Pretty as a Peach

by Sawyer Bennett

  Pretty as a Peach

  A Sex and Sweet Tea Novel

  SAWYER BENNETT WRITING AS

  Juliette Poe

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2018 by Juliette Poe

  EPUB Edition

  Published by Big Dog Books

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  ISBN: 978-1-940883-76-2

  Find Juliette on the web!

  Website: juliettepoe.com

  Twitter: twitter.com/juliette_poe

  Facebook: facebook.com/AuthorJuliettePoe

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Connect with Juliette

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Darby

  The miles pass by slowly, made even more painful by the fact Linnie will not talk to me. The back of her head rests against the car seat, and she stares blankly out of the windshield. She’s been in that position ever since we left our home in Illinois over four hours ago. As we were pulling out of our driveway, I told her not to look back.

  Apparently, she took me at my word.

  “Want to stop and get a late breakfast when we hit Indianapolis?” I ask my seven-year-old daughter pleasantly, hoping to transfer some positive attitude to her.

  She doesn’t respond.

  “I know you have to be hungry.”

  Crickets.

  “Are you just going to never talk to me again? I mean, when you need something, how are you going to convey it? Are you going to point at food and assume I’ll know you’re hungry? Or maybe you’ll start communicating with grunts?”

  When I take my eyes off the road briefly to give her a playful smirk, I get nothing in return.

  With a heavy sigh, I turn up the radio slightly, trying to listen to the words of some meaningless song that has no chance in hell of taking my mind off my daughter’s sadness.

  She’s heartbroken to be leaving the only home she’s ever known. Once I made my decision to relocate to North Carolina, she did nothing but beg and plead me with me not to. I had to hear about how much she would miss her friends, her school, her horse, and her father. The friends, horse, and school I totally understood.

  Her dad? I can’t quite figure that one out. Deep down, I think she’s laying it on extra thick about her father to hurt me a bit for making her leave. Linnie and her dad are not overly close, so she has an ulterior motive for sure.

  In the two months I have been separated from Mitch, I can count on one hand the number of nights she has spent with him. He’s always too busy with his career and travel. This was no different than how things were throughout the course of our nine-year marriage. The reality is Mitch was never a very “present” father in either the literal or figurative sense. Sure, he provided us with a beautiful house and bought Linnie a horse when she was five. He’s taken us on extravagant vacations, and pretty much bought our daughter anything she ever wanted. But past that, he just doesn’t know how to be connected in the most important ways with our child. It’s why it’s baffling to me how she’s suddenly using him as a “need” for us to stay. She makes me feel like I’m traumatizing her by moving away from him, but in truth, she’s not losing out on a lot of interaction with him.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Linnie says and because it’s been hours since I heard her voice, I jump slightly from the surprise of it.

  I turn to her with such a bright, hopeful smile on my face that she even bothered to ask me for something. She rolls her head on the seat toward me, glaring from behind her glasses. My smile falters.

  Turning back to the road, I spy an exit with several gas stations coming up. “I’ll pull off up here. We can also grab something to eat if you want.”

  She doesn’t reply.

  I take my foot off the gas and naturally slow as I approach the exit. I’m pulling a small U-Haul trailer behind my old BMW Mitch bought me seven years ago, and I’ve been nervous as hell. I’ve been driving a lot slower than I normally would, but I’m terrified the darn thing is going to rip loose from the back of my car or something.

  After I pull into the gas station, deciding to go ahead and top off my tank, I steel myself to have some type of heart-to-heart with Linnie because I’ll never survive the next eleven hours on the road with her like this.

  Linnie takes off her seatbelt and starts to open the door. I put my hand on her arm and say, “Wait just a minute.”

  My daughter flops back into the seat with a pained sigh and stares out of the windshield. Her lips are pressed flat together, and she crosses her arms over her chest.

  The message is clear. We are still in battle mode.

  I take a calming breath to keep my anger in check. This has been extremely difficult for her. I keep reminding myself that outside of the last few weeks, Linnie and I have a beautifully strong and loving relationship. I take my fingertips and rub them across her brow, bringing my hand down to the back of her neck where I squeeze it gently. “Honey… I know how hard this is on you, and I wish I could do something—”

  Linnie’s head snaps my way, her eyes all round and hopeful from behind her thick glasses that showcase her baby blues that match my own. She’s been wearing them for four years now, and I think they make her look adorable. She hates them with an undying passion and can’t wait until the day she’s old enough to have contacts.

  “Let’s just go back,” she says earnestly. “Please, Mom, we can make this work if we go back. I know Daddy would take us back.”

  I’m shaking my head before she can even get out the last words because we’ve had this discussion before.

  Numerous times.

  “No, baby. We can’t make it work.”

  “But Daddy will take us back,” she pleads.

  “I know, honey,” I tell her sadly. “But I can’t go back.”

  Linnie takes an index finger and pushes her glasses up her nose. “You’re not even trying. You didn’t even try to make it work.”

  I don’t respond to her because she’s only seven, and she has no clue how long I tried to make it work. She’ll never understand the pieces of myself I abandoned in the early years of our marriage to keep Mitch happy. She’ll never understand the sacrifices I made to give her a good life.

  I harden my voice slightly, so she understands we can’t keep going around and around about this. “Linnie… listen to me. I know this seems impossibly difficult right now, but it will get better. We’ll settle into our new place
, and you’ll meet new friends.”

  She turns around with a huff of frustration and glares out the passenger window, effectively telling me she doesn’t want to listen to a damn thing I have to say.

  My lungs expand with an automatic sigh followed by a tiny flash of anger-laced frustration that she won’t even give me an inch. I stifle that sigh, though, and tell her, “I’m done talking about going back. I understand your position, and I hope that you understand mine. But this is happening whether you like it or not.”

  Her head whips back to me, causing her glasses to slide down her nose again. She automatically pushes them up, which I bet she must do a hundred times a day. She stares hatefully and the enmity in her eyes takes me aback. Her voice is low and harsh. “Then take me back and let me live with Dad. I don’t want to live with you.”

  The other thing Linnie will never understand at age seven is the power that words have over people. Hopefully, it will be a very long time before she ever feels the intense ache in the center of her chest—like I have right this minute—when someone she loves tells her something hurtful.

  What I would really like to tell her is the truth. I would like to take her face in my hands, get up close to her, and tell her the God-awful truth that her father would not want her to live with him. That he does not have the time nor the inclination to raise a child, and those were his exact words when I tried to work out custody arrangements with him. I would love to make her understand he had not one single qualm about Linnie moving. Sure, he was completely irate and affronted I would leave him, but Linnie just didn’t matter. A child to Mitch is nothing more than arm candy. It’s a way for him to show his cronies he has a beautiful family and it’s all his doing.

  No, I will never let Linnie know what a bastard her father is. So I only say, “Well, I love you more than the air I breathe, and I need you with me. And your father agreed to it. So that’s just the way it’s going to be.”

  I get another glare from her, and then she’s pushing her way out the passenger door. She slams it behind her and leans against the car, her arms once again crossed over her chest to remain in her battle posture.

  I have a moment of great weakness, and I consider the possibility of returning to Mitch. To give up all of my hopes and dreams so my daughter can have her friends and her horse. I think about how it wouldn’t be so bad to endure his verbal abuse, crazy possessiveness, and constant shaming. Certainly, I could look past the mistress I recently found out about.

  My eyes cut to the rearview mirror and the ones staring back at me look utterly defeated.

  It would be so easy to give in.

  My phone rings, startling me, and I grab it from the center console. I see from the screen it’s my older sister Kelly, and I don’t hesitate to answer. “Hey.”

  “Just checking in to see where you are,” she says, and I immediately feel my resolve bolstering just from her voice. Kelly has been an immense source of strength to me since I decided to leave Mitch.

  “I’m just outside of Indianapolis,” I tell her as I pull the key out of the ignition. “We’re just now stopping for gas and a bathroom break.”

  “How is Linnie?” she asks hesitantly. Kelly is well aware her niece has been fighting me every step of the way with this move.

  I give a forlorn sigh into the phone that probably tells Kelly all she needs to know. “She fluctuates between silence and open hostility. I’m not sure how to deal with either.”

  “You know how to deal with both because you are the best mom in the world,” my sister tells me, and the surety in her voice bucks me up even further. “Just give her time, Darby. That’s all she needs.”

  Yes. That’s all she needs, and it’s all I need as well. I just need time and distance. Hopefully my life will get back on track, and both of us will be the better for it.

  When my former brother-in-law—Kelly’s ex-husband—offered me the chance of a lifetime to move to North Carolina and become his operations manager for a farm he had just purchased, there was no way I could say no. It was my chance to break away from Mitch.

  Even though Kelly and Jake have been divorced for more than a year, they remained the closest of friends. It’s quite remarkable how well they get along since the divorce, and that’s evidenced by the fact Kelly is his right-hand man in the multimillion-dollar tech company he owns.

  Jake bought the farm in Whynot, North Carolina to help me out of a bad situation. Oh, he will tell anyone who will listen that it’s purely for the tax break, but he never even thought about such a thing until I spilled my guts to Kelly about how badly I needed out of my marriage.

  About how badly Mitch was starting to scare me.

  While I never intended for Kelly to run to Jake with my problems, in hindsight I can’t regret it. Jake jumped into action, and now I’m on my way to a new and better life for both me and Linnie.

  I know one day she will appreciate it.

  CHAPTER 2

  Colt

  After I finish stocking the last case of Miller Lite, I take all the empty boxes out to the recycle bin in the back alley. Once back inside, I give the old wooden floors a good wet mop and I’m ready to open the doors for business.

  I’m pulling a double shift at Chesty’s today since the regular day bartender, Sam Pete, has a “summer cold”. That translates into a hangover because for one, it’s fall, not summer, and last night was his girlfriend’s twenty-first birthday. Pap called me this morning to tell me Sam Pete was in a bad way, and he wanted to know if I could cover. I don’t mind because I remember what it was like to be that age. Plus, I take every opportunity I can to earn money.

  It’s true I live rent-free in a cabin my brother built on Mainer Farm. But for the last two years, I have foregone the salary that would ordinarily be paid to me as the farm foreman because, sadly, Mainer Farms is struggling.

  Mama and Dad have no clue I haven’t been taking my salary because in addition to overseeing the regular operations, I also handle the books, so I’ve kept that very much a secret. They don’t need the stress of that knowledge. Besides, my parents have busted their butts working that farm for so many years they deserve to kick back and relax a bit.

  The farm is going to be mine one day, so I don’t mind investing the sweat equity into it. I love my heritage as an eighth-generation farmer in my hometown of Whynot. My siblings have all chosen different career paths, and I’m thankful for that. That leaves Mainer Farms strictly under my control, which is just how I like it. I have grand plans to pull us up by the bootstraps, and it would be a total pain in the ass if I had to run everything by my brother and sisters before I could act.

  As I step behind the bar, I note the top didn’t get scrubbed down last night when Felicia closed. She’s a new bartender Pap recently hired, but she’s lazy as all get out. I fill up the sink with soapy water, and then proceed to wipe down the sticky beer that was spilled by last night’s drunks.

  The front door to the bar opens, and Pap ambles in. He’s eighty-two and had surgery almost four weeks ago to remove part of his colon because he has cancer. Looking at him now, though, he looks as fit and spry as he ever did. As a former Marine drill instructor, he carries himself with his shoulders thrown back and his chin lifted in the air like he’s almost daring someone to take him on. I would not want to get into a scuffle with the old coot.

  “Give me a beer,” Pap growls as he takes his seat at the end of the twelve-foot bar.

  I grin as I pull a fresh mug out of the freezer and hold it under the tap. “It’s only eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  “So?” he challenges me belligerently. “What’s your point?”

  I shrug and slide the beer toward him. “Just saying… Most folks are still drinking their coffee at this time of day.”

  Pap picks up his beer. He holds it up to me in a mock toast and says with an exaggerated, fake southern drawl, “Well, I ain’t most folk.”

  “Look at you,” I praise him with a laugh. “Using good old south
ern words like ‘ain’t’. Proud of you.”

  He snorts and takes a slug from his beer. He’s been in Whynot for over twenty years, but still sounds like a Pittsburgher.

  Snickering, I turn to the cash register. Pulling out my wallet, I tell him over my shoulder, “This one’s on me.”

  After I pay for his beer—because no one drinks free here—I close the register and face him again.

  I give him a critically closer look and note he looks damn good. His face is full of color, and he looks to be brimming with the same piss and vinegar that makes up most of his personality.

  “What are you looking at?” he grumbles.

  I shrug. “Just making sure you’re not gonna keel over during my watch.”

  Pap snorts. “I’m going to outlive all you kids.”

  I nod. That’s probably the God’s honest truth. The swinging glass door opens again, and Pap and I turn to see my sister, Laken, walking in.

  “Want a beer?” I ask.

  She shakes her head as she takes the adjacent seat next to Pap. “Got any coffee made?”

  I don’t respond, but move to the forty-cup pot I put on about ten minutes ago. Even though this is a bar, we still get plenty of people who come in and just want to drink coffee. I expect it’s because the southern teetotalers don’t want alcohol, but clearly enjoy the company inside of Chesty’s. Pap is a major source of entertainment and good, honest conversation in our small town.

  I put Laken’s coffee in front of her after I doctor it up just the way she likes it with plenty of cream and sugar.

  “What you are doing today?” Pap asks her. I lean against the counter that runs behind me, and then cross my arms over my chest as well as one leg over the other at the ankle.

  “Jake’s flying in this morning from Chicago,” she tells us, and I can’t help but notice the sparkle in her eyes when she mentions his name. “He’s going to meet me here, and then we’re going to go have lunch at Central Café before heading out to the farm. Got to get a few things in order because Darby and Linnie are going to be arriving today.”