Do eight year olds really sit around talking about divorce? What the hell? “Is she okay with that?” Are you? I'm afraid to ask that question.
“I don't think so,” she replies, twirling a straw on the table. “But she said her daddy moved in with his girlfriend. Are you going to do that?”
“No. I'm not moving in with anyone else.” If I can’t have Annalee there's no one else I want.
“I want you to come back home.” Her expression is so serious, so solemn that it's just fucking torture. This may be the only time in my life that I can't give my daughter what she wants.
I shake my head. “It's not that easy. Your mom is really mad at me... and she has a good reason to be.”
“Tell her you're sorry and you won't do it again.” She offers that sage bit of advice with complete conviction.
“I'll try that. It might not work for me the way it does for you... I think you need pigtails for it to be truly effective.” I reach out and tug one of her braids to make the point. It has the desired effect and sets her giggling. That's the sound I want to hear. No more talk about divorces and people's parents moving out. She shouldn't have to think about these things.
Annalee
* * *
I’m sitting at a bar that I don’t want to be in, listening to a man that I absolutely despise. Somehow the coffee date had switched to cocktails and I'm actually grateful. I need the dulling effect of alcohol.
This is not a two person support group. It’s a one man show. We’ve talked about his work, his house, his boat. We’ve talked about his ex, his workout regimen, which incidentally is puny. I could kick his ass three ways from Sunday in the gym. But the bottom line is, we haven’t talked. He has talked. And I have sipped way more of my wine than I meant to, because I haven’t been able to get a word in edgewise.
“You know you’re much prettier than I expected,” he says, and the way he smiles at me makes my skin crawl a little. Is this seriously who my friends see me with? Have I pissed Brit off without knowing it?
“That’s nice,” I respond lamely. “Thanks, I think.”
He clearly doesn’t get that my response wasn’t genuine flattery as he’s now resting his slightly sweaty hand on my knee. “You know, Annalee, we could go back to my place. Kick back and relax on the couch, maybe watch a movie?”
No, sir. There will be no Netflix and chill. What the ever loving fuck is wrong with men? Are they all this damn dumb?
“I’ve really enjoyed meeting you, Steve, but I need to be going now.” At great personal cost, I force myself to be polite, to say something other than take your paws off me, you reptilian scumbag.
“Are you sure you have to go? It’s still early,” he says, and checks his very expensive watch for the umpteenth time that evening. Yes. I saw your Omega. Yes. I get that it’s super expensive and means you’re loaded with credit card debt. No. I’m not impressed. All this asshole has done is make me miss Clayton, which in turn makes me even madder at Clayton. I wouldn’t be here putting up with this self important dick if my almost-ex-husband weren’t such a high handed, know it all asshole!
“It is early,” I agree. “But I’m ready to go home… alone. Have a nice evening.”
Apparently, he’s not completely obtuse. Just mostly. He picks up on the unimpressed tone and the clear lack of infatuation with him that time. He sneers at me. “It’s no damn wonder your husband left you.”
“He didn’t leave. I threw him out… but on that same note, if I’d been married to you, I would have cheated. I would so have cheated. The fact that your wife stayed faithful for seven years should get her nominated for sainthood.” I pick up my wine glass and drain the rest of it. “Thanks for the drink and the reminder that my ex isn’t so bad after all.”
I march out to my car, leaving several people snickering in my wake. I’m too drunk to drive and if I take a cab to Brit’s house I’ll spend the rest of the night getting the third degree on why I didn’t like him, and how impossibly high my standards are. Or worse, she’ll tell me the truth; that I came on this date wanting to hate him because he’s not Clayton. Well, to hell with that. I’ll just sit in my car and sober up.
I pull my phone out of my purse and open the reading app on it. There’s a smutty novel I’ve been meaning to get to and there’s no time like the present.
2
CHAPTER TWO
Clayton
* * *
I got Emma Grace off to school. Her socks don’t match, but in those cowboy boots, no one will know. Her ponytail might also be a little less than perfect. I’m not like Annalee who will fight with her over her hair. She says it hurts and I say that tangle can stay there until her mother wants to remove it.
“Get your backpack,” I tell her as I grab one of the Pop-tarts from the toaster. “And don't tell your mother that breakfast involved frosting.”
With her pink backpack hanging off her shoulder, she takes the Pop-tart with a grin. “And sprinkles.”
“Secret, Emma Grace. Pinky swear?”
She holds out her tiny hand and we lock pinkies for a second. “You've got all your stuff for dance practice after school?” I ask.
I run a damn distillery and the kid has more appointments to keep track of than I do.
“Yes,” she replies with an eye roll. “Miss Lisa says I can try out for the Nutcracker this year.”
Of course Miss Lisa told her that. Miss Lisa is all about anything that will help her draw more students to her ballet school which costs the damn earth. “We'll see... Let's go, munchkin. We've both got work to do.”
I drop Emma Grace off at school. She waves to me from the door and then I head to the distillery. Once I'm in the office, I’m looking at the mountain of paperwork on my desk, but all I can think about is my wife going out with another man. She really did it. She went on a date. I know because she called Emma Grace before bed last night to tell her good night. I could hear it in her voice that she was just a little buzzed on wine.
Did she kiss him? Is she going to see him again? Did she go home with him? Those questions won’t stop and they’re making me crazy. I never thought it would go this far. I thought, before final papers were drawn up and settlements were reached, that I would have this nightmare with Samuel done and over with and I could explain it all to her. I could win her back.
It hurt me to leave, it fucking gutted me to walk out of that house and leave her alone. But I never felt, until this very moment, that I was really losing her forever.
Quentin rolls into the office and he looks like hell. He’s wearing jeans and a sweater rather than his usual suit, he hasn’t shaved and he smells like a brewery.
“Where the hell have you been?” I demand.
He plops down across from my desk and puts his feet up in a repeat of yesterday’s performance. But he’s got a wide, shit-eating grin on his face. “Is that any way to greet the man who saved the mother-fucking day?”
This should be good. “Lay it on me.”
“I met someone in a bar a couple of weeks ago who told me that Samuel sold his boat because he was trying to hide evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” I ask.
Quentin takes his feet off the desk and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “That he was with Katherine Shelby the day she drowned.”
Okay. That’s bigger than I expected. Katherine Shelby was a party girl, a beautiful debutante a year younger than Quentin. But in her late twenties, she’d developed an affinity for older, wealthier men. We’ve never been able to link them, never been able to find any proof other than a single overheard phone conversation that would never hold up. “Do you really think he killed her?”
“Do you really question whether or not he’s capable of it?” Quentin fires back.
No. Not in the least. But I do question whether or not Samuel would ever sully his own hands with it. “Is there any proof?”
“I have the name and address of a witness. I’ll be back with all the proof we ne
ed,” he promises.
“Quentin, people don’t speak out against Samuel. Even when they want to. We both know that,” I remind him. He plays dirty, lying, blackmailing, threats… whatever it takes, Samuel covers his tracks and keeps witnesses in line.
“I can be pretty damn persuasive.” Quentin gets to his feet. “I have to go out of town for a week or so. The witness is down in Knoxville. It might take a little a time to coax them into offering up what we need.”
“You mean coax her,” I correct him.
“Whatever it takes.”
I worry about Quentin. In his own way, I think he might be the most miserable of us all. He was always so close to our mother. Her accident left him lost, for lack of a better word. And even though he finished school and appears to be functional, I know there’s something broken inside him because of it. “Be careful, Quent. I want the bastard to burn, but not at the cost of your soul. He’s not worth it.”
“That’s a little pot and kettle, don’t you think?”
It is. But I’m already screwed. I watch Quentin walk out. Part of me hopes he gets what we need and another part of me hopes it’s a dead end. I don’t want him to have to live with any more regret.
By the time I’m done with the mountain of paperwork, the phone calls, and trying to figure out how to stretch my meager savings and even slimmer salary to cover my rent and the mortgage for the next few months, it’s nearly dark outside. Annalee has already picked up Emma Grace gotten her from school to dance practice and home again. And I’m still sitting at the damn distillery, alone in the dark.
Sounds about right.
My phone dings and I glance at the screen. I leave everything behind and head out. I don’t know what the hell is going on but it can’t possibly be good.
The only thing worse than a pissed off wife is a pissed off almost ex-wife. So when you get a cryptic text message from one telling you to bring your ass home; you, by God, bring your ass home. I have no idea what the hell is going on, only that hell might have frozen over or Jesus might have come again. Of course, there’s a memory trying desperately to rear its ugly head, along with other things, of a time when Annalee texted me to get my ass home and met me at the door completely naked except for hooker red lipstick. Pretty safe to say I won’t be getting that welcome again any time soon.
Parking my car in the driveway, I feel like a damn guest. Every fucking time I come here I feel that way. My soon to be ex-wife knows that. It’s like a twisting knife in the gut when I ring the doorbell and stand there waiting for her to send Emma Grace out to me. I haven’t been permitted back inside since the night I left. I’ll give her one thing, she knows how to tip the balance of power in her direction and keep it that way.
Most of the time, it’s not so bad. Until the other day when she dropped the bomb about her date, we’d hit a stride where we could converse politely with one another, like strangers, like we didn’t share a bed for nearly twelve years, like I haven’t tasted every inch of her body, like we didn’t have a child together. We’re like polite yet respectfully distant neighbors now. It’s almost worse that way, especially since I can’t get out of my head the vision of her with someone faceless stranger. Somehow, it was better when she was calling me every kind of son of a bitch to ever walk. At least then, as long as she was still angry at me, I felt like it wasn’t really over.
I march up to the door. It might not be my house any more, but I’m still paying the mortgage and I’ll be damned if I ring the fucking doorbell like a Jehovah’s Witness. Instead, I raise my fist and knock with a little more force than is necessary.
I hear a scream from inside the house. I pound on the door again. “Annalee?”
There’s nothing. I bang on the door again. “Annalee, if you don’t answer me, I’m breaking the damn door down!”
Footsteps are approaching at a run, which does nothing to ease my fear. When Annalee yanks the door open, her eyes are wild and she’s clearly in a panic. She reaches out, grabs hold of my tie, and pulls me inside.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” she gushes. It’s been a long time since she sounded that happy to see me.
“If you’re so glad to see me, try not to choke me to death,” I tell her as I tug the fabric from her fingers. “What the hell is going on?”
She glances back at me over her shoulder as she grasps my hand. It’s the first time she’s touched me willingly in six months. She tugs me toward the kitchen, “I don’t have the words… You just have to see it. The sink—exploded!” She stops abruptly, her face crumples and I can see the tears beginning. That’s how I know it’s bad. My Annalee is a lot of things, but she’s not a crier. She’s not yours anymore. That voice whispering in my head, reminding me of the very painful truth, sounds a lot like the man I blame for it. Samuel Darcy.
We round the corner and with the sight that greets me, I completely understand her urgency. The faucet from the sink is just gone and in its place is a fountain. A geyser of water is spraying upward, showering everything, and more of it is pouring out from beneath the sink. The kitchen floor is completely flooded and the whole goddamn place is a mess.
“Where’s my tool box?” I ask. “Is it still in the garage?”
She spares me a glance that clearly indicates I am too stupid to live. “Where the hell else would it be?”
In no mood for attitude from anyone, but especially her at the moment, I snap back. “At Goodwill with the rest of my shit?”
She has the grace to blush at that and I know that’s as close to an apology or admission of guilt as she’ll come.
“Get my tool box,” I tell her again as I wade through the several inches of water that are forming a pool in the kitchen and making a waterfall out of the steps down into the garage.
Reaching under the cabinet, I find the shut off valve but the damn thing is stuck. Taking a kitchen towel from the drawer, I try again. No luck. I twist the towel around the valve and then insert the handle of a wooden spoon from the jar on the counter. Twisting the towel with the spoon, I finally get it tight enough to get the torque I need to get the valve to budge.
After what seems like forever, the valve finally gives, turning slowly in the right direction. The water slows to a trickle and finally shuts off altogether, just as Annalee walks in carrying my tool box.
“What the hell happened here?” I know the minute I ask the question that it was the wrong thing to do. My tone was too sharp, my attitude a little too proprietorial. Her shoulders tense and square, her chin juts out like she’s ready for a fight, and I can see the daggers in her eyes from across the room. I’m fucked and not in the good way.
“I didn’t do this, Clayton!” Her voice was a low, angry hiss, the same one she’d used when she’d all but handed me my suitcase and told me to get the hell out.
“I never said you did, Annalee… I think my exact words were what happened… not what did you do. Can we skip the fight, already? I’ll apologize now, you can tell me what a son of a bitch I am and then we can get down to the business of figuring out how not to have to replace the wood floors and half the cabinets.”
“You don’t have to do anything! It’s my house. My responsibility!” she retorts.
“You,” I snap back at her, “don’t have a job!”
“I’m selling art! A lot of it, actually.”
“Enough to pay the mortgage?” I ask.
She clams up then. I can see the reluctance to answer in her eyes. Finally, she offers a grudging, “No.”
I walk out to the garage and grab the giant squeegee we use for the windows and open the garage door. Might as well let gravity work in our favor and get rid of most of the water that way. Annalee grabs a large broom and we both head back into the kitchen, and start forcing the standing water toward the door and down the steps into the garage where it can drain naturally down the slight slope of the driveway.
By the time we’re done, I’m sweating even though my clothes are still soaked with icy water. I lug the sh
op vac up the steps and Annalee goes to work, getting up the rest of the water while I set up fans to help with air flow. We had worked almost silently, I realize. We’d fallen into a rhythm like we used to whenever we were doing a project together. I’d almost forgotten how well we work together.
When the task is done, the kitchen drying, I look back at her and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Her cheeks are flushed, she’s breathing hard, and then I realize that the t-shirt she’s wearing is almost completely transparent from the water. It’s not like I haven’t seen her tits before. I’m damn well acquainted with them. That’s the problem. I’m not just looking at them. I’m remembering how they feel, the taste of her skin, the sounds she makes when I apply just the right amount of pressure with my teeth. Son of a bitch.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she says.
“Can’t help it. I’m hardwired to look at boobs… even those I’ve seen before,” I reply.
“You’re such an asshole, Clay.”
There isn’t any heat behind it. She’s just speaking matter-of-factly. But honestly, in this moment, I don’t care. All the blood in my body is rushing south, straight to my cock. I can’t think of anything but her. Wet. Naked. Grinding against me and begging for more.
I know the moment her mind goes to the same place I can’t get mine to leave. I see her pupils dilate, her lips part. The tension between us is a living, breathing thing. But I know, there’s no good way for this to end. We’re either sexually frustrated or filled with regret.
To break the tension, I say, “Emma Grace will be so upset that she missed a chance to swim in the kitchen.”
The pitiful attempt at humor did its job. There’s a smile playing at her lips. She won’t let it out, but I know it’s there. She gestures toward the sink, “Yes, she will. If she’d been here she would have had on flippers and goggles before we could even turn around… I don’t know what you just did, but I’ve never been so happy to see you in my life.”
Clayton (Bourbon & Blood Book 2) Page 3