For Love & Bourbon Read Online Free Page B

another baddie.
    He tossed his cell phone charger and an extra set of razors into the case, humming the Bond theme song to himself. When a commercial came on for Irish Spring soap, his mind clicked into another gear and sent him straight to his desk, where his laptop was buried until a pile of books and paperwork.
    Shoving a few things to the ground in the process, he dug out his computer and carried it to his bed. Within seconds he was searching the internet for the Lucky Fox Whiskey website.
    The first thing he noticed was the smiling, radiant face of a beautiful woman holding a glass of golden-colored whiskey on ice. He skipped straight to the “about us” page, eager to confirm if what Marco had told him was true.
    At the top of the page was a portrait of the family, three men and one woman, a list of names below. He scanned the smiling faces, a stab of guilt hitting him as he realized they had no idea of the storm to come. His eyes trailed to the dark haired man he recognized as Ty Brannon. The guilt he felt hardened to disgust as he stared into the man’s eyes, knowing he’d been likely lying to his family and betraying his country for years. He could think of nothing more despicable.
    Reading on, he familiarized himself with the feud Marco had spoken of. He already knew about Brannon Irish Whiskey, the two-hundred-year-old distillery the Brannons in Ireland owned and operated. But what he hadn’t realized was that Joe Brannon’s Lucky Fox Whiskey was a completely separate entity. According to the website, at the ripe young age of twenty, Joe had approached his father with a daring new recipe for whiskey that he was convinced surpassed the brilliance of the one they’d used for ages. Instead of being met with gratitude, he was criticized and disowned from the family as if it were blasphemy. Not letting his family’s impudence get in the way of his ambition, Joe set sail for America, the land where he’d been told dreams came true.
    And come true they did. He found his way to Kentucky and, with help from a local bank, purchased an old, pre-prohibition moonshine distillery and began to ferment his own recipe for Irish whiskey. Though it took a few years to really take off, Lucky Fox Whiskey became a staple for whiskey drinkers. Inspired by Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail, Joe expanded his brand to include several styles of bourbon.
    The rest, after that, was history.
    Cooper scrolled back up to the image of the family, his gaze falling this time to the old man at the center of the group. He had a shock of white hair, glittering blue eyes and an impish grin that reminded him of a Leprechaun.
    “You must be Joe,” Cooper murmured, admiring the man for his tenacity. It had taken guts to leave everything he had known and uproot to a new country and an entirely different culture without any idea if it would work out. Guts and straight up ambition.
    Beside Joe stood a young woman with auburn curls of hair, her arm wrapped playfully around his shoulders. Her smoky smile caught Cooper’s attention, the curve of it both a secret and an invitation. Just who was she to Joe, and why did the laughter lines of her face intrigue him the way they did?
    Ava Brannon. He read her name over and over, matching it to her face and losing himself in his own curiosity. She was close to Joe, likely his granddaughter. Was the beautiful Ava the daughter of Ty Brannon? Did she have any clue what her father was up to?
    His thoughts were disrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He fumbled around for it, finding it underneath the suitcase he had set up on the bed. Seeing his mother’s name on the caller-ID brought a grin to his face.
    “Hey you.”
    “ I didn’t wake you, did I? ”
    “Nope. Just packing.”
    “ Where are you going? ”
    He fell back against the pillows of his bed, making himself comfortable. “Louisville. Got a case down there.”
    “ Say hi to Elvis for me. ”
    “That’s Memphis, Mom.”
    “ Oh. Well, same area,