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

by Jennifer Bramseth

  “Are you friends with Prent or Miranda?” she asked.

  “I’ve gotten acquainted with Prent lately,” Drake said. “After you appointed me guardian ad litem in his paternity case, he called to thank me.”

  “I’d forgotten I appointed you in that case. So Prent thanked you?”

  “Yeah, even though the only thing I did was show up and do my job that day.”

  “But I heard that one of the parties didn’t make it exactly easy for you,” Cara said, referencing the outburst she’d heard about.

  “Prent’s a nice guy. I’m representing him now on a few small collection cases on behalf of the cooperage.”

  The siren song of slumber, that ever-elusive elixir of life for the parent of a young child, was calling her name quite loudly. Cara couldn’t remember the last time she had indulged in the pure, delicious luxury of an afternoon nap.

  But she was charmed by Drake’s invitation and his story of how he’d gotten to know Prent Oakes. She was also curious to see Miranda with her new husband.

  The fact that the two had finally gotten married after an extended game of romantic cat-and-mouse had been the talk of Craig County for the past weeks.

  They hadn’t eloped but merely had gone off one weekend and married, after which Miranda had moved in with her new husband. No honeymoon trip, and life for the newlyweds apparently was routine. He worked at his cooperage, and she continued with her medical practice. There had been a lot of rumors that Miranda had been about to go into practice with Brad Byrd, but those tales had apparently been false.

  “Well, if I wouldn’t be imposing, I’d very much appreciate the ride down to Littleham today.”

  Drake smiled, and she thought he looked even more nervous in light of her answer. He told her he needed to return to his office but would meet her at the back of the courthouse in his vehicle in fifteen minutes.

  “What do you drive?” she asked.

  “A bright blue Jeep,” he said. “Can’t miss me.”

  At the appointed time, Cara went to the back of the courthouse square and found Drake double parked behind a sheriff’s cruiser.

  “You’re a brave man to park like that.” She hoisted herself into the Jeep. “If Sheriff Sammons saw you, he’d give you a ticket in a second.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  Once they were on the road leading out of Bourbon Springs and headed south toward Littleham, Cara began to regret her decision to tag along. The ride in the Jeep was none too easy; her tired body felt every bump in the road. Drake wasn’t driving fast or otherwise recklessly, it was just that his vehicle was definitely meant for off-road adventure rather than a comfortable drive on a warm spring day.

  And then they came to that place in the road she hated so much, the spot just inside the county line. The site of her husband’s fatal wreck on an icy December night.

  On a night he shouldn’t have been out at all.

  The vehicle hit a bump, and Cara made a grunt or a cry, causing Drake to apologize and ask whether she was all right.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sure riding in this old thing isn’t helping your headache.”

  “Headache is gone,” she said. “I’m just really tired now.”

  “Then take a snooze. It won’t bother me in the least.”

  She thanked him, put her head back, and immediately fell asleep. A few bumps in the road roused her for a few seconds from time to time, but Cara enjoyed the sensation of completely falling into that gorge of helpless unconsciousness.

  The next thing of which she was aware was a hand on her shoulder, gently jostling her from a very warm and happy place.

  “Cara?”

  At the sound of the voice, she sat straight up, her long blond hair falling away from her face. It was warm and stuffy, and she felt very good, despite being awakened from a very nice rest. She didn’t know where she was or how she got there.

  She blinked at the man in front of her.

  Drake Mercer.

  A very handsome man.

  She swallowed as the thought hit her hard.

  Cara hadn’t merely come along to see Miranda and Prent.

  She had accepted Drake’s invitation for another reason. A reason she should’ve spotted as far back as the wedding of Albert Blanton and Lucy Davenport when she’d seen Drake running after her child.

  She was attracted to him.

  And from the look he was giving her, there alone in the stuffy confines of his Jeep with his hand on her shoulder, there was no mistaking he felt the same way.

  His lips parted, he bent his head, and his hand moved the short distance from her shoulder to her cheek. Still in a daze and with her head back against the seat, Cara let him come to her.

  His kiss was wary, something she did not expect from a man who exuded such confident virility, and she was captivated. She placed a hand on the back of his head along soft, unkempt blond hair and pulled him closer. Moving over her, he sighed into their kiss upon her touch and flicked his tongue at the corner of her mouth.

  The sharp noise of a car horn startled them, and they broke apart, looking at each other in wonder, lust, and for her, horror. She blinked at him, knowing that she very much enjoyed what had just happened.

  But also riven by the despair that it couldn’t happen again.

  She scooted away from him toward the passenger side door of the Jeep.

  “We can’t go there,” she declared.

  “Why?” he demanded to know in the same tone she often heard him use in court.

  “Because I’m a judge and you regularly appear in front of me, that’s why. It’s not appropriate at all.”

  “We could deal with that. If you wanted to, that is.”

  “You mean recuse myself from all your cases? Transfer all those DUIs, probates, everything to some other district judge nearby just so we could—could—”

  “So we could do this?” he asked, stroking her cheek.

  She did not resist, and soon he was kissing her again and she was responding.

  This time, his kisses were not so hesitant, and she gasped when his tongue traced her upper lip. The seat had reclined a little under the force of his attentions, and when he pulled away, she found herself looking up into his icy-blue eyes.

  The excuse that she’d have to recuse from his cases was real enough and a very practical problem. But also convenient.

  Because the truth was that she had no time to fall in love again and no inclination to do so. She had a child to raise and no patience for the trouble a love life brought.

  She wasn’t generous or stupid enough to share her heart again.

  Everyone knew she was a widow, but people didn’t know the depth of that grief went beyond the mere physical loss of her spouse and the father of her child. She lived with the knowledge that she’d lost her husband’s love before he died.

  And she also lived with the constant fear of losing her child. It was an irrational, grief-driven terror born of her widowhood. But even though she knew the origin of the fear, that didn’t mean she had been able to conquer it. Most of the time all she wanted to do was stay in her house, shut out the world, and protect herself and her child from the misery.

  But damn Drake Mercer was a delectable temptation.

  Smart, caring, good-looking—but also known to be on the prowl for a woman. She’d even heard a rumor that at one point Drake had been romantically interested in Pepper Montrose, who’d been his client for a period of time although she had ended up marrying Jon Buckler, her lifelong best friend.

  Cara brought her hand to his cheek and felt the smoothness of his freshly-shaved face. Her thumb slowly raked over his high cheekbone, and he closed his eyes. This wasn’t the first time she’d kissed a man since her husband had died. She’d shared a few awkward, soulless kisses with Brad Byrd before she’d broken it off.

  But Drake’s kiss was something different.

  Promisingly sensual, the kiss of a man for whom she could see herself falling hard. The
kiss of a man who knew he had power over women and presumably used that power to get what he wanted.

  “Tell me we could do this,” Drake said as he opened his eyes. “I’ve been trying to work up the courage for weeks to call you, but I’ve always talked myself out of it.”

  Cara dropped her hand from his face and sat up, causing Drake to move away from her.

  “You should’ve kept talking to yourself,” she said, looking straight ahead.

  “So why didn’t you say no just a minute ago, Cara?” Her breath caught at hearing him use her name so intimately. “When you let me kiss you—twice?”

  “Then listen to me now. I’m a judge, and you’re a local attorney. I’m also a relatively new widow with a very young child. Not a good mix.”

  “I thought the mix was pretty damned good if you ask me.”

  “Drake—”

  “Why are you scared?”

  Her jaw clenched, and she saw him shrink a little as she turned a harsh gaze upon him.

  “Have you ever dated a widow with a child? Been down that road?”

  “No, and I won’t insult you by saying I’d know what it would be like. But that’s just the point. I want to know. I want to try to make it work.”

  Drake took her hand from her lap and held it on the seat between them. She looked down at their clasped hands, dizzy from the now-sweltering heat of his vehicle but also reeling emotionally from what had happened.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes still on their hands. “I can’t offer you more than a few hurried kisses here in this Jeep.”

  He sighed as his hand released hers, but Cara found herself reaching for him to squeeze his hand hard.

  “So I suggest you hurry up and kiss me again before I open the door.”

  She looked up at Drake to see a face painted with shock before he placed his hands aside her face and pulled her into the most intense yet frustrating kiss she’d ever experienced.

  His fierce, needy lips pressed down upon hers until she found herself falling back against the seat again. She expected to feel his tongue against her lips and mouth, but he held back. He was testing her.

  Instead, she teased him by pulling away and tilting her head to offer him the soft skin of her exposed neck. He took the bait, and his tongue and lips traced a line along her jaw, then back to her mouth where he only offered her his lips in one last, slow kiss.

  They pulled away at the same time, each taking deep breaths.

  Drake turned from her and looked straight ahead.

  “If that’s all you can give me, Cara, I’ll take it. But if you ever care to offer more, just say the word.”

  She smoothed her hair and reached for the door handle, needing to escape the sauna-like, claustrophobic, and oversexed environs of his vehicle.

  “I can’t,” she said. “But I wish I could.”

  Cara slipped out of the Jeep and hopped to the sidewalk while Drake remained inside for a few moments. Jittery and still light-headed from the heat and the encounter, she smoothed her skirt and fiddled with her purse as Drake joined her on the street.

  He was smiling at her, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why.

  Anger bubbled inside her as she initially thought he was mocking her. He’d made out with the sexy widow, the lonely young judge, and was feeling pompous and silly.

  Then she realized that she wasn’t seeing contempt on his face but something much worse.

  Hope.

  Her words—I wish I could—had not closed the door or burned the bridge.

  Drake straightened his tie and ran a hand over his hair, which did nothing to tame his rumpled look.

  “Shall we, your honor?” He offered her his arm.

  “Let’s go.”

  She took his arm, and together they walked toward Commonwealth Cooperage, visible about a block in the distance through the haze of a hot May day.

  Miranda was happy to get out of the sun and into the cool confines of the house she now shared with Prent, despite the glorious beauty of that perfect day. The new oak tree planting ceremony at the cooperage that morning had been a lot of fun, but it had also taken a lot out of her and she was tired.

  Appropriately, the event served as the wedding reception she and Prent never had.

  It had been attended by what seemed like most of Littleham and a good chunk of Bourbon Springs. Together and with a golden shovel (spray-painted gold, she learned before the ceremony), she and Prent had planted a new oak tree where the Old Oak had lived and died.

  Prent delivered a few remarks about new beginnings, had introduced her as his wife (although everyone knew that), and then people headed for the refreshment tables at the end of the small courtyard area opposite the newly planted tree. A reception line formed, and Miranda had greeted the crowd with her new husband, standing a few yards away from the new tree, which had looked tiny and vulnerable amidst the forest of people milling about.

  “You should’ve had a toast,” Hannah had insisted as she reached Miranda and Prent in the reception line. “We would’ve been happy to provide the bourbon.”

  “Kind of a logistical nightmare,” Prent said. “We expected a lot of people but not this many,” he said, his eyes roaming the crowd.

  Shortly after lunch, the crowd had dispersed, and Minerva, Davina, Maisie, and Celia coaxed the newlyweds into going to eat with them at Maggioli’s.

  “If you’re not going to have a proper wedding reception,” she’d taunted, “at least let me take you two to lunch. I even made reservations, knowing that it would be hard to get in today without them.”

  Celia Chaplin hadn’t been exactly happy when Miranda and Prent had called her on the Sunday morning after their surprise nuptials, which had been happily performed by Rachel Richards with Judge Craft as one witness and the judges’ mailman as the other. Nonetheless, Celia had accepted the reality of her daughter’s choice and had even told Miranda that she had gained a lot of respect for how Prent had handled the situation with Peter.

  After lunch, Miranda and Prent returned to the house, with Miranda desperately needing a nap. In their upstairs bedroom, she stood looking out the window at the creek and the partially completed tree house in the large tree along the creek.

  Prent had abandoned the endeavor after learning he wasn’t Peter’s father although Miranda had encouraged him to finish the project. She hadn’t mentioned the tree house in several weeks but still wanted to get the thing done.

  She sank into an overstuffed chair in front of the windows and put her feet up on the matching ottoman. The view that day was splendid, the very opposite of the vista presented on that icy, snowbound New Year’s Day of only a few months earlier.

  “You look beat,” she heard Prent say as he entered the room. He walked to where she sat and dropped onto the ottoman, placing her legs in his lap.

  “I am. Need a nap.”

  “Want some company?” he asked hopefully.

  “Maybe,” she said, then turned her eyes back to the windows. “When will you finish that tree house?” she asked as Prent started to massage her calves, making her very happy that she’d worn a knee-length teal skirt that day to provide her husband with easy access to her legs—and perhaps other places since she suspected nature would soon be taking its course and not just straight to slumber.

  He turned his head and looked out the window.

  “I don’t know. I just haven’t had the motivation to get it done lately.”

  There was his still-lingering grief about the whole Peter debacle.

  Time to banish it for good.

  “How much wood is there from the Old Oak?” she asked.

  “Quite a bit,” he said, looking surprised at the question. “But I’d never use the wood from the oak to make the tree house.”

  “But you’ll use it to make barrels?”

  “Probably. I do own a cooperage, after all.”

  “Could you make furniture with it?”

  “Sure,” he said, continuing
to massage her calves. She purred happily, and he smiled at her. “You’ve seen those stools in the kitchen. Is that what you had in mind?”

  “Not exactly,” she said and looked down at her engagement and wedding rings, winking at her in the sun pouring in through the windows.

  After getting their marriage license but before going to Bourbon Springs, they had made the necessary stop at Prent’s house to get the rings he still had from their previous attempt at marriage. Although they had originally purchased simple gold bands, Prent had secretly had made for her a wedding band with channel-set diamonds across the front. The combination of the rings produced quite the sparkly effect, something she really enjoyed and still found herself captivated by weeks after their wedding.

  The ring hadn’t been the only wedding gift Prent had given her.

  He’d bought her office building.

  She had vehemently opposed the idea at first, saying that she didn’t like being bailed out and that she hadn’t married him for money. Prent had countered that now that he had control of his money, he wanted to be able to use it as he wanted and that he wanted to help her. She still opposed the idea until he told her that he would be using a large portion of what he had inherited from Kurt to buy the property. She had acknowledged the poetic justice of that solution, feeling as though it were Kurt’s money doing her the favor instead of Prent’s, so she had relented.

  “I was thinking about something more substantial and practical than stools. And not necessarily made from staves.”

  “But I already had the Old Oak cut into staves,” he said a little apologetically. “I thought we’d only be making barrels out of that wood. But I suppose we could find some clever craftsman to make just about anything we wanted.”

  “It’s not so much what I want as what we will need someday.”

  “What piece of furniture could we possibly need in this huge place?” he asked.

  “Oh, I think we’ll need a crib someday.”