Whiskey Chaser (Bootleg Springs Book 1) Read online

  Whiskey Chaser

  Bootleg Springs Series

  Lucy Score

  Copyright © 2018 by Lucy Score

  All rights reserved.

  No Part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electric or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The book is a work of fiction. The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-945631-20-7

  Lucyscore.com

  041318

  Contents

  About This Book

  1. Scarlett

  2. Devlin

  3. Scarlett

  4. Devlin

  5. Scarlett

  6. Devlin

  7. Devlin

  8. Scarlett

  9. Scarlett

  10. Devlin

  11. Scarlett

  12. Devlin

  13. Scarlett

  14. Devlin

  15. Scarlett

  16. Scarlett

  17. Devlin

  18. Devlin

  19. Scarlett

  20. Devlin

  21. Scarlett

  22. Devlin

  23. Scarlett

  24. Devlin

  25. Scarlett

  26. Scarlett

  27. Devlin

  28. Scarlett

  29. Scarlett

  30. Devlin

  31. Scarlett

  32. Scarlett

  33. Devlin

  34. Scarlett

  35. Devlin

  36. Scarlett

  37. Devlin

  38. Devlin

  39. Scarlett

  40. Scarlett

  41. Devlin

  42. Devlin

  43. Devlin

  44. Scarlett

  45. Devlin

  46. Scarlett

  47. Scarlett

  48. Scarlett

  49. Scarlett

  50. Scarlett

  Epilogue

  More Bootleg Springs?

  Author’s Note to the Reader

  About the Author

  Lucy’s Titles

  Acknowledgments

  Where’s Lucy?

  To the country girls and moonshine drinkers.

  And my BRAs.

  About This Book

  “I’m afraid my vagina might turn itself inside out if you try to give it another orgasm so soon.” — Scarlett Bodine

  Raised by her three overbearing brothers, Scarlett is a hell-raising tomboy with a tool belt. A tornado stirring up trouble everywhere she goes. Her favorite pastimes? Drinking any man under the table and two-stepping. But she has zero interest in love. Scarlett’s only being neighborly when she claims her sexy next-door neighbor as her new pet project.

  Devlin is a man at rock bottom. Marriage, political career, five-year plan to Washington, D.C. All destroyed with one well-placed jab. The golden boy is now the black sheep relegated to Bootleg Springs, a tiny West Virginia town with two claims to fame: 1. Moonshine and 2. The cold case disappearance of a teen girl.

  Devlin just wants to lick his wounds. But Scarlett has other ideas for his tongue… and the rest of him. She’s determined to bring him back to life, even if getting him back on his feet means never seeing him again. But when an old mystery becomes new news, she’ll need his help to survive the scandal.

  1

  Scarlett

  I hated funerals. They smelled like lilies and sadness. There were too many hugs and soggy tissues. And the black dress I found on the Target clearance rack made my neck itch where the tag curled against my skin.

  “I’m so sorry for y’all’s loss, Scarlett.” Bernie O’Dell’s stoop-shouldered six-foot frame engulfed me in an awkward hug. He’d closed up the barber shop today for the funeral. He’d been one of Jonah Bodine’s only friends who’d stuck with him until the bitter end, even when he no longer deserved friends.

  I gave Bernie a weak smile and a pat on the arm. “Daddy was always grateful for your friendship.”

  Bernie’s eyes misted, and I handed him off to Bowie, my good brother. Not that Jameson and Gibson were bad, but Bowie was a high school vice principal. He was used to dealing with emotions that terrified the rest of us.

  “God has a plan,” Sallie Mae Brickman announced with a reassuring squeeze on my hand. Her hands were always ice cold no matter what time of year. It could have been a hundred degrees on the fourth of July, and Sallie Mae’s hands could keep her lemonade half frozen.

  “I’m sure he does,” I said, anything but sure there was a plan or a god. But if it made Sallie Mae feel better to believe, then, by all means, she was welcome to the faith.

  The receiving line was getting backed up like a bad septic system with Bernie sharing a fishing story with Jameson. My brother was something of a reclusive artist, and this was probably his personal nightmare. Our father dead in a box behind him and a line out the door of well-meaning Bootleggers.

  Bootleg Springs, West Virginia, was, in my humble opinion, just about the best place in the world to live. We had a storied history of bootlegging during Prohibition—my own great-grandfather Jedediah Bodine was legend here for bringing prosperity to our tiny town with his moonshine and hooch—and we were in the midst of a tourism boom thanks to our hot springs and half-dozen spas. We were small but mighty. Everyone knew everyone. And when one of us died—no matter their standing in the community while living—we all spiffed up, baked our casseroles, and shared our condolences.

  “Hey, babe.” Cassidy Tucker, the prettiest, snarkiest deputy in all of West Virginia, was dressed in her uniform and dragging her sister June along behind her. My best friend since preschool, Cassidy knew exactly the hot mess that was stewing beneath my sad countenance. I hugged her hard and dragged June Bug into our embrace.

  June thumped me on the back twice. “I’m sure you’re relieved you don’t have to worry about your father’s public intoxication anymore,” she said gruffly.

  I blinked. June was… different. Human relationships bewildered her. She was much happier spouting off sports stats than making small talk, but that didn’t stop me and Cassidy from forcing her into social situations. Besides, she was a Bootlegger. Everyone here was used to her quirks.

  “That’s a good point, June,” I said. Everyone else was too polite to mention the fact that my father drank himself to death. But just because he made really shitty life choices didn’t mean he wasn’t part of the fabric of Bootleg. We all tended to forget shortcomings when the person was laid out in a satin-lined box in the Bootleg Community Church.

  “What?” June asked Cassidy, raising her eyebrows as they stepped on down the line. Cassidy patted June on the shoulder.

  Old Judge Carwell grasped my hand in both of his, and I sneaked a peek to my right at Bowie. He was hugging Cassidy… with his eyes closed. I made a mental note to rib him about it later. Smelling a deputy’s hair at your father’s funeral, Bowie? Just ask the girl out for fuck’s sake.

  “Sorry about your daddy, Scarlett,” Judge Carwell wheezed. The man had been looking to retire from his judgeship for fifteen years now. But Olamette County wouldn’t hear of it. Change didn’t come easy in Bootleg.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “And please thank Mrs. Carwell for the cornbread she sent over.”

  Carolina Rae Carwell’s cornbread was famous in four counties. I’d wrestled Gibson, my oldest brother, for the last piece this morning. I fought dirty enough that I won.

  I was glad for the sustenance now.
It looked like everyone was turning out to say their sorrys and to gossip about how sad Jonah Bodine’s life had been and what a blessing it was that it was all over.

  The real blessing would have been my daddy waking up after yet another drunk blackout and deciding to change his ways ten years ago. Instead, my father committed wholly to the idea of being a drunkard, and now the four surviving Bodines were front and center in the church we hadn’t stepped foot in since Mama died.

  Yep. I was a twenty-six-year-old orphan. Thankfully, I had my brothers. Those three brooding boys were all I needed in life. Well, them, a cold beer, a good country song, and my little lake cottage. I could get by without much else.

  “Well that was a shit show,” Gibson muttered, flopping down in the first pew. He stretched out and toed off his shoes. A temperamental carpenter and cabinetmaker by trade, he was allergic to suits. He was the quintessential tall, dark, and handsome bad boy. With anger issues. To the rest of Bootleg, he was an asshole. To me, he was the big brother that ran out and bought me tampons in the middle of the night when I was out.

  Much to his consternation, he had our daddy’s good looks. Dark hair, icy blue eyes, and that beard that went from nice and neat to mountain man in two days. Gibson was the spitting image of Jonah Bodine, and he hated it.

  Jameson lowered his tall frame to the green carpeted steps in front of the altar. He put his hands over his face, but I knew better than to think that he was crying. Sure, he was overcome, but it was from being too social for too long.

  Bowie slipped an arm around my shoulder. “Hangin’ in there?” he asked.

  I gave him a wry smile. “Yeah. You?”

  “Yeah.”

  Reverend Duane had given us some privacy before daddy was packed up for burial. None of us were real keen on the idea. We’d survived the visitation and the funeral. The burial was private. And it was the last thing standing between us and a whole lot of liquor.

  I spared a glance in my father’s direction. I didn’t get when people said it looked like the dead were just sleeping. To me, the second Jonah Bodine’s spirit left his body, there was nothing lifelike about it. I’d had that exact thought four days ago when I found him dead in the bed that he and my mama had shared for twenty-two miserable years.

  Of all us Bodines, I was the closest to Daddy. We worked together. Or, rather, I had taken over the family business from him when he couldn’t keep himself sober enough to finish a job. I’d learned to drive at twelve. That summer, Mama had started sending me to work with Daddy to make sure he wasn’t drinking on the job. He was. And I learned to drive stick sitting on a stack of folded-up quilts.

  And now he was gone. And I didn’t know how in the hell I felt about that.

  “Bonfire still on tonight, Scar?” Gibson was looking at me like he knew I wasn’t entirely in the “ding dong the drunk is dead” camp.

  “Yeah, it’s still on.”

  My little cottage with its swatch of lakefront beach was the perfect place to ring in the weekends, and we did so with bonfires, floats, and impromptu concerts—Bootleg had its share of musical talent.

  While tonight would be just another party to my brothers, it would be my own private send-off to the father I’d loved despite everything.

  “So, Bowie,” I said, eyeing him up. He had our mama’s gray eyes like me and daddy’s dark, dark hair. “Was it just my imagination, or were you trying to inhale Cassidy Tucker? How many other neighbors did y’all sniff in the receiving line?”

  He clenched his jaw, which only served to highlight the sharp Bodine cheekbones. “Shut up, Scarlett.”

  I grinned, my first real smile of the day. “Only pickin’,” I promised.

  Bowie had never admitted it, but the man was carrying a torch. As far as I knew, he’d never done a damn thing about it. Me, on the other hand, if there was a guy I liked? I let him know. Life was short, and orgasms were great.

  2

  Devlin

  The house smelled like sugar cookies and dust. My grandmother had been in Europe for a few weeks, enjoying a spring holiday with her partner, Estelle. When they heard about the trouble I was in, the shambles my life was in, they offered up their comfortable lakefront home in some tiny no-one’s-ever-heard-of-it-town in West Virginia.

  I’d never been here. Not with a life in Annapolis. Gran came to us for holidays and events. We were the busy ones, she’d insist, though we all knew the real reason. My mother—her daughter—would throw a passive-aggressive fit about venturing into the backwoods for any amount of time.

  However, this backwoods was currently my only option. I’d fucked up and been fucked over. I was banished, temporarily. And now, I wanted to do nothing but sit here with my eyes closed and will away the past few months.

  Including the moment when I broke Hayden Ralston’s nose.

  Violence was never the answer as my father had so helpfully pointed out. But the dark pleasure I’d felt from the crunch of that asshole’s cartilage suggested otherwise. It was out of character for me, a man who’d been groomed for public approval from preschool.

  I stared out into the night through the deck doors. I’d opened them in hopes of freshening the stale air inside, but all I’d done was invite the pounding music from next door into my solitude. Some upbeat country singer was infringing on my angst, and I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t come here to be subjected to what sounded like a spring break hoedown. I came here to wallow.

  With a sigh, I shoved my way out of Gran’s plaid wingback and stalked to the door. The sliding screen door protested when I shoved it open. Another item to add to my fix-it list. If Gran and Estelle were nice enough to harbor a broken man, then I was nice enough to help patch up a few things that could be fixed. Myself included.

  The smell of campfire bled onto the lot through the woods when I stepped out onto the deck. If one hard-partying redneck stepped the toe of a cowboy boot over the property line, I’d scare the shit out of him and his friends with a trespassing charge.

  I followed sounds now foreign to my ears through the woods. Laughter, hoots of delight. Fun. Inclusion. Belonging. I didn’t know what any of those things felt like anymore. I was an outsider looking in, both from my old life and here at this rustic juncture. This limbo of before and after.

  The path between the properties was well-worn, but by human or animal feet I wasn’t sure. When I broke through the woods, it was like crossing the border into another universe. Revelry. Couples slow-danced and laughed under the stars in the front yard. A dozen others crowded around the bonfire that snapped and crackled, sending up plumes of blue smoke into the night sky. The roll of the land was gradual down to the shimmering lake waters. The house—a cabin really—reminded me of a dollhouse. Tiny and pretty.

  The music changed to a country anthem that even I’d heard before, and the crowd reacted as if they all just won the lottery. Someone cranked the volume even higher, and I remembered why I was there.

  “Whose house is this?” I asked a gyrating couple on the impromptu dance floor.

  “Scarlett’s,” the woman answered with a twang so thick I almost didn’t make out the word.

  Of course her name was Scarlett.

  “She’s over yonder on the pick-up.” Twangy’s man-friend jerked his bearded chin in the direction of a red pick-up truck backed up to the fire. A cheering crowd surrounded its tailgate.

  The couple went back to swaying back and forth, forehead to forehead. I stalked across the grass in the direction of the ruckus. Ruckus? It appeared that the backcountry was already rubbing off on me.

  I weaved my way “yonder” through the crowd to the rear fender of the truck and stopped cold. She had her back to me, facing the crowd. She wore a short denim skirt, a plaid shirt that was knotted at the waist, and cowboy boots. The legs connecting the boots and skirt were leanly muscled. She had long brown hair that hung down her back in waves. She was tiny, but the curve of her hips was anything but subtle. She looked like every man’s girl-next-do
or fantasy, and I hadn’t even seen her face yet.

  She tilted her head back, the ends of her hair brushing the small of her back. The crowd cheered even louder.

  “Drank, drank, drank!” I supposed it was the cheer to “drink” just with an accent.

  With a flourish, the slip of a woman righted herself, opening her arms to her adoring audience, revealing the empty 32-oz. plastic mug in her hand. She spiked the mug off the tailgate and curtsied, offering me a shadowy look at just how high that skirt was riding.

  The crowd loved her. And I had to admit, if I weren’t a shell of a man, I would have fallen just a little bit into that camp. She danced a little boogie in those boots and leaned over to offer high fives all around the bed of the truck. Until she got to me.

  She had a wide mouth and a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her upturned nose. Her eyes were big and thickly lashed.

  “Well, well, y’all. Look who finally came out to play.” Her voice was as sweet and potent as the moonshine my grandmother had brought to Thanksgiving dinner.