Page 13 of Bourbon and Proof

She lowers the visor and taps her finger along her lipstick-painted lips. “It’s been going on for a little while. I wasn’t sure if it started becoming more.”

I smile, loving the fact that I have someone like her to even ask. “It’s been easy.”

“Which means...” she leads with a quirked eyebrow.

“It means, I’m not planning to bring my fling as my date to things that are important to me, like your wedding.”

Giving me a curt nod, she smiles. “You’ll have more fun without him.” She looks out the window and toward the property. “He is, however, missing a helluva look on you right now. You belong on stage, Hadley. Damn, girl.” She exhales and changes the topic just as quickly as she brought it up. “Every time I drive up this road, I’m reminded of how beautiful it is.”

Canopy trees hang over the narrow road that leads into the part of Fiasco that’s owned by Foxx Bourbon. The distillery, along with offices and tasting bar inside, sits at the center of the vast landscape. Around it are more than a dozen rickhouses that hold countless aged barrels of bourbon. The Foxx family has properties all throughout Kentucky with more rickhouses. There are cornfields as far as the eye can see that grow the corn in their mash, and fields of rye and barley in neighboring states that were purchased and leased to guarantee the baseline of what made up their blends. But here, along this stretch of road in Fiasco, there are stables, a cute farmhouse where Grant and Laney live, a smaller studio that now’s vacant again after Laney married Grant, and a few miles away, along the flat land, are horse paddocks leading to the beautifully architected main house.

I smile as the stunning two-story home comes into view. A modern farmhouse that’s more of a sprawling estate than simply a larger home. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been inside, which says a lot, considering I’m not new to money.

We come to a quick stop, parking just along the edge of the driveway that’s already lined with cars. Low bass music filters through the speakers peppered throughout the patio as we move across the well-manicured grass and around the side of the house. Faye squeezes my arm when she sees Lincoln, and I keep walking to give them a few minutes. I can’t help but watch them hold each other, speaking in hushed voices, and smiling like they're the only two here. Happiness looks good on him after all he’s been through, and I feel lucky to witness it. Looking around and taking everything in, it’s like the Foxx estate fucked around with old Hollywood glamour to show out for this wedding weekend. Flowing fabrics, flickering candles, metallic accents, soft lighting; it’s as dreamy as can be.

As I walk toward the double doors that lead inside, I give Jimmy from the distillery a wave. He pours a few glasses of bourbon for the men sitting along the outdoor bar. “Jimmy, looking good as a bartender,” I tease.

He smiles, his face turning a familiar shade of pink, like it does any time I talk to him. “Nah, I’ll leave that up to you and Laney. Just helping Ace. I start on the Fiasco PD next week.”

It’s been a bit of a running joke for a while now that Jimmy Dugan Jr. has had just about every job Fiasco has to offer. His father owns Dugan Hardware, and unlike so many family businesses in small towns, his father told him—after enough injury-induced accidents—that he could do what makes him happy. After a few fumbles, he started at the cooperage, shaping and hauling barrels for Foxx Bourbon. Most of the town gossips thought that might be it for him, but he went ahead and decided to enroll in the academy. Somewhere along the way, someone passed him and approved of him wielding a badge and gun.

“I’ll make sure to stop in and check out the uniform,” I say with a wink as I canvass the rest of the space. There are a couple of faces I don’t recognize—one at the long counter in the kitchen, talking with some of Faye’s friends from Nashville. I hold my small clutch in one hand while I pull out my lipstick and walk toward the butler’s pantry—off of it is a guest suite that I like to consider mine. But I stop short and do a double take into Ace’s office. A woman with cropped platinum hair is perched on his desk in a black cocktail dress with her back to me, looking through papers that I’d guarantee do not belong to her.

I know he wouldn’t want just anyone in there. Most people who come to the main house for a party or event are never so bold as to wander without permission.

“Excuse me,” I say, stepping into the room. She stills but doesn’t turn around right away.

As I move closer and with a different vantage point, I realize she’s not alone.

“There’s a list,” his deep voice says quietly to her, not having heard me.

But it’s her stiletto heel that’s perched just above Ace’s belt that has me freezing in place. “Multiples will take some time.”

I suck in a breath. Ace’s typically unaffected, stoic gaze has hints at amusement, his head resting against the back of his high-back leather chair. His hands are occupied, one with an almost empty rocks glass of bourbon and the other fisted and propped under his chin.

But then, he glances my way.

Shit.

The amusement drops from his face immediately. “Get out,” he says gruffly, sounding nearly emotionless.

My cheeks heat instantly. Lips parting, I can’t find anything to say back. I’m stunned by his tone. The woman turns her head to the side, looking at me only out of her periphery. It’s enough to shake me.

I was just verbally slapped. My embarrassment morphs rather quickly into anger as I turn back down the hall, walking toward the loud buzz of more people peppered around the kitchen and bleeding out the doors to the backyard.

With my blood boiling, I breeze past Laney and Grant draped over each other on a chaise lounge, then watch as Faye shows off her engagement ring to a small group of strangers I don’t know, and glare as Lincoln laughs with one of the guys from his team. My fake smile stays plastered on my face, shoulders back, and jaw tight as I make my way to the bar.

I can unpack why Ace’s few words and the condescending tone hit me as hard as they did after I’ve had a shot. I’m not nearly drunk enough yet.

“Jimmy, I’d like either an impeccable Manhattan or a full motherfucking fist worth of bourbon.”

Jimmy looks my way just as I adjust my tits in my dress, frozen in place by how to respond. He glances down to the end of the bar at Griz, who I notice at the same time. Most people look to him for direction when Ace isn’t around.

Griz knows that something is wrong right away; it’s one of his superpowers—knowing how people are feeling just by body language alone. “Give the lady the bottle, Jimmy.” Then he glances at me again. “And a water,” he adds, just before he turns back to his small huddle of ladies from book club. I don’t miss the side-eyes they give each other at my very apparent state of exasperation. I’m so tired of getting those looks from people who watched me grow up. The assumptions they’re making about me because of my father make my stomach roil.

I inhale a deep breath and lift my chin, trying to mask how I’m feeling. My pulse kicks too high for simply standing in place and stewing over what just happened.

“You’re a mighty good time, I bet,” a deep voice says to my left. The stranger sucks in a long pull of air from his vape pen and lets out a puff of smoke that smells sweeter than the Fiasco breeze, more like cotton candy. He chases it with a sip of his bourbon—two fingers, neat.

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