Rough and Rugged: Shameless Southern Nights Novels

by Ali Parker

  He gave me a long look but shrugged and walked back to the kitchen. He was marinating steaks, from the looks of things. There was salt, pepper, a bottle of olive oil and a whole collection of herbs and spices littering the counter. “You guys are planning on firing up the grill?”

  Sonny angled his head slightly to the side so I could see him grin. “You bet. How long has it been since we’ve all been together? We’ve gotta eat, right? Might as well make it good.”

  Jeremy walked in the side door at that moment, eyeing Sonny’s concoction with suspicion in his eyes. “Dude, that looks like a crime scene.”

  Sonny rolled his eyes, chuckling. “Oh ye of little faith. Just trust me on this, okay?”

  Jeremy lifted his palms and walked backward, a playful smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “I’m just saying, if we get sick, we know who to blame.”

  Sonny flipped him off, then went back to the food while Jeremy’s hazel eyes slid to mine. “Hey, Ty. Dad just asked if you were still coming. I think he wants to talk to you.”

  “Good, I need to talk to him too.” As nice as it was to see my brothers relaxed and joking around, this was hardly the time. I agreed with Sonny that we needed to eat, and I was glad everyone seemed to be getting along, but I wasn’t in the mood to join in.

  Leaving Jeremy and Sonny to continue bickering, I walked out of the door Jeremy had entered through and immediately spotted Dad and Evan sitting in rusted lawn chairs in the shade of an old oak tree. Evan saw me first, lifting his hand in a wave. “Hey, Ty. Come have a seat.”

  Our father looked up then too, relief washing over his features when he saw me. “I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to see you again.”

  Turning his head to speak to Evan, he jabbed a finger to where Beau was fiddling with an ancient-looking grill. “Why don’t you go see if you can help your brother with that thing? I need a word in private with Tyson.”

  Evan rolled his eyes but got up. “Some things never change.”

  Dad opened his mouth, about to protest to Evan’s mumbled statement, but then he sighed and motioned to me to take the empty chair. “Have a seat, son.”

  “What’s up, Dad?” The metal rungs of the chair dug into my ass and back, but it provided a nice distraction from the searing pain in my heart. “Jeremy and Sonny said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Yeah.” Tipping his head back momentarily, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Sonny told me you guys know why I did what I did.”

  “He mentioned it the other night, yeah.” I didn’t really know what else to say. “Doesn’t seem like the whole story, though. So, what happened, Dad? The truth this time.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, I know. Do you remember when I was on that cyber security committee?”

  I tilted my head. “Back when you were a senator? Yeah, sure. Vaguely, but I remember you talking about it on TV once or twice.”

  “I met Ken during those days. We kept running into each other. Eventually, we had a couple of drinks together. He was very interested in what the committee was doing. It didn’t take me long to figure out that was why he’d befriended me and kept showing up everywhere. I didn’t tell him anything, but he didn’t stop asking.”

  Roy paused, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms before continuing. “After my term came to an end, I made all those bad investments. We were hemorrhaging money because of them. One day, I thought I was setting you all up for life, the next it was gone. I tried recouping my losses, but the harder I tried...”

  “The worse it got?” I guessed, and my father confirmed my suspicions with a nod.

  “By the next time I ran into Ken, I was desperate. I didn’t know it then, but he knew what my situation was. When he offered me a job, I thought he was being generous and helping out an old friend. It was only after I started working there that I realized I’d been set up. He was only after my expertise in cyber security and my knowledge about what the committee was doing.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave?” I turned to face him directly.

  “I tried.” A shudder traveled through him, causing his hands to tremble. “I only got close to getting out once. Your mom was… She was gone the next day. They were smart and knew she had some health problems, so they made it look like an accident.”

  His Adam’s apple bounced as he swallowed. “I confronted Ken about it since he had threatened her before. He told me if I didn’t keep my mouth shut and do what he hired me to do, you boys would be next. Every time I thought I had formulated a plan, he was there to block it. Finally, I did the only thing I could: I took his money.”

  “How was that the only thing you could do?” It was one of the many things I still didn’t understand.

  Dad shrugged his thin, frail shoulders. “Ken is nothing without his money. He needs it to grease palms, to buy his way into governments and corporations, to get access to the information he needs to run his business. I knew that by taking it, I was cutting him off at the knees.”

  “He must have had a knee replacement then because he’s back in action.”

  Dad nodded. “I knew he would be back eventually, but that’s why it took him so long to come after any of us. He had to start almost from scratch. During the trial, a lot of those people you guys investigated for being associated with me were people he had introduced me to. He lost more than half of his network and a decent chunk of his money because of me. There are other things, too. Things I can’t tell you about yet.”

  “Is that why he sent his daughter after me?” The question was out before I could stop it, but Dad didn’t look surprised by the sharp tone when I asked it. I wanted to know what those other things were that he mentioned, but I’d learned the hard way that he could keep his mouth shut with the best of them if he wasn’t ready to talk. Eve, on the other hand, was something he might discuss with me now. And I had to know.

  “Don’t be upset with Eve, Tyson. I’m assuming you’ve found out who she is, but don’t hold that against her. She’s not who you think she is. Remember, I’m the one who sent you to her in the first place. She didn’t seek you out.”

  “She wasn’t honest with me, either.”

  “No.” Roy smiled, but there was sadness reflected in the light of his eyes instead of joy or happiness. “She wasn’t, but you can’t really blame her for that.”

  I kept my mouth shut because I did fucking blame her. Dad might have suspected what, or at least that something, had happened between us, but he didn’t know the extent of it. How badly it hurt that she had betrayed me like that.

  We sipped our beers in silence for a little while before he reached out and touched my knee. “There’s one last thing I have to do. All of this has always been for all of you, and I’m going to make it right. I will protect you, no matter what.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Dad.” I sighed. I had no idea how I was going to take care of it yet, but Sonny and I were working on it.

  Sliding my eyes to the side to look at Dad, I saw him give his head a small shake. “You only need to take care of your brothers, Ty. You don’t have to take care of anything or anyone else for me. Consider that part done.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Eve

  Penny flitted around the kitchen in the bakery. Her hands and her apron were covered in flour, her blond hair pulled back in a tight bun. I could see her mouth moving, but I didn’t hear what she was saying.

  The kitchen smelled like sugar and spice from the cookies she had in the oven, but I had forgotten what they were. I had tasted one earlier, but it was like eating cardboard. I had told Penny it was good, but her brow scrunched up, and she’d yanked the cookie from my hand to toss it in the trash.

  “You should be moaning and salivating over it,” she had said. “If that’s not happening, the dough isn’t right.”

  I hadn’t had the heart to tell her I hadn’t been able to taste a thing since Saturday morning. The day Tyson walked away from me.

  Just thinking abo
ut him made my eyes sting with tears. I wiped them away angrily with the back of my hands. I had cried enough over that guy. The rest of Saturday and the whole day Sunday, I spent sobbing on my couch. I had never cried so much in my life. My entire face felt swollen, not just my eyes. My stomach hurt, and my limbs were heavy.

  I had no idea how other people cried so often. It was an ugly business and left me feeling like total and complete crap. I felt even worse than I had the last time I’d had the flu. It was ridiculous, and yet, it seemed there were still more tears to shed. I was going to get dehydrated at this rate.

  I was powerless to stop it, however. My chest had a hollow ache in it, and every time I thought about why it was there, the tears were back with a vengeance.

  “What is going on with you today?” Penny’s exasperated tone told me it wasn’t the first time she’d asked the question. At some point, while I’d been hosting my own, private pity party, she’d moved from the other side of the kitchen and was now standing right in front of me with her hands propped on her hips. “Eve!”

  “I’m listening,” I mumbled, but my voice shook, and a stupid tear leaked from the corner of my eye. “It’s nothing, just leave it. I’m having a bad day, that’s all.”

  “You are not having a bad day.” She frowned deeply, concern darkening her blue eyes. They weren’t as blue as Tyson’s, but they— “Seriously, there you go again. It’s almost like I can see you floating away from me. You get this look in your eyes that’s starting to make me think you’re a bit loopy.”

  “Loopy?” I lifted an eyebrow, hoping to distract her. “I’m not loopy, I’m tired.”

  “Liar.” She narrowed her eyes and grabbed my hand, dragging me over to the table in the center of the kitchen. After pulling out a chair, she stuck out her index finger and pointed at it. “Sit. Talk. I think I have wine around here somewhere.”

  “It’s not even noon yet.”

  Penny shrugged, bending down to start searching behind bottles of cream and other sweet stuff in the under-counter fridge. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, girlfriend. Besides, there are situations when it’s acceptable to drink before lunch. I might not know what’s going on with you, but if it’s got you looking like that, this is one of those situations for sure. Nothing gets you down.”

  Straightening up, she held out a bottle of wine as proudly as if she was presenting me with a prize. “I knew I had some somewhere. It’s a sweet one, though. That okay?”

  “If it’s got alcohol in it, it’s okay.” Drinking was either a really good idea in my current state or a really bad one. I was fine with risking it either way. Something had to give. I sputtered when I took my first sip, gagging a little. “Are you sure that’s even wine? It tastes more like syrup.”

  “It’s a dessert wine,” Penny stated like it was completely obvious. “I needed some for a cake the other day. Oh, that reminds me. When we’re done with that, I think I have some brandy stashed away somewhere too.”

  “Are you on a mission to get wasted?” It didn’t sound like a half bad plan, but I needed to make sure that was where her head was at. If I was going to do this, I was doing it properly. “If so, we need to decide the shop’s going to be closed tomorrow before we get started. I refuse to crunch numbers on a hangover.”

  “Try melting butter on a hangover. It’s nauseating.” Penny shuddered, then topped off our mostly full glasses before kicking out a chair at the other side of the table and putting the bottle down between us with a loud thud. “Now stop trying to change the topic. I’ll see how I feel in the morning, but you’ve got the day off. Officially. Stop worrying about it and start drinking. And talking. Mostly the talking.”

  “I was talking.” I didn’t even know where to start telling Penny what was really wrong with me. Shame spread through me when I imagined telling her who I was. She might not know the name Ken Lyons, but when she heard about his connection to Roy Lovett, the man she’d been insisting should have stayed behind bars, or he would cause the downfall of the entire town with Mrs. Jay the other day, she might never look at me the same way again.

  Although the way she was looking at me right now was pretty scary. I lifted my hands in surrender, bringing my glass to my lips to take a fortifying sip of my wine before I finally caved.

  “I’ve been seeing Tyson Lovett,” I blurted out after I’d swallowed my sip. “He… Well, let’s just say he broke up with me on Saturday.”

  “Tyson Lovett?” she repeated slowly, her brows rising. “Are you serious? He’s one pretty boy, that one.”

  “He’s not pretty,” I replied darkly, “and he’s not a boy.”

  “Fine.” She crossed her arms on the table, waggling her brows at me. “He’s a super sexy piece of man candy that I would lick like a lollipop if I had the chance.”

  Despite the fact that it felt like my face might crack from doing it, I couldn’t hold back a smile. “There are so many things wrong with that sentence.”

  I wondered what my sweet, innocent friend would say if I were to tell her I had licked him like a damn lollipop, on so many occasions. Or if I told her he tasted like—

  “Whatever.” She pouted, thankfully derailing my train of thought. “Jeremy’s always been my favorite anyway.”

  “Your favorite?” Both my eyebrows jumped up. “What is this, the Hunger Games?”

  I swigged the rest of my syrup down in one gulp. I had a feeling I was going to need a buzz to get through this conversation. Penny dutifully refilled it, rocking her head from side to side as she thought. “Well, I for one would have let some arrows fly if it meant getting a shot at being with Jeremy.” She gasped, her blue eyes going round. “But I mean, only if Marie was already dead. And an appropriate amount of time had passed for him to mourn her properly. And Austin was all grown up and he was okay with it. Of course.”

  “Of course.” Then the last thing I had expected to happen today happened: I burst out laughing. I laughed until I started tearing up before I finally stopped. Penny was staring at me, mortified. “Only you would start a fantasy off with someone dying before you could be with a guy you wanted.”

  “I don’t want him,” she objected, far too loudly. “He’s married. I just think he’s sexy. They all are. I could never be with a cheater, though. Not even in my fantasies.”

  “You’re adorable.” I wiped the moisture that had pooled in my eyes away and picked up my syrup again. It wasn’t that bad anymore.

  Penny followed suit, looking at me over the rim of her glass before she sipped. “You say that now, but I won’t be so adorable if I jump on your back and pull your hair until you tell me what’s really going on.”

  “You changed the topic that time,” I protested, but seeing how serious her expression was, I knew the fun was over. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but you’re going to regret it.”

  “Try me.” Penny topped off our glasses again and kept doing it for the next hour while I told her the story of Eve and Tyson.

  By the time I was done, I was more than a little tipsy and feeling drained from flaying my emotions open to tell her my story. It wasn’t quite over yet, unfortunately. “I’ve just always been alone, you know? You don’t have a lot of friends when everyone knows your dad is dangerous and involved with dodgy stuff. It didn’t matter that I didn’t really know him or that he wasn’t around. That’s just the thing. I’ve been alone pretty much my whole life, mom worked all the time and Dad just wasn’t there, but I’ve never felt so alone as I did when Tyson left.”

  “I’ve never heard you talk this way.” Penny’s eyes were glassy, but her gaze was steady.

  “I know.” I opened my arms wide, feeling the alcohol flowing freely through my veins as I laughed derisively. “But this is me. The real Eve Cain. I’m not standing up, though. Pretty sure I would fall over if I tried.”

  Penny snorted. “I’m right there with you. I like the real Eve Cain. It’s nice to finally meet her.”

  “She likes you too.” I smiled, but as I did, my d
runken mind reminded me that Penny was the only person in this town that liked me despite knowing everything about me. She wasn’t even looking at me differently now that she knew who my father was. “It’s just too bad Tyson Lovett doesn’t like the real Eve Cain.”

  She reached out and gave my hand a sympathetic pat. “I know, sweetie. It sucks, but you will get through it. I’ll help you.”

  “Oh yeah?” I tilted my head, and my entire body almost came off the chair after it. “How are you going to do that?”

  “Firstly, I’m going to track down that brandy.” She pushed to her feet, steadying herself with her fingertips on the table before turning and starting to rummage around. When she came back to the table with a small bottle of amber liquid, she grinned and poured it into our empty glasses. “Right. Now that’s done, we’re going to start with step two. You need to learn how to fantasize ethically.”

  “That’s not necessary,” I grumbled, grabbing my glass. The brandy didn’t burn at all on the way down. “I won’t be fantasizing over that asshole.”

  “Oh, honey.” She shook her head, her lips pursed. “Yes. Yes, you will. You can’t just snap your fingers and be over him. It takes time, and in that time, your mind is going to drift to him. This is where a lot of girls make their biggest mistake.”

  She said it sagely, like she was imparting the most important wisdom she possessed. “Whatever you do, your body cannot drift back to him, too. Your mind is fine. Whatever happens in your bedroom in the dark stays in your bedroom in the dark. Physically going back to an ex when you miss him? That never stays in the damn dark. It only ends up hurting you more.”

  “He’s not my ex.” We’d never even made it that far.

  Penny sighed deeply. “He’s a guy you’ve been with, who is never coming back to you after everything that happened. That makes him an ex.”

  Her words twisted something deep inside me, causing the floodgates to open and more tears to come spilling out, but I knew she was right. He was never coming back to me. Not after everything that had happened, and not now that he knew who I really was.