Beard Necessities: Winston Brothers Book #7

by Penny Reid

  I felt a twinge of guilt, but just a twinge. If he hadn’t walked out, then I wouldn’t have tricked him now. Maybe that was screwy logic, but it was the only logic I had.

  We were about fifty or so feet away when Billy glanced distractedly over his shoulder, doing a double take, and then slowly rising to his feet. The transformation of his features—one minute surprised, the next angry, the next aloof—complete as he faced us, slowly placing his hands in his pockets.

  “Proud brother is proud,” Cletus mumbled under his breath.

  “Oh. Look at me.” Ashley stood from the rock where she’d been sitting, turning to pick up several cloth grocery bags. “I’m feeling quite recovered all of the sudden.”

  Billy glared at his sister, and then he glared at Cletus. “Let me guess, you need me to go back to the store for something?”

  “Yep.” Cletus closed the distance to his brother and picked up the groceries near Billy’s feet while Ashley lost no time in hiking past all of us straight up the hill with the dexterity of a professional mountain climber.

  “What do you need?” Billy asked flatly.

  “I don’t know. Parmesan cheese, maybe. Seems like we put it on everything here. Would you walk back to the store with Billy?” Cletus addressed this question to me, but his eyes were on his brother. “He can’t find his way out of a paper bag, ’cause paper bags are made of wood and that’s too close to being like a tree.”

  “Yes. Of course. I’ll walk back with him, no problem.” Despite the nerves in my stomach, I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t smile at Cletus’s antics.

  Cletus gave Billy one more lingering squinty look, and then turned and marched after Ashley. I watched them go until they disappeared beyond the crest of the hill. And then I stared at the spot where they’d disappeared for a few more seconds, gathering my thoughts. Then I looked at Billy.

  He wasn’t looking at me. His hands were still in his pockets and his eyes were on the vineyard across the stream. The severe line of his jaw and the ticking at his temple told me he was unhappy with my surprise hijacking.

  “You know . . .” I took small steps along the trail until we were standing side by side, me facing him and the lavender, him facing the stream, fence, and vineyard. “You know why they plant the rosebush at the edge of each row?”

  He said nothing, just kept staring. And he calls me stubborn.

  “It’s because the rosebush and the grapevine are susceptible to the same kinds of diseases. The rosebush is the Italian version of the canary in the coal mine, as it were.”

  His gaze drifted to the stream, but still he said nothing. He wanted silence? Fine. But I wasn’t leaving until we talked this through.

  Closing my eyes, I listened to the water rush past and a bird call to another bird in the sky, inhaling the heady scent of lavender, green grass, dirt, and sunshine.

  “So this is what it feels like,” I said, mostly to myself.

  He persisted in silence, and I thought he wasn’t going to respond. So when I opened my eyes and discovered his gaze affixed to my face—just looking—I was surprised.

  “What feels like?” he asked, finally speaking.

  “The silent treatment.” My lips curved up, and I studied the blue of his eyes. I decided I’d call it Tuscan glacier from now on. “I forgot what it was like when you decide I’m not worth talking to. Wait a minute, before you glare at me with those gorgeous judgy eyes, I realize we just went through an epic period of me giving you the silent treatment. So maybe I should just accept it now as my due, and maybe turnabout is fair play. Maybe it should be easy for me. But it’s not. It’s hard.”

  I took heart in the fact that, though he was firmly encamped within his armored fortress, he didn’t look away.

  I tested my luck. “Please. Tell me. Why do you have that tattoo? What is it covering?”

  His lashes flickered, like I’d blown dust in his eyes, and his throat worked. “I don’t want to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s covering your father’s name.”

  My stomach dropped, the world tilted, and I whispered, “What?”

  Closing his eyes, he said, “When they took me, Razor cut his name in my shoulder first. Then he connected the lines so it would look like random marks. But I knew. So I covered it with a tattoo.”

  Lifting my fingers to cover my mouth, I stared at him in horror because I knew exactly what that must’ve felt like. “I can’t—I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I didn’t want to imagine it, but how could I not? The image would haunt me for the rest of my life, and the sense of helplessness.

  He opened his eyes, the desolation in his gaze quickly eclipsed by frustration. “Don’t look at me like that.” His voice was like granite, cold and severe.

  “Like what?” I whispered.

  “I am not Ben.”

  I blinked, confused. “What nonsense are you speaking?”

  “I never told you because I didn’t want you to look at me like you looked at him, with equal parts hero worship and resentment. I’m no hero. I’m a man, and I was in love with you, and I wanted you to see me, to want me.”

  I took a half step closer, encouraged by the raw honesty and gentleness of his tone. “You think I didn’t want you?”

  “Oh, I knew you did, that was never in doubt.” He sounded so sad. “But you never saw me clearly enough to do anything about it.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  His Adam’s apple worked, like he was swallowing my statement, or his reaction to it.

  He rubbed his forehead. “I did what I did. And it’s over and it’s done and life has moved on.”

  “So you’re saying you completely moved on from being beaten nearly to death? You’re saying you didn’t do it for me?”

  Billy nodded firmly, returning his attention to the vineyard. “That’s right, I did it for myself.”

  “You said that love means never giving up.” I studied his profile, amazed at the serenity of our conversation thus far, how open and honest and calm. “Well, lying to someone is not how love works either. That’s how fear works. Lying to me means you don’t trust me.”

  His eyes sliced to mine, pain behind them, but not anger. “You don’t know.”

  “What? What don’t I know?” I stepped in front of him. Giving in to the desire to put my hands on him, I gripped his forearms. “Talk to me. Please, just talk to me.”

  “Fine. I couldn’t deal with the thought of something happening to you, your father getting his hands on you again. I was going to do whatever it took.” He turned his wrists, sliding his hands up my arms to my shoulders. He held my gaze, staring deeply into my eyes, like this next part was critically important. “But that’s not on you, it’s not your responsibility. I made the decision, for myself, not for you. I did it for myself.”

  “That’s some crazy twisted logic, Billy. You did it for me and you’ve spent eighteen years hating me, resenting me because I had no idea.”

  He shook his head, like he was disappointed in my interpretation. “No. That’s not what happened.”

  “Even if it’s a little true, even if just a little of your resentment stemmed from taking my punishment on yourself, then that’s exactly what happened.”

  “This changes nothing. I did what I did. I didn’t do it for you, I did it for myself. And I don’t regret it. It’s what I wanted. Can’t you understand that?”

  This was how he’d rationalized his decisions to himself, how he rationalized keeping the truth from me. At least now I had my answer. Billy had never told me the truth because he was afraid. He didn’t trust me to love him without obligation then, and he didn’t trust me now.

  Placing my palms against his chest, I grabbed loose fistfuls of his shirt. “This is what I understand: You withhold yourself from me—big, huge parts of yourself—because you don’t trust me to accept them and love you. When we were sneaking around, meeting at that hotel, you never wanted to discuss the past. You never
wanted to talk about anything that came before, what happened while I was gone. I thought it was because you didn’t want to hear about Ben. But I see now, you didn’t want me to know about you.”

  Billy continued to stare at me from behind his fortress, his jaw tight, silence his sword. That was okay. Maybe he’d hear me, maybe he wouldn’t, but I still had things that needed saying.

  “I guess I’m supposed to be a mind reader?” I asked quietly, inspecting his handsome face. “Well, I can’t read your mind. I don’t know what you want or what’s in your heart if you don’t tell me. I’m tired of the secrets, I’m tired of the lies, especially lies for my supposed benefit.”

  His jaw worked and I thought I detected a crack in the fortress, a slight crumbling of stone. But maybe it was just me wishing.

  “Listen to me. Listen. Do you know how hard it was to stop blaming myself and hating myself for being disloyal to Ben because I thought he’d saved me? Do you have any idea? And now it turns out, he was the one lying to me.”

  I let that sink in. I let him marinate in it.

  And then I continued, “Did it ever occur to you that keeping this secret was harmful? Did you ever stop thinking about yourself, and what you wanted from me, long enough to notice you’d locked me in limbo? And you had the key all along.”

  While I spoke, Billy blinked and flinched, as though my words sliced him. His gaze lost focus.

  But I wasn’t finished. “Pretend for a moment that you hadn’t been in love with me, hadn’t wanted anything from me except my happiness. Pretend we’d just been friends. Would you have told me the truth then? If my happiness was all that mattered, what would you have done?”

  Realization sharpened behind his eyes, his lips parting, giving me the sense this—what I’d just said—had truly never occurred to him.

  “So, you’re right.” I tightened my fingers around the fabric of his shirt. “I don’t owe you a damn thing. That debt has been paid tenfold.”

  To his credit, the drawbridge lowered with a crash, revealing a sudden anguish and remorse. Big, huge remorse. So much remorse. It spilled out of his eyes and the ragged breath coming from his parted lips.

  “Scarlet,” he whispered, the sound of my name forged in tortured self-recrimination. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you for apologizing.” Taking a half step back, my hands fell from his shirt. “But where do we go from here? I don’t know, I really don’t. But let me be one hundred percent clear: I still love you, and I still want to be with you.”

  He winced again, stumbling a step forward, his fingers on my shoulders flexing, and I recognized the telltale signs of shame and guilt, which made me feel guilty. Mentally, I shoved the guilt away, scraping it off and throwing it in the trash. That’s right, no more guilt for me.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m mad as hell,” I continued in gentle tones because I only wanted gentleness between us from now on. “That’s where we are. I’m angry with you and I still love you. And it’s not because of some stupid sense of obligation or any of that foolishness. I’m done with that. I still want you in my life. And yet, I have to wonder, what else are you lying to me about?” I searched his Tuscan glacier eyes for the truth. “What other secrets are you keeping?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  *Billy*

  “If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.”

  Sir James Barrie, Peter Pan

  “I find your lack of progress disappointing.”

  I glanced at my brother. Cletus had materialized near my shoulder without me noticing his approach. Given the weighty matters on my mind, I wasn’t surprised he’d been able to sneak up on me.

  Most of my siblings and their partners were moving about, socializing and clearing the floor of the music room such that there would be enough space for dancing. Scarlet was about to sing, and Drew sat next to her tuning a guitar. I hovered just inside the only exit, uncertain whether I was staying or going. Which just about summed up the last few days.

  “Why don’t you do something productive instead of standing here, brooding?” Cletus grumped, crossing his arms.

  Before I could address Cletus’s question, from my other side Jenn said, “There’s a fine line between giving a person space and keeping your distance, Cletus. I’m sure Billy is doing what he thinks is right.”

  Now I glanced at Jenn. I hadn’t heard her approach either.

  “You hanging in there, Billy?” She smiled at me, her eyes a startling shade of purple in her recently tanned face.

  I debated how to answer her question as there was no saying I’m fine to Jennifer. The woman was too observant, and we’d become too close over the last few years for politeness.

  Was I hanging in there? Well, as always, I wanted too much. I wanted Scarlet to forgive me; I wanted to forgive myself for my shitty, selfish choices; I wanted her to trust me; I wanted to hold her and kiss her, make love to her, talk to her, hear her sing, have her teach me how to dance.

  But first, I needed to tell Scarlet about Razor, what I’d done to him, and I didn’t have any good justification for my avoidance of the topic other than more shitty, selfish choices. I was frustrated by our past always holding more importance than our future, but that wasn’t a good reason. Likewise, remembering it—the moment, the violence—was difficult, and I wasn’t sure what to do about the FBI investigation, and I didn’t wish to discuss it, but that wasn’t a good reason either.

  I’d been raised by a violent man. I’d been the recipient of extreme violence many times. I’d committed acts of violence against others. I didn’t regret those acts. Each time I’d done what needed doing, and yet I didn’t particularly relish the thought of exposing her to that side of me, who I’d become.

  But I would tell her. I had to. The only question was when.

  “Oh, he’s fine,” Cletus answered for me before I could arrange my thoughts. “Just dandy. I mean, why wouldn’t he be? He’s over here, and Scarlet is over there, and nary the twixt shall twain, or whatever that saying is.”

  “Nary the twain shall meet. The saying is, Nary the twain shall meet,” Jennifer said, placing a hand on my shoulder and giving me a gentle pat. “When does Claire go to Rome?”

  “Right after Venice,” Cletus grumbled. “Though she mentioned something about maybe flying back to Nashville for that music festival first. Either way, we’re running out of time.”

  I worked to breathe past the ache in my chest, schooling my expression. A new distance loomed on the horizon. Literal distance. If I didn’t do something soon to make things right and establish a clear path forward, despite all the desire in the world, she was sand slipping through my fingers. Again.

  “What I’d like to know is what the hell happened?” Cletus made a grunting sound. “Everything was progressing according to plan—ahead of schedule, I might add, and you know how I like efficiency—and then nothing. Three days of y’all being polite. Where’s the PDA?”

  “PDA?” I asked.

  “Public displays of affection. After eighteen years of pent-up energies, I woulda thought we’d be finding y’all in closets and behind doors. Now, I’m not suggesting you put on a show. In fact, please don’t. Nevertheless, the way things were looking, Ashley had suggested we might need to bang pots before entering a room.”

  As usual, Cletus’s attempt at subtlety lacked subtlety. He didn’t need to tell me how much I’d messed up or what I stood to lose. Just the thought of her leaving, not seeing her for days or longer after having her so close for weeks made me want to destroy something. I missed our chopping block at home. Now would’ve been a great time to split some wood.

  “I know you’re giving Claire time, and I understand you wanting to be respectful, but have you thought about making a grand gesture?” Jenn asked. “When Cletus apologized to me for acting a fool, he brought me twenty-two birthday presents, one for each of my birthdays. I’m not saying you need to buy her something, not at all. It was about the thoughtfulness, that’s what made the
difference.”

  I tilted my head back and forth in a slight motion. I’d considered grand gestures. I’d spent the last three days wracking my brain, attempting to determine what I could say or do to express the enormity of my regret.

  Except, I suspected Scarlet didn’t want me feeling regret any more than I wanted her feeling obligated.

  “What you need to do is get her alone again.” Cletus placed an elbow on my shoulder even though I was three inches taller than him. “Once you’re alone, seize her.” He made a fist with his hand.

  “She’s not a fort, honey.” Jenn sent her husband an affectionate look, like she thought he was cute.

  “I said seize, not siege.”

  “Even so.” Jenn turned her smile on me, it transformed from affectionate to sympathetic. “A woman only wants to be conquered after she’s done the conquering. Rescued after she’s done the rescuing. Then it’s a choice she’s actively made rather than a debt she needs to repay. I think the grand gesture you need to make is asking her for help.”

  I stood straighter, caught off guard by her suggestion. What an interesting idea.

  “Show her you’ve been conquered.” Her smile turned sweet and she added, “When was the last time you asked anyone for help, Billy? Or told them how much you needed them? Maybe start there.” With one more gentle pat, she walked off to join Ashley and Shelly.

  I stared after Jenn. When was the last time you asked anyone for help? I honestly couldn’t remember.

  “Astute woman is astute.”

  Shaking myself, I realized Cletus was still next to me, his elbow still on my shoulder, his attention fixed at some point in the distance—I suspected his wife based on the look in his eyes.

  “Tell me something, dear brother. This is what I keep puzzling over: you are remarkably adroit with the womenfolk, and menfolk, and catfolk and dogs and hamsters when you want to be. But particularly women. I’ve seen you in action. You can be smooth. When you apply yourself, you got almost as much charisma as Beau and he’s basically considered a lethal weapon in most states. So why disarm the charm with Scarlet?”