25. Evan
With less thana week to go before the fundraiser run, I doubled down on my training. I got up every morning and went for a jog, then came home, and did a half hour of strength training before jumping in the shower. Staying in bed with Frannie was hard to give up, but I wanted to prove to everyone, especially myself, that I’d never been in better shape.
“What do you have going on today?” Frannie handed me a mug of coffee as I entered the kitchen, fresh from my shower.
“It’s a regular day at the distillery. I should be home by five, then I want to get in another run before it gets dark. How about you?” I leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead before taking a sip of the strong, dark brew.
“Charice asked if I wanted to grab dinner. She says I’ve been ignoring her since I moved in with you.”
“It’s fine with me, if that’s what you want to do.” Even though Frannie and I were together—the kind of together that would have me putting a ring on her finger before too long—I wanted her to spend time with her friends. Especially ones who cared about her as much as I did.
“I’ll probably also head over to see my dad. It’s been a few days, and he’s been asking about apple pie. I think I’ll stop by Jackie Jay’s to pick one up for him that he can share with his friends.”
“Don’t they feed him three meals a day around there?” I’d only been to Frannie’s dad’s place a few times, but we had joined him for lunch one day, and I thought the food was delicious.
“Of course they have plenty of food there,” Frannie said. “He just likes the things he likes. You know how that goes.”
“Well, if you happen to pick up an extra pie to bring home, I definitely wouldn’t mind.” I’d been burning so many calories lately, I was pretty sure I could eat a whole one by myself and not even notice.
Frannie eyed me with jealousy over the rim of her cup of coffee. “I wish it worked that way with me. I barely look at a dessert and I can feel it on my hips.”
“I like the way your hips feel,” I told her. “In fact, what time do you have to leave? Do we have time for me to show you just exactly how much I love your hips before you go?”
“Don”t you ever get enough, Evan?” Her eyes had rounded, but were still nowhere near as big as her smile.
“Never enough of you.”
Pete the Dog must have been getting jealous of the contact we had. He nudged his nose between us. I wasn”t sure if he was trying to break us up or if he was sniffing around for any leftover breakfast. I shifted back to make room for him to wiggle between us.
“You never told me when I said Pete the Dog could move in with you, that he”d be such a cockblocker,” I complained.
“All part of his charm,” Frannie said. “I’d better get going. I”ve got some work to do before the kids arrive, and I like having my office to myself when it”s nice and quiet.”
“Alright. I”ll see you tonight, then. Love you.” I leaned down again, eager for another kiss. I’d never get my fill of Frannie, not since I had my first taste of her lips. She”d already been the most important person in my life, but now that we’d taken things to the next level, my feelings for her had amplified.
“You better cut that out or we’re both going to be late this morning,” she said, as she gave me a slight push. Although, based on the flush on her cheeks, I didn”t think she minded the kiss all that much.
“Fine, get going. I”ll let you know if Cole has any info to report on Logan.”
“Thanks.” Frannie put her mug in the sink and gave me one more kiss. Within a few minutes, she and Pete the Dog had left. The house was too quiet without her. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I’d gotten used to having her around. The only sign that she”d even been there was the faint scent of her perfume hanging in the air and the lipstick-smudged mug sitting in my sink. For a guy who”d never really imagined himself living with anyone, I’d come to appreciate sharing space with the woman I loved.
I finished getting ready and drove the short distance to work, already anticipating how Jackie Jay’s crumble-top apple pie was going to taste later on tonight. Maybe I’d stop on the way home and pick up a can of whipped cream. It would be the perfect addition to the pie, not to mention what other uses I might be able to come up with for it if I had it on hand.
I’d barely walked in the front door to the warehouse when Cole spotted me and came over. “Hey, I got some information on that name you wanted me to investigate. Where did you hear about Logan Scott in the first place?”
I hadn”t told him about the diary yet because I wasn”t sure if it would amount to anything, and I didn”t want to get his hopes up. He’d also been busy with wedding plans. Now seemed like a good time to share some more details, with the wedding being over and all. I told him about finding the diary in the small antique shop over in Bordent.
“Frannie looked into it at the historical society, but wasn”t able to come up with anything except a birthday for the guy. Where did you get your information?” I asked.
“I was over at Mom and Dad”s last night and dug through some of the papers in his office. Most of the records we had on file burned in that fire, but he still had a few things left in the filing cabinet.”
“A few things like what?” I asked, not missing the way Cole looked down at the mention of the fire. Even though it had been years ago and he”d just been a kid, he”d always blamed himself for the accident that wiped out most of our family history and took our grandfather”s life. He’d done a lot of work on himself over the past year or so, and I was really proud of him. But if anyone knew how ghosts from the past could haunt us, even into the present day, it was Cole.
“So, what”s the significance of Cornelia Bishop and Logan Scott?” Cole asked. “And what kind of information is in this diary?”
I knew as soon as I told him what Frannie and I’d read so far, he would want to see it for himself. Frannie still had a ways to go, and I wasn”t about to take it away from her before she finished. She was just as invested as I was about figuring out who my ancestors really were, though for Frannie, I think she was more interested in the possibility of a love story, whereas I was more interested in learning more about my family”s history.
“Frannie’s still reading it, but I can get it to you in a couple of days,” I offered. “She”s been filling me in every night. Turns out Cornelia had been meeting on the sly and writing letters back and forth with this mystery guy, but we”re not sure who he was. I suppose back in those days you couldn”t just go out on a date with anyone.” Our family hadn”t come from money. As immigrants, they’d settled in the mountains of Tennessee and decided to do one of the only things they knew how—make whiskey. “According to the dates, Frannie’s reading the diary of a sixteen-year-old Cornelia Bishop, who would have been writing her entries around the same time that our ancestors were founding the distillery.”
“She mention anything about the Stewarts?” Cole asked. “It would be really interesting to get a firsthand account about what things were like around those times.”
I shook my head. “She hasn”t really mentioned the distillery yet, but I”ll let you know if that changes.”
Cole nodded. I could tell how much he wanted to get his hands on the diary, but he’d have to wait.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he said. “Though I doubt Frannie will get much reading done this weekend. Won”t you both be at the big fundraiser race?”
“Yeah, I went for a run this morning. My time is getting better and better.” My chest puffed out a little at the admission. It was going to feel so good when I crossed that finish line. Not even my dad would be able to put me down once I proved to everyone there was nothing holding me back. Maybe he”d even stop with the snide comments like the ones he made at the football game on Friday night. No matter what I did or how many medals or championship trophies I won, he always seemed to focus on the negative.
“Are you sure you should be tackling a 10k? Just a few weeks ago, you were still walking around here with a limp,” Cole said. “I”m the last person to give anyone advice about not pushing it, but we’re all worried about you.”
“We’re?” I asked. “Do you mind telling me who the ‘we’ is in ‘we”re’?”
Cole shifted his gaze, breaking eye contact. “Everyone, man. Danica, Mom, Dad, Vaughn, Miller, Ruby… we’re all worried about you.”
“I don”t need anybody worrying about me, not anymore. I told you I was going to get myself pieced back together, and I have. I don”t know why everybody can”t just be glad that I’m not limping around here anymore and be happy for me.”
“It’s not like that.” Cole reached up and rubbed the back of his neck.
The guys in my family weren”t known for opening up to each other on a regular basis. Since Cole had started seeing Danica, he’d definitely become more in touch with his softer side. And I wasn”t the only one who noticed.
“Are you going soft on me?” I gave him a playful nudge in the belly. “Next thing you know, you”ll be talking about feelings and shit.”
Cole smirked. “It”s not so bad talking about feelings. Turns out once you get going, it”s pretty easy.”
No way was he going to get me to start talking about feelings. He was probably just poking around trying to get the inside scoop on what was happening between me and Frannie. Everyone in my family had been very interested in getting the intimate details, and we’d both been sitting in the hot seat over the past couple of weeks.
“What else did you find out about Cornelia? Anything else I can pass along to Frannie?” I asked.
Cole slid a legal pad of paper in front of me that was attached to a clipboard—the one he usually carried with him every day as he went through the production line. “Yeah, it looks like she died when she was only eighteen years old.”
“Seriously? She’s sixteen in the diary. Frannie just got to the part where Cornelia mentioned Logan would be asking her dad if he could call on her.” If Cole was right and Cornelia died at age eighteen, there wouldn’t be many more entries in the diary. There also wouldn’t be much of a love story between Cornelia and Logan.
“There wasn’t a cause of death noted, though they didn’t have much in the way of healthcare back then. It could have been anything… pneumonia, tuberculosis… hell, she could have broken her leg walking up the mountain and lost her life to gangrene.”
“Things are so different now than they were back then. I bet you”re glad you didn”t have to go visit Danica”s dad and ask for her hand before you started dating. What a pain in the ass that probably was. Can you imagine having all of your dates chaperoned?”
Cole shook his head.
“I suppose with our family starting the distillery, they wanted to find a good match for Cornelia. Status in society played a much bigger role back then than it does now, and thank God for that,” I said. “No telling who Mom and Dad would have matched either one of us up with if we had to rely on them setting up an arranged marriage.”
Cole jotted down a couple of notes. “Let me look into it a little bit further. There”s got to be something more somewhere in our family notes.”
“Sounds good. How’s the quest to recreate Devil’s Distinct coming? Sounds like you got some promising results from that lab.”
“Yeah.” Cole sighed. It didn”t sound like a positive sigh, and I had a feeling he’d encountered more obstacles along his way searching for the best way to make the Devil”s Distinct—the original and bestselling whiskey we”d ever produced. “I”ve hit a few snags, but I”m not giving up. I ordered a couple of different strains of yeast since we”ve got it narrowed down, but I haven”t been able to single out which one they might have used for Devil’s Distinct. I”m hoping we can run a couple of batches using the different options and within a month or two, maybe get some idea of which direction to go.”
I”d never had a reason to doubt my older brother’s commitment to the family and the distillery. My dad had been right to name him co-master distiller. Cole would figure out how to recreate that recipe if it was the last thing he ever did.
“Alright. I”ll see you later. I’d better get to it. We”re bottling some of the fall flavors today. I”ve got your apple cinnamon whiskey up first, then the Stewarts are running some pumpkin spice moonshine right behind it.”
Cole visibly recoiled at the mention of pumpkin spice spirits.
“Harper said it tested well and the focus group—”
“A focus group made up mostly of her friends,” Cole said. “She’ll justify what she wants using any means necessary. I sure as hell wish that attorney had been able to figure out a way to split the distillery apart. I can guarantee we wouldn”t be spending time and effort making flavored moonshine like half the other distilleries in Tennessee.”
Even though all parties involved had agreed to add a few other offerings to our lineup, Cole still struggled with the idea of producing moonshine on the hallowed grounds of the distillery. “Just think, all that flavored moonshine probably paid for your honeymoon.”
“Yeah, a honeymoon I haven”t been able to take yet,” Cole said.
He and Danica were supposed to fly to the Bahamas the day after their wedding, but thanks to the storm and all the trees that had been blown down around town, they hadn”t been able to get to the airport. They rescheduled to go in January, but that was a hell of a long way away. If it had been me, I would have just holed up at home and enjoyed my new bride for a week, but Cole couldn”t seem to stay away from the distillery. Making whiskey was his life”s true passion, and I envied him for knowing that about himself. Beyond loving Frannie, I wasn”t sure there was anything I cared that much about.
“Let me know if you decide to skip the after-work run and want to grab a beer instead,” Cole said. “Danica”s got book club tonight, so I”m on my own for dinner.”
“Will do.” I clapped him on the shoulder and headed toward the production office to get my day started.