Page 40 of Bourbon and Proof

Marrying her wasn’t a consideration for me until my visit with her father. I never planned to move forward with marrying; my predicament of gaining my share of Foxx Bourbon could be figured out eventually.

But the game has changed, and I’m really fucking tired of Wheeler Finch turning the tables on me. When she offered to marry me, she did it because it was about whatIneeded, a misplaced feeling of repayment. But now...a marriage between us has other benefits. It’ll be about her, too. I need to keep her safe.

I pull out a loaf of French bread, grab what’s left of the cheeses from the last event we hosted, and the strawberries from this morning’s breakfast. She watches what I’m pulling together, and without missing a beat, moves around me, selecting two rocks glasses and reaching for the bottle of unmarked bourbon on the upper shelf. I look over my shoulder, seeing her shirt lift higher as she reaches, her shorts skimming the backs of her thighs just below that mouth-watering crease below her ass cheeks. My dick flexes like a reminder to quit looking.Jesus.

“What are you doing? Just pick one.”

She turns with a bottle. “This is your good bourbon, and I only know that because I’ve been here for forever, and I’ve seen you yell at Linc twice and Griz maybe just as many times for trying to open it when they wanted to celebrate a special occasion.”

“Put it back,” I tell her, taking in which one she managed to find.Thatone is off-limits.

She rolls her eyes at me but listens. “Then tell me what I can have,” she says suggestively. If I shared my rough plans with her, then this move could be more than just trying to keep her safe or about my family business. It could be a way to get Fiasco out of the pile of shit it’s landed in and fuck over her father in the process.

All of it demands more time and a strategy that takes every possible player into account. Beyond that, we’ll need to convince Griz enough so that he won’t ask questions. Truthfully, his fucking stipulation made it so he wouldn’t try to dig for the source of why I would be marrying her so suddenly. It also means that I’ll need to make sure her fucking father gets the news of our nuptials at the exact moment I want him to receive it.

As I slice up the bread, I point to the shelf below. “The tallest bottle.” I nod to it as her hand hovers over the right spot. “Pull that one.” I think about how much I pushed back putting that exact bottle into production and how sharing it with her might just be the most romantic thing I’ll ever do for a woman. Because there’s something on that bottle that will seal our deal.

With the right one in her grip, she sits up on the counter next to me, looking over the ornate bottle. I know she’s still shaken up from what happened earlier; she’s never quiet for this long unless something’s bothering her.

I glance at her as she starts to build a piece of bread with a double creme brie.

She reaches along the counter for the jar of Luxardo cherries, opens it, digs into it with her fingers, and pulls one out. With her fingers coated in the dark, rich syrup, she smashes the cherry onto the cheese, and then holds it up to my mouth.

“Go ahead.” She smirks. “You’re even more of a bear when you’rehangry,so take a bite and then you can tell me all about therulesI’m going to break.”

I open and take the entire piece into my mouth. The tips of her fingers along with it. “Such an overachiever,” she says, staring at my mouth as I chew. I raise my eyebrows and hum at the mix of sweet and salty. It’s a better bite than I was expecting,

“I know I may not be the best cook, but I can make a mean charcuterie mashup.” Plucking a piece of cheese, she goes back into the jar. I don’t bother passing her a spoon or skewer to dig out another cherry; there’s a part of me enjoying her doing it exactly as she is—fingers messy and distracted. It also allows me a minute to take her in. Her cheeks are still pink, and her hair is wild and messy. It’s a feature that was charmingly identifiable when she started spending more time here years ago. I never thought too much of it, but now, it just makes her look really fucking sexy without even trying. She has a small dimple just to the right of her lips. And at this angle, this close, the small scar above her eyebrow is easier to notice.

“You left me there,” she said, her eyes blurring with tears as she stood underneath the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Nearly eight years later, and she wanted to bring it up now.

“I chalked all of it up to the fact that maybe I didn’t want to know what happened, or that you thought it was in my best interest, but you just left me.” She crossed her arms over her chest, like she was protecting herself. We’d gone so long since that Fourth of July, and not once did either one of us push to talk about it. It was the unspoken thing that we both knew would stay between us. She didn’t need to know how much more had happened that night, only that it was cleaned up. There were no repercussions for her or an aftermath of any kind. I protected her in the best and only ways I knew how—negotiated, made a deal, and handled it.

Reaching up, I touched her eyebrow, brushing my thumb over the long white line that cut through it—it was the exact spot she had bled from when I found her.

“I left you there so I could fix it,” I said as her fingers moved to graze my chest. It felt like she was pushing me away as much as she maybe wanted me closer. I couldn’t tell.

“Don’t,” she whispered, and I cleared my throat and stepped back. She raised her chin and looked me in the eye, just as Laney and Grant came whizzing by from an aisle of empty tents. They looked like they’d just fooled around and, truthfully, I hoped they were good and distracted, because I didn’t want either of them overhearing this conversation.

“You left me there, and then everything changed. At least for me. And now I’m watching people find second chances and stolen moments with someone they care about, and the only thing I can think is that you make me feel safe. But I have no idea what you did or why you would even want to...”

I did what I did best. I stayed quiet. Even if the truth of how I felt for her lingered at the tip of my tongue.

“You’re just going to ignore me, then?”

She walked away when I didn’t give her more.

What she never realized is, I couldn’t ignore that woman, no matter how hard I tried.

The first time I noticed her scar was that Fourth of July, the same one when Grant was falling hard for Laney. I had worked so hard to stay away from her, and in that moment, that night, I hated myself for not knowing about that fucking scar.

I put the knife down, wipe my hands on the dishcloth next to me, and turn just slightly. My arm grazes her leg as I move to stand in front of her. And without even asking, her legs widen just enough to make space for me to stand between them. It isn’t entirely necessary, but I do it anyway, reaching around to the other side of her to grab the bottle of bourbon she took down.

She watches the move, her mouth full, chewing a massive strawberry. Swallowing roughly, I think better of it and take a small step back. Space always does me favors in moments that I can’t properly manage. And staring at her mouth, this close, for any longer, isn’t manageable.

“This was the only bottle that Griz spent time making and perfecting with the design team.” I glance at her as she watches me. “He doesn’t usually do that. He always said—” I change my tone to make it sound more like him. “It doesn’t matter what it’s in, as long as what’s in it is good.” Smiling, I turn the bottle over in my hand. “He spent weeks with our design team on the bottle shape and the extra materials. It was just after Shelby died.” He did a whole lot of things differently after Faye’s mother was no longer around.

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