The Bourbon Kings #1 (16 page)

And fortunately, she looked like she could take care of herself.

So the repayment of the debt was going to come cheap.

At least, that was what he told himself that first night.

Turned out that wasn’t true, however … not by a long, long shot.

“I
t cost me a hundred thousand dollars to sit next to you.”

As Gin used an antique Tiffany fork in the Chrysanthemum pattern to toy with her food, she barely heard the words spoken into her right ear. She was too busy focusing through the crystal stemware on the bouquet in front her. Samuel T. was off to the left, and with this rose-centric focal point, her peripheral vision could keep tragic track of him and his little girlfriend, Veronica/Savannah.

“So you can at least speak to me.”

Shaking herself, she glanced over at the dreaded Richard Pford IV. The man was as his boyhood self had been: tall and thin, with eyes that could cut glass and a suspicious nature that was in contrast to his enviable position in the Charlemont social hierarchy. The son of Richard Pford III, he was the sole heir to Pford Liquor and Spirits Distributors, a nationwide network that funneled wine, beer, bourbon, gin, vodka, champagne, whiskey, etc., onto the shelves of bars and stores across America.

Which was to say, he could well afford to pay six figures for a specific seating assignment every night of the week and twice on Sunday.

He was swimming in millions—and people hadn’t even started to die in his family yet.

“My father’s deals are not my own,” she countered. “So it looks like you’ve wasted that money.”

He took a sip from his wineglass. “And to think it went to the U of C basketball program.”

“I didn’t know you’re a fan.”

“I’m not.”

“No wonder we don’t get along.” KU. She should have known. “Besides, didn’t I hear that you got married?”

“Rumors of my engagement were greatly exaggerated.”

“Hard to imagine with all your redeeming qualities.”

Over on the left, Veronica/Savannah jerked in her chair, her fake eyelashes flaring, her fork clattering down to her plate. As her colored contacts flashed over to Samuel T., the bastard casually wiped his mouth with his damask napkin.

Samuel T. didn’t look at his girlfriend, however. No, he was staring over that bouquet of roses directly at Gin.

The sonofabitch.

Deliberately, Gin turned to Richard and smiled. “Well, I’m delighted with your company.”

Richard nodded and resumed cutting up his filet mignon. “That’s more like it. Please do not stop.”

Gin spoke smoothly, although she didn’t have a clue what was coming out of her mouth. But Richard was nodding some more and answering her back, so she must have been doing a good job of the social stroking—then again, whether it was conversations she had no interest in or orgasms with men she didn’t care about, she’d had a lot of practice faking it.

And yet she was exquisitely aware of what Samuel T. was doing. Achingly so.

His eyes burned as they remained on her. And all the while, just as he’d promised, the tart next to him struggled to retain her composure.

“—saving myself for you,” Richard stated.

Gin frowned, that particular combination of syllables registering in spite of her preoccupation. “What did you say?”

“I was set to get married, but then I came to terms with your father. That is why I ended the engagement.”

“Came to terms with my f—what are you talking about?”

Richard smiled coldly. “Your father and I have come to an agreement about the future. In exchange for marrying you, I am prepared to grant certain favorable terms to the Bradford Bourbon Company.”

Gin blinked. Then shook her head. “I am not hearing this correctly.”

“Yes, you are. I have even purchased the diamond.”

“No, no, no—wait a minute.” She threw down her napkin even though she was not done eating, and neither were the other thirty-one people at the table. “I am not marrying you or anybody.”

“Really.”

“I am quite sure that you ‘bought’ a seat at this table. But no one makes me do a damn thing, and that includes my father.”

She supposed it was a sad commentary that she didn’t question whether her dear old dad could sell her to benefit the family’s share price.

Richard shrugged beneath his fine suit. “So you say.”

Gin looked down the table at William Baldwine, who sat at the head with total command, as if there were a throne keeping him off the floor and the assembled were his subjects.

The man didn’t sense her glaring regard and was thus unaware that this bomb had been dropped—or maybe he’d planned things this way, knowing that Richard would not be able to keep quiet and she might be diverted from making a scene because there were witnesses.

And damn it, her father was right on that one. As much as she wanted to jump up and start yelling, she would not demean the Bradford name in that fashion—certainly not with Sutton Smythe and her father, Reynolds, in the room.

Over to the left, a moan was covered with a delicate cough.

Gin shifted her glare from her father to Samuel T.—whereupon the lawyer promptly cocked a brow … and sent an air kiss her way.

“Yes, you can take her plate away,” she heard Richard say to the uniformed waiter. “She’s finished—”

“Excuse me?” Gin pivoted toward Richard. “But you have no right to—”

“I approve of your lack of appetite, but let’s not chance fate, shall we?” Richard nodded to the waiter. “And she won’t have dessert, either.”

Gin leaned in to the man and smiled at him. In a whisper, she said, “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I remember the days you stuffed your jockstrap with socks. Two pairs because one didn’t go far enough.”

Richard mirrored her. In an equally quiet voice, he retorted, “Don’t pretend you have any say in this.”

“Watch me.”

“More like wait for you.” He eased back and shot her the self-satisfied expression of a man with a royal flush in his hand. “Don’t take too long, though. The carat weight of your ring goes down hourly.”

I am going to kill you,
she thought to herself as she looked at her father.
So help me God, I’m going to fucking kill you.

A
s Lizzie took a turn off a country road, the dirt lane she headed onto cut through wide-open corn fields and was barely big enough for her Yaris. Trees stood guard on either side, not in an orderly row, but with a more casual planting pattern, one driven by nature more than a landscaper’s hoe. Overhead, great limbs linked up to form a canopy that was bright green in the spring, emerald colored in the summer, yellow and orange in the fall, and skeletal in the winter.

Usually, this processional was the beginning of her relaxation, the quarter of a mile to her farmhouse a decompression chamber that she’d often thought was the only reason she was able to sleep after a day of Easterly’s issues.

Not tonight.

In fact, she wanted to look over her shoulder to make sure there was
no one behind her in the rear seat of the car. Not that you could fit somebody larger than a twelve-year-old back there—but still. She felt pursued. Chased. Mugged … even though her wallet remained in her purse and she was, in fact, alone in her POS.

Her farmhouse was classic Americana, exactly what you’d see on a poster for a Lifetime movie that took place over the Fourth of July weekend: white with a wraparound porch that had on it pots of pansies, rocking chairs, and a bench swing off to one side. Both the requisite red brick chimney, and the gray slate, peaked roof were originals that dated back to its construction in 1833. And the coup de grâce? A huge maple tree that provided shelter from the summer heat and a buffer to the cold wind in the winter.

She parked underneath the tree, which was the closest thing she had to a garage, and got out. Even though Charlemont was hardly Manhattan, the difference in ambient noise was stark. Out here, there were tree frogs, fireflies that had nothing to say, and a great horned owl that had started guarding the old barn out back about two years ago. No highway murmuring. No ambulance sirens. No drifting strains of Bluegrass music from the park down by the river.

Shutting her door, the sound was magnified by the darkness, and she was relieved when she walked forward and triggered motion-activated lights that were mounted on either side of the glossy red front door. Her boots scuffed the way up the five creaky steps, and the screen door welcomed her with a spring of its hinges. The dead bolt lock was brass, and relatively new—it had been installed in 1942.

Inside, everything was pitch-black, and as she confronted the emptiness, she wished she had a dog. A cat. A goldfish.

Hitting the light switch, she blinked as her comfy/cozy was illuminated by soft yellow light. The furnishings were nothing like the Bradfords’. In her house, if something was antique, it was because it was useful and had been made by a Kentucky craftsman: an old wicker basket, a pair of faded, tissue-soft quilts that she’d mounted on the walls, a rocking chair, a pine bench under the windows, the heads of old hoes and spades that she’d found in her planting fields, framed herself, and
hung up. She also had a collection of musical instruments, including several fiddles, many jugs, some washboards, and her treasure of treasures, her Price & Teeple upright piano from 1907. Made of quarter-sawn oakwood, and with incredible copper hinges, pedals, and hardware, she’d found the old girl in a barn rotting in the western part of the state and had her lovingly restored.

Her mother called the house a museum to folklore, and Lizzie supposed that was true. To her, there was great comfort in connecting with the generations of men and women who had worked the soil, carved out lives, and passed their survival knowledge on to next generations.

Now? Everything was about 3G, 4G, LTE, and smaller, faster computers, and smarter smartphones.

Yup, because that was a legacy of honor and perseverance to give to your kids: how you struggled to wait in line for the new iPhone for twenty-six minutes with only a Starbucks in your hand and an online blog about something pointless to pass the time.

Back in her forties-era kitchen—which was that style not because she’d gone to Ikea and Williams-Sonoma and bought lookalikes, but because that was what had been in the farmhouse when she’d bought the hundred-acre parcel seven years ago—she cracked the icebox and stared at the leftover chicken pot pie she’d made Monday night.

It was about as inspirational as the idea of eating paint chips heated in a sauce pan.

When her cell phone started to ring, she looked over her shoulder at where she’d put her bag down in the hall.

Let it go, she told herself. Just …

She waited until the ringer silenced and then waited longer to see if there was a call back—on the theory that if it were an emergency with her mother, there would be an immediate re-ringing. Or at least a chirp that she had a new voice mail.

When neither came, she walked over and fished through her purse. No message. The number was one she didn’t recognize, but she knew the area code: 917.

New York City. Cell phone.

She had friends up there who called her from that exchange.

Her hand shook as she went into the call log and hit dial.

The answer came before the first ring had even finished. “Lizzie?”

Her eyes closed as Lane’s voice went into her ear and through her whole body.

“Hello?” he said. “Lizzie?”

There were a lot of places to sit down in her living room or her kitchen—chairs, benches, sofas, even the sturdy coffee table. Instead of putting any of them to use, she leaned against the wall and let her butt slide down to the floor.

“Lizzie? You there?”

“Yes.” She put her forehead in her hand. “I’m here. Why are you calling?”

“I wanted to make sure you got home all right.”

For no good reason, tears came to her eyes. He’d always done this. Back when they’d been together, no matter when she’d left, he’d called her just as she was coming in the door. Like he’d put a timer on his phone.

“I don’t hear the party,” she said. “In the background.”

“I’m not at home.”

“Where are you?”

“At the Old Site. In the barrel room.” There was some rustling, as if he, too, were sitting down. “I haven’t been out here for a long time. It smells the same. Looks the same.”

“I’ve never gone there.”

“You’d like it. It’s your kind of place—everything simple and functional and handmade.”

She glanced over at her living room and then focused on the first spade she’d found out in those fields that she planted with corn every year. The thing was old and rusty, and to her, beautiful.

The period of silence that followed made her feel like he was in the room with her.

“I’m glad you haven’t hung up,” Lane said finally.

“I wish I could.”

“I know.”

She cleared her throat. “I thought about what you told me all the way home. I thought about the way you looked when you were talking to me. I thought … about the way things were.”

“And?”

“Lane, even if I could get past everything—and I’m not saying I can—what exactly do you want from me?”