Beard Necessities: Winston Brothers Book #7

by Penny Reid

  “When Michelangelo was carving the sculpture of David, he’d been warned the piece of marble chosen was flawed.”

  “Flawed?” Billy asked, his deep voice echoing in the cavernous space made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. “How so?”

  “In 1464, the marble had been given to an artist by the name of Agostino to carve a statue of David, but he gave up, saying he couldn’t work with it. Then, in 1501, Michelangelo took the assignment and the marble. As you can see, it’s a stunning, priceless, pure white marble, shipped from a quarry in Carrara, a town in the Apuan Alps in northern Tuscany. A huge, single piece of stone, and even though everyone said it was flawed, Michelangelo wanted it anyway.”

  “Was it flawed?” Beau asked, drawing Shelly’s eyes to his.

  “Maybe. According to the story I was told, Michelangelo knocked off a knot that had been on David’s chest, and afterward he’d had no trouble carving the block.”

  “Huh. Interesting.” Duane peered up at the statue, squinting. “I’d never heard that before.”

  “And here is where the legends diverge,” she continued. “In one version of the story, the knot, they say, was David’s heart.”

  “Oh.” Maya’s dark brown eyes widened, like she found this distressing, an expression I’m sure was mirrored in my own eyes.

  “And when Michelangelo removed the heart of the stone, it was easy to manipulate and shape into whomever or whatever he desired.”

  “That’s . . . sad.” Maya looked to me, as though to confirm her feelings on the subject were valid. “What did the other legend say?”

  “The other legend claimed that the knot had blocked David’s heart. And once it was removed, the true form beneath the marble was revealed.”

  “I like that story better,” Beau said, grinning at Shelly.

  “I can see why,” Billy muttered, sounding distracted, his attention affixed to David’s calf and foot.

  “Which story do you prefer?” I asked. Shelly always had an unexpected take on things.

  “I like the duality of both, to be honest.”

  “What do you mean?” Beau lifted his chin, his gaze fastened to her like she was the most fascinating and wonderful person in the world. But then, he always looked at her like this.

  “Just that, two people, witnessing or experiencing the same event, can have two entirely different interpretations of the truth. To one person, the knot was a heart, and removing it devastated the stone such that it succumbed to the artist’s vision. To another, the knot was an obstruction to the stone, preventing it from being what or who it was meant to be.”

  I felt the weight of Billy’s attention move to me, sure as a touch or a word softly spoken. I swallowed. I told myself not to look. But then I did.

  Our gazes locked, held, and the impact raced through my body, to my fingertips and toes. He wasn’t smiling or frowning, just looking. But that was always enough to send me off-kilter. I only had myself to blame, but I’m a glutton for punishment and Billy Winston.

  “The truth is in the eye of the beholder?” his deep voice asked. The question was directed to Shelly, but his eyes never left mine.

  “Of course it is. Truth is always more relative than fiction. And the idea that two factual truths can exist at once, so diametrically opposed to each other, is completely fascinating. Don’t you think?”

  Lined up, two by two, we waited for the elevator to take us down to the basement. According to Shelly, a hidden room had been discovered some forty years ago beneath the Florence cathedral which housed several sketches attributed to Michelangelo and his students. Parts of the walls had been carefully removed from the original, long-hidden room and placed in this underground space beneath the Academia Gallery, but the elevator down only held two people at a time.

  Billy and Maya were first, Beau and Shelly next, Cletus and Jenn, and then Duane and I at the rear. Ash and Drew had moved on to the gift shop as Bethany had grown restless, asking several times and very loudly why David didn’t have any clothes on and whether he was cold.

  “Um, Duane?” Maya flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and called back to us, her face apologetic. Maya looked a lot like her sister, except her skin was just a shade or two lighter than Sienna’s golden hue. “I’m sorry, I have to go to the bathroom. Will you show me where it is?”

  “Sure.” Duane stepped forward, bringing me with him by placing a hand on my back. “Here, Claire. You go down with Billy. I’ll take Maya.”

  “I—“

  Ding.

  “It’s arrived, time to get on,” Cletus announced.

  Duane pushed—and I mean pushed—me onto the elevator and I turned, my wide eyes connecting with Billy’s. He hadn’t boarded yet and seemed just as perplexed as me by the sudden people shuffle. But then, Jennifer stepped forward and took his arm, guiding him into the tiny lift.

  “There you go, sweetheart,” she said, punching the close-door button and leaning back, like she’d just helped a little old lady cross the street. “See y’all in a bit.”

  I’d stepped back as far as I could go, but Billy’s body still crowded my space. It wasn’t until the doors shut behind us that recognition sharpened his eyes, as though he’d just realized what happened, where he was, and who he was with.

  “Oh,” he said softly, edging away. “I’m—I . . .” His eyes were visibly and uncharacteristically unsettled. “It’s a small elevator.”

  “It is,” I whispered tightly, not knowing where to set my gaze, my heart rate doubling.

  He filled every inch of my vision, and he was just so dang big. I’d never felt the truth of his size before, not like this, not where it was just the two of us in a tiny space and his shoulders seemed to span the width of it, towering over me. Just before it became overwhelming, the doors slid open. I darted out and then stopped, discovering there wasn’t very far to go.

  The room was just that, a room, maybe twenty feet square. A narrow wooden plank extended down the center of it and on either side the floor fell away, a drop of at least four feet. Along the walls and at a distance, tucked beneath arches and bathed in flood lighting, were wall sections, charcoal sketches on white plaster. And that’s it.

  I turned. Billy still hovered near the closed doors of the elevator, his hands in his pockets, his wary eyes on me.

  “This is very interesting,” I said—but mostly squeaked—gesturing to the space, feeling like I needed to defend the simple room for some reason.

  Biting the inside of his lip, Billy nodded, his wariness persisting.

  Clearing my throat, I walked down the plank, my hands clasped behind my back, pretending to be fully engrossed in the sketches. The truth was, I barely noticed them. What I did notice? The sluggish passage of time. One minute became two, maybe ten, maybe a hundred. I continued to stare unseeingly at the cut-out walls while he continued to hover by the elevator.

  I wondered what his plan was. Maybe he wanted to leave as soon as the next party of two arrived? That made sense. It certainly would explain why he hadn’t taken more than a step away from the only escape route.

  Well, that was just fine. Just. Fine. And maybe once he left, I’d be able to relax and actually look at the sketches, which should be any minute now. Surely, Beau and Shelly were on their way. Surely.

  I had no idea what time it was. He continued to loiter, turning toward the doors, fussing with the button. The small room began to feel just as cramped as the elevator and I was having a little trouble regulating my breathing. How long have we been down here? Days?!

  “Scarlet.”

  I tensed, my gaze cutting to his. His wary expression had been replaced with a frustrated one, and in the next second he moved, walking toward me. Oh God. Please. Please, just be nice.

  Searching for some topic, any topic that might distract him from whatever was on his mind, I blurted, “Shelly said these were done by Michelangelo and his students.”

  He stopped about four feet away, his mouth set in an unhappy line,
and I braced myself for the impact of angry words as he said, “The call button doesn’t seem to be working,” which was not what I’d expected him to say.

  I stared at the man for a beat, and then I leaned to the side and peered at the doors. “It’s not?”

  “No. And it’s been fifteen minutes.”

  “What? It has?”

  He nodded, looking less irritated and more . . . apologetic?

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his typically frosty gaze now curiously moderate, yet still reserved. “I think this is Cletus’s idea of trying to help.”

  Chapter Ten

  *Claire*

  “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  “Help?” I parroted, confused.

  Billy’s tongue darted out to lick his lips. “Cletus seems to think, if you and I are trapped together, we’ll—uh—work through our differences.”

  My stomach dropped and my mouth formed an O as I finally understood. We were trapped. Cletus had somehow figured out how to trap us down here. Great.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Billy said, quite unnecessarily. Obviously, he didn’t have anything to do with it.

  “I know.” I twisted at the waist, looking for a place to sit. “I didn’t think you did,” I muttered. Then, because I could be petty sometimes, I mumbled, “I’m not the one trying to avoid you.”

  Billy rocked back on his heels, like he was absorbing my words, speaking as though to himself, “That statement doesn’t have any basis in reality.”

  Finding no chair or bench on which to sit, I lowered myself to the plank. “I’m just giving you the space you requested.” I allowed my legs to dangle over the side, figuring if I was going to be trapped here for God knows how long with a man who despised the sight of me, I might as well sit. I was tired of standing and fighting.

  “And before that?”

  “And before that, what?”

  “And before I requested distance last week? Where were you then?”

  “And before that”—I waved my hand through the air—“I was in Nashville for four years and you were in the Capital, and you’re engaged. So . . .” I shrugged, because that just said it all.

  “No.” He sat too, assuming the same position as me, just three feet away now. His movements were slow, like his hip was giving him problems. “I told you over Christmas, that’s not a real engagement. If you’re not avoiding me, where have you been for the last six months?”

  “You’re still engaged. All engagements are real until they’re over,” I said flatly. Staring forward, I twisted my lips to the side, feeling none of my usual heart palpitations and whatnot. I just felt . . . tired. Here we go again. I am so tired of this.

  “Well, this engagement is over. I broke it off a few weeks ago.”

  A spark of irritation had my lips curving into a rueful smile. “Well, there you go. And now you want me to keep my distance. Funny how that timing works.”

  “You know what? Maybe we should just wait in silence,” he ground out. “We’ll wait here quietly until Cletus decides to let us out.”

  “Fine with me.” I brought my knees up and hugged my legs to me, setting my cheek on top of them, my face turned away.

  Encouraging my mind to take me away from here, I reflected on how dumb all these arguments were. The same ones over and over, and yet they still hurt. Billy was right. Being around him was difficult. It used to be so easy, which just made it hurt even more.

  Eventually, my thoughts drifted, but they didn’t stray too far from the man at my side. Seeing him curled up on the bed last week, obviously in pain and so determined to reject any kindness I offered. Well, I guess I didn’t blame him for pushing me away, everything considered, but why he’d put himself in that position to begin with made no sense to me.

  Which is probably why, before I could catch the impulse, I said, “Actually, no. Not fine with me. I have a question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why’d you donate your bone marrow to Darrell?” Lifting my head, I looked at him. He had one knee drawn up, his forearm resting on top of it, and he returned my inspection with one of his own.

  “Ah. So that’s what you meant when you said Cletus told you what happened.”

  “Yes. Why would you do that?”

  Billy seemed to hesitate, like he was debating between two paths and wasn’t at all sure which way to go. “How much do you know about what happened back in May? At the diner, when Roscoe and Simone were hurt?”

  Spotting a glimmer of vulnerability behind his gaze at the mention of his little brother, I turned my body to face him fully, sitting cross-legged. “Just what’s been in the papers.”

  “Which is?”

  “My, uh—” I lifted my eyes to the ceiling as I recited the facts as I knew them. “Razor attacked Roscoe and then that bad cop shot into the diner, hitting Simone. But then she was able to shoot Razor before passing out. You came in, found him about to harm her, so you knocked him out and covered Roscoe and Simone with ice while you waited for the ambulance.”

  “That’s a fair summary. But what the papers aren’t focusing so much on is that Darrell agreed to testify against Razor, but only if someone donated bone marrow to him.”

  My spine straightened. “He did?”

  “Yeah. At first, that was going to be Roscoe, and they think that’s why Razor went after him. Obviously, now Roscoe is much too sick to do anything but heal. So I offered to—” Billy’s mouth abruptly snapped shut, his eyes dropping. He gave his head a little shake and his eyebrows pulled together, giving me the sense he was thinking over weighty matters and parsing through what he wished to share.

  “You know what?” he finally said, drawing in a deep breath. “The truth is, I’m doing it for revenge.” Billy chuckled lightly, like he found his own motivations bizarre. “That’s the answer. Revenge.”

  What? “You’re saving Darrell’s life to get revenge? How does that work? You’re saving him to spite him?”

  “No. I don’t care about that.” He waved away that possibility. “He’s not going to live much longer anyway. Doctors say he’ll be dead within the year, two tops, no matter what. I want to prolong his life long enough to put Razor in jail.”

  “So . . . it’s revenge against Razor?”

  He lifted his eyes and they tangled with mine. “And Darrell too. I like the fact that one of the last things he’ll do is betray the people who mattered so much to him during his life. I find that satisfying.”

  “I can see that.” I studied the grim line of his mouth, the way his jaw ticked at his temple, and suddenly felt moved to say, “Thank you.”

  Some of the intensity behind his gaze gave way to confusion. “For what?”

  “For doing it, for making it so Darrell testifies. It helps me to know Razor will be in jail for the rest of his life.”

  Billy’s stare flicked over me, sharpened. “You still having those nightmares?”

  I stilled. Even my heart seemed to slow as we watched each other. It was an odd moment, having this conversation with him. He knew so much about me, my past, my hopes and fears. He even knew my dreams. And yet, he hated me. So why are you talking to him?

  “I was always afraid,” I said slowly, not sure whether I should continue to speak or shut down. History told me this calm between us was a ticking time bomb; eventually one of us would explode.

  However . . . I miss this. I missed talking to him. I missed hearing what he thought and what he wished. I missed his voice. I missed his laugh and subtle sweetness and wry humor. I missed him.

  In the end—again, because I’m a glutton for punishment and Billy Winston—I decided there wasn’t any harm confirming something he probably already suspected. “I was always afraid that one day he’d come after me again. That he’d come and get me and take me back there. That’s why I asked Jethro to put those panic rooms in my house.”

  This news seemed to
make him restless. “Why did you come back to Green Valley? Why’d you come back at all?”

  I studied him and his questions. “You mean to live? After Ben died?”

  I was surprised by the question.

  In all the months we’d spent together sneaking around, Billy had never asked and didn’t want to know. Back then, he only wanted to talk about the future, about my hopes and dreams, and his hopes and dreams, and current events, and my school, and what I thought about such and such. It was as though he wanted to pretend we were just two normal people with no baggage, with no concerns or obligations outside of each other.

  That’s not to say he was completely ignorant of everything. Billy knew little details, like how I’d been living with Ben’s aunt and uncle in Nashville for several years, and why I’d never reached out to him while I was gone—I’d thought he and his high school girlfriend had gotten married. We also talked about my music and his job at the mill.

  But the moment I told him how Ben had slept with me on my eighteenth birthday, all discussion of the past stopped. He couldn’t stand hearing anything else. Every time I brought up Ben or tried to explain, Billy would shut down and leave.

  “Okay. Sure. Why’d you come back after Ben died? Or even before that? Why not stay gone? Stay safe?” He sounded interested rather than angry, which—again—surprised me.

  Therefore, I told him the truth. “Well, after Ben died, I felt like I needed to be close to the McClures. They—they were so good to me, and they’d lost their only child, a son they considered a miracle. I wanted to be a help to them in their time of mourning, give them a focus, some hope.”

  Billy’s brow drew together, his gaze softening, seeming to lose some of its earlier aloofness. “That was good of you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, meaning it, my stomach thinking now was a good time to flutter. Doing my best to ignore that development, I added, “Before Ben died, when we came back for the engagement party but I was still living in Nashville for school, Ben told me it was safe.”