Beard Necessities: Winston Brothers Book #7

by Penny Reid

  I knew it would be, which was why I’d never wanted to tell him. I didn’t want him thinking poorly of his mother. I didn’t want her memory to be corrupted. She wasn’t here to defend herself, to explain her perspective. It didn’t seem fair.

  But maybe some situations just aren’t fair and will never be fair. No matter how much we plan, and think, and try to compensate, unfairness persists.

  I continued, “I know your daddy cheated on her a lot, so I think it hit close to home. For her. She didn’t want that for you, and—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” The blurted question was heavily seasoned with accusation, and he stood, taking his hand with him.

  I refolded my arms, trying my utmost not to judge him for his outburst despite the hypocrisy of it. “The next time I saw you was the night before my wedding to Ben, after I’d already promised Bethany I’d stay away. Telling you then would’ve been counterproductive to my promise. When Ben died, it didn’t seem relevant. Being with you, sharing a life with you, felt like an impossibility. I was drowning in so much self-hatred and—”

  “And her words reinforced that,” he cut in angrily. “You should have told me. No wonder you hated yourself, no wonder you couldn’t stand to look at me. She made you feel like you were wrong.”

  “I was wrong.”

  “No.”

  “No. I was. Sneaking around was wrong, Billy. I should’ve been honest. I wasn’t. I was a coward and I paid the price. Your momma being disappointed in me, losing her trust, that was part of the price. Actions have consequences, we don’t get to hide from them. Whenever she and I were in the same place together after that, I could see it, how she looked at me, like I was a stranger not to be trusted, who wanted to corrupt her son.”

  He pushed his fingers into his hair, turning, ranting, “No. No! You weren’t alone. I was right there with you. She never should’ve put this on your shoulders. I’m the one who sought you out, took you to that hotel. If one of us corrupted the other, it was me. I wanted to corrupt you, God how I wanted it. And she never should’ve approached you in the first place, she should have come to me.”

  “Hey, hey. I get it.” I stood, wishing I could reach out to him and end this conversation with comforting hugs and kisses, but knowing there was still too much to say. “Putting myself in her place, I get it. I didn’t blame her; I wasn’t angry with Bethany. All she did was tell me the truth. It may have been painful to hear, but that doesn’t make what she said any less true. And if I’d been truthful—if we’d all been truthful from the beginning—and brave enough to be honest with each other about everything, then all this heartache could’ve been prevented.”

  Once again, he grew very still, absorbing my words. But this time the stillness was different, the energy of him was different. It was like watching an animal slowly realize it had been cornered.

  He turned. And he glared at me, half panic, half anger. “You know.”

  I met his stare squarely, doing my best to keep the hurt from mine, whispering, “Yes. I know.”

  “How?” Now he whispered, panic edging out the anger. For the moment.

  I ignored his question in favor of my own. “At any point, was there ever a chance that you were going to tell me the truth about taking my punishment? About saving my life?”

  His chin lifted slightly, and I watched as he rebuilt the wall between us. I watched it with my own eyes as my stomach sunk. Brick by brick. Until it was him in his fortress and me left standing outside.

  “Who told you?” His voice turned cold, aloof, and it sent chills down my spine.

  “No one. No one told me,” I said quietly, gently, but making no attempt to hide my fatigue. I was so tired. Bone-deep exhausted.

  “You don’t want to tell me.”

  “No. I’m telling the truth. I overheard two of your siblings talking, I heard my name, and I was suddenly eavesdropping before I knew what was happening, like I was stuck, couldn’t move. That’s how I found out.”

  “Who was it?”

  My mouth curved into a sad smile. “I’m not telling you because it doesn’t matter. What matters is, why didn’t you tell me?”

  He said nothing. And because he’d barricaded himself so completely, I had no idea what he was thinking.

  “Fine.” I glanced behind him, ignoring the sharp ache in my chest. “You won’t answer that question, then here’s a few others. Why do you have that tattoo? What is it covering?”

  Silence.

  “Okay, how about this one. Did Ben know what you did for me?”

  I hadn’t expected him to answer this either, so when he immediately said, “Yes,” I flinched.

  I turned away, holding my stomach. Even if Ben hadn’t known what Billy did to secure my safety, Ben had still lied to me. But now? Now there was no way around it. Ben had taken credit for Billy’s suffering. I felt sick. I’d suspected, I’d hoped Ben didn’t know, but hearing it confirmed felt like a punch in the stomach.

  Blindly moving forward, I encountered the bed. I sat on it. “I can’t believe he—he lied to me.”

  “He knew the whole time.” Billy’s voice from somewhere behind me was monotone, lacking in all emotion. “He even visited me when I was in the hospital. When I questioned him about where you were, he acted like you were unreachable but safe. And then, over a year after that night at the jam session—over a year after the night of your engagement party—he sought me out to talk about it.”

  “To talk about it?” I twisted to look at Billy over my shoulder. “What did he say?”

  “I didn’t want him to tell you, he was in agreement. He thought I was going to.” A slight crack manifested behind his granite exterior as he looked at me. “But I had no idea until you told me in Florence that he’d lied to you like he did. I had no idea he’d told you his family was the reason Razor left you alone.”

  Incredulous, I asked, “What did you think Ben would say? When I asked him? He had to convince me it was safe to come back to Green Valley. And since neither of you were going to tell me the truth, of course he lied.”

  “You’re defending him?”

  “No. I’m not. I’m just asking what you expected. If you refused to tell me the truth, why are you surprised that he lied?”

  “Ben wanted what was best for himself, so he made decisions for you, that’s why he lied.”

  I turned completely around, facing him, anger finally awakening within me. “Then what’s your excuse? You—both of you—took away my ability to make decisions. You took it out of my hands. I didn’t have all the information, Billy.”

  Billy’s jaw ticked, his eyes shuttering again as he ground out, “Then I guess Ben and I have more in common than I’d like to admit.”

  Again, his words lacked any emotion, and behind his gaze a cold kind of certainty, a resignation had settled.

  I hated it when he looked at me this way, like he thought he knew everything going on in my head and he just assumed whatever action would hurt him most would be the course of action I’d take. Even more, I hated that—until recently—his assumptions had been mostly right.

  Because I never knew, because he never told me. I did the best I could with the information I had.

  “You know what? I surrender.” I stood. I lifted my hands, showing him my palms. “I used to say you and I brought out the worst in each other. We do. Because you want me to live down to your expectations. You want to believe the worst of me. You watch me stumble and fall, and instead of offering a hand, you stand at the sidelines and congratulate yourself for calling the game.”

  Halfway through my little speech, Billy started shaking his head, his eyes glassy. And when I finished, he turned and he walked away, crossing to the door.

  Realizing his intention to leave, I sprinted after him, past him, and blocked his path, demanding, “Where are you going?”

  He wouldn’t look at me. “This conversation is pointless, we’re done.”

  “No. We are not done. We are having this conversati
on. We are in the middle of this conversation. It is happening whether you like it or not. No wonder you hated me so much. No wonder you resented me so much.”

  His stare, now incensed, cut to mine, “I resented you because you were in love with me and you wouldn’t be honest with yourself. I resented you because you chose guilt over us—time and time again. Ben wasn’t the third person in our relationship, Scarlet. Your guilt was. We’re not doing that. I don’t want your guilt.”

  Billy turned and paced away, again stabbing his fingers through his hair.

  I trailed after him, making no attempt to temper the volume of my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” He gave me just his profile, his handsome mouth curving into a bitter smile. “I saw how you twisted yourself up for Ben, how you lied to him about what you wanted and what you were feeling, about how you lied to yourself. How, whenever there’s some sort of imbalance, you feel like you have to work for the other person.” Finally, he faced me. “You’re not my employee, Scarlet. I don’t want you to work for me. So, no. I didn’t want the kind of relationship you had with Ben. I didn’t want that for us. I wanted you to choose me free and clear, free of debts, free of obligations. There. Is. No. Debt.”

  “There is a debt! You gave up everything for me, and then, when you could have told me the truth—”

  “No. I didn’t give up everything for you. I didn’t give up my family. I didn’t give up their futures. I didn’t give up my mother. I didn’t give up my job at Payton Mills. I have built a life for myself hoping—always hoping—you’d eventually choose me. You’d want me. Not because you owed me. That’s how this works, Scarlet. Love isn’t about giving up. It’s about never giving up.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  *Claire*

  “Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”

  E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

  “And then what happened?”

  “And then!” I threw my hands high in the air, pacing back and forth in front of Sienna. “He left. He just walked out. And he slammed the door on his way out!”

  We were currently in her room. She’d found me in the basement assaulting bread dough (i.e. kneading it) and gently talked me down from the ledge, convincing me to come to her room and talk things through. And so I had. I’d told her everything. EVERYTHING. Even how I’d lost my underwear in the barley field.

  She’d told me Lucy Honeychurch would be proud, whatever that meant.

  “What did you do? After he slammed the door?” Sienna sat on the arm of their couch, her arms crossed, her eyes wide as she tracked my frantic movements.

  “After a couple of seconds, I walked after him, figuring he would’ve gone to his room, but he wasn’t there. So I went downstairs and searched this huge monstrosity of a house looking for him.”

  “So, he tells you love is never giving up, and then he leaves?” She sounded as confused as I felt.

  “Yeah. Exactly. He drives me crazy and he makes no sense!” I mimed strangling him.

  “And you couldn’t find him?”

  “No. No, I couldn’t.” An aching breath left my lungs and I stopped my frantic pacing. “I can’t. I can’t find him.”

  My friend was quiet for a moment, and then slid off the arm of the couch and onto one of the cushions. “Knowing Billy, I can believe all of these things. This sounds just like him. I mean, being stupidly noble and making incredibly dumb decisions based on black-and-white assessments that require nuance and subtlety. I don’t understand why he didn’t just tell you the truth originally.”

  “At first, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know where I was or how to reach me. Given what I now know about Ben, I’m convinced he didn’t want Billy to find me.”

  “So . . . Ben was an asshole?”

  I shook my head, feeling helpless to answer this question. “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes. Sometimes. But—and I’m not defending him—but aren’t we all assholes sometimes? He wasn’t a villain, but he definitely wasn’t a saint.”

  “I disagree, but that’s something you should definitely discuss with your therapist. Back to Billy, why didn’t Billy tell you the truth when you came back to Green Valley?”

  “He said he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want me to feel obligated to him.” I rolled my eyes. “But what he still doesn’t seem to understand is that I’m freaking in love with him and was looking for a reason, any reason at all to throw my promises out the window and jump his bones!”

  “Yikes.”

  “I know! I mean, when I told Bethany Winston that I’d stay away from her son, I had no idea—”

  “What? Wait, what? Bethany asked you to stay away from Billy? When was this?”

  “Ugh. Just forget I said that. It’s ancient history. The issue is Billy and this impossible situation. I want to be with this man and he doesn’t trust me to be with him without feeling like there’s a debt to be paid. And so, I feel like he’s never going to trust me about how much I want him unless I do something to clear the balance sheet between us and make him indebted to me.”

  “Don’t do that. Then it’ll be a lifetime of keeping score and I, for one, hate math.”

  “And I’m still mad at him. He hasn’t apologized! It’s like, he’s incapable of seeing this from my perspective.”

  “You should seduce him.”

  I frowned, certain I’d misheard her. “What?”

  “Seduce him. Then, in the middle of foreplay, explain it to him. Men are much more receptive to admitting they’re wrong when they’re just about to get laid.”

  “Sienna.” I placed a hand on my hip. “Do I look like I know the first thing about seducing a man?”

  “Honestly?” Her eyes moved down and then up my body. “You look like you could write a textbook on the subject. Besides, what is there to seducing men? Just get naked and lie on a bed. All their blood leaves their brain and they can’t think. Science.”

  Despite the bleakness of the situation, I laughed.

  Or maybe, because of the bleakness of the situation I laughed.

  Dragging my feet, I walked to the couch and sat next to her. “I don’t know what to do. It’s like, I’m forever banging my head against brick walls, wanting things that are impossible.”

  “What’s impossible? What is it you want?”

  “Billy understanding my perspective and apologizing, sincerely. And then I want assurances that he’s done withholding the truth. First, he kept the fact that Duane and Beau are my brothers a secret from me, now this. If there are any residual secrets, I want to know them.”

  “You don’t want him to grovel?” Sienna pushed my upper arm lightly with her fingertips. “Beg for forgiveness?”

  I sent her a side-eye. “Billy doesn’t beg.”

  “But it would be nice, right? If he did?” Now she elbowed me. “Picture him, on his knees, a long stem rose in his mouth, wearing one of those sexy, well-tailored suits of his—who is his tailor, by the way?—his hands clasped together. Take me back, Claire! TAKE ME BACK!”

  I chuckled at the picture she painted and her dramatic imitation, it was so absurd. “Honestly? No. I don’t need him tying himself in knots. I need him with me. I need him to stay and talk through everything so we can build a bridge to the other side together. I feel like all these secrets between us built bridges to nowhere. And then . . .”

  “And then?”

  I couldn’t help my rueful smile as I peeked at her. “Would it be terrible if I said lots of sex?”

  Now Sienna laughed, her head thrown back as she smacked her leg with her palm. Her laughter was exceptionally friendly, so of course I laughed too, even though my cheeks were made hot by the admission. I hadn’t been joking.

  When she finished laughing, Sienna’s eyes turned assessing as they moved over my face. “None of that seems impossible.”

  I glanced at her. “It is when I can’t even get him to talk to me.”

&nbs
p; “Don’t worry about it.” She patted my leg and then stood. “Leave it to me.”

  I watched her cross the room, pick up her phone, unlock it, and then type furiously.

  “Leave what to you?” My stomach twisted with discomfort. It was one thing to be the unwitting recipient of the Winston family’s shenanigans and hijinks. It was quite another to be in cahoots with them.

  Confirming my fears, Sienna grinned, and then winked, lifting the phone to her ear. “Or, more accurately, leave it to us.”

  Billy was with Ashley.

  Sienna called Jethro and Jethro called Duane and Duane called Cletus and Cletus sent a group text.

  * * *

  Cletus: I know you hate group text messages same as me, but would someone please holler back if Billy is with them?

  * * *

  Their sister messaged almost immediately.

  * * *

  Ashley: He’s with me, helping me carry groceries up the hill. Why?

  Cletus: Stall him. I’ll bring Claire to you and I’ll help you carry the bags the rest of the way.

  Ashley: Sure thing. Suddenly I feel faint.

  * * *

  Cletus met me at the front door, and we set off together down the hill. He didn’t ask any questions. In fact—wearing a grim expression, his arms swinging with purpose, his eyes straight forward—he said nothing at all.

  Billy and Ashley came into view almost immediately once we left the gravel driveway and cut along the steep nature trail that was set next to a small stream. A quantity of large lavender bushes lined the other side of the trail where little white butterflies flirted with the purple flowers. Across the stream was a primitive wooden fence and beyond the fence was a vineyard, tidy rows of emerald green grapevines capped on the end with rosebushes in full bloom.

  Ashley was sitting on a big rock just off the trail, her elbows on her knees, surreptitiously glancing up the hill every so often. Billy crouched in front of her, his back to us, his head angled like he was inspecting her for strain or injury.