Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume III, Books 7-9 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 3)

by Jennifer Bramseth

  Jorrie immediately told him that she’d ask Drake for help (since she thought it unwise for her to undertake the case because of their personal relationship). She’d been right that Drake would take the case; he’d been happy to help.

  “It’s not that,” Mack said a bit unpersuasively. “I just want to remember these moments with you.”

  Jorrie kissed him on the cheek and felt him trembling.

  Why was he afraid?

  His emotional state couldn’t only be attributed to the stupid lawsuit; something else was at work. She detected that same edge of uncertainty in him—or was it desperation?—that she’d first experienced when she’d met him at the Old Garnet visitors’ center almost a month earlier.

  But before she could decide whether to keep probing his attitude, Mack took the hat from her, and out they went into the brilliant heat of the late morning.

  It was small-town America on the Fourth of July in all its wonderfully poignant and tacky glory.

  Food vendors peddled the typical greasy fair food. Balloon sellers wandered the streets. People distributed miniature flags, exhorting recipients to wave them as they watched the parade. Red, white, and blue banners hung from the streetlamps and floated in the negligible breeze.

  Stretched across Main Street between the Craig County Courthouse and Over a Barrel was a large sign wishing all a happy Independence Day and announcing the times of the parade and the fireworks.

  “Hey, look!” Jorrie said, grabbing Mack’s arm. “Cotton candy!” She pointed to a food cart across Main Street in front of Over a Barrel.

  “It’s almost lunchtime,” he pointed out.

  “So?”

  She dragged him across Main Street, dodging the dozens of people walking up and down the middle of the thoroughfare.

  Jorrie choose a stick of pink cotton candy, and Mack got a stick of blue.

  “They ought to sell this stuff at Kentucky games,” he opined as they walked south and toward a city park where most of the food vendors had set up shop.

  It wasn’t quite noon, but the venue was thick with people. If they had any hope of grabbing both something to eat and a table at which to eat it, they needed to get some food and fast.

  They perused the offerings, finally realizing that unless they wanted to graze on the grass in the park, their healthy eating options were limited to the point of nonexistence. They chose pizza since it was easy to eat and Mack mentioned that he never got to eat it.

  “Pa hates it, and they don’t have it at The Windmill,” Mack said. “So it’s a treat for me.”

  “And quick and cheap when you’re hungry on a day like this,” she said.

  The line at the pizza stand moved quickly, and Jorrie and Mack soon were walking toward the park, looking for a place to sit. Not spotting any open tables, they moved toward a small amphitheater, knowing that it would at least afford a place to sit.

  Their departure was arrested by someone calling out to Jorrie from the right.

  “Come over here and join us!” Pepper called to them.

  Pepper and Jon sat at a table under a large umbrella bearing the Old Garnet logo.

  Jorrie and Mack hastened to the table, which was perched on the edge of a wide brick-paved area in the park and dotted with similar tables. They carried their pizza slices, drinks, and uneaten sticks of cotton candy, wrapped in plastic bags.

  “Sweet tooth?” Pepper teased as Jorrie sat, followed by Mack.

  “Actually, that looks pretty good to me,” Jon said, eyeing the candy. “Haven’t had that stuff in years. Where did you get that?”

  Mack described the spot in front of Over a Barrel, and Jon toddled away to retrieve the sweets, giving Pepper a kiss before he left.

  “We were just finishing lunch,” Pepper said, “and wondering what to get for dessert. I was holding out for ice cream on a day like this.”

  Jorrie and Mack tore into their pizza, eating feverishly. The little bit of cotton candy had done nothing to temper their hunger, which Jorrie suspected had been stoked by their sexual interlude of the late morning.

  After Mack had finished his slice, he excused himself to go get some more, along with some beer, and Jorrie and Pepper were left alone.

  “So how goes it?” Pepper asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Quite well,” Jorrie admitted with a smile. “And married life?”

  “The same,” Pepper said smugly. She shook her head and her eyes became unfocused. “I can’t remember ever being so happy. Sometimes I worry that it will all fall apart somehow, like it isn’t real.”

  “It’s real, all right,” Jorrie said and wiped her face with a paper napkin. “You’ve got hundreds of acres, almost as many horses, and a hunk of a husband to prove it.”

  Pepper laughed. “I know, I know. Once I told Hannah how I felt—like everything I had didn’t belong to me, and you know what she said? She said she understood. That really surprised me. I’d always thought of her as so well-to-do, great family, no problems, and all that. But she gently reminded me of her divorce and intimated that the path of true love with Kyle hadn’t been so smooth and even.”

  “I knew that she’d gone through that divorce,” Jorrie said as she tossed the pizza crust onto a grease-stained wrapper. “But not the other part. I thought those two had a fairy tale romance.”

  “The ending, yes,” Pepper said. “But like the fairy tales in books, I gather there were some pretty dark parts before the happy ending. Well, I guess all that makes her problem now look pretty minor.”

  “Her problem?”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “No. What’s wrong?” Jorrie asked, immediately thinking of the baby.

  “She’s confined to bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy,” Pepper whispered. “High blood pressure.”

  “Oh, no,” Jorrie sighed. “Poor thing! Is she in danger of losing the baby?”

  “I think the main fear right now is to prevent her from going into labor,” Pepper said, “although it is a precarious situation.”

  The two women talked about how the distillery would deal with Hannah’s absence which, although anticipated, had not been expected so soon. But Pepper was more worried about the impact on the Davenport family.

  “Hannah—how do I put this—I don’t think she’ll make the best patient, if you know what I mean,” Pepper whispered just as Jorrie spotted Jon returning with two large bags of blue-tinted cotton candy.

  “I can’t imagine being a good patient under the circumstances either,” Jorrie said.

  “Talking about Hannah?” Jon said. He handed a bag of cotton candy to his wife and reclaimed his seat.

  “That obvious?”

  “I had to go see her yesterday—summoned up to the house,” he said. “She wanted to go over some documents about the building of those new rickhouses on the southern part of the McNee land. Anyway, Hannah wasn’t happy but was minding herself. And you know what she told me she was going to miss most about being cooped up for the next two months?”

  Jorrie and Pepper gave Jon blank stares and shrugs.

  Jon pointed behind Jorrie.

  “His concerts,” Jon announced.

  At that moment, Mack returned to the table with a slice of pizza in one hand and a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale in the other.

  “What about my concerts?” Mack asked as he retook his seat between Jon and Jorrie.

  Jon filled Mack in on Hannah’s condition and her regret.

  “Sorry to hear that she’s not well,” Mack said. “I was really looking forward to seeing her this summer.”

  “But all is not lost,” Pepper said. “The baby is due in late August or early September. Maybe she can make some of your fall dates.”

  “If mother and child are healthy, I think you can count on that,” Jon agreed.

  The group talked about the concerts and several retired thoroughbreds which had recently arrived at GarnetBrooke.

  “You want us to save you a seat in front of CiCi’s
house to watch the parade? She’s set up her own little personal viewing area up there on the curb.”

  Jorrie said that would be great and that she and Mack would find them shortly before two, when the parade was set to begin.

  The couples parted, with Pepper pulling Jon toward Over a Barrel and telling him she wanted to see if the deli had any bourbon balls left.

  Mack took Jorrie’s hand. “Where to?”

  “Anywhere,” she said and squeezed his hand.

  Several vendor booths lined the sidewalks along Main Street, and Jorrie and Mack ambled along, hand in hand, perusing the various items offered for sale. The quality of goods was not of the same caliber as those offered at BourbonDaze.

  During that festival, handmade jewelry, candles, scarves, and more artsy-type offerings were available. On this Independence Day, sellers hawked the more basic items such as T-shirts, toys, souvenirs, and candy. Most of the T-shirts had a bourbon-related theme, with the most ubiquitous offering being It’s Better with Bourbon.

  Jorrie picked through several baseball hats at one booth, looking for a Bourbon Springs hat for her father. She’d just found one with a very detailed embroidered logo (it had an outline of a bottle which resembled the Old Garnet bottle profile) when she felt Mack grab her hand and utter a warning.

  “Don’t look, but Sims is two booths down,” Mack whispered. “And he’s looking at us.”

  “What do you want to do?” Jorrie asked.

  “Get the hat and get out of here,” Mack said, still holding her hand.

  “Like hell we will. I’m not going to be intimidated by some asshole in the middle of Main Street on the Fourth of July.”

  Turning, she saw the bald man she recognized from the concert. Sweaty and bespectacled, he was staring daggers at the both of them. Unmoved, Jorrie scowled right back, and a nasty smile spread across his face as he returned her glare.

  “Jorrie,” Mack said warningly. “Let’s get out of here.”

  But Jorrie did not move, and she saw the slightest flicker of unease pass over his face. She began to smirk and wondered which one of them would budge or blink first.

  After a few seconds, a woman and child jostled Sims from his spot, and he broke eye contact. Jorrie took the opportunity to turn away, drop the hat, and leave with Mack close behind.

  “That wasn’t smart, Jorrie,” he said. She saw him looking over his shoulder.

  “I will not be bullied.” Jorrie took his hand and pulled him up Main Street toward CiCi’s house.

  He stopped her. “This isn’t just about bullying. It’s not about Sims being a jerk, like he was to me and everyone else in the bottling house. This is something beyond that.”

  They stood facing each other in the middle of Main Street with people moving past them as though they were rocks in a stream.

  “Why should we back down in the middle of our own town, Mack?”

  “Because I want you to be safe.”

  “Staring down a bully isn’t an unsafe thing to do. And that’s all that bastard is.”

  “If he put a bullet in my house, ran over my neighbor’s mailbox, and slashed our tires, I’d say that goes beyond being a bully.”

  “And we can’t prove he did any of that crap.”

  “We might not be able to prove it, counselor,” Mack said, and moved with her up Main Street to get out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, “but it’s damned odd that those three things happened right after Sims got fired.”

  She sensed there was no further point arguing with him, and they soon arrived at the corner where they’d purchased the cotton candy. Jorrie stopped him, noticing a hand-printed sign in the window of Over a Barrel.

  “Check that out,” she said, pointing.

  Today only! Special ice cream! Cinnamon Garnet! Usually only available at the distillery! All proceeds donated to stroke research.

  They darted into the deli to find a long line, but any disappointment they had about waiting dissolved in the welcome coolness of the air-conditioned space and upon hearing the happy noises the patrons made as they passed by, consuming their sugar cones stuffed with the light pink confection.

  She noticed Mack picking through his wallet and counting his money. So when they reached the counter, she treated him.

  “I’ll pay you back,” he promised.

  “I’ll take a new song as reimbursement,” Jorrie whispered before licking her cone.

  “Then I’ll have free ice cream for the rest of the summer, considering how many new songs I have about you.”

  17

  They had consumed about half their cones by the time they reached The Rickhouse, the restaurant at the northern edge of downtown and on the same side of Main Street as Over a Barrel. Jorrie stopped, let out a long moan, and announced she had an ice cream headache. Mack pulled her along, pointing up the street.

  “Look, we’re almost there, aren’t we? I think I see Pepper.” He gestured toward the curb a few houses from where they stood. “Always easy to spot that mane of red hair.”

  They walked a few more yards and discovered Pepper and Jon along with CiCi and Walker. They were sitting in lawn chairs planted in the wide utility strip between the curb and sidewalk.

  “Come on and join us. We have chairs,” CiCi said, indicating two plastic seats.

  Jorrie took the seat next to CiCi and smiled at her hostess as CiCi expressed her regrets to Mack for missing his first concert.

  “But Walker and I will be there for the rest of them,” she said. Walker, sitting to his wife’s left, assured Mack of the same.

  “Don’t you look… patriotic?” Jorrie asked through suppressed laughs as she considered CiCi’s attire.

  CiCi sat up and grinned. “Like my getup? I’ve been working on it for weeks.”

  If there were a prize that day for best costume, CiCi would’ve won, hands down.

  The curious-looking Craig County Circuit Clerk wore a T-shirt with the Stars and Stripes, red capri pants, and a headband with little red plastic stars sticking up on coils like antennae.

  And draped around her shoulders as a boa were several braided lengths of red, white, and blue tinsel.

  “I love the blue tinsel,” Jorrie said, reaching to touch the sparkly stuff. “Never would’ve thought to use it for an Independence Day celebration. My parents put it on their tree at Christmas.”

  CiCi smiled knowingly. “A Wildcat-themed tree?” she asked, referring to the mascot of the University of Kentucky as well the school color, royal blue.

  “I see we speak the same language.”

  CiCi, Jorrie, and Mack then began a long discussion about Cinnamon Garnet and why it was only offered at the distillery.

  “Goose won’t allow it,” CiCi revealed and fanned herself with a fan bearing the name of a local funeral home. “It’s his family recipe—his side of the Davenport family—and he’s very protective about it for some reason. But Hannah told me she’s got a plan to change his mind, although she’s got to wait for the right conditions.”

  “So what are the right conditions?” Mack asked, leaning around Jorrie to address CiCi.

  “Hannah told me that whenever Goose and Harriet have kids, she’s going to suggest mass producing the stuff, with at least half the profits going to a trust for his children.”

  “That’s brilliant. Those kids will be rich.”

  “Yeah, if only Harriet will cooperate,” CiCi said.

  “She doesn’t approve of the plan for a trust?”

  “Oh, she loves the plan in theory. It’s just that getting pregnant part she’s not quite ready to put into practice.”

  CiCi continued to chatter, and Jorrie was treated to all the latest gossip, including the news that the Davenports suspected that bottles of Wedding Bourbon had indeed been nabbed from the recent find in Bo and Lila’s backyard. Mack had mentioned to her that security at the distillery had become tighter over the past few weeks.

  The parade began in the next minute, and the group had a front-row seat
for the perfect celebration of Americana on Independence Day in the South.

  The Craig County High School marching band led the way, followed by clowns, jugglers, and the occasional politician pandering for votes. Most of the floats were heavily populated by children, all waving little flags. Jorrie remembered to pull out the flag given to her a few hours earlier and wave it back at the children as they passed.

  “Look, here they come!” Pepper cried.

  Jorrie craned her neck and moved to the edge of her seat to see what Pepper was talking about.

  Creeping up the street was an Old Garnet pickup truck, immediately recognizable from the dark red color of the vehicle and the logo on the doors. Bo drove and Goose rode shotgun, while in the truck bed Lila and Harriet tossed candy into the crowd.

  “How about some over here, ladies?” cried CiCi, waving her arms above her head.

  “Like you need any!” Lila taunted, throwing candy at Pepper and Jon.

  “Hey, Mack, heads up!” Harriet cried.

  Both Lila and Harriet began to shower Mack and, to a lesser extent, Jorrie, with tiny wrapped candies.

  “What about us?” CiCi whined, pointing to herself and Walker.

  “Sorry, but we’re Mack groupies,” Lila admitted as the truck rolled away.

  As Jorrie and Mack bent over in their chairs to pick up the candies around their feet, CiCi exhorted them to look again at the truck.

  On the tailgate was a large sign advertising the concerts.

  Come see Mack Blanton and the Foolcatchers!

  Old Garnet Distillery

  Every other Friday night this summer

  “I can now officially say that I’m famous,” Mack declared as he stuffed some of the candy into his pockets. “I saw my name in the Bourbon Springs Independence Day parade.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t ask you to be in it a few years ago,” Jorrie said as she handed some of her candy to Mack.

  “They did, and I wanted to do it. But there was someplace my agent told me I had to go.” Mack paused, eyes on the ground. “I should’ve told him where to go.”

  After the parade, CiCi invited the group into her house for some lemonade, and everyone was happy to escape the heat to take some refreshment. After imposing on CiCi and Walker’s hospitality for about fifteen minutes, Jorrie and Mack excused themselves, citing the need to get to the grocery store. They held hands on the short walk down Main Street and back to Jorrie’s condo.