“Oh, didn’t they tell you?” Rolly said. “The goat goes with that horse, Barbara’s Way,” he pointed down the lane to the last horse, a white mare.
“How does a goat go with a horse?” Pepper asked and lowered her head a little.
“Barb has to be with the goat,” the driver said. He handed the lead to Rolly, who was nodding.
“Wait—the horse has a pet?” Pepper exclaimed.
“No, it’s not like that at all,” Rolly claimed. “They’re friends, and don’t want to be apart, isn’t that right, Toast?” Rolly cooed at the thing.
“It’s called Toast?” she asked, and moved a little closer to inspect it. She’d had one experience with a goat when she’d worked with the Craig County Rescue group. The critter ate a pair of gloves she’d left in an otherwise empty feed pail.
“Yep, and Char will be here soon,” Rolly promised. “He’s coming next week, they told me. He and Barbara aren’t as close as—”
“Wait—did you say Char?”
Toast and char—Pepper got the wordplay on the names.
Bourbon barrels were charred with an intense blast of heat inside to certain standards. Two Kentucky distilleries, one of which was Old Garnet, had the barrel’s interior toasted with radiant heat at lower temperatures prior to charring. Pepper had heard Hannah explain that this double process produced a smoother, sweeter bourbon.
Pepper wasn’t so confident the same adjectives could be applied to goats.
She offered Toast a nibble of apple, and the beast stopped bleating long enough to take it. She then watched as the goat allowed Rolly to lead it away to a barn and the friend it was already missing.
Pepper was about to follow Rolly and Toast, but her phone rang, and she recognized the tone as the one she’d set for Jon. She had decided that since they were a couple, Jon had earned his own special ringtone: Call to Post, the traditional fanfare played at the beginning of a horserace. She liked the thoroughbred connection to the sound as well as the symbolism. Pepper felt like they were at the beginning of something important and wonderful.
“Just got some new horses,” she said at once without preface. “And a goat named Toast.”
That required a short explanation, and Jon was amused by the story, although not for long.
“Can I come out there right now and talk to you about something?”
“Now? But we just got the new horses.”
“It’s important.”
“Sure, yeah,” she agreed. “And now you have me worried. Care to tell me?”
“No, not over the phone. No bad news, but just something better discussed in person.”
Her curiosity and concern were piqued, and she told him she’d be waiting for him at the house. It would take him no longer than ten minutes to get there from downtown Bourbon Springs.
Pepper returned to the house, happy to be out of the cold, sharp wind of early spring. She shrugged out of her barn coat and boots, and as she slipped on a pair of clogs, she realized she’d lost a glove. Maybe history was going to repeat itself. She hadn’t seen Toast walking away with her missing glove, but wouldn’t put it past the critter to make off with it.
Jon arrived in the time she expected, and she greeted him with a kiss at the front door.
“How do grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch sound?” she asked as she led him back into the kitchen.
“Like you read my mind.” Jon took off his long dress coat and threw it on the couch. He was wearing a coat and tie that day, and Pepper asked him why he was all dressed up. Most of the time at the firm, they dressed in business casual, which meant khakis and nice casual shirts. “Went to court earlier this morning and didn’t get a chance to get home to change. I really should’ve brought a change of clothes to the office.”
“Well, I’m not complaining,” Pepper said as she brought a plate of warm sandwiches to the table. “You look nice.”
She blushed.
And he saw it.
He was still standing halfway between the kitchen and the living room.
“Come over here,” he said.
He was using that voice again—the voice he’d used the first time they’d made love.
And, just like that time, she responded.
She abandoned the sandwiches and went to him. Jon’s arms encircled her, and his lips were on hers before she could even put her hands against his chest. Pepper could feel him shaking just a little, as though he was trying to keep something in check, holding back. His kiss was firm, and his tongue teased hers until he broke away and began to kiss the sweet sweep of her jawline and down her neck. He was needy, and she understood why.
They’d been dating for a few weeks and had done nothing more than make out on her couch on a semiregular basis. Pepper had deliberately avoided going to his place because she feared that was a spot where she would be sorely tempted to make love to him again. She hadn’t forgotten about those clean sheets he’d bragged about.
Jon moved one hand into Pepper’s windswept hair while the other traveled down to her rear. He then pulled her to him as he brushed his erection against her thigh.
“Is there—is there any chance that I could at last see your bedroom today?” he asked, his lips at her temple.
Pepper had forbidden his presence—for the time being—on the second floor of her house. He’d never seen her new bed or the glorious view from her small upstairs balcony.
“There are a lot of people around the farm right now, Jon,” she whispered.
“What if there weren’t?”
She paused and thought. But instead of listening to her thoughts, as she had been for the past several weeks, she listened to her body and her heart. They spoke to her that day, and the message was loud and clear.
“Rolly has to leave after lunch.”
He pulled back, put his hands on her face, and looked at her in astonished glee. “So I can go upstairs today?” His tone resembled that of a little kid who was finally able to go outside and play after being grounded.
She turned to check the clock on the wall of the kitchen nook behind her. “In about an hour, if you have the time.”
He kissed her quickly and hard. “All the time in the world.”
“Then let’s pass some time by eating lunch. And you can tell me what was so important that you had to speak with me in person.”
He volunteered to get drinks for them, and as he did so, told Pepper he’d gotten a call from Nina Cain.
“Wait—I’ve heard that name before,” Pepper stopped him, and brushed her hair over her shoulders in anticipation of settling in to eat her sandwich. “Isn’t she Walker’s sister? I think I overheard him or someone at the distillery mention her once.”
“Yes, that’s her. She’s a lawyer. She works for the attorney regulation office. She’s the attorney handling your father’s case.”
“She just called you out of the blue?” Pepper asked, doubt in her tone.
“That she did. She had questions about Walt, and I answered them. I made clear I was dating you though. Said that up front.”
He recounted the call with a detached narrative, but the more he talked, the stiffer she became.
“Why’d you tell her about the cemetery? And I guess you told her how you don’t think he’s telling the truth?”
Jon brought the drinks to the table and sat. “I told Nina about what happened at the cemetery because she was unaware of it. She’d already mentioned Walt advising her about the reason he stayed away from Bourbon Springs. I’ll give you the big legal discussion if you want it, but suffice it to say that your dad not staying in the town where he practiced law before he got disbarred is a big issue.
“I only reported what happened at the cemetery, what was said. I didn’t give her my opinion, and took great pains to do just that. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Nina yourself. She didn’t tell me that she was going to contact you, but she’d be an idiot not to. And from my impression, Nina Cain is not an idiot. Far from it, in fact.”
“You told her what I told you he said to me?”
“Yes, I did. It was already consistent with what she knew. And I wasn’t going to keep anything from a bar investigator.”
“Except your opinion?”
“Which doesn’t matter because I’m not a witness. She was trying to find witnesses, and looking for information. By the way, did you talk to Harriet?”
She bristled. “No. I’m not comfortable talking about my dad. So does this Nina Cain want my father to get his license back?”
“The attorney regulation office opposes Walt’s application to get relicensed.”
“Spoken like a true lawyer,” she said with contempt and took a sip of her water from the glass Jon had brought to the table.
“That’s because I am, Pepper,” he threw back. “I understand you don’t like the fact she called about your dad and asked questions and I gave her information. But I was honest and forthcoming about the facts as I knew them. That’s something I had to do. And that was something I recently failed to do and paid a very high price for that lapse.”
Pepper realized they were back in that strange wilderness of how to function and relate to each other as a couple in light of the fact that Jon was an attorney. And she knew he was right; she shouldn’t be resentful that he’d told the truth. But she still was uncomfortable being the subject of other people’s conversations.
“Pepper, I didn’t go talking to just anyone. It was the attorney regulation office calling me.”
“I know, I know,” she said and held up a hand. “It’s still—I still hate it, okay? Winning the lottery and being talked about as a winner was one thing. A little weird, but not bad. But when it comes to my dad, it sometimes it feels like twenty years ago all over again.”
She didn’t have to say anything else for Jon to understand. Because she knew he remembered those days when she was the poor pitiful teenager whose high-flying lawyer dad suddenly crashed and burned. Some pitied her, some made fun of her. But almost everyone talked about her, and her parents, of course. She’d retreated to a life of relative seclusion and the occasional sad glance from older residents who remembered the scandal. But even a lottery win couldn’t erase the painful memories of the past and the promise of a future destroyed.
Jon managed to turn the conversation back to something she loved to talk about: the new horses. “So tell me about the new retirees. And this goat.”
For the next several minutes, she filled him in on the new horses, and how she and Rolly had made a special trip into town to get more apples, carrots, and pears. She also advised Jon, in case he ever had need to know, about BB’s preference for crisp pears.
“Like that horse would ever let me get near him to feed him!” Jon snorted. “I think he wants to kill me.”
“You just need to win him over, that’s all. Try to feed him an extra firm pear next time. I bet that will work.”
“Sorry, but I like all my fingers.”
“He only tried to bite you that one time.”
“And I only have one set of fingers.”
Jon kept checking the clock and glancing out the windows to his right.
“I never would’ve thought of you as a clock-watcher,” she said in a low voice.
Jon loosened his tie and kept his gaze on her.
“Not so much at work.” He removed the tie and placed it on the table. “But I have a really good reason to be one here.”
“Are you going to leave that there?”
He looked confusedly at his tie and then picked it up. “This? I guess I should put it in my coat pocket so I won’t forget it.”
“Why don’t you bring it upstairs? Maybe we could…”
“Could what?”
“Put it to a use for which it wasn’t intended?” she asked, smiling.
Jon picked up the tie and draped it over his neck. “There,” he declared. “Now I won’t forget it.”
“And I’ll get to slip it off of you.”
“Then what will you do with it?”
“I have a few ideas I think you’ll like.”
“Right now, Pepper, I’ll let you do almost anything to me if it means getting to go upstairs with you.”
She grinned. “I know.”
Jon looked out the windows. “Where the hell is Rolly?”
She slid her hands across the table and he took them. “Patience. He’ll be gone soon. If anything, Rolly is reliable.”
A noise that sounded like horse whinnying came from somewhere in the kitchen. Pepper immediately removed her hands from Jon’s and started patting herself down in search of her phone.
“Oh, I left it in my coat.” She got up from the table and went to a strip of plain wooden pegs along the wall next to the garage door. Her barn coat hung there, and she plunged her hands into one pocket, then the other.
“That has to be Rolly’s ringtone.” Jon pushed away from the table but remained seated.
“How’d you guess?”
She answered with a chirpy greeting. “Thought you’d be gone by now to the doctor. What’s the—”
Every trace of happiness left her, and Jon stood upon seeing her nearly-instantaneous mood swing.
“Oh, God,” she said into the phone, and started breathing hard in preface to the tears already brimming in her eyes.
She brushed past Jon and looked out the kitchen windows.
“Yeah, I see you.” She waved out the window and to Rolly, who was at the horse barn beyond the quarantine barn. “On my way.”
She turned from the windows as the call ended and Jon grabbed her arm.
“What?”
“BB…” she choked, and the tears started to flow freely. “He’s down, he’s not—it’s not good—his leg—”
“I’m coming with you,” he insisted.
“You’re all dressed up!” She pointed to his shoes.
“Get me a pair of boots and I’m good.”
“But I don’t know what to expect, Jon. I can’t tell you what you’d be walking into when you go to that barn. I’ve dreaded this day—the day one of them dies. I knew it would come. But not so soon. And I never thought it would be him to be the first that—” she spluttered and started to sob.
Jon put his hands on her upper arms, momentarily gaining her attention.
“Don’t do this alone, Pepper. Let me be there with you, however bad it is.”
Her chin quivered for a moment and she thought she’d tell him no. Instead, she hugged him fiercely.
“I love you,” she said into his chest. Jon heaved a great sigh as though he were taking her burden in that sad yet joyous moment.
Jon gently pulled her away from his chest and kissed her. “I love you too,” he said, choking back his own tears.
As she found her boots and pointed Jon to the extra pair she kept for him, she felt guilty for not getting out to see BB sooner, to give him that one last bite of apple or pear. She took some small comfort in knowing that had been her mission later that day, and grabbed the pail full of sliced pears before heading out the door.
17
When they returned to the house late that afternoon, Pepper retreated to her bedroom alone to recover from the horrible events of the day. BB had broken his leg in his stall. He was a feisty thing and for such a horse an injury like that was always a possibility. When she had arrived with Jon at the barn, the vet was already there. She’d taken one look at BB and pronounced that there was nothing to be done, and the creature needed to be put out of its misery.
Pepper had been inconsolable. Crouching against BB on the hay-covered floor of his stall, she had put her head against the horse’s muzzle as he passed. The animal gave a few snorts before departing this world, and Jon had to pull Pepper away with Rolly’s help. The only bright spot was that Rolly kept repeating how happy he was that he’d brought his computer that day so BB could watch some of his races. This required some explanation to Jon, who, after hearing about the goat, realized he shouldn’t have been sur
prised at any little eccentricity when it came to life at GarnetBrooke.
Following some very brief cuddling and crying on the couch, Pepper told him that she wanted to rest upstairs but that she didn’t want him to leave. Happy that she didn’t want him to go, he told her he’d fix something to eat and asked whether it would be all right for him to call Hannah. She gave permission, but said that she wanted to sleep a little before seeing anyone.
After a quick call to Hannah to explain what had happened and to invite her over, Jon managed to find enough in Pepper’s kitchen to make spaghetti. While Pepper rested, he prepared the food and mulled over the events of a very stressful day. Even though it had been a time of difficulty, he knew he would always fondly remember the time as the day Pepper finally told him she loved him.
In fact, after they’d returned to the house, she’d told him several more times: the moment they closed the door behind them after coming back from the horse barn during a very long embrace; on the couch as they kissed and she cried into his chest; and just before she went upstairs to nap.
Now he was in her kitchen making her dinner and waiting on friends to come over.
Jon stopped and looked around. He was completely alone, although he knew Pepper was just upstairs. No workers would bother them at this time of the evening, barring some additional tragedy. The windows overlooking the fields beyond were dark, save for the lights on the massive horse barns, their lights ablaze in the dimness. Far in the distance to the south, Jon thought he could discern the faint glow coming from Bourbon Springs over several rises of fields.
It was all so normal. Nice. Comfortable. Domestic.
It was what he wanted.
They’d barely been dating a few weeks, and he was already thinking of GarnetBrooke as his home too. He’d been surprised at how Pepper had warmed to her new surroundings so quickly. It was one thing to work part-time in the accounting office and like the place, but quite another to suddenly be able to buy the whole farm lock, stock, and bourbon barrel and set up housekeeping.
Now he was experiencing something similar, a gradual and happy comfort connected to this spot, because this is the place she could be found and was happy. And he was in love with her.
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2) Page 77