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

by Jennifer Bramseth

  Jorrie turned to Harriet just in time to see Harriet wink at her.

  “I seriously doubt that would happen,” Goose added. “No knock on Black Garnet,” he added hastily, turning to Jorrie.

  They talked some more about the ice cream for a few minutes, with the women continuing to cajole Goose to allow the sale of the treat at Over a Barrel. He had warmed to the idea, and Harriet dared to mention selling it at The Windmill. But before he could answer, everyone’s attention was diverted by a flurry of activity to the far right, along with a lot of voices.

  “What’s going on over there?” Harriet asked as she craned her neck to see.

  “Oh, forgot to mention it,” Goose said as he took a drink from a red plastic cup. “The governor’s supposed to be here tonight.”

  “The governor?” Jorrie and Harriet asked in unison.

  “Yep, and it looks like he’s here,” Goose said and pointed toward a thick knot of people near the edge of the stage.

  Jorrie spotted a camera crew, several state troopers, and Kyle as a man and woman moved slowly through the crowd. The governor and first lady, both wearing shorts and polo shirts, were moving amongst the people, shaking hands, and greeting one and all. Kyle was at the governor’s side, directing his way through the throngs of Craig County voters.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Harriet rose from her seat, as did Jorrie, followed by Goose.

  “Wasn’t a sure thing,” Goose said as the entourage approached them.

  Kyle led the governor and first lady to Jorrie, Goose, and Harriet, where everyone exchanged polite greetings.

  “Hey!” the governor cried upon shaking Goose’s hand. “I’ve had some of your ice cream tonight—what’s it called?”

  “Uh… Cinnamon Garnet, sir,” Goose said, completely taken aback.

  “Best ice cream I’ve had in a long time. And that’s saying something since I’m always out and about getting fed,” he joked and patted a rather slim tummy. “You oughta sell that stuff everywhere!”

  The governor moved on to greet Bo, Walker, and CiCi, while Goose turned to Kyle.

  “How is it that your wife is stuck in bed right now, about to pop out your kid, but I know that she was responsible for what that man just said to me?” Goose asked Kyle, nodding in the direction of the governor.

  “That’s Hannah for you,” he said before moving along behind the governor.

  Harriet put her arms around Goose’s middle as she put her chin on his shoulder.

  “You might as well give up on the ice cream thing. You’re outnumbered.”

  Jorrie saw the governor break away from the crowd and edge toward the stage, where Mack and the band had gathered, and she edged closer to the stage to watch the encounter. Mack jumped down from the stage to the governor’s level, where the two men enthusiastically shook hands. Mack turned to his band and introduced them. Jorrie had trouble seeing everything but heard the governor praising Mack and moved closer to the group so she could see what was happening.

  “I heard about these concerts several weeks ago and have been itching ever since to get down here to Bourbon Springs from Frankfort,” the governor said, grasping Mack’s arm. “I loved watching you on TV and always wanted to hear you play live. So glad that you’re doing this.”

  “And I’m having a great time,” Mack said. “I’m honored that you’re here.”

  “Well, I knew I needed to get my chance to see you before you left us again for the big time,” the governor said, patting Mack’s shoulder.

  Mack smiled broadly at the governor’s pronouncement. Then the two men posed for pictures as a TV camera crew recorded the entire exchange and others snapped pictures with their phones. The governor’s official photographer even had trouble getting a good shot.

  She tried to move closer to the stage, but a group of people pushed her back, making it impossible to get to his side. After the governor left, Mack was still surrounded by a small clutch of people demanding autographs. He ignored them, jumped back up on the stage, and walked out of sight behind a curtain.

  Jorrie found herself standing completely alone in the midst of a considerable crowd and returned to her camp chair next to Goose.

  “But how did she do it?” Jorrie heard Goose demanding of his wife.

  “Like you didn’t already know that Hannah worked in mysterious ways? But that’s not the real issue. Are you finally going to let your ice cream roam free?”

  “Might as well,” Goose said, resigning himself to defeat.

  Goose and Harriet chattered about the logistics of making and selling his ice cream, and her mind started to drift. Her lingering doubts about the likelihood, as well as the necessity, of Mack leaving Bourbon Springs had been swept away.

  He was so popular that the governor was there to see him, concert attendance seemed to increase at every event, and Mack kept communicating with his old agent.

  The handwriting was on the wall, and Harriet’s uncomfortable words of a few minutes earlier flitted back into her mind.

  She did not enjoy the concert, but that was no knock on the performance. Mack and the Foolcatchers only got better and better. Mack sang High Hills and Good Heavens, although he didn’t sing anything new, unlike he had for the past several concerts. It was just as well that he didn’t debut a new piece. Her distractedness had dampened her spirit, and had he sang a new piece, she knew she would not have appreciated its beauty.

  When the concert was over, she sat and politely talked with Goose and Harriet while waiting on Mack. After about twenty minutes, the crowd had noticeably thinned and Goose and Harriet announced their departure.

  Jorrie sat for a few minutes longer, looking at the passing swarms of people, tired and sweaty but happy from a long night of free music and the enjoyment of whatever spirits they had brought with them. As she was considering packing up her gear, a familiar face came into view as a woman passed in front of the stage while moving in the direction of the parking lot.

  “Rissa?” Jorrie asked, rising from her chair.

  Rissa turned her head. “Jorrie! I wondered whether you’d be here!”

  The two friends stood uncomfortably for a few moments until Jorrie opened her arms and Rissa fell into them.

  “Sorry,” Rissa said in a thick voice. “I—I’m sorry,” she spluttered.

  Jorrie pulled apart from her. “Forget it. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Rissa said, wiping away a tear. “But what about you? And this Mack dude? He was the guy you mentioned, right?”

  Jorrie smiled broadly. “He’s the one.”

  “Lucky you!”

  “How’s Rick?” Jorrie looked around but didn’t see Rissa’s longtime boyfriend.

  Walking toward them instead was Elliot, her one-time blind date. Toting two lawn chairs and a cooler, he stopped, dropped his burden, and put his arm around Rissa. After exchanging further awkward pleasantries, Elliot kissed Rissa on the cheek and said he’d see her at the car.

  “It’s not what you think,” claimed Rissa as Elliot disappeared.

  “What am I thinking?” Jorrie asked.

  “That I’m sleeping with a partner just to get ahead,” Rissa snapped.

  “I said or thought no such—”

  “The truth is that I’m leaving the firm in a few weeks,” Rissa revealed. “We both are.”

  “But where are you going? Setting up shop together?”

  Rissa shook her head. “No, I’m going to work in the Attorney General’s office in Frankfort. Elliot has a new job as corporate counsel for a hospital in Lexington. We’re both done with working for a firm. It’s been a soul-sucking experience.”

  “But one that you were eager for me to have only this past summer. What happened?”

  “I’m sorry,” Rissa said. “I guess I thought I needed a friend where I worked instead of changing where I worked. I was so unhappy, and then I caught Rick cheating, and everything just went nuts, and—”

  Rissa began to cry, and Jor
rie hugged her until the tears passed.

  “I shouldn’t have tried to lure you to the firm. I should’ve been trying to escape.”

  “Looks like you did, and got a leaving bonus as well.”

  “Leaving bonus?”

  “Hot boyfriend,” Jorrie said, nodding her head in the direction of Elliot’s departure.

  After a few more hugs and tears, Rissa left, and Jorrie watched her friend as she trotted away from the concert grounds.

  So the perfect face Rissa had presented to the world had been a façade. Jorrie counted herself lucky that she’d had the sense to not pursue that firm job—or Elliot.

  Jorrie folded her chair and blanket, picked up her small cooler, and went in search of Mack.

  They had a prearranged post-concert meeting site at the entrance to the bottling house several yards away from the concert area. He had placed an old half barrel outside the bottling house so Jorrie had a place to sit as she waited for him.

  Over the past several weeks, Jorrie’s backside had gotten to know that barrel quite well; the time she waited for him to join her had kept increasing. That night, she had to wait half an hour before he joined her. He no longer toted the equipment around, except for his own guitar. Mack and the band had asked the distillery to hire some help to handle the equipment. Bo had also given them a place to stow the equipment inside the visitors’ center.

  “Sorry to be so late,” Mack said. “Lots of people tonight. Did you notice the governor stayed for the entire concert?”

  “Yeah, I did.” She pushed herself off the barrel with a sigh.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  It was dark where they were, and Jorrie had thought that he wouldn’t be able to see her face, but apparently she couldn’t hide her growing sadness.

  “Nothing, just tired.” She allowed him to lead her away from the bottling house and toward the parking lot.

  They had cleared the concert grounds, and the parking lot was within sight when she heard someone calling Mack’s name from behind. Upon turning around, she saw a thin, bald man running toward them.

  “Shit, it’s Webb,” Mack said under his voice. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “Running after you, literally and figuratively,” said Jorrie.

  The man, wearing shorts and a Vanderbilt University T-shirt, panted and offered Mack his hand to shake.

  “Where the hell did you come from? And why didn’t you tell me you were coming tonight?” Mack asked.

  “Didn’t want you to know. Probably a good thing I didn’t tell you,” he said, still out of breath. “I was late because there was a huge crash on the interstate and I got here only during your last song. Was that one new?”

  “Yeah. Wrote it when I got back home.”

  Mack met her eyes. The last song he’d sung that night had been High Hills.

  “It was great,” Webb gushed. “You been writing a lot?”

  “Some,” Mack said.

  “Look, I came here to see you tonight and hoped we’d have a chance to talk. But I understand you might have other plans.” He glanced at Jorrie.

  Mack apologized and immediately introduced Jorrie and Mack.

  “Sorry you missed most of the concert,” Mack said, “but give me a call or e-mail next week and maybe we can talk.”

  Jorrie sensed that Mack was trying to get rid of Webb, and the thought cheered her. She wanted to be alone with Mack for the rest of the evening, but she was also self-aware enough to understand that Webb represented a threat to her. This man wanted to take Mack’s time and talent from Bourbon Springs.

  Away from her.

  It felt all too familiar.

  “I’m spending the night in Springfield,” Webb said. “What about tomorrow morning? Could we meet for breakfast?”

  “Nope,” Mack said. “I’m the weekend bottling manager here at the distillery.”

  “What about tomorrow after work? Meet for dinner? My treat? And if Jorrie wants to come along, that would be great,” Webb added.

  Mack sighed and looked to Jorrie.

  “You two really need to talk alone,” she said. “Go to The Windmill tomorrow afternoon and get yourselves some good pie and catch up.”

  “You sure?” Mack asked.

  She wanted to scream no! but knew that Mack needed this contact, that he needed to make his relationship with Webb work.

  “Just promise to save me a piece of pie,” she said, forcing herself to smile.

  22

  Jorrie fought tears during the solitary drive back to her condo. The doubt, the creeping sense of failure that had attached itself to the memory of that old boyfriend leaving her, reared its ugly head and she could not ignore it, try as she might.

  She realized that she’d made a mistake in falling in love with Mack.

  She should’ve seen that he would never be one to stay in a place like Bourbon Springs when there were larger venues for his huge talent and even bigger heart. And while she believed that he loved her, she knew he loved his music.

  And she knew better than to try to compete with a man’s first love.

  When she parked her car in front of her door at her condo, Jorrie had resolved to tell Mack that it would probably be best for them not to see each other any longer since it looked like his path would soon lead out of Bourbon Springs. But when he parked next to her, he went to the rear of his truck rather than meet her on the doorstep of her condo.

  “Damn!” she heard him exclaim. “Forgot this amplifier tonight. No wonder we sounded a little bit off.”

  “I thought you sounded great,” she said as she joined him.

  He slammed the tailgate shut and turned to her.

  “I’ll take it to the distillery tomorrow and put it in that closet where we store the other—hey, what’s wrong with you?” He took her hands.

  “Mack, I think we need to see what’s going to happen,” she said in a strained voice.

  “What’s going to happen? What does that mean?”

  “That you’re going to leave Bourbon Springs again.”

  “I don’t want to do that, Jorrie. You know that,” he said and tried to draw her to him, but she resisted.

  “So tell me how you make enough money to pay off that debt by staying here.”

  “Drake said that he was going to keep talking, keep stalling.”

  “But that won’t work forever.” She pulled her hands from his. “You’re going back to Nashville. You’re so popular that your old agent and the governor came to see you on the same night. Returning to Nashville isn’t just a dream any longer for you. It’s a real possibility, and it’s the only way you’ll be able to pull yourself out of the hole unless you file bankruptcy.”

  “And I told you I’m not doing that. Those songs are too important.”

  “You can always write more songs,” she shot back.

  “Not those songs, Jorrie. If I give them up, they’re gone forever.”

  “So let them go!”

  He turned away from her, put his hands on top of the tailgate of his truck and cursed.

  “I told you that I will not give them up. You know what they mean to me,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Apparently they mean more to you than what you have here,” she said, tears flowing down her face. “More than me.”

  He spun toward her, apparently ready to deny her claim, his face tense and mouth open.

  But then lights flashed—a roaring followed by a shove and— The next thing she knew, Mack had pushed her between his truck and her car and she was sprawled on the warm, hard pavement. Her left palm and arm hurt like hell, and she panicked as she heard the revving of an engine. The lights passed as the car swept past. She turned from her prone position on the ground to see Mack sprawled on the pavement behind his truck.

  “Mack!”

  She pushed herself from the ground and rushed to his side.

  Cursing and groaning, he clutched his right arm, which was badly scraped. Ugly red trails marke
d where car, pavement, and flesh had met and tiny bits of dirt and rock were embedded in the large wound. She also saw that both his knees were blooming into angry red scrapes.

  “Don’t move!” she exhorted, but he ignored her.

  “Just grazed my arm,” he claimed, and sat up with a lot more groaning. “Nothing more.”

  She looked around, terrified and sick at heart.

  “I’m calling the sheriff.” She helped him to his feet.

  “You get a look at that vehicle?”

  “I think it was blue,” she said. “But I’m not sure.”

  “You didn’t see the driver?”

  “No… but could it have been Sims?”

  “Not a clue, but I don’t think he drove a blue car.” Mack held out his arm, looked at it, and winced before his eyes roved the lot. “You’re right—we need to call the sheriff and get inside. Right now.”

  They retreated indoors for the next few minutes to call the law. Their argument was forgotten as Jorrie cleaned and fussed over Mack’s wounds and suggested he needed to go to the emergency room. She feared he needed stitches or, at a minimum, better bandaging than she could slap together from her small first aid kit.

  They bickered about going to the hospital until Kyle showed up with a Deputy Carver a few minutes after they’d called. With Mack’s injury still unbandaged, the foursome returned to the scene outside and Jorrie and Mack recounted the incident as Deputy Carver took pictures.

  “Sims doesn’t drive a blue car,” Mack said after Jorrie had recounted the event.

  “That’s true,” Kyle said. “But we had a report of a stolen car this evening that matches the description of the car that ran you down. Blue, late model sedan, right?”

  “Could have been.” Mack exchanged a frightened look with Jorrie.

  “Sedan was stolen from Sims’s neighborhood,” Kyle said.

  Kyle bellowed at Deputy Carver, and the meek deputy sheriff stopped taking photos and trotted to his boss’s side. Kyle instructed Carver to check if the stolen car had been recovered and then to drive by Sims’s place to see if any vehicles were in the driveway. Carver nodded to his boss and left in his cruiser to fulfill the sheriff’s orders.