Page 41 of Bourbon and Lies

“Alright, here,” I say, handing her my phone with the flashlight still lit. “You be my light.” I crouch down in front of her. “I’ll be your ride.”

She takes my phone and laughs. “You want me to get on your back?”

“You can’t walk the rest of the way with one shoe and a sliced foot. So yeah, hop on.”

She just stands there.

So I turn, still crouched on the ground. “Let's go, honey. My knees are getting pissed that I’ve been down here this long.”

“Grant, I’m not dainty. I’m heavy. You’re not going to carry me back.” She starts moving forward with a hobbled step.

I grab her hand as it swings past me. “Laney,” I growl out.

The tone of my voice has her stopping and turning immediately.

“There is nothing about you that I can’t handle. You remember how I tossed you into my horse trough, right?” I don’t let her answer that. “Now get your fine ass over here and hop on.”

With eyes searching mine, she steps behind me. Her hands draw up and over the back of my shoulders and drape around my neck. Reaching behind me, I splay my hands along her hips and then move to stand. I drag my hands down along the outer side of each thigh, her bare skin warmer than my touch, as she gives a little jump to hoist herself onto my back. Before I start walking, I grab her tighter underneath each thigh and lift her with a bounce so she’s wrapped higher, making her yelp.

“Alright, don’t choke me out and point the flashlight ahead so we both don’t go down this time.”

She nods, and I’m painfully aware of how close her face is to mine. I can hear her breathing almost as heavily as I am, even though she’s the one being carried. She smells like the wildflowers that she and the girls were weaving through their hair, mixed with the vanilla from the ice cream cone she licked so damn well, it gave me a fucking hard-on.

“Am I hurting you?” she asks quietly next to my ear.

“You couldn’t hurt me even if you tried, honey.” I wince a little at the lie.

In a mocking low tone, she says, “Okay, tough guy.” Keeping the phone light as steady as she can, she points to the uneven gravel of the long road to the distillery. “It’s not a crazy question. I’m a grown-ass woman, and I’m thinking you don’t give many of us piggyback rides.” She laughs, then adds, “Unless I had you pegged all wrong, cowboy. You give lots of girls rides?”

“Do you always say whatever is on your mind, or am I just special?”

A hum sounds from her chest. “Lately, I say whatever is on my mind. No filter.” Then, like she’s so innocent, she says, “It was just a little question.”

“Bullshit. And you know it.”

She rests her chin on my shoulder. “Hmm, maybe not.” With her arms holding me tight, I don’t miss the way her mouth has inched closer to me. But it’s her next few words that almost have me losing my footing. “Maybe you are just special.”

Her arms squeeze me a little tighter. I relish the way her legs wrap around me. How her chest rubs against my back, and her palm and fingers grip onto my shirt just below my neck. An arm's length would be smarter. Less complicated. I don’t want to be friends, and something more would be reckless. I made a decision a long time ago to close that part of my life off, but right now, it feels really fucking good to touch her.

My hands grip a little tighter on the backs of her thighs. She squeezes them around my sides in response.

“Who’s watching Julep today? I’m surprised she didn’t come with us,” she asks, breaking the thoughts.

I give her a boost for a better grip as I keep pace toward the distillery. “Griz will stop in and see her a few times throughout the day if I’m at work or busy. She ends up going to him rather than the other way around, more often than not.”

“So she keeps an eye on him, then?”

I smile at that, because that’s exactly what she does. “She’s smart and keeps tabs on her people.”

“She’s been keeping me company too. Do all K9 units retire together?”

“Usually, that’s the case. If a dog has gone through training with their handler, living with them, it’s hard to reassign them. She’s stubborn and doesn’t warm up to people she doesn’t know.” I turn my head slightly to glance back at her. “Except you, apparently.”

We approach the rickhouse, our oldest building with some of our most aged batches resting, and the lights are on. Considering it’s well past tour time, I doubt anyone is tapping any barrels this late. “You mind a small detour?” She looks up at where I’m focused. “One of the rick riders left the lights on the north end of the rickhouse.”

“Rick rider?”

“I doubt they call themselves that, but yeah, rick rider. We have a crew that clocks the barrels. They move barrels around, rotate them in and out of our houses.” When I walk up the ramp and through the double doors, the air is more stagnant and humid.

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