“I’m going to go get the ice cream,” Mack said, his back to his grandfather. He opened a door beside the fridge which Jorrie saw led down to a basement.
“And I’m coming with you,” Jorrie said.
She followed Mack into the basement, happy to escape Albert’s teasing and have a bit of time alone with Mack.
Mack led the way down into the dark and quiet place. Even though it was a typical small basement, complete with old couch, old fridge, and old tools, it felt like a haven. Her grandmother, who couldn’t stand the heat, often went to her basement to nap in the summertime. She had fond memories of spending weeks with her grandmother when she was a child, playing in that basement and napping in the sweet, cool darkness.
Mack strode over to a fridge in the corner, opened the top freezer, and removed a small metal bucket covered with aluminum foil.
“Can I see?” Jorrie asked, moving toward Mack.
He clutched the bucket to his body.
“No way. Albert wants to see your face when you learn what this is, and I’m not about to deprive him of his surprise.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“It’s so sweet how much you two care about each other,” she said. “My grandparents are dead. You’re lucky to have him.”
“I know,” Mack said quietly. “Even though we argue like that—well, when he goes…”
Mack choked up and swallowed.
“I meant what I said to him. He has plenty of years ahead.” Jorrie gave him a kiss on the cheek as they plodded back upstairs with the bucket.
“Bring it here, bring it here!” Albert exhorted as Mack walked into the kitchen with the bucket. “You didn’t tell her what it is, did you?”
“Of course not,” Mack said as he put the ice cream bucket on the table. “I knew you wanted to do the honors.”
Albert gestured for Jorrie to come to his side and she did so. He peeled back the foil and Jorrie peered inside.
The thick ice cream was a deep plum color, like the hue of the sunset as the last of the light ebbed from the western sky. She sniffed and detected something vaguely fruity.
But there was another aroma.
Bourbon, and plenty of it.
Looking farther, she spotted tiny seeds sprinkled throughout the confection.
“Blackberry?” she asked Albert with wide eyes. “Please tell me this is blackberry bourbon ice cream.”
Albert was the picture of smugness.
“Indeed it is.”
“I love blackberries! I used to pick them with my grandmother when I was little! She lived out in the country, and her place was run over with the vines. We picked bucket after bucket, and she made all kinds of goodies—cakes, jams, cookies—but never fresh homemade ice cream.”
“Glad this will be a first for you,” Mack said. “We picked the berries ourselves a few weeks ago, before all the birds got them and before they shriveled up in the heat.”
Mack told her how part of the backyard was thick with blackberry vines, and this year they’d had a bumper crop thanks to plenty of rain and cooler weather in the late spring.
“Froze bunches of ’em,” Albert confirmed. “We got enough berries to make us all sick of ’em for the rest of our lives.”
“That would be a pretty tall order when it comes to me,” Jorrie said as Mack swiped the bucket from the table and took it to the kitchen counter. “When I was little and went to visit my grandmother, I think I lived on blackberries for days at a time.”
“Your grandma like bourbon?” Albert asked as he reclaimed his seat.
“Loved it,” Jorrie said. “Put it in all kinds of things—especially her jam cakes.”
“Oh, she’s no longer with us?”
She sensed disappointment in his question. The man really did need a girlfriend.
“No, she’s not,” Jorrie said. “All my grandparents are gone.”
“Well, you can always adopt me as a grandparent,” Albert said. “Or marry—”
Something clattered loudly in the kitchen, and both she and Albert jumped in their seats.
“Oh… uh… sorry,” Mack stammered. He bent to retrieve the ice cream scoop that he’d dropped. “Say, Jorrie, can you help me with these bowls?”
Jorrie popped up from the table, happy to help.
“Sorry he keeps embarrassing you,” Mack muttered as he scooped ice cream from the pail.
Mack looked to be taking out his frustrations on the ice cream. He attacked the hard frozen confection with the scoop, causing the muscles in his right arm to tense and bulge.
“He’s not embarrassing me,” Jorrie said. “But I don’t think the same thing can be said for you.”
19
In the next minute they all sat again together at the table, spoons at the ready.
“I assume the bourbon is Old Garnet,” Jorrie said.
“Of course,” Albert and Mack replied in unison.
With the tip of her spoon, Jorrie carved a long thin curl of the ice cream. It was dense and creamy, just as a good ice cream should be, and she slipped the treat into her mouth and closed her eyes to enjoy it.
The miasma of flavors, with the tang of blackberry being the most distinctive, combusted in her mouth in a delightfully savory explosion. The sweet, woody spiciness of the bourbon perfectly complemented the fruitiness of the berries, and Jorrie realized she was enjoying an ice cream every bit the equal of Cinnamon Garnet.
“This is incredible,” she said, opening her eyes and digging out another bite with her spoon. “What do you call it?”
“Just blackberry ice cream,” Mack said before slipping a large spoonful into his mouth.
With her second bite, Jorrie moved the ice cream around in her mouth as it quickly dissolved and she tasted flavors beyond the fruit and bourbon. She detected a hint of citrus and vanilla, and realized that the recipe for the treat was far more complex than merely dumping fruit and bourbon together with the requisite ingredients into an ice cream maker.
“What else is in this? Or is that a secret?”
“So much of a secret we can’t even remember it ourselves.” Albert smiled at her before taking a big bite.
“What he means is that there’s no written recipe,” Mack explained. “We know how much fruit and bourbon to add, but the other flavors—well, we just add a dash of this and that. Always the same things, but no fixed amounts.”
Jorrie told them what she could taste, and they confirmed the addition of vanilla and orange extracts, as well as a dash of almond oil, something she had not previously identified.
“Black Garnet,” she announced as she stared down into her nearly empty bowl. “That’s what you should call this.”
“That’s a great name. And a good song title too,” Mack added appreciatively with a nod.
Jorrie spooned the last bite from her bowl as an idea began to form in her mind.
“You really should tell the Davenports about this recipe,” Jorrie suggested. “They could sell it at the distillery café with Cinnamon Garnet. Maybe you could make a little bit of money from it and—”
Jorrie stopped and smiled as a notion started to form in her mind.
“I think Hannah would be very interested in this ice cream,” Jorrie said slowly.
“I seriously doubt that,” Mack said. He dropped his spoon into his already emptied bowl.
She smiled at him, confident in her idea, but decided to tell him about it later.
Jorrie offered to help Mack clean up, but Albert cajoled her into joining him once more in the sitting room. To her surprise, Albert stopped dropping references to marriage and wanted to play cards.
“You know how to play Rook?”
“You bet I do!” she said as Albert reached into the drawer of a desk in a corner. “Played all the time with my grandmother.”
“The same one of blackberry fame?”
“The same.”
For the next half hour, Jorrie and Albert played cards, with Albert w
inning all but one hand. At half past eight, Albert rose from the couch and announced that he was headed to bed.
“I usually hit the hay earlier than this,” he said as he stood in the door between the sitting room and a hallway which Jorrie suspected led to the bedrooms. “But Jorrie has me staying up late with her.”
She went to Albert and hugged him.
“So good to see you.”
“The same to you, my dear,” Albert said. “And don’t keep my boy out too late.” He kissed her cheek and winked at her before disappearing down the hall.
Jorrie returned to the kitchen to find Mack wiping down the table.
“He’s off to bed?” Mack asked.
“Yep,” Jorrie said and put her arms around Mack’s waist from behind. “We’re all alone.”
“Not as long as we’re in the same house with him.” Mack turned, threw the dishrag in the sink, and took Jorrie into his arms.
“Then let’s head up the hill. But I don’t want to go all the way to the top tonight. It’s awfully chilly up there.”
“We’ll only be going high enough to see the fireworks in town. And I’ve packed for the occasion.”
“Packed? Are we going on a trip?”
“Just up the Knob,” he said when she looked at him with confusion. “You’ll see.”
“So let’s go,” she said and removed herself from his embrace. As much as she had enjoyed spending time with Albert, Jorrie was eager to leave the confines of the small house and spend some time alone with Mack.
“Not yet. I need to make sure Pa’s settled for the night and that he has what he needs.”
He turned and opened a drawer in the kitchen cabinets filled to bursting with prescription medicine bottles. Mack pulled five bottles out in rapid succession and put them in a neat row on top of the counter. After reading the label on each bottle, he unscrewed the lid, removed a pill, and dropped it into a little medicine cup he plucked from the still-open drawer.
He then rechecked every bottle before replacing all in the drawer and closing it.
“You do that for him every night?” Jorrie asked.
Mack reached up, opened a cabinet door, and grabbed a glass. “Every night and morning,” he confirmed as he filled the glass at the kitchen sink.
“Who did that for him when you were in Nashville?”
“He did, for a while,” Mack said. He was holding the glass in one hand, the pill cup in the other. “But he got confused a few times and ended up in the hospital for not taking care of himself. I finally had to hire some help. He hated that.”
She nodded toward the little cup. “But he doesn’t mind you doing that for him?”
Mack looked down at the pills and gave them a little shake, making them rattle.
“No, for some reason, he doesn’t,” Mack said in a surprised tone, as if the thought had only occurred to him in that moment.
Mack took the medicine to his grandfather while Jorrie went to the bathroom. Upon her return to the kitchen, she found Mack ready to go.
Mack called to Albert to tell him they were going outside to watch the fireworks,
“Behave yourselves!” she heard Albert call as the kitchen door slammed behind them.
“I plan on doing nothing of the sort this evening,” Mack said. He gave Jorrie a suggestive smile, which she returned.
They piled into Mack’s truck and headed up Springfield Knob. The slow ascent from the back of the house was familiar, and Jorrie got more and more excited the higher they climbed. Her memory of the first time on the hill was a sweet one, and she was anxious to get back up the Knob again to experience the view and the company.
When they reached what she estimated was slightly higher than halfway up the high peak, Mack pulled the truck to the left and along a level track. He drove a few yards beyond the ascending track until they came to a wide, flat area.
Behind them was a stand of cedars, and above the trees the expanse of the rising hill loomed over them. Below in front of them, the land sloped away until it reached the comparatively level point of the rolling fields of Bluegrass.
He parked and they both exited the truck. While he went to the rear of the vehicle, Jorrie walked to the edge of the expanse upon which they were perched and enjoyed the view. When she turned from her brief enjoyment of the landscape, she saw Mack dropping several blankets and camp chairs on the soft grass. The ground here definitely looked more inviting than the rocky earth she knew was higher up.
“Looks like we’re picnicking,” she said. “Or do you plan to have a concert here for me tonight?”
“A little bit of both.” He returned to the truck and retrieved the cooler she recognized from their evening across the creek. One more trip back to the truck produced his guitar.
It was very dim, with the light dissipating in the western skies in a fiery, gaudy, bloody mess. Since they were slightly elevated, the sun’s dwindling rays hit the Knob at their level, although shadows coated wide expanses of the lower areas.
“Still a little time until it’s completely dark” He looked eastward, toward the fairgrounds and the site of the fireworks.
She put a finger on his chin and felt the rough growth of whiskers beneath her touch as she turned his face to hers.
“Then we have plenty of time to make some fireworks of our own.”
Mack kissed her eagerly and desperately, like he had in her condo that morning. He wound his hands into her short curly hair as his tongue tasted hers and explored the little recesses of her mouth. As his hands moved down and under the front of her shirt, Jorrie slipped her hands underneath his shirt and around him until her palms were flat against his back.
She pressed herself to him, yearning for the warmth he exuded and craving his scent. His entire presence filled her senses. She felt dizzy, intoxicated, and free.
She was soaring, like he celebrated in his song.
He broke the kiss and reached behind himself to remove her hands from his back. Holding her hands to his chest, he breathed heavily and stared at her with parted lips.
He said nothing for several seconds, although she saw his lips and chin quivering as though a rush of words—perhaps a song?—were about to burst forth from him. Mack’s brow was tense and his eyes a little narrowed.
Her mood shifted from happily and sensually engaged to concerned.
“What is it?”
“You, Jorrie,” he said, dropping his eyes. “It’s you.”
“Me? What did I—”
Smiling and looking back up at her, he shook his head to dispel her misunderstanding.
“When I came back to Bourbon Springs I was angry, unhappy, and miserable. That was the man you met at the distillery. And I vowed that as soon as I could, I would leave this place. That I would get the hell out of here and go make my name again. I promised myself no girlfriends, no relationships. And then you dropped into my life. Just what I wasn’t looking for, but everything I needed.
“Over the past month, since I met you, I’ve written more songs than I have in the past year. It’s like you unlocked something in my soul, something I’d stowed away when I came back to Bourbon Springs and didn’t want to open—or couldn’t open because I was so angry and bitter. But then I was stupid enough to walk in on Goose Davenport’s wedding but lucky enough to find you there. You talked to me, you were kind to me, hell—you helped me get a job! And you didn’t even know me, Jorrie. You’ve charmed me as well as the orneriest person on the face of this earth, Albert McCowan.”
He stopped for breath and Jorrie realized she’d been holding hers as he’d poured his feelings out to her.
Why was he telling her these wonderful things? Was he leading up to some bad news, and all these lovely sentiments were his attempt to soften the blow?
But his bright, wide eyes and smooth brow revealed no anxiety or regret, and he continued.
“I know that only a few weeks ago we were up on this same hill, telling each other that we weren’t going to make any promises to e
ach other except to see where things led us. Well, for me, that promise has led me somewhere I didn’t expect, although I’m damned happy to be here, and I’m not just talking about standing with you on the side of Springfield Knob.”
She felt her eyes widen as she understood what he was about to reveal.
“I love you, Jorrie,” he said in a rough voice. “I know that we’ve only been together a short time and that I might be scaring you off by telling you this, but that’s the truth. I love you. I’ve never loved anyone like this, and it frankly scares the hell out of me. But I knew that after what we’ve shared together over the past few weeks and after seeing you wrap my grandfather—and me—around your little finger, I had to tell you. I’ve fallen so hard for you… I love you.”
Jorrie slipped her hands from his and put them on his cheeks. Open mouthed, stunned, and trembling, she searched his face as she searched her mind and heart for the right words.
She’d never professed her love to any man.
Until now.
“Look around us, Mack,” she said in a small voice. “You didn’t fall. You’re flying, soaring. And I’m right here flying with you, because I love you too…”
As she pulled his face to hers, Mack wrapped his arms around her back. The kiss was long and deep, and their tears blended as their cheeks touched. They began to slowly remove each other’s clothing until they were both nude. After unfurling a blanket on the soft earth, they fell onto it together. When he reached for his wallet, she stopped him.
“Do you need to use that?” she asked.
“Only if you want me to use it,” he said, and stroked her cheek with his fingers. “I’m good, I can promise you that. Are you telling me that you don’t need me to use one?”
“I don’t,” she said. “On the pill.”
Mack moved his hands to her wetness and stroked her a few times, causing her to moan and move her hips against him. She reached and claimed his erection.
“Let me feel you Mack. All of you.”
He allowed her to guide him in slowly until they were completely joined. Mack kissed her as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and they fell into the slow, delicious rhythm of love.
Bourbon Springs Box Set: Volume III, Books 7-9 (Bourbon Springs Box Sets Book 3) Page 18