Chapter 43

It tookfour days for the fire to burn out. Five counties and an immeasurable number of firefighters battling to keep it contained. It never reached the other rickhouses on that stretch of the Foxx property, which was a miracle in and of itself. The fire burned so hot that the only remains of the monster I slayed and the nightmare I survived were his teeth and bone fragments.

He'd been erased. I searched for sadness in that, but it never came. Two nights of my life that I knew would never fully leave me, but it was done. I found comfort in that, at least. I remember asking my dad once if he was okay. It was after a case he had to travel for—it was one that had him missing opening day that year. When he came back, I knew it had been a hard one.

"Are you okay, Dad?"

He gave me that tight-lipped dad smile. The one where it felt more like a preamble to something I wasn't going to like hearing than one that had happiness behind it. We were at the diner on 22nd Street, and he hadn't finished his chocolate shake. He'd always finished his shake before our burgers arrived. I was done with my burger, and he still hadn't taken more than a sip. I knew that whatever it was that he had to do while he was away, some of it came home with him.

"Just a hard case, kiddo."

"Had to stop a monster?"

"This time, yeah. I had to stop a monster."

I leaned back in the booth, full from my disco fries and strawberry shake. I knew the possibilities at that point of what he could have meant. I also knew that if he had to hurt someone, it was to keep other people safe. "I think you're brave, Dad. You have to be brave to stop monsters."

He finished his chocolate shake after that.

He would have told me I was brave after all of this too.

I had rehashed that night of the fire and the night in the storage unit repeatedly with a therapist until I was able to sleep through the night. There was no clear-cut answer as to how Waz might have known something or someone was coming for me. Or how he knew that I had been from New York. "But like most things having to do with Hadley's father and his associates," Ace said. "We know never to let our guard down." The conversation about it ended there and the authorities never dug deeper.

The weeks that followed were hard, but as it seemed with everything, it was time that helped ease the anxiety of the nightmares that would come to wake me. I didn't have any remorse. But I had plenty of emotions about what had happened to my loved ones in the process. For one, Grant had gone through a surgery to repair the damage of the gunshot wound to his leg and a fair amount of physical therapy.

"Where are you going?"

He stops dead in his tracks, with one foot slung into his saddle stirrup. I knew he wasn't coming down to the stables just for grooming and time with Tawney.

"The doctor said he wanted you on the ground walking, not riding."

He hoists his other leg over and winces. "She needed to go for a ride. I'm not hiking, I'm riding. I'm fine."

He really is the worst patient. Grant doesn't know how to sit down for too long. So, I resort to bribery. "I need to go for a ride."

Smirking, he looks down at the reins in his hand. "That's how we're playing this now, baby?"

"That's the deal, cowboy. You have a choice, either I get a ride or Tawney does. You choose." I turn on my heel and stride back to the house with Julep in tow. She's a far better patient than her dad.

Julep barks, her way of telling Grant, "let's go!" I pet her head and grab onto the handle connected to her hind legs. Julep's hip and one of her back legs were in rough shape, but she's out of her cast as of yesterday and the hip brace is there for added support until she's strong enough to run again. I know she misses her morning rides alongside Grant as much as he does, so I've been filling in until they both can get back to it. My girl—that's what Julep was now. As much mine as she was Grant's. It felt that way long before, but especially so after the way she saved my life and then loved me through it. Julep and I go for a slow walk to the cafe every morning and grab a flat white for me, a black coffee for Grant, and a puppuccino for her.

"C'mon, honey, I just did the hard part," he yells out to me, like he's taken a second to think about it. It makes me chuckle.

"Guess I'm not getting the hard part, then."

I can hear him swearing to himself, but I know he'll be about ten minutes behind Julep and me. That man's appetite for me is ravenous. But so is mine.

"You still planning on marrying him?"

I look up and see Bea leaning against her truck parked in front of our house. "I kinda love him, so yeah, I'm planning to marry him. Are you going to come?"

She shakes her head, pulling out her silver case.

"I didn't realize you were in town."

She clears her throat. "You did good, kid. More than good. Just came to tell you that the items from your storage unit are no longer evidence. Thought you might want some of your old life back." She hands me a small gold key and a key card. "I had them moved to a spot just outside of Mongomery about twenty minutes from here."

I turn over the key in my hand as I swallow down my emotions. "Thank you."

"You're your father's daughter, Laney. That"s for sure." She opens the door to her truck.

"So that's it?"

"You were cleared on anything in question. Your part in his death was considered self-defense. There won't be any charges filed. You're not technically in WITSEC anyway, so yeah. That's it."

Before she gets into her car, she stops and looks down, searching for words to whatever it is she wants to say. "You ended up rescuing yourself. Again. That's not something that comes naturally to most people—doing what has to be done in order to survive."

She pulls in a deep, lungful of smoke, and on her exhale, she says, "Just remember that the next time life gets hard, or if you're feeling like the memories of the shit you survived might swallow you, you're a badass, Laney."

You can do hard things.

"What the hell did she want?" Grant asks from a few feet away. The dirt kicks up behind Bea's truck tires in the distance.

I think about how much of what got me to this place was hard. How much of it turned me into someone I wouldn't recognize if Manhattan Eleanor was looking.

I turn to him with a smile. "Just wanted to tell me I was awesome." Even with a slight hitch in his step, he stands there so confidently. "Looks like you decided which ride you wanted, huh, cowboy?"

He rushes toward me and lifts me at my waist as I let out a yelp. "Always you, baby. I'll always choose you."

"Now might bea good time to tell us what you've been up to, Grant." I shift a glance at Griz as he prods Grant. With the 100-year celebration coming in mere days, there have been thousands of phone calls, media attention, and concerned bourbon lovers that the highlight of our celebration just went up in literal flames.

I squeeze Grant's hand, letting him know I'm here.

He looks to Ace and takes a chance. "What if you were celebrating 100 years with something unexpected?"

Ace has been stressed out and barely sleeping since that fire. There's a lot to running this company and Ace made it look almost effortless. But this was a big hit for them—they could have lost a lot more than what they did, but Grant had a solution to share.

Ace crosses his arms, leaning against his desk, and Lincoln stops texting.

"When Fiona and Olivia passed, I started making batches. My own mash bill." He wipes his palms on his jeans. "I wasn't planning for it to be anything more than a way to make time move. I wanted to try to do the one thing that my name promised—make some damn fine bourbon."

I look around at their faces. Stoic, confused, and amused between the three of them.

"Those batches are ready." He lets a smile crack, and so do I. "And it's pretty fucking good."

"Where?" Ace interrupts. "Where the fuck are you aging barrels?"

Griz starts laughing.

Grant glares at him. But his deep rumble keeps going. "What? I can't believe nobody figured it out sooner. Ya'll are damn idiots if you didn't catch on by now." He looks at me with a wink. "Except for you, darlin'."

"The caves up near the falls."

Lincoln chimes in, "Are you shitting me?"

Grant shakes his head.

"I never told you, because it was never about adding something to the brand. Or stepping on toes. I didn't want either of you thinking that I wanted to take over what you've spent your careers building."

I watch the master distiller and CEO of the brand look downright confused at what Grant just said. I don't think they would have felt that way at all.

"I had my career and left it. Making barrels kept me moving. I did what we were taught to do. The thing that's been in our blood for generations." I nod my head to Ace. "You did that for me. I made bourbon, got lost in the process and the chemistry, the nuances. I did it in small batches, with different variations until I found something worthy. It gave me purpose again. It's taken a long time to improve how I run a team of people." I smile at the way the cooperage has been running lately. "But I want this. It's good fucking bourbon."

"How much are we talking here, Grant?"

"Give or take about 250 barrels."

"Are you fucking serious!?" Lincoln barks out. "But the temperature in a spot like that must have been all over the place. Really huge extremes? Or is it chilled? What's the proof clocking out at? Is it at its sweet spot yet?"

Grant laughs lightly, his face and neck tinted pink with nerves. "I think it is, but you're going to have to tell me."

Ace looks at Lincoln and a quiet exchange passes. "You want to put it in place of what we lost?"

Griz chimes in, "The truth is, most of what burned in that rickhouse was nostalgic. I tasted too many over-oaked barrels. Maybe half of what was there was going to get dumped anyway."

He looks at Ace. "I think it's high time you each had your own bourbon. And I'm not talking about your years. I'm talking about a mash that's special to you. You want something different to breathe life into this old girl, then you have to stop looking at me for answers."

Ace holds his hand out, looking frustrated. "You offer your answers, Griz. It's hard to tune them out."

Ignoring that, he turns to Grant. "I'm going to need a taste."

His mouth kicks up to the side. "I can do that."

"Laney, what are you thinking here?" Ace asks, brow furrowing slightly. But he's into this, I can tell.

I pull out a small packet filled with ideas and designs about what to call it, how to roll it out, and most importantly, how to make it rival something that's been hyped for years now.

"There are plenty of ways to spin it. But if what you're thinking, Griz, is that your boys should have their own craft blend, then there's only one name for this one."