by Penny Reid
Without lifting my eyes, I sensed that Billy had taken the rocking chair on the other side of Jenn, which placed him directly across from me. I swallowed against the constricting tightness there, reminding myself that I needed to stop being this way, this twisted up about Billy Winston, the same as I’d been at fifteen, Lord help me.
Whatever had been between us is over. Over and done. Well and truly in the past for him.
“What I’m asking y’all’s opinion on is whether genius level creative types need space and freedom to be—”
“Destructive?” Sienna asked.
“Okay. Sure. Destructive is part of it. Destructive, inquisitive, selfish, absorbed.” Cletus’s tone had become detached in that way he had, as though he were speculating about faraway people, and not four women sitting nearby on the very same porch.
But I was only half paying attention. A shiver raced down my spine, chasing the notion that Billy’s eyes were on me. At least it sure felt that way.
I’m probably mistaken.
Or, even if his eyes were on me, so what? Clearly, given how respectful he’d been all night, he was trying to make amends. Plus, the man was engaged. ENGAGED.
He was marrying someone who was not me. It hurt my heart every time my mind drifted to it, but no use hiding from facts. In a relationship, engaged, married, whatever it might be, having feelings on the subject was pointless. Billy Winston was forever off limits.
Too bad he didn’t feel that way about my engagement . . .
Another shiver moved along my spine, this time from my tailbone to the base of my skull, and I felt slightly nauseous, disgusted with myself, as the memory surfaced.
Yes, Billy hadn’t shown respect for my engagement—and neither did you, if you recall, Ms. Heathen Hypocrite—but that made no difference to what was true and factual here and now.
Facts: I was an adult, no longer a needy, selfish, and confused nineteen-year-old. Billy and Danielle were engaged. End of story. Close the book.
Let. It. Go.
“Cletus.” Shelly’s tone was flat as paper. “I’m not great with social cues, you know that. So, tell me, are you trying to be insulting? Or is it accidental?”
Cletus huffed and Jenn laughed.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t concentrate. I rubbed at my chest with my fingertips, feeling beleaguered by my aching heart, and forcing myself to think about Danielle.
I respected her, as a fellow woman, as a person. And even if Billy wasn’t engaged, if Billy were free as a bird, we were terrible for each other. I wouldn’t want him anyhow. So there.
. . . lies.
I sighed.
Liar.
I gritted my teeth.
You’ll always want him.
I closed my eyes, breathing in through my nose, letting the conversation fade as it continued without me. I tried to reason with myself, Yes. I’ll always want him. But now I know better than to give in. Wanting Billy only leads to ruin and heartbreak.
“. . . you think that a creative temperament lends itself to selfishness? That an artist can’t be great without also being self-absorbed and hurting people?” someone asked, maybe Sienna.
“That is the question, yes,” Cletus said. “Now, I’m not saying I believe it, I’m merely asking for input. For data, if you will. What do you think, Claire?”
Opening my eyes, I rubbed my forehead, agitatedly responding without thinking, “Selfishness, hurting people is exhausting. It doesn’t fuel a person, it destroys them. The only way to thrive is through sacrifice. Give up what you want, die to your desires. True freedom is living for others or . . . their memory.”
Ben.
Yes.
Think about Ben.
Taking measured breaths, keeping Ben in the forefront of my thoughts, a cool, welcomed numbness settled over me. The nausea and heat and restlessness I’d been wrestling with all evening passed, and my heart slowed to calm, even beats.
Slowly, I became aware that silence followed my statement. And then, a short while later, I realized the silence was near deafening.
Shaking myself, aware that I’d spoken but not quite remembering what I’d said, I looked up. My eyes connected with Cletus’s first, and then Jenn’s. They were both watching me with bracing—yet interested—expressions, two pairs of eyebrows raised in an identical fashion, clearly hoping I’d continue.
I glanced to the side, found Sienna and Shelly wearing similar expressions.
But it was Billy who spoke.
“Give up on what you want?” His voice was quiet, gruff, held that familiar accusatory edge he’d successfully concealed behind gentlemanly manners all night.
‘Til now.
Hot dread speared me.
I cleared my throat, nodding, and unable to stop myself from looking directly at him. This was a mistake. The impact of his gaze felt physical, like a sudden slap. But also, a seductive caress, a whisper, a promise, and a question. Always the same question . . .
And a sense of certainty. Billy Winston wasn’t “over” a damn thing. Not a single thing. Oh, Scarlet. How very, very stupid you are.
Years may have passed, but it was all still there, right there on the surface. His eyes—flinty blue, glowing with the anger and resentment I recognized so very, very well—ensnared mine. My heart gave a confused, weak flutter, elated and terrified by the revelation of true feelings, both his and mine.
“How do you do that, I wonder?” Billy leaned forward in his chair until his elbows rested on his knees, the movement slow and graceful, like a panther. “How do you ‘die to your desires,’ Claire? I’d really like to know how that’s accomplished.”
He sounded so serene, so even-tempered and cool. That’s how I knew he wasn’t.
I opened my mouth to respond, but no words emerged. My heart began hammering again. I couldn’t look away from him, from those reproachful blue flame irises, burning me up from the inside out with things spoken and unspoken, years of intimacy and distance, memories I both treasured and wished desperately to forget.
“You’re one to talk, Billy.” Beau’s good-natured tenor cut through the tense moment, making me think of flower petals raining down on a forest fire. “All you do is think about others, put their needs first.”
“Do I?” Billy asked Beau. Or maybe he was asking me. Either way, his glare continued to hold mine captive and it was like no time has passed since our last . . . encounter. “Are you sure about that?”
“Uh, yeah. Pretty sure. I mean, why else would you have stayed in Green Valley after high school?” Beau laughed lightly. “Trying your best to keep us out of trouble, God help him, while taking care of momma, that’s why. I’ve never seen you do one selfish thing your whole life, Saint Billy, and now maybe you should—”
A small—a very small—and hysterical laugh slipped past my lips before I could catch it, and I felt my mouth curve into a bitter smile as a result. Billy flinched, a flash of guilt behind his eyes, and his gaze dropped, finally releasing mine.
“Beau,” Cletus cut off the redhead, his voice holding a warning. “Not now.”
“What?” Beau sounded genuinely perplexed. “What’d I say?”
I breathed in, I breathed out, battling a potent and crushing sense disappointment, but only with myself.
It was time to go.
“Well—” I stood, straightening my skirt as I rose, and turned to Sienna. “Thanks so much for having me.”
Beau, Cletus, and Billy also immediately stood, an action the result of habitual manners.
“You’re not leaving?” My friend sounded truly mournful, peering up at me with visible disappointment behind her dark eyes. “But we’ve only kissed once under the mistletoe. And it’s only—” Sienna reached behind herself and withdrew her phone, “—ten o’clock.”
I made a face and glanced at my watch. “Sienna, it’s almost eleven.”
“But it’s still in the ten o’ clock hour.” She stood and reached for my hand, weaving our fingers together. “Stay f
or a little longer. We never get to see you.”
“I’ll see y’all this summer, in Italy.” I forced lightness I didn’t feel into my voice, smiling a smile that only barely concealed how anxious I was to leave.
Cletus, perhaps understanding my need to escape like no one else could, walked around the fire pit and pulled me into a hug. “Always an honor and a pleasure, Claire,” he whispered, and then pulled away, handing me into Sienna’s arms for a hug.
And so I moved from person to person on the porch, dismay clawing at my throat, saying my goodbyes and dreading the moment it would be Billy’s turn. For all his earlier show of manners, of dispassion and indifference, I doubted—given the bitter words and heated glares we’d just exchanged—Billy would let me go without one last parting shot. I didn’t know how I would bear it.
As Bethany Winston used to say, Old habits and dead horses.
Lifting my chin and sucking in a large breath for courage, I fisted my hands in the material of my skirt and turned to Billy’s chair. It was empty. Pausing for a moment, still caught in the momentum of bracing for a Herculean task, I glanced around the porch, searching.
He was gone. He’d disappeared while his family had been embracing me. He’d left without a word. I felt like someone had pushed me off a cliff only for me to land on a bed of feathers and poison ivy. Basically, I didn’t know how to feel.
“Claire?” Beau had hung back from the others who were now making their way into the house. When I didn’t move or speak, he tucked me under his arm. “You all right?”
I nodded faintly to myself, feeling relief as I released the breath I’d been holding. I also felt sick to my stomach. I also felt like crying. “Yep. I’m just fine.”
Beau seemed to hesitate, wait a moment for his family and their conversation to taper as they strolled unhurriedly through the backdoor, and then dipped his chin to say quietly, “You’re shaking.”
“I’m cold,” I lied.
I felt my half-brother’s eyes on me, examining my profile. “Do you want to head inside? Say goodbye to everyone? Or . . .”
“Or?”
“Do you want to go around the side of the house and I can meet you out front with your jacket and bag?”
I glanced at my half-brother, surprised. His gaze was searching but his small smile was kind. My gratitude must’ve been obvious because Beau simply nodded once, squeezing my shoulder and giving me a kiss on my temple before letting me go. He walked through the backdoor, shutting it with a gentle click.
I sucked in another deep breath as I descended the back-porch stairs, holding the cold of the night in my lungs and biting my bottom lip. My chin wobbled.
Like Billy’s acrimony, being disappointed in myself was an old friend, one I’d hoped to bury with Ben. I’d been so good, so careful for so long.
And I’d thought I was ready, ready to face him.
As my boots crunched over the thin layer of snow and ice, I wrapped my arms around my middle, marching around the house while I chastised myself. Hadn’t I been fretting just moments ago? Anxious because Billy had apparently moved on? Struggling because he’d found happiness with someone else?
Why must my heart be equally stupid and stubborn? Why was I this way? Years may have passed, but I was obviously just the same. Just as selfish. Just as single-minded. Just as reprehensible. Just as foolish.
Just as Scarlet.
I thought I’d be able to come here and . . . what, exactly? Be unaffected? Leave with closure?
“Stupid, Scarlet,” I mumbled, nearly to the front yard. “God, I’m so stupid.”
“You’ve never been stupid.”
Flinching, the voice stopped me in my tracks, ice racing along my nerves while fire pumped in my veins. Reflexively, I retreated a step as I searched for him. The front of the house was unlit, the Christmas lights having been shut off some time ago by an environmentally-conscious Shelly, but the yard was illuminated faintly by the pale glow of the interior lights. Where we stood was inky black, cast in shadow by the moonless night and the dark porch separating us from the big house.
Billy didn’t appear, but he did speak. “I miss you.”
His statement landed like a blow. It hurts.
I tried to swallow. I couldn’t. God, but I both loved and hated those words. Unable to control or make sense of the chaotic and divergent hopes and desires, I closed my eyes and lowered my face to the ground. I knew he could see me just fine, but I’d never been able to find him in the dark.
“You don’t miss me,” I said, sounding strangled and resentful. “You’re- you’re engaged. You’re marrying someone else.”
“No,” he said, the single word gentle. “I’ll never marry anyone but you.”
I shivered, clenching my teeth even as my stupid, stubborn heart leapt with feral joy. “I’m not arguing with you about this. You are engaged. That is a fact.”
“What if it weren’t a fact?”
I choked on air. “What are you—”
“Scarlet.” His voice was closer, behind me, maybe three feet away or less. If I opened my eyes now and turned, I would probably see him, or the shape of him. “I would do anything for you.”
“I would never- never ask you to break someone’s heart,” I said, allowing myself to feel the sobering burden of memory. “I know what that does to a person.”
He made a sound, a short breath, a scoff. “Danielle Payton doesn’t love me. What the woman has are political aspirations. I’m a means to an end.”
“Doesn’t- doesn’t matter.” I tripped over my words, feeling tongue-tied, ignoring my stupid heart as it lifted and soared at this news. “I- I’m not- not- to—”
“Ask me to call it off. Ask me to run away, with you. Anywhere. I’ll go anywhere.”
The first set of tears squeezed out from beneath my closed lashes.
“Or ask me for just one night. Whatever you want . . .”
I covered my mouth so the sob would be silent. How was he still so good at tearing me into pieces?
“Ask me,” he pleaded, his breath coming fast, as though he were struggling, as though he were fighting. In the next moment, I felt the heat of his exhale against the back of my neck and shoulder.
But he didn’t touch me. It didn’t matter. Like clockwork, my body ached at his closeness, burned for his hands, his mouth, his body.
I can’t think.
“When will you forgive yourself?” he asked, the first hint of frustration bleeding into his voice, layering over the seductive smoothness.
Shaking my head, rejecting the enchantment of him, I wiped the tears away with jerky, hurried movements, taking slow, measured breaths.
I have to think.
“Have you forgiven yourself?” I countered, my throat full of gravel.
“No,” he confessed, his tone angry. “But something has to give. We can’t forever both be wanting and hating each other.”
“I don’t hate you.” I hate myself.
Dammit.
It was a thoughtless confession. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have told him the opposite, I would have lied. But it was too late. I’d said the words and now my tears fell like fat raindrops, my makeup smearing with each desperate swipe of my fingers.
“Scarlet . . .” Billy’s forehead connected gently with the base of my neck, he groaned, his voice sandpaper. “Don’t tell me that. It’s the only reason I stay away.”
I stopped wiping at my cheeks. I let the tears trail down my face. And I grasped for some semblance of sanity as I breathed him in, sink into the heat of his body and breath. A thought or notion. Something to focus my mind, something other than how easy it would be to turn to him. How good it would feel to embrace him. How much I wanted to touch him, to let him touch me.
Why not?
My body hummed with the possibility.
Why not?
He’d make me feel good. He always did. At least, for a little while.
Why not?
I committed to
it. I gave myself permission. And I conveniently forgot for one intoxicating moment how afterwards, when he left me—because he always left me—that I would feel like garbage.
Merry Christmas, Scarlet. Now open your present.
Beard and Hen
Sneak peek of ‘Engagement and Espionage,’ Solving for Pie: Cletus and Jenn Mysteries #1
Author’s note: The first book in Cletus and Jenn’s Handcrafted Mystery series, Engagement and Espionage takes place immediately following the action of Beard Science. Therefore, all the action occurs before Dr. Strange Beard and Beard Necessities. Sorry for all the time travel! ;-)
Part 1: Richard Badcock and the Serenity of Good Layers
* * *
*Jennifer*
There’s no faking quality.
A thing was either high quality or it wasn’t.
And I was convinced Mr. Richard Badcock’s organic, free range eggs were the highest quality anywhere in Green Valley, east Tennessee since Nancy Danvish had retired. Perhaps the whole of Tennessee. Maybe the southeast USA. For that matter, quite possibly in the entire universe.
They were the platinum-diamond-Nobel Prize of eggs. Some were narrow, some were wide; some had sage green shells, robin blue, tawny brown, or snow white; some were even speckled. But all his eggs contained firm whites and the most gorgeous orangey yolks, brighter than orange sherbet—don’t get me started on the yolks!—that I’d ever seen in all my years of baking.
I didn’t take to broadcasting this much, mostly because folks already thought I was a little off, but I didn’t think anything I made tasted as good if I didn’t use Richard’s eggs. My creations lacked a richness, a texture, one I could only achieve with Badcock eggs. And that was fact.
Which was why I was currently up to my eyeballs in despair.
“What do you mean you don’t have any eggs?” I looked behind Mr. Richard Badcock, searching his huge gated lawn and fancy hen house in the distance.
It had gables. And eves. And a white gutter. And a picked fence.