Grin and Beard It (Winston Brothers #2)

by Penny Reid

Jethro saved the dip, taking it from my hands so Claire could squeeze me tight. Our eyes met over her shoulder. He was trying not to laugh. Trying and failing.

  She pulled away, holding me by the shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m being weird. I’m just—I love you so much.”

  My eyes widened at her confession, and she covered her mouth with her hands.

  “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I’m just nervous. Look at me, I’m a terrible hostess. Please, come inside.” She stepped back, stumbling over her own feet. She was clearly flustered, her cheeks burning red. “I promised myself I wasn’t going to be a creeper. And here I am, being a creeper.” This last part she seemed to say to herself.

  And it was the best thing she could have said because now I was completely at ease.

  She was a fan.

  Claire McClure is a fan of Sienna Diaz.

  It never occurred to me that she would be a fan. Honestly, it didn’t. Maybe I’d been spoiled by my time with Jethro and his family. They’d all been so cool about it, almost disinterested. Whereas Claire was not disinterested.

  “I promised myself I wasn’t going to be weird, either.” I smiled at her, and she blinked at me like I was dazzling.

  “You could never be weird,” she said, her voice full of adoration, her eyes dazed and dreamy.

  “All right, all right.” Jethro grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, through a living room to the dining room. “Stop being a wackadoodle, Claire. Pull yourself together. And shut the door. We have dip. What’s for dinner?”

  ***

  Claire wasn’t quite an ethereal goddess of perfection, but she was pretty darn close. And she was an excellent cook. Everything was comfort food but with a twist. Homemade crusty Italian bread, with red pepper-cherry preserves and goat cheese as a delicious variation on bruschetta. Oh yeah, she made the goat cheese herself. From goats. Her neighbor’s Nigerian pygmy goats.

  She also made the preserves. She canned her own jams and jellies.

  For the main course, she’d made macaroni and cheese, but with spinach ziti and an asiago Alfredo lobster sauce. She made her own pasta. The salad was made with romaine lettuce, peppers, chives, and tomatoes from her summer garden. It tasted like fresh heaven.

  Bickering with Jethro, talking about cooking, and my compliments about her food seemed to pull her out of the star-struck trance. Jethro knew just what buttons to push, and I followed his lead, when she stared at me or vocalized (ad nauseam) how much she loved my movies, and how she admired me, and that I smelled really, really good. But by the end of dinner, thanks in large part to Jethro, she’d relaxed.

  We’d both relaxed.

  And I discovered I had a little bit of a crush on Claire McClure.

  “Yes, yes! Buster Keaton was brilliant.” I pointed at Claire, nodding enthusiastically. We were discussing silent film movie greats and, as it turns out, we had the same opinions about everything.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Charlie Chaplin was wonderful in The Gold Rush, I love a good chicken suit gag, but I just don’t think you can compare it to The General. I mean, that train was moving. The whole time. And he’s jumping on and off like it’s a trampoline.”

  “So much yes! He was a physical comedian, but not in the same way as Chaplin. His physical comedy was smarter, wittier. And his timing, there has never been anything like it. And the end, when he tries to kiss Annabelle but has to keep saluting the soldiers . . .”

  We both giggled, remembering the same point in the movie. Claire mimed the salute scene, perfectly mimicking Buster Keaton’s exasperation, launching us into renewed laughter.

  Jethro snagged my attention, slipping his fingers into mine and bringing my knuckles to his lips for a soft kiss. His smiling eyes ensnared mine, heated and cherishing, making me feel warm and cherished. He looked happy.

  He gave my hand another squeeze then stood, quietly picking up our plates and strolling out of the dining room.

  “I’ve always said, a man’s place is in the kitchen.” Claire lifted her voice so he could hear, winking at me.

  He must’ve heard her because he called back, “Shut your mouth, woman, or you’re not getting any pie.”

  “You brought pie?” she hollered, suddenly serious.

  He didn’t respond. She turned her attention to me.

  “He brought pie? I didn’t see pie when y’all walked in.”

  I shrugged, hiding my smile behind a sip of wine. She didn’t see the pie because it had taken her thirty minutes to stop staring at me when we arrived.

  “Thank you so much for having me over.”

  She smiled a brilliant smile, her cheeks blushing pink with pleasure. “The next time we meet I promise I won’t go gaga again. And I am so sorry about that. I see now that you’re a normal person. Just like everyone else.” She nodded, then added with stellar comedic timing, “Except funnier, cleverer, and smelling like gardenias.”

  “Claire—”

  “And with mile-long eyelashes.”

  “Stop—”

  “I can’t stop. Sorry.”

  I grinned at her silliness. “Please don’t apologize.”

  “No. I will. I promised myself I wouldn’t act like a fool. But faced with the reality of you on my front porch, I lost my mind, and I’m sorry. It might take me a while, but I’ll eventually stop putting my foot in my mouth.” She lifted her glass of red wine toward me. “Wine helps. So call me when you’re a half hour away next time, and I’ll drink a glass.”

  We both laughed at this suggestion. She was the picture of charming self-deprecation.

  “You two go for a walk.” Jethro reappeared and began stacking the leftovers.

  “I should help with the dishes.” I stood to gather the glasses, but Jethro snatched the nearest one from my grip.

  “Go on now. I want you to see the gazebo. I thought I might put something similar behind the old house and I want your opinion.”

  I knew what he was doing. Now that Claire wasn’t tongue-tied, he wanted us to spend more time together. He wanted us to be friends. Things had been going swimmingly, but now a stirring of self-consciousness reignited in my stomach. Being Sienna Diaz, movie star, was easy. Tiring, but easy. It was a role, a mask I could slip on at will.

  Being myself wasn’t usually as easy. Jethro had made it easy for me, which was one of the reasons I loved being around him. I glanced from him to Claire. She was watching me with hopeful eyes.

  “I’ll bring the wine,” she offered, grinning at me. “I promise I won’t smell you again, unless you want me to.”

  And again, just like that, my nerves dissipated. “I’ll only go if you promise to smell me.”

  “Deal.” She hit the table as she stood, and then plucked her wine glass and the bottle from the table. “But seriously, you do smell good. What perfume do you wear?”

  I followed her out the French doors that led off the dining room, catching Jethro’s small pleased smile as he turned back to the kitchen.

  “Honestly, I don’t even know. My sister sends it to me. She also buys all of my other products—makeup, moisturizer, shampoo, everything—and I use what she sends.”

  “Do you mind asking her for me? I can’t find anything I like.”

  “Sure. Absolutely.” I made a mental note to have a bottle of whatever it was sent over, because the goat cheese alone deserved a hundred gallons of fancy perfume.

  Claire and I crossed her deck, down the steps to a flagstone path. The gazebo was in the distance, illuminated by floodlights, and covered in blooming fuchsia bougainvillea and white jasmine. The night air smelled heavenly.

  “This is beautiful.” I skimmed my fingertips over the white flowers.

  “Jethro built it a few years ago, and I trained the vines to climb the lattice. This is my favorite time of year to be outside. There’s nothing quite like the smell of jasmine and a starry summer sky. Plus, in a little bit, the lightning bugs will come out and give us a good show.”

  I inspected the craftsmanship of the gaze
bo, noting the small details along the rail: vines and long pedaled flowers etched into the cedar. “Did Jethro do the carving, too?”

  She nodded proudly. “Yes he did. That boy can do just about anything with wood.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at that, how it sounded, but knew she’d meant it innocently. The carvings were beautiful.

  “This must’ve taken forever,” I mumbled to myself. How long had he spent working on this gazebo? Claire’s house was finished and perfect, meanwhile his own home wasn’t even half restored.

  The silence stretched. I felt Claire’s eyes on me, so I lifted mine to hers. She wore a small smile, her blue eyes clever and assessing. I had the distinct impression she could read my thoughts.

  She gathered a deep breath and sat on the swinging bench, her eyes never leaving mine. “I’m really glad I had the opportunity to meet you.”

  Her voice sounded different. Deeper. Wiser. Her giddy silliness now subdued.

  I strolled to the swinging bench and sat next to her. “We should get together again before I leave. I can cook next Sunday if you want. If you don’t mind my tagging along—not all the time, I don’t want to impose—but I’ll still be here for a month or more and—”

  “But I won’t be.”

  “You won’t be?” I frowned at her, not understanding.

  “That’s right. I won’t be here. I was called last month by a friend of mine who works for a community college in Nashville. They’re looking for an adjunct, to teach music theory and drama. She thought I might be a good fit. I interviewed two weeks ago and . . .” she shrugged, her eyes drifting over my shoulder, “I got the position, and I’m going to take it.”

  “Oh.” I blinked at her. My heart sunk. “Jethro didn’t say anything.”

  Claire studied me, the side of her mouth hitching with a soft smile. “Jethro doesn’t know yet.”

  I felt my eyebrows jump. “Jethro doesn’t know?”

  “No.” She shook her head, her soft smile dropping from her lips, but lingering behind her eyes. “I’m so happy for Jet. I’m so happy he found you. His heart was lost. Lonely. And now it’s not. And that’s because of you.”

  Perhaps my time in Hollywood, spent amongst image-obsessed double-talkers, had changed my expectations of conversation, but the emotion, sentiment, and sincerity behind Claire’s words caught me completely off guard. I opened my mouth to respond but found myself at a loss.

  She reached forward and covered my hand with hers. “I hope I’m not putting too much pressure on you or making too many assumptions.”

  “No! No, not at all. Where Jethro is concerned, please put all the pressure on me. Pile it on.”

  She chuckled. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. He deserves to be happy, and so do you.”

  We shared a smile then swung in silence, turning our attention to the stars in the sky. I used the time to organize my thoughts regarding Claire while endeavoring to stealthily scrutinize her. This woman in Jethro’s life was on the precipice of leaving it. I suspected that as much as she’d been a constant for him, he’d been a constant for her.

  So why was she leaving town? Why now?

  Before I realized I was speaking, I thought and asked at the same time, “Claire, when did you decide to take this new job?”

  Her bright eyes cut to mine, seeming to glow like sapphires with their own internal brilliance. “I guess I made up my mind on Tuesday.”

  “When will you tell him?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet. Probably not ’til my bags are packed, and I’m on the other side of the state. I don’t really like goodbyes, so he’ll understand. I’m not leaving the country, just the county. I’ll come back to visit.”

  I inspected her open features, deciding that if she could be assertively candid, then I could, too. “I hope this is a silly question, but you’re not leaving because of me, are you?”

  “No,” she responded too quickly, sighed, then amended, “not really. Not in the way you think. There’s no reason for me to stay here. There hasn’t been a reason for a long time.” Her gaze moved to her fingers and she fiddled with the Band-Aid wrapped around her thumb. “Has Jethro told you about my, uh, husband? About Ben?”

  “Yes. He told me what a wonderful man he was.”

  “He was wonderful.” Her smile was sad, and she lifted her eyes to the sky. “When we first got the news about Ben, I told myself I was staying to help his parents and to help Jethro. I wanted to be there—here—in case they needed me. But it’s been five years. Five years of hiding away, in this pretty house, with its pretty garden, watching the world go by.” Her gaze dropped to mine and she added in a cheerful tone, “Even the McClures are trying to get me moving. In fact, Carter McClure—Ben’s daddy—was the one to put my name on the short list for this position.”

  We shared a smile. Silence stretched. Seconds turned to minutes. Claire’s eyes turned unfocused and introspective, and she frowned.

  “I ran into somebody on Tuesday. Someone I used to know.”

  I wanted to ask her who it was, but her voice was distracted, as though she spoke without consciously meaning to do so. I waited for her to continue.

  “We had ugly words.” She shook her head, clearly trying to dispel the memory. “I left him and I felt . . . lost and upset. And then Jethro called, sounding so happy, asking if he could bring you to dinner. Both things happening on the same day felt like a sign. I always told myself I would leave when Jethro was settled, when the McClures were in a good place.”

  “How do you think Jethro will take the news?” I honestly wanted to know, because I worried for my guy.

  “Jet? Oh, he’ll be fine. No doubt. He just wants me to be happy.” She wrinkled her nose at my concern, like I was silly. “I think you two should move into the house after I leave, if I may be so bold. You’ll have no privacy at the Winston place with those boys, and Jethro has done so many upgrades here, this place feels more like his than mine.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the pretty house and spotted Jethro, just stepping out of the French doors.

  “When an opportunity presents itself, and you have a choice of either living life—risky as it might be—or continuing to do what’s expected . . .” Claire paused, waiting for me to meet her gaze, a knowing smile curving her lips.

  She was quoting me, one of my favorite lines from my first film, Taco Tuesday.

  I returned her grin and finished the quote, “You have to grab that regal centaur by the mane and ride it over the rainbow of opportunity.”

  We finished together, “Or else it might mistake you for a unicorn and try to impregnate you.”

  “I love that movie.” She grinned, shaking her head. “I always thought, like a wackadoodle, that you and I would be best friends one day.”

  “Ah, I see. You’ve set this whole thing in motion—between Jethro and me—just so we could meet and be best friends.”

  She shrugged, then giggled. “You make me sound like Cletus.”

  That made us both laugh again. I watched her, feeling humbled and oddly light, because this woman loved my films and wanted to be my friend. And Claire McClure was clearly one of those rare souls who was more concerned with the beauty of her heart than she was with the beauty of her face. I decided I loved her. It was friend-love-at-first-sight. I would be sad to see her move away.

  I also decided, if things didn’t work out with Jethro, I would ask her to marry me and request she make goat cheese bruschetta every Sunday.

  CHAPTER 26

  “In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”

  ― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

  ~Sienna~

  Ten days after the doughnut dalliance, and four days after dinner with Claire, I called my mother.

  I called her after a date with Jethro.

  Technically it had been our fourth date, if you counted the disaster at The Front Porch over a month ago as our first date, and my introduction to Daisy�
��s doughnuts as our second date. Our third date had been a middle-of-the-night movie date in Knoxville.

  Tonight, our fourth date, had consisted of a dinner picnic and dancing on the prairie. Afterward, he’d dropped me off at the cabin, giving me a toe-curling, spine-tingling kiss. He left me, alone to my bed and wishful thoughts for the remainder of the night.

  I didn’t count dinner with his family or Claire as a date. I’d given the matter a lot of thought, defining what was a date and what wasn’t. Because, by now, I figured we should be ending the night at the very least necking and making out in his truck.

  But that wasn’t happening.

  So I called my mother.

  “Sienna, mija, you’re calling. What happened? Are you okay?” She sounded concerned. We had a scheduled call every Sunday night when I was filming because my work schedule and her work schedule were so crazy. In between films, I would fly home and spend a few days with her and Dad. We frequently texted during the week, sharing funny thoughts or I love yous or I’m going to strangle your father, but Sunday was our day to talk. We’d missed our last two Sunday calls, which happened from time to time, so I hadn’t told her about Jethro yet.

  Today was Thursday, and it was past midnight for me. So I understood her concern.

  “Nothing has happened, nothing bad anyway. I just—I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Oh.” I heard her release a relieved breath. “I’ll never turn down a call from my lovely daughter. How are you?”

  “I’m good, I’m good,” I said, nodding even though she couldn’t see me. “Actually, Mamita, I’m good, but I need your advice.”

  “Vicks.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever it is, use Vicks.”

  “Ha ha.” I rolled my eyes. Usually when I called unexpectedly it was because I had a cold or some other mysterious ailment and needed my mother’s soothing presence and her medical expertise. “I don’t think Vicks is going to work this time.”

  "Oh, well then sex.”

  I coughed, choking on nothing. “What?”

  “Sex, mija. You sound on edge. You need a release.”

  This was a new approach, much blunter than usual. Typically she’d say, “You need a man, let me set you up. I know a nice boy.”