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

by Jennifer Bramseth

  Trembling, Cara wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

  “Why do you think you’re entitled to ask me such questions?”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I’m falling for you—hell, I’m there, Cara. In way deeper than I ever have been. I know we’ve only been together for a while, but believe me when I say that my feelings for you stretch back beyond our encounter in my Jeep at Commonwealth Cooperage. I’ve admired you on the bench for years but figured you’d not want anything to do with a guy like me.

  “I’m amazed I got to kiss you that day in Littleham. I’m amazed that I get to call you my girlfriend. This relationship has completely surprised me, I admit it. And now that I have this chance with you, I don’t want anything to get in our way. But maybe you can’t understand. The deceit, the hurt that causes.”

  “How dare you make such an assumption.” Her arms dropped to her sides, her hands forming taut fists.

  “I… I’m sorry…”

  Confused and reeling, she collapsed onto the couch and put her head in her hands. “You have no idea how well acquainted I am with deceit…”

  Drake sat next to her again. “Cara, I’m done with Selena. Been done with her for a long, long time. I don’t want you to think—”

  Her hands dropped from her face. “I don’t think you’re still interested in Selena, Drake,” she said impatiently and almost amused. “This isn’t some junior-high level of jealousy thing.”

  “I thought as much,” he said defensively. “And that’s what’s not adding up for me.”

  Cara fixed her gaze on a knot in the wooden planks of the floor, accepting there was no way out of this difficult conversation except to throw Drake out of the cabin—and perhaps out of her life—or to tell him the truth.

  He wanted to know what was bothering her so he could help her and protect himself from getting hurt again. Cara couldn’t fault him for those goals.

  Because she was falling for him too. She didn’t want to send him away, to see him walk out of her life.

  Tearing her eyes from the floor, she forced herself to look at him. And forced herself to speak.

  “I’m about to tell you the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me.” She saw he was about to protest, and she held up a hand. “You’ve brought us to this spot. There’s no going back.”

  She stood, leaving him on the couch, and walked to the cabin’s front window that looked out into the black abyss of the stormy summer night. Crossing her arms over her chest, she swallowed and began to tell the tale, feeling as though she were casting a demon into hell.

  “You know my husband died in a wreck in an ice storm. That’s the story everyone knows. But what no one knows is why he was out on that horrible night… after his wife had begged him not to leave in the middle of such horrible weather.

  “He’d told me he had an important meeting in Littleham with some developers. Crucial to a big deal. They wanted to get something done by the end of the calendar year, or so he claimed. But he never got there. Crashed on the Craig-Van Winkle County line. Dead in an instant, at least that’s what I was told. The sheriff said that like it was supposed to comfort me. I guess it did for about a minute. Before he handed me a birthday present and card he said he’d found in Todd’s car, along with Todd’s wallet and cellphone.

  “But guess what? It wasn’t my birthday. And for the record,” she said, turning to him, “my birthday is in March.”

  “Duly noted,” he said.

  “So there I was at home that night—it happened to be the same night Rachel gave birth at the distillery, strangely enough. Kyle Sammons standing in front of me like an undertaker, handing me a gift and card that wasn’t meant for me, while my son screamed in the other room, unable to be comforted by my mother. Nate had a terrible ear infection, was so very sick. I’d begged Todd not to go out—but he claimed the business deal would fall through if he didn’t show, that son of a bitch.”

  She turned and saw that Drake had turned a nasty, whitish-green color. His mouth was a little open, and Cara knew he’d put it all together.

  “I take it you remember Selena’s birthday?”

  “Cara… I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry I made you relive this.”

  She turned back to the window, and a flash of lightning lit up the woods outside the cabin for a split second before the outdoors were plunged into darkness once more.

  “So there I was, a new widow with a baby, and I’d just learned my husband had abandoned me. But not by dying. No, he’d chosen to go off and spend time with his mistress in the middle of a damn ice storm. Guess he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a good birthday fuck from his sidepiece.

  “Call me sadist, but I opened the card and present. You know what the card said?” she asked. Cara spread her hands apart as she spoke the inscription that was scorched into her memory. “Happy birthday to my forever love… the past two years have been the happiest of my life!”

  Drake sucked in a breath.

  He’d done the math.

  “Yep, he’d started the affair with Selena about the time he got his dumb wife pregnant. I don’t know which of us was stupider—Selena or me. I was blindly in love with the asshole, too in love to see the signs of an affair, the distancing, the excuses, the absences. But Selena…”

  Cara stopped, enraged and sick and too overcome to continue. She hadn’t talked about this in a long time, and she had forgotten just how furious and helpless these recollections made her.

  “But Selena went in and stayed in with her eyes open,” Drake said, slowly rising from the couch and looking every bit as angry as she was. “She knew Todd was married to you—a judge working in the same courthouse with her in Van Winkle County.”

  She nodded weakly. “I think back to those times I’d see her in the courthouse when I was pregnant. She’d say hello, acting like she cared about me.”

  “And after Todd’s death? Did she know you knew?”

  “I told her that I had a birthday present for her from Todd but lost it,” Cara said with a bitter laugh. “We were leaving the courthouse, and she had the nerve to tell me how sorry she was for my loss. Got all teary and wanted to hug me, said she couldn’t make the funeral because she’d been sick. I almost threw up on the woman it was so disgusting.”

  “What did she do when you mentioned the present?”

  “It was like some switch had been flipped. Very creepy. She went from all sweetly sad to ice cold in a second. Then she just walked away from me, saying nothing.”

  Cara returned to the couch and flopped down on it.

  “So now you know the truth. Everyone thinks I’m the sad little widow mourning her sweet husband. I was never that. I’ve been angry, guarded, bitter. I’ve not wanted to see or do anything with hardly anyone. It’s been painful and exhausting to pretend I’m something I’m not. Seeing his old friends and business acquaintances is absolute murder for me. They still extol the man’s virtues every chance they get, thinking they’re comforting me. And while I was heartbroken for a while that I’d lost Todd, it didn’t last long. That grief turned to hatred very quickly. He abandoned me. He abandoned our son. Now Nate’s all I have. He’s my life.

  “And I guard him with every bit of my being. That’s why I’ve not told anyone what really happened, what I discovered when I saw that card and package, when I looked at the text messages and e-mails on Todd’s phone. It was easy enough to figure out his passcode, the twit.” She stopped and shuddered. “I don’t want it known that Todd was a cheater because I don’t want Nate to know that about his father. I don’t want him to bear the same burden of resentment and hate that I carry with me. So in addition to the hussy—that’s what I call Selena—only you, my mother, Sheriff Sammons and I know the truth.”

  “Kyle knows?”

  She nodded. “He was there when I opened the card and the present. I broke down in front of him and cried on him something awful when I realized what had been happening behind my back. He felt terrible, though
t he’d brought me something to remember my husband. When I figured out the truth, he let me bawl on him.”

  “You opened the present?” he asked as he dropped onto the couch next to her and put his arm along the back.

  “It was a bottle of perfume, something I’d once told him I didn’t like. So he goes out and buys it for the hussy. Jerk.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “Twisted the spray cap off and poured it down the drain. I’d never liked it, as I said. But after that event, just a whiff of it now makes me ill.”

  Drake crept closer to her on the couch and brought his arm around her shoulders. “How do you keep all this inside?”

  “Easy. I do it for my son. Because I have to do it to move on with my life. I see a counselor once in a while, but it’s been very hard to let go of the anger.”

  “Sometimes a little anger isn’t a bad thing. It reminds us not to walk down the same roads again.”

  “Or it can keep us isolated,” she said, finally falling against his chest. His shirt was still moderately damp. “That’s how I’ve lived for the past year and a half.”

  “You’ve been trying to heal, Cara. No shame in that.” He gently removed her from his chest, held her hands, and looked directly at her. “I guess I should be thankful to Selena for kicking me to the curb. Now I know I dodged a bullet when it came to her. And I owe you an apology, again, for making you tell me this.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes, and her shoulders fell.

  “I wouldn’t have told just anyone, Drake.”

  “Thank you,” he said in a rough voice.

  After a soft kiss, Cara surrendered to his embrace, craving the protective hug he offered. Drake kissed her on the forehead, then the top of the head, before pulling away and standing.

  “I don’t know what time it is, but I’m sure it’s late and I need to get on the road,” he said.

  She held her hand out, he took it, and pulled her to her feet.

  “After what I just shared with you, why would you think I’d want you to go?” she asked.

  “Cara, you’re… you’re not in a good place right now,” he said. “I don’t want you to think that I somehow took advantage of you.”

  “I’d never think that,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You’ve been kind and cautious but never veiled about what you want from me either. You’ve been honest with me about yourself, your feelings. And now I’ve been as honest with you as I have with anyone on this planet about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I’d say we’re on pretty even ground.”

  “Is this you seducing me?”

  “No. This is me needing you and you needing me. No seduction, no taking advantage of each other. I’m hurt, I’m damaged. But I’m tired of living in pain and having that memory drag me down like anchor beneath the water.”

  “But I dragged it all out of you tonight. It’s my fault you’re hurting right now.”

  “Wrong. The only two people at fault are Todd and Selena. And while I hated to tell that story, I hope it shows I trust you.”

  “The beginning of a seduction is based on trust,” he said.

  “So is the beginning of any great thing.”

  “Then we stand on equal ground.”

  They embraced, and as their lips were about to touch, the lights flickered, crackled and died.

  It was completely dark, and the sudden lack of light momentarily was frightening. She held Drake closer.

  “That’s a sign to stay if I ever saw one,” he said.

  “How can you see anything in a blackout?”

  “So you want me to leave?”

  “Did I say that?”

  He laughed, gripped her tightly about the waist, and kissed her hard. Drake was not holding back, and Cara emotionally and physically felt like they were back on the hill at the nature preserve, the sky tilting above her and the earth shifting beneath.

  Without a bra under her thin T-shirt, Cara’s breasts swept against Drake’s chest, and her nipples became perfectly taut. His hands quickly brushed over her chest in a teasing manner, and she pressed herself into his palms, wanting a deeper, more lingering touch.

  Instead, he whipped his hands to her back, under the waistband of her shorts and down her backside until his palms were flat against her cheeks. Her lips moved to his neck, and she planted soft kisses there, moving upward from near his collarbone to his jawline, where her tongue raked the rough skin and felt his whiskers.

  He sighed and shuddered. He was under her control.

  Until with a growl he scooped her into his arms and took her into the bedroom, depositing her on the bed, his mouth never once leaving hers.

  Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and from the thin ambient light seeping in from outside, and Cara glimpsed his features. His face was a mirror of her own emotions: intensely eager, almost anxious, amazed at what was happening between them.

  Drake soon revealed himself as the needier yet aggressive one as he pulled back, stripped off his shirt, and then returned his lips to hers. Their chests again brushed against each other as his tongue swept her mouth, leaving Cara weak, breathless, delirious. His hands cupped her breasts through the T-shirt. It was long past time she got rid of it.

  “Take the damn thing off,” she ordered him.

  Drake grabbed the hem of the garment and pulled it over her head, leaving her topless. She had lost her sandals on the short trip to the bedroom in Drake’s arms, so now she only wore her shorts and undies. Intimately speaking, they had arrived at the same place they had been at the nature preserve.

  It was time to journey further.

  “Take it all off,” she directed, placing her hands aside his face and kissing him lightly.

  With a nod, he complied and pulled down her remaining garments until she lay on the bed completely nude, waiting for his touch.

  “Cara…”

  She could not see his eyes although she knew he was soaking in the shadowy sight of her body for the first time. His voice was full of awe and reverence, for which she was thankful, but she needed more.

  “Touch me,” she pleaded.

  Drake kissed her and brought a hand to her breast. He was trembling—or was she the one shaking? She could no longer think as his hand left her breast and moved lower, his fingers brushing and then exploring her wet folds. Her hips arched to meet his touch as her legs parted, inviting him further. Drake’s mouth found her other breast where he began to suck as his fingers stroked her.

  She was overcome, drowning, losing herself completely to Drake. Gripping the sheets with one hand as the other traveled down his chest to his shorts, she deftly managed to undo the top button. Fingers slipped between fabric and flesh, and Drake shivered and moaned. Momentarily removing his hand from her wetness, Drake quickly slipped out of his remaining clothing until he was naked on the bed with her. She caught a glance of his length in the dimness of the room, his body in half-relief from the negligible light. Reaching for him, she asked a question to which she already knew the answer.

  “You have protection?”

  “Yes,” he said, sighing as she stroked him. “But you knew that already.”

  “Why do you say that?” She brought her lips to his neck, kissed him, then traced her tongue along the surface.

  “Because I admitted I came here hoping you’d seduce me.”

  “Says the naked man on top of me. You’ve got me right where you want me, I’d say.”

  “Then let me turn the tables on you.”

  Drake rolled to his side, pulling Cara along until she straddled him.

  She laughed and kissed him, pressing herself against him. He reached behind her head, removed the elastic from her hair, and dropped it on the bedside table.

  “Your hair is gorgeous,” he said, running his hands through her tresses.

  “So is yours,” she said. “I’m still sad you got it cut.”

  “Next time, I’ll ask permission of the court before I go off
and do something like that.”

  “You’d better.”

  They continued to kiss, their tongues battling, entangling, tasting while Drake’s hands wandered down her back until they clutched her ass. With his erection pressing against her tummy, she ached for him to fill her.

  “Where’s that protection you claim to have?” she panted against his lips. One of his hands had moved back to her warm center and was stroking and teasing her.

  “Don’t worry about that just now.” He slipped a finger inside her for the first time as his thumb made gentle circles over her clit.

  Cara responded at once to this escalation of intimate touch, moaned loudly, and sat up to allow him better access to pleasure her.

  She ground against his hand, the pleasure building inside her, and wondered whether Drake could bring her to climax just by his hand. No other man had ever been able to do that although this kind of intense sexual foreplay often served her well once the act was consummated. Cara felt herself building to that spot and enjoying the ride but wanted much more from him and soon.

  Drake slipped his hand from her center and gripped her hips.

  “Let me give you more than that,” he coaxed. “Come closer.”

  “How? I’m naked and on top of you. The next step would seem to be—”

  “Like this.”

  Drake slipped down lower along her body, keeping a good grip on her hips until her most sensitive place hovered above his face. About to fall forward, she had no choice but to grab the headboard to steady herself as Drake placed his mouth on her.

  Her hips moved of their own accord as his tongue lapped and found her clit. It was the most unexpected, crazy, erotic thing she had ever experienced in her life—sitting on a man’s face as he made love to her. She’d only had two previous sexual partners her entire life—Todd and a college boyfriend. Cara was a cautious woman and, even though a widow, her sexual experiences rather limited.

  But Drake had pulled her again from her place of solitude and sadness into another realm.

  Cara climbed to that peak of satisfaction, a place from which she had thought herself banished by death and betrayal. With Drake’s lips upon her, he took her into his mouth as a finger, slightly curled forward, somehow slipped inside her. She came hard at once, gasping and grinding against his face.