipped her onto her back. With a primal cry, he plunged into Pepper deep and hard. He came with his first thrust, and emptied himself into her.

  And as he did so, she felt herself responding again.