Page 43 of Burn for You (Slow Burn 1)
Jackson swallowed. He shook his head. “I loved Christian like a brother. We went to college together. That’s why I adopted Cody. He’s Christian’s son.”
So I’d been right about Cody not being Jackson’s biological son. What a beautiful thing that he’d adopted his dead friend’s child. I didn’t dare ask where Cody’s mother was, so instead I studied Jackson’s face.
There were so many layers to this man—compassionate, complex layers beneath that thorny exterior. He was quick to snap and snarl, but just as quick to get his feelings hurt.
Maybe he had to grow that thorny skin to protect a tender heart? Maybe whatever happened to his face and whatever made him talk with such bitterness about his family business changed him?
Or maybe I had a vivid imagination.
Either way, his delicious smell was teasing my nose, he was standing a little too close, and he was looking at me in that odd way he did, the way that made my heart pump faster and my palms sweat. I had to go somewhere else, fast, so I could think about what the Fanny Hill was happening to me, because I was pretty sure it wasn’t only the cold that had my nipples hardening.
In a crisp, businesslike tone, I said, “Well if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work before Claudia discovers I’m still gone and has a stroke.”
Then I hurried away over the lawn toward the house, telling myself I really couldn’t feel Jackson’s gaze on me as I went.
Only I could.
And it was fire.
By midnight, the auction was over, the guests had left, and a team from the rental company had arrived to strike the tent and tables. Claudia was so relieved the event had gone well—and only deviated from her schedule by twelve minutes—that she hugged me. All that was left for me to do was find Rayford, who had promised to drive me home.
But I hadn’t seen Rayford in hours.
I didn’t feel comfortable skulking around the house in search of him, so for a while I lingered in the kitchen, assisting the strike team with loading the plates and glasses back into their crates and packing up the rest of the kitchen equipment. When that was done, I decided to give the kitchen counters a good scrubbing because I couldn’t stand leaving a kitchen a mess at the end of the night.
It was while I was in the middle of scraping burned food off the stove that I felt someone watching me. I turned to find Jackson standing in the doorway, a bottle in one hand and two highball glasses in the other.
He said, “Since you like Boudreaux Bourbon so much, I thought you might want to try something special.”
He lifted the bottle, a beautiful piece of cut crystal filled with an amber liquid so dark it was nearly brown. The gold label read, “Heritage 30 Year.”
My eyes widened. “I thought that stuff was an urban legend!”
Jackson moved from the doorway to the large marble island in the middle of the kitchen and set the bottle and glasses down. He’d removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. I still couldn’t get over how different he looked, though his hair was trying its hardest to return to its former state of disarray. Several unruly dark locks flopped over his forehead in an appealing, boyish way.
He said, “It’s an orphan from one of only a few dozen barrels made with this particular mash bill. An experiment that was ended when my father opened the barrels after ten years and declared it shit. The rest of the barrels were sold to a competitor for blending, but one was misplaced, found in the back of the rickhouse a few years ago. Turns out the mash bill was perfect, but it needed a lot longer to age than t
he other recipes.”
I heard my mother’s voice telling me, Some caterpillars need more time to turn into butterflies than others when I asked her why, at fifteen, I didn’t have boobs like all my friends. Like the Heritage 30 Year, I was a late bloomer.
It was both strange and strangely comforting to find I had something in common with a rare, expensive liquor.
Jackson uncorked the bottle, poured a precise measure into each glass, and put the corked cap back on. He picked up one glass, swirled the bourbon, sniffed it, and then held it out to me.
“Tell me what you smell.”
Unsure if this was a test of some kind, I set down the sponge I was holding, walked over to him, took the glass, held it to my nose, and inhaled. Aromas of caramel, toasted oak, vanilla, maple, dried apricots and lemon zest filled my nostrils. My eyes drifted shut in bliss. I said, “I smell heaven.”
Jackson chuckled. When I opened my eyes he was smiling. “I thought heaven was a library filled with every book ever written.”
Surprised he’d remembered that comment, I smiled back at him. “You have to have something good to drink while you’re reading a good book, Mr. Boudreaux.”
His smile slowly faded. He took up his own glass and lifted it to his mouth. He kept his gaze on me as he took a sip, swallowed, then set the glass back down. He slowly licked his lips and then said huskily, “Jackson.”
Hell’s bells, the man should work as a phone-sex operator! That voice!
I cleared my throat. “Right. Jackson. Sorry.”
