by Eden Butler
The box creaked and popped when she opened it and those big, wide eyes got still wider as she looked down, her gaze shooting to the gold chain and pretty pendant hanging from the center.
“It’s moissanite. Made from asteroids. I figured since I spent so much time staring up at the stars thinking about you, how to tell you…well,” I said, trying to ignore the wetness in her eyes. She’d get all emotional and sweet over the smallest stuff and this shouldn’t be one of those times. “Don’t get leaky, baby. Here. Let’s put it on you.”
“It’s so beautiful…”
Piper held up her hair, leaning forward when I fitted the chain around her neck, then sat straight, fingering the chain, her nose working with a sniffle.
“It looks good on you.” The stone sparkled like her eyes reminding me of the stars, and all the answers they gave me.
“It’s…so lovely,” she said, looking away from the pendant to kiss me, her mouth fierce and tight over mine, keeping her hands against my face. “Really, I love it so much, but sweetie, I can’t keep this. It’s…too much. You…can’t afford this.”
“Don’t think about it,” I told her, turning her hand to kiss her palm. “There’s a little jewelry place on Beckerman that’s going out of business. I got a good deal, and it sparkles like your eyes. Not nearly as pretty though.”
The small glint of worry I spotted moving in her eyes lowered, replaced by something I recognized as relief when she smiled at me. “Oh, you’re good.”
“I have my moments.”
“This is all a little…” She waved a hand toward the table, to the wine and up at the lights, finally shaking her head. “Never mind.”
When I spotted the pink coloring her pale face, and how she played with the box in her hand, I caught her meaning. “Ah. You thought…picnic, wine, jewelry box. Easy now, grasshopper. Six months is still six months. Don’t call the preacher just yet.”
“I know that,” she said, giving me another jab of her finger. “I’m only twenty.”
“Didn’t you tell me last week about how you weren’t a kid?”
“Shut up.” She kissed me, leaning her full weight against me, moving her hips back into that slow, sweet wiggle I’d come to love so much, but then Piper slowed, kissing my neck, lowering to rest against my chest and I didn’t miss the way she sighed, as though there was a little worry clouded behind the sweetness in the night.
It had been a week since all hell broke loose with her old man and that week had been long. Warren had tried getting his brother to kick her out of the complex, but Piper figured they realized that would put her right at my place and they wouldn’t want that. Then, the old man sent over the inspectors to check our permits, then the festival director to check up on the progress. It was all a tactic, one Piper seemed to expect, but she didn’t back down. She never once let anyone see her worry and get upset.
But the week was wearing on her, and even if the man was being a bully, he was still her father. Piper never liked how things had ended up with Alex and their folks. She couldn’t like how things were turning out with her and them now.
“You still thinking about your old man?”
“No,” she said to quick, burying her face in my shirt.
“You’re a shit liar, Nizhóní.”
“I know I am,” she said against my chest, exhaling against before she sat up. “It’s just…”
She wouldn’t quite look me straight on, something I noticed Piper did when she had bad news or when there was something she wanted but knew it would end up being a pain in the ass for me. I hated that look.
Then, putting reason and logic together, and knowing what I did about Warren and how he liked to manipulate people, and how Piper hated strife in her family, I got where I needed to be quick enough.
Leaning back, I rested an elbow on my armrest, rubbing the back of my neck. “You went to see him.”
She dropped her gaze, fiddling with the pendant, shrugging before she muttered, “He’s my daddy, Ed.” Jaw clenched I stared out onto the garden, wondering if Evie would have been so forgiving if our father had been sober enough to give a shit about her, but Piper touched my chin, moving my attention back to her. “Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad. How can I be?” I tugged her closer, pushing away the irritation that bubbled in my chest when I kissed her forehead. “He’s your blood. I can’t ask you to stay away from your blood.” Piper took my hands when I leaned back against the chair again, playing with my knuckles, making small bumps raise on my skin. “I worry what he’ll fill your head with about me.”
She jerked her gaze at me, the soft stroking on my hand stopping. “I don’t listen to what he has to say about you or Evie. I know how he…how they are. I don’t care. I love you. That’s all that matters.” I smiled, but didn’t answer, not sure I could be as confident about Piper’s ability to ignore all the bullshit I knew her folks would mouth off about me and my family.
“Come on,” she said, pulling on my face, kissing my lips until the tightness around my mouth relaxed. “I’ve ruined the whole night and you did so much work on all this.” Then, Piper popped her head toward the sound of the music, her smile stretching as she looked toward the house. “Is that Dolly?”
“Course it is.” Something happened to Piper when she heard Dolly sing. Like candy at Christmas or roller coasters and the county fair. Dolly and Piper went together better than strawberry jam and fresh baked bread. That smile grew even bigger when the record went on to the next song, something I could only vaguely make out and then Piper swayed on my lap, drunk on the music and the woman making it.
“She’s your favorite,” I told her, unable to keep from touching that pretty face when she smiled like that.
“She’s my fairy godmother.” She hopped off my lap, squeezing my hand as she went. “Hang on. We need slow dancing music.”
Behind me Piper killed the record and I grinned, picking up the sound of her muttering low calls of “no, not you, honey” and a few “Oh, darling, I love you, but no…” until she found one that seem to “break my heart” and a mid-tempo guitar chord and Dolly’s melodic voice coming in through a soft roll.
Piper came back, offering me her hand, and I took it, holding her against me, curling that soft body underneath me as the words filtered out through the speakers.
It ached to listen to something so sad when I was with her like this.
“God, baby, why do you wanna dance to a heartbreak song?”
“It’s not a heartbreak song when we dance to it.” She looked up, her smile low, but sweet. Couldn’t resist it even if I tried. “This is an opposite song.”
“Opposite?”
“Umhmm. She’s trying to tell herself everything she feels is a lie. The grass is blue. And she’s over her man. It helps her to move on.”
I turned her, inhaling that rosemary scent, pretending that I didn’t know the song just to keep the game up. I loved when Piper talked about something she loved, and she didn’t love anything more than Dolly.
“And you wanna dance to this?”
She paused, leaning back and that smile got bigger. “I want us to play the opposite game whenever we need it.”
“In this town, we’ll need it a lot.”
“True enough.” She shrugged, moving close to me again. “You go first.”
“No,” I said, liking how flustered she got when I put my foot down a little. “You start. It’s your crazy game.”
“Fine…” She rubbed my face, her thumb smoothing across my bottom lip. The look she gave me went serious and for a second, I forgot about everything but how much I wanted to take her inside. “Eddie Mescal…the most pitiful looking man in Midland Grove.”
She got me. I liked that. We were never serious for long and I loved laughing with her. Fine, if she wanted to play, I would. “Piper Warren…” I started, thinking of the thing that was the least true about what I knew of her. No one hustled more than Piper. No one was friendlier, more beautiful.
So I let the most ridiculous fly. “The…the laziest, shiest, homeliest-looking, bowlegged creature I’ve ever seen.”
She tilted her head, grinning so wide her dimples were dime sized. “You’re so sweet…”
“I try my best.”
It wasn’t my turn. I didn’t need to try again, but right then, in that moment, I knew what I wanted to say. On that deck, with that woman, I was never happier than I’d been in my entire life, and she needed to know it.
I curled my arms around her waist, not moving to the music or doing anything at all but holding her face, watching how the lights overhead glinted in her big eyes. My throat felt thick. My stomach was in knots. I hoped that feeling never went away.
“Piper Warren…” I started, not meaning to make my voice so low, unable to put the laugh back in it. “I’m so…damn…mad I met you.” Piper smiled against my lips when I kissed her and that sensation in my chest doubled. “My life would be better if I didn’t know you…” The next kiss was longer, and my breath grew harder when Piper kissed me back, the slip of her tongue against mine the sweetest invitation. “And God, how much I don’t love you.”
Piper’s face was wet. Those big eyes spilling over with tears that ran down her face. She didn’t bother wiping them away. “Oh, Eddie,” she started, kissing me back. “I love you, too. Always.”
There was a problem. I knew it the second I pulled onto Main and spotted the flashing lights from the two cruisers outside of the Victorian.
My guts twisted like a vise and a million thoughts muddled my head, each one worse than the next. I cut my gaze to my cell, frowned for the fifth time at Piper’s message.
I need to speak with you at the B&B. Immediately.
It was cold.
It wasn’t her.
She’d left me Sunday night after a weekend at my place, tucked into my bed, away from the world watch old movies and listening to Dolly. No one touched us. We’d decided to deal with the floors and the problem with the leaks on Monday.
But this? It wasn’t like Piper to text me at all.
It wasn’t like her to ignore a call from me.
She’d ignored five.
I pulled my truck in behind Erin’s cruiser, cutting the engine and pocketing my keys as I searched the front porch, irritated when I spotted Sam and Erin standing near the entrance next to Mr. Warren. The old man looked smug, excited even, but when the three of them spotted me, it was Erin that moved into action.
“Mr. Mescal,” she tried, all professional, serious, her hand resting on her sidearm.
“Yeah?” I answered her, but my attention was over her head, to the front door, scanning the faces, my crew, Maddox who hung back, his face scrunched up and hard as he and a few of the others packed away their gear.
“There’s been a complaint filed against you.”
That earned her my full attention and I jerked a glance at the woman, taking a step back to catch a look at her entire face.
“By who?”
Erin looked over her shoulder, watching the door before she turned back and when I spotted Piper, her face pale, her eyes swollen and puffy, I disregarded the deputy and the calls from Warren and Sam as I moved around them to get at my lady.
“Nizhóní?” I said, stopping short when she glared at me. “Whoa, what the hell is going on?”
“You tell me,” she said, curling her arms across her chest.
I took a step up on the porch, and Warren was at Piper’s side, his hand on her arm, looking ready to jerk her back.
“You keep away from my daughter.”
“Not until she tells me what the hell is going on.”
“I’ll tell you…”
“No,” I said, glaring at the man, then squinting at Piper. “You at least owe me an explanation.”
“I owe…” Her voice was awed, soft, but colored with rage. “How can you even… Oh, God, Eddie…”
“Fuck’s sake…” I turned, staring at the small crowd who’d gathered and only just spotted Erin and two other deputies going through my truck. “You got a warrant for that?”
“Right here,” Erin called back, handing it over to her deputy who walked it to me.
I glanced at the paper, barely noticing the details, but caught the words Midland Grove Bank Property across the center and my stomach dropped.
“You think…” I looked closer at the warrant, then let my hands fall at my side before I looked at Piper. “You honestly think I stole your bank deposit?”
A shot to the chest would hurt less than the look on her face.
“Where…” she started, her voice cracking. “Where’d you get the money for the necklace?”
I dropped my mouth open, moving down a step as she looked me over. “I worked on that ranch for two years, Piper, and barely spent a dime.”
“I…I didn’t…” She shook her head, glancing behind me and I turned, spotting the look Sam gave her. He nodded to her, like he meant to encourage her, as if she needed his little nod to give her strength to confront me. “It…was in the office and you were the only one here when Sam left. It was on my desk.”
“You think I would steal from you?”
“I…no, but…the necklace…”
Again, I looked at Warren, then at Sam, head shaking. “And you figure, because everyone has always thought the worst of me, for their own damn reasons, then they must be right.” Teeth clenched, it hurt to look at her. “That’s a big leap from how pissed off you were when I told you about the robbery and what happened to Tasso.”
“Ed… this is different, and not once, in this whole time have I ever thought the worst of you,” she said, her tone weak.
“You damn well are now.” I inhaled, feeling like I might puke, thinking who I could call to help me through this shit when Piper moved toward me. There was a look that made me almost believe she’d changed her mind, but then Sam moved toward her and Piper stopped walking. I wanted to pounce on that asshole. I wanted to rip this place to the ground, splinter by splinter. All I could do was stand there, staring at Piper, trying to see the woman I thought I knew. “Think maybe you’d better ask Sam what he did with it. I didn’t touch it.”
“Eddie…” Piper warned, holding out her hand when Sam moved forward.
I didn’t bother looking at him. My attention was on her. Only her. It stayed there even as her father whispered bullshit in her ear. Even when Sam muttered shit he didn’t have the stones to say to my face. She shook her head, her expression twisted up like nothing made sense, like everything around her was spinning and wouldn’t stop. I could relate to that sensation.
Erin whistled, slamming the door to my truck closed and shouted, “Got it.”
Then, I turned.
“Not surprised in the least,” Warren said.
Behind that came Piper’s quick, “God…oh my God, Eddie, how could you steal from me?”
I whipped around, my eyes wide, my heart thundering to glare at Piper. “You don’t believe me? I… didn’t… You damn well know I’d never do this!”
“It’s here,” she said, pointing at Erin as she approached. “It’s right in front of my eyes.”
The deputy held up a large red bank deposit bag with Midland Grove Financial across the front and handed it to Sam. That asshole smirked when he opened it, thumbing through the bills and checks.
“Seems like most of it. But definitely not all.”
“Oh, Eddie…” Piper said, brushing beside me, freezing when I caught her arm.
“This is bullshit!” I pulled on her arm, but she jerked free, hiding her face as two deputies pulled me back. I didn’t care. I wanted to see her face. She owed me that much. “You fucking know I didn’t do this!”
Her father came at me, his face twisted in disgust, but I ignored him, moving my head, pushing against the deputies as they cuffed me.
“You look in my eyes, Piper, and you see the truth. I did not do this shit.”
“But…it was in your truck! It was right there!”
“I just…I don’t understand…” She shook her head when I reached for her again. “This…makes no sense…”
“Come on, honey,” Warren told her, bringing Piper into the Victorian, the door closing behind her.
“You know I didn’t do this. Piper! I didn’t do this.”
No one answered me. No one listened. I heard Sam’s laughter, then felt nothing but the cuffs on my arm and the rough, cold metal of the cruiser under my chin as they pinned me down. Then, the silence as Erin and her partner stuck me into the backseat and drove me away from Piper and the life I thought would be mine.
Present Day
Eddie
During my trial, things got bad between Alex and his family. The Warrens had already looked down on their son for marrying my sister, for them renting a small house on the “wrong side of town,” and, in their anger, those rich assholes stopped bothering to even call Evie by anything other than her or that girl.
So, Alex stopped speaking to his parents and they stopped bothering to call him.
My sister and her man had been married all this time, working hard to build a life. Working harder to expand the business Tasso had no interest in making any bigger than what would keep us fed and a roof over our heads. Even after the blacklist, my grandfather kept enough jobs to keep the business afloat. Alex, though, had a young wife with a dream of owning a horse farm and a father, I guessed, he wanted to prove wrong.
My brother-in-law, it turned out, was a determined man, even if he’d never be anyone’s damn golden boy.
At least, that’s what I told myself as the cab drove up the long stretch of gravel that led to the old McKellen farm out on Route 24. Old man McKellen had died when I was a kid and the farm had been left abandoned for years. So, when Evie had written a couple years back telling me she and Alex had fixed the place up, I had my doubts. But watching the house come into view, seeing that the old gray farmhouse I remembered as a kid replaced with something that belonged on a cable DIY show, had my eyes bulging.