And he knew he didn’t want to leave her alone that night. Physical intimacy was out of the question, and it felt wrong to even think about it. Their highly-charged sexual banter during lunch now seemed trite and inappropriate in light of what had happened. But if she’d let him, he wanted to hold her for a while, like he’d done the night of her mother’s funeral. And he’d make it clear he didn’t want to be invited upstairs.
Not tonight, anyway.
Jon heard the doorbell, put down the spoon he’d just retrieved from a drawer in the kitchen, and hurried to the front door to greet Hannah. When he put his hand on the doorknob, he heard two voices, both very familiar.
“Why won’t Goose slow down? I threatened to tie him up if he doesn’t behave,” Harriet said.
“Try handcuffs,” Hannah recommended. “Very effective. And a lot more fun.”
“Have experience with handcuffs, do you?”
At this point, Jon opened the door to be presented with two pink-faced and giggling lawyers.
“Ladies,” he said, moving aside so they could enter. Once in the foyer he took their coats and pointed them down the hall into the living room.
“I’ve never been here,” Harriet cried as she moved into the area. “Wow! Look at that barn! It’s huge!” She went to the windows and pointed to the horse barn glittering on a rise in the distance.
“You should see this place in the daytime.” He went back to the kitchen. “I swear you can see for miles. Nothing but Bluegrass.”
“What are you up to?” Hannah asked. “Sleeves rolled up and in the kitchen?” She took a seat on the leather couch and watched as Jon moved about in the kitchen.
“Making spaghetti. Not that I’ll get her to eat,” he fretted and turned his back to stir the pot on the stove.
“Look at him,” Harriet said, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch from Hannah. “Cooking dinner for the little woman and worrying about her. So sweet.”
“I certainly think so.”
Pepper had appeared in the kitchen from the hallway. Hannah and Harriet rose from the couch and Pepper greeted her guests, both of whom offered hugs and condolences. “Sit down,” Pepper admonished Hannah. “You feeling better? You look great.”
“Today’s a good day.” Hannah put her hand on her tummy, and Pepper was able to see for the first time that Hannah was finally sporting a baby bump. “Instead of feeling like I want to toss my cookies at any second, I’m almost hungry for them. That’s a vast improvement over how I felt last week.”
“You want to eat dinner with us?” Jon asked. “Not very interesting, just spaghetti and jarred sauce, but we’ll have plenty.”
Hannah and Harriet accepted the invitation to stay and dine, although Harriet was at first reluctant to stay.
“I ought to check on Goose,” she said. “I have a feeling he snuck back to work at the distillery since Hannah and I aren’t around.”
“I have an idea.” Hannah pulled out her phone. She tapped it and held it out, indicating the call was on speakerphone.
“Hannah?” Goose answered.
“Get out of the visitors’ center right now, Goose Davenport, and get yourself home,” she ordered.
“But—how do you know that’s where I am?”
“Because Harriet had a feeling. And because you didn’t deny it right off the bat. So are you in your office or in the gift shop going through all those new T-shirts and flasks that came in today that I heard you telling Bo about?”
“Neither. I’m in the café.”
“And did you go in the café to get something to eat after inventorying all those T-shirts?” Hannah asked.
“Uh…”
“Thought so,” Hannah said. “Go home now or your lovely fiancée won’t drop by to see you later.”
“She’s absolutely right,” Harriet confirmed.
After some more grumbling, Goose promised he would go home and then hung up.
“Will he go home?” Pepper asked. She walked into the kitchen to check on the status of Jon’s cooking, and he gave her a kiss on the top of the head.
“He will,” Harriet confirmed. “Because he wants to give me a new homemade ice cream tonight.”
Hannah’s eyes widened. “Something new? Something to rival Cinnamon Garnet?”
The distillery café had started serving Goose’s family recipe, Cinnamon Garnet, to rave reviews.
“He won’t tell me anything about it, although I know he’s been itching to show me. So I’m pretty sure he’ll go home now if he has any hope of me stopping by later.”
Jon urged Pepper to sit with her friends and said he had dinner well in hand. Taking his advice, she sat between Hannah and Harriet and cried as she relived BB’s death. The conversation then turned to happier things; Hannah revealed that in a few more weeks they would learn the baby’s sex, and Harriet said that she and Goose were looking toward the late spring or early summer for a wedding date.
“We want to use the distillery,” Harriet said. “Not the tasting room, of course. Bo and Lila claimed that place for their own. We’re thinking about the lobby itself, right on top of the bourbon flavor wheel.”
“Wonderful idea,” Hannah agreed.
“It’s a special spot,” Harriet said, smiling to herself.
The women then fell into a long discussion about Hannah’s baby.
“I can’t wait to learn the sex,” Hannah said.
“Have you chosen any names?” Pepper asked.
“Yes, but we’re going to wait to tell until we know whether it’s a boy or a girl. I was so frustrated not knowing what Rachel and Brady were having! That’s one reason I decided I definitely wanted to know.”
“You’re not planning on having it in the distillery?” Pepper joked.
“That would be a big fat no,” she said. “I’d always wondered whether I’d want to do a natural birth or have the drugs. But after helping deliver Rachel’s baby and seeing what she went through, I made up my mind—it’s gonna be every legal thing they can give me. I have nothing but admiration for the women that do it the old-fashioned way, but I’m a wuss. I want that epidural.”
“Hannah, you’re a lot of things, but wuss isn’t one of them,” Harriet said.
Dinner was ready in a few more minutes and Jon and Pepper brought the food to the table. He’d managed to find a few cans of mixed fruit and had baked some refrigerated biscuits to round out the meal.
“Considering how bare I know my cupboard was,” Pepper said as she finished the last of her spaghetti, “I think you conjured this meal out of thin air.”
“And I think you really need to get to the store more often,” he suggested. “In fact, I’m not sure you even have any milk.”
Pepper grunted. “I get to the store plenty, it’s just that I’m always buying stuff for the horses. All those apples and carrots and pears and—”
Pepper started crying a little and Hannah took her hand.
“Will there be any kind of ceremony for BB?” Hannah asked. “If so, I’d like to come.”
“Not sure yet,” Pepper said and dabbed at her eyes. “We might just have something small here for the farm workers to pay their respects. And Rolly suggested that we have an annual ceremony, like every Memorial Day weekend, when the weather’s nice and the tourists could come.”
A smile slowly spread across Hannah’s face and her eyes grew large.
“Uh-oh.” Harriet put down her fork and napkin. “I’ve heard about that look. Buckle your seatbelts, everyone,” she warned.
“What’s going on?” Jon asked.
“Goose has told me about that look,” Harriet said, pointing at Hannah. “It’s the I’ve-got-an-awesome-idea look.”
“He’s talked about me like that?” Hannah asked.
Harriet nodded. “He said you’re a genius. But don’t tell him I told you that.”
“What’s the idea?” Pepper asked.
“I love Rolly’s suggestion of a ceremony—but what if we took it a
few steps further? You could make it a joint event with the distillery. Perhaps the bugler from Keeneland could come out and play Call to Post and we all drink a toast to our gone but not forgotten old friends? The farm would look gorgeous at that time of late spring—the fields would be that deep emerald green before the heat of summer hits, the flowers would be in bloom, and it would be a long weekend for people to be out and about. You could use it as a fundraising and publicity event for the farm. You could even do it annually, to coincide with Memorial Day every year.”
All three of them gaped at her.
“Goose was right,” Jon said. “You are a genius.”
Hannah looked from Pepper to Harriet. “You two have chosen very wisely in the boyfriend and fiancé departments.”
While Pepper and Hannah dove into planning the memorial service, Jon and Harriet cleared the dishes from the table. As they loaded the dishwasher together, Harriet spoke in a low voice.
“I got a call from the bar association today—Walker’s sister, no less.”
“I got the same call today too,” Jon said, keeping his eyes on his task.
“Does Pepper know?”
“Yes, I told her.”
Harriet nodded. “I told Nina about the cemetery incident—just that Walt showed up and made a scene and looked like an idiot. I told her that everyone was shocked when Pepper forgave him.”
“How much of their exchange did you hear?” Jon asked.
“Not much, really, just some indistinct apology from Walt, a few words from Pepper questioning his presence, then her forgiving him.”
“What did Nina tell you she knew?”
“She told me some bullshit story of Walt’s that he stayed away because that’s what Glenda wanted.”
Jon said nothing, and realized it might be best for him to talk to Harriet about the subject of Walt in the same way he dealt with Nina: by sticking to the facts.
But there wasn’t anything holding him back from asking a few of his own questions.
“I guess Goose heard Walt’s apology at the cemetery?”
“Oh, yeah,” Harriet said. “When we got back to the car, he let loose with language that would’ve made sailors cry. He remembers what his mother went through, so he had a really hard time with what he saw and heard. Said that his mother still gets upset at the mention of Walt’s name and won’t talk about it anymore. Goose thought Pepper was nuts to forgive him.”
“I’ve warned Pepper that Nina will probably contact her.”
Harriet recounted how she’d already told Goose about Nina’s contact and that Goose had told his mother. “But Lucy wants nothing to do with Walt. She asked me to e-mail Nina that she didn’t want to be contacted, and I did so on her behalf late this afternoon.”
“I have a bad feeling this will not end well.”
“You mean you think Walt will get relicensed?”
Jon frowned, shut the door on the dishwasher, and glanced across the room at Pepper.
“Not what I meant. I have no clue whether he’ll get his license back. It’s just that Walt doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to doing the right thing. I’m afraid Pepper’s going to get hurt.”
Harriet nodded gravely. “If Walt Montrose is involved, experience teaches that is the result.”
* * *
It was a few days after BB’s death and Pepper had to attend to the consequences of another passing. She had to go to court that morning with Jorrie Jones in the probate case of her mother’s will.
Although she wasn’t looking forward to the meeting with Jorrie or the court appearance, there was a very large silver lining to the whole affair: she had a lunch date after the proceedings with Jon.
She’d mentioned her court appearance to him after Hannah and Harriet had left on the evening of BB’s death. Jon had suggested lunch at Over a Barrel, and Pepper had readily accepted the invitation before falling asleep on his chest on the leather couch. They’d slept there together just as they had the night of her mother’s funeral. She loved having her face and body against him. During their fevered lovemaking sessions of several weeks earlier, they’d not had the chance to just simply snuggle that much, and Pepper had discovered that she really liked nuzzling up to Jon’s well-muscled body. At around midnight Jon had awakened her, and before sending her off to bed asked whether he could stay on the couch rather than leave. She had allowed him to stay, and she’d trudged off to bed upstairs, content in the knowledge that he’d be in the house that night and appreciative that he didn’t want to follow her to the second floor.
Pepper had just finished dressing and had arrived in the kitchen when her phone rang. She picked it up and glanced at the screen thinking it was Jon, but didn’t recognize the number. Hungry and running a little behind, she let the call go to voice mail. It wasn’t until she was finishing her second cup of coffee did she check the message.
“Hi, this is Nina Cain with the office of attorney regulation calling for Elizabeth Montrose. I’d appreciate it if she’d give me a call at…”
Pepper was tempted to call her back right then and there, if only to tell her that she didn’t really want to be involved. But she was running behind, and it wouldn’t do to be late for an appointment with her lawyer or for court.
The day was bright, although the chill of an early spring morning had seeped into her bones and she turned up the heater full blast in her small car on the drive into town. Pepper easily found a place to park on the court square and headed for Jorrie’s small office behind the courthouse. After discussing the probate case and signing a few forms, the two discussed the plans for the joint tours with the distillery.
“We are really far ahead of the curve on this,” Jorrie said happily, tucking a small bit of her curly blond hair behind an ear. They were sitting across from each other at a rectangular table in Jorrie’s small, windowless conference room. “I thought it would take several months to get all this together, but the Davenports are really anxious to get this thing moving. Jon’s easy to work with and Hannah is full of wonderful ideas.”
“No arguments here.”
Pepper smoothed her long black skirt and shared Hannah’s brainchild that had been birthed the previous night: the Memorial Day ceremony. Like everyone else, Jorrie thought the idea was brilliant.
“Anyway,” said Jorrie as she pulled out a stack of papers from a manila folder, “we’re on track to start tours in just a few weeks.” She explained how the arrangements had already been made to purchase a small bus, which would bear the logos of both Old Garnet and GarnetBrooke.
Jorrie was excited, and her enthusiasm was infectious. Pepper was glad she’d hired her rather than someone from out of town. Her instincts had been right that a local lawyer would approach the project with a lot more passion and creativity than someone from outside the community.
Jorrie checked the time. “Need to get to court. Got too caught up in this fun stuff.”
“It is fun, isn’t it?” Pepper said as they both rose from the table.
“Exactly—bourbon and horses. What’s not to love?”
“If you live in Bourbon Springs, absolutely nothing,” Pepper said.
Pepper had been dreading probate court, figuring it would dredge up unhappy memories and grief. And while the experience was indeed excruciating, it wasn’t for the reasons she had imagined.
It was desperately dull.
The docket was long that morning due to a backlog of cases. According to Jorrie, Judge Cara Forrest, the district judge who handled the probate cases, had canceled several motion hours during the past months because her husband had died in a wreck during the terrible ice storm in December and she’d taken some time off. Pepper thought the rather young judge looked tired and sad, and that it wasn’t the best idea for a new widow to be presiding over probate court.
When Pepper’s case was called, she headed to the front of the court with Jorrie for the small legal action that needed to occur. When Jorrie identified the case, a spark of re
cognition flared in Judge Forrest’s green eyes and she addressed Pepper.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Montrose,” she said directly to Pepper.
Pepper nodded, and saw Cara Forrest in that split second not as a judge but as a kindred spirit experiencing loss.
“I’m sorry for yours too,” she whispered before Judge Forrest called the next case.
Jorrie invited Pepper to lunch, but she explained that she was meeting Jon. Instead, Pepper asked Jorrie to lunch at the farm the next week. “Bring the work on the tour project and we’ll review all of it. And I’ll introduce you to some goats as well as horses.”
Pepper parted with Jorrie and went to the second floor of the courthouse. Jon had told her to meet him there since he had to file a few things before lunch, and the space on the second floor wasn’t as crowded as the main lobby on the first floor. Pepper took up a spot on a long wooden bench outside the clerk’s office, and realized she had about ten minutes to spare. As she pulled out her phone and contemplated returning Nina Cain’s call, someone stood before her and spoke.
“Hi,” Walker said.
Mildly flummoxed that she’d seemingly conjured up the brother of the person she had been thinking about, Pepper was shocked into speechlessness for a few seconds at the sight of the Old Garnet master distiller.
He was standing hand in hand with CiCi Summers, his fiancée. Pepper had gotten to know Walker during the tours she had been giving at Old Garnet. He was a handsome, charming, laid-back fellow, always eager to engage with the tourists and answer questions. He and CiCi made a striking if somewhat wacky couple. CiCi, whom Pepper had met a few times at the distillery, was as vivacious as Walker was subdued, and her curly brown hair complemented her effervescent personality.
Pepper stood to greet the couple. They appeared to be going somewhere, as they were a little dressed up. Walker was in an elegant dark suit and CiCi wore a deep red dress with the hemline at the knee.
They both looked at her with a strangely expectant gaze.
“You waiting on someone?” Walker asked.
“Yes, Jon Buckler. We’re going to lunch.”
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume II, Books 4-6 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 2) Page 78