Grin and Beard It (Winston Brothers #2)

by Penny Reid

  “You need to focus your attention back to your woman, how you’re going to make this right.”

  “Maybe we should just date in secret,” I said, but the same visceral rejection as before drummed outward from my chest to my fingertips, making my skin and lungs burn.

  “Don’t do that,” Billy said, shaking his head emphatically. “Do it in public, or don’t do it at all. Don’t hide what you have. The lies will destroy you and her. It’ll turn what’s beautiful between you ugly.”

  I glared at Billy, surprised by his words, and hating how wise and true they were. But I was desperate and grasping at straws. We stood in the relative silence of the forest. I heard nothing, saw nothing, because I felt nothing but hopelessness.

  Billy was the first to move, to break the stillness of the moment. He removed his dress shirt, tossing it over the branch of a nearby tree. His eyes skated over my dirty, sweaty clothes. Then he removed his undershirt.

  Crossing to the axe, he picked it up and offered it to me.

  “Here,” he said. “Take it.”

  I glanced at the axe handle then at my brother. “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged, but I saw a glimmer of something like sympathy buried deep in his eyes. “We’ll take turns. And when the tree comes down, I’ll help you drag it to the pit, cut it into sections.”

  I swallowed. My eyes stung and my lungs labored as though I were surrounded on all sides by smoke. I was suffocating.

  My voice was rough, gravelly as I asked, “Why?”

  “Because you’re my brother,” he said, as though it were obvious. “And you need my help.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “I am free, and that is why I am lost.”

  ― Franz Kafka

  ~Sienna~

  My heart wasn’t working correctly.

  First of all, it hurt. Especially when I breathed. Or sat. Or stood. Or walked.

  And also, it was thumping oddly, skipping beats, pumping blood either too fast or too slow.

  It was broken.

  “Sienna?” Dave called, knocking on my bedroom door.

  My room, the master suite, was on the third floor and the guys were staying on the main level. The entire second floor was taken up with a viewing room/entertainment area/bar combination that looked over the lake. Most of the ceiling in my room was comprised of a massive skylight. The night sky and stars were my nightly view and the windows tinted automatically during the day to shield the space from the sun.

  I ignored Dave and continued to stare at the sky. I’d been doing this since Jethro dropped me off.

  That’s not true. At first, just after he left, I’d spent several minutes calling him all kinds of names, in both English and Mexican Spanish. I’d slammed some doors. I’d brushed my teeth with vigor. And I’d started on the Smash-Girl script, deciding she would initially grow red and angry because all men were fools.

  I was frustrated. My laptop screen eventually blurred because of my tears. So I had lain on my bed and stared at the sky. My heart wasn’t working properly. It was broken.

  “Sienna?” Dave called again.

  I shook my head, but that hurt my heart, so I stopped. A moment passed, and then I heard Dave’s retreating footsteps. Some more time passed. I honestly didn’t know how long. The sun was hidden by clouds and the skylight had tinted automatically.

  I blamed my broken heart. Had it been working I might have been more capable of keeping track of time.

  And then my door opened.

  I turned my head—which hurt my heart. Cletus. He stood just inside my room, his expression inscrutable as he watched me.

  “Cletus,” I said, not recognizing my own voice.

  “Ms. Diaz.” He nodded once.

  “My heart is broken,” I said.

  He nodded again like he already knew, but now his eyes shone with sympathy. He crossed to the bed and sat next to me, grabbing for and holding my hand. “Yes. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Please tell me you’re going to fix it.” My vision blurred because I was crying again.

  The side of his mouth hitched though he looked troubled. “I’m going to try.”

  ***

  Cletus made me take a shower. I cried a lot in the shower.

  And then he made me a cup of tea and gave me a Tylenol. He ushered me to the back porch so we could look over the lake.

  “A nice view always helps,” he said, adding sugar to my tea.

  “I don’t take it with sugar.”

  He pressed the cup into my hands. “Sweet tea always helps.”

  I huffed a laugh and drank the sweet tea. It kind of helped.

  “Now tell me what happened,” he instructed, using a grandfatherly voice. I lifted an eyebrow at him because I was fairly certain we were approximately the same age. And yet something about his somber expression and the brightness of his eyes made him appear so much older.

  “Have you talked to . . . to him?” I asked, sipping my tea, the syrupy concoction coating my tongue with sweetness.

  “Yes.”

  I gathered a bracing breath. “What did he say?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. First, I want to hear what happened from your perspective.”

  So I told him. I told Cletus everything.

  I started at the beginning, recounting how we’d met, how I liked Jethro so much from the start, and ended with how angry I’d been last night.

  “Why won’t he even consider dating me in secret? It’s not uncommon in Hollywood. People do it all the time.”

  “Sienna, pause a minute. You’ve just used a double negative; obviously you’re distressed. Think about what you’re proposing. You’re asking Jethro to deny the two of you are together. You’re asking him to lie about it, like it’s wrong and needs to be hidden.”

  “But it wouldn’t be like that.”

  “’Course it would. And you’d never be able to visit him here, not in Green Valley. This is a small town. There are no secrets here. People have already seen you two out and about. Right now they might be pacified thinking you’re just friendly. But he’s already been cornered more than once. Saying nothing adds fuel to the fire. It’s not a matter of keeping a secret, it’s a matter of lying all the time. To everyone.”

  I couldn’t hold his earnest gaze, so I glanced at my tea. It looked like perfectly normal tea. But it wasn’t normal. It was sweet tea because Cletus had made it sweet.

  “Jethro told me some of what he’s done, about his past.”

  I heard Cletus shift in his chair, the sturdy weight of him causing the wood to creak. “Yeah. What about it?”

  “Maybe if I knew more, I could mitigate some of the fallout.”

  “Ask him.”

  “I did.” I met Cletus’s gaze directly. “He hasn’t told me a lot about his penchant for stealing, his time in the Iron Wraiths, or much about your father. But enough that I can piece a few things together. I understand his shame. He also said he used to string girls along. He also said he used to use women, the women at the motorcycle club, treat them like they were disposable.”

  Cletus scratched his jaw, his eyes losing focus as his thoughts turned introspective. “See now, that’s where things get messy. He might have guilt about that because our momma raised us better. But those women hang around that club for one reason only, and that’s to get laid by a member of the Iron Wraiths. He used them, and they used him. As long as both parties participated as consenting adults, rationally I can’t find any fault with his actions. Irrationally, though, I think both participating parties are gross.”

  “You think men who have sex with lots of women are ‘gross’?” I’d never heard a full-grown man describe promiscuity as gross.

  “Yes, I do.” He nodded firmly. “All that swapping of bodily fluids? Disgusting. Indiscriminate sex is like indiscriminate pie eating. I might enjoy the pie, but then I find out it was baked in a dirty kitchen, drooled and sneezed on by nut jobs, baked by a nut job who wants me to eat her dirty pie eve
ry day. Next thing you know I have a stalker, dysentery, and herpes just from one ignorant bite of pie. I keep my kitchen clean and discriminate and so should my partner. Plus, I don’t want someone telling me Pop-Tarts are pie. Pop-Tarts aren’t pie. I can tell the difference. I don’t want a half-assed baker.”

  Despite the situation, I couldn’t help my small smile. “So you’re looking for a virgin kitchen, Cletus?”

  “No, no, no. I didn’t say that. Ideally, I’d like a chef who keeps a clean kitchen but knows a thing or two about baking, or at least makes a solid effort. If she doesn’t know how to bake or isn’t good at cooking, I guess I could teach her. But . . .” he shrugged, “I like the idea of being with someone where we can both teach each other to cook new—quality—recipes.”

  “In non-analogy terms, please.”

  “Fine. I’m after a woman who likes sex but doesn’t put the lust part above the intelligence part. She could have a hundred partners for all I care, just as long as they’ve been vetted for psychopathic tendencies. I have four rules. Number one: don’t invite a person into your body if you wouldn’t invite her into your kitchen. Number two: the act needs to take place in a clean environment. Number three: precautions need to be taken to protect from disease and pregnancy. And Number four: don’t ration the passion, i.e. put your best fuck forward.”

  I had to press my lips together. Even in my current state of despair, put your best fuck forward was hilarious. “I might have to steal that, Cletus.”

  “Go right ahead. I ain’t using it for anything profitable.”

  Wanting to get back to Jethro’s guilt, I asked, “So these women at the motorcycle club? They didn’t take precautions?”

  “It’s not just the women, that’s what I’m saying. Neither party thinks about any of the above. Not the women or the men, no one has a clean kitchen, everyone is serving Pop-Tarts and calling it pie, and the kitchen is full of sociopaths going around being violent fools. It’s gonorrhea city up at that place. And that’s why I think it’s gross.”

  “And Jethro?”

  “Well, he didn’t think about it until he did think about it. And when he thought about it, he stopped. And then he called the health inspector. And now he’s kept his kitchen spotless by not baking anything for anyone, just for himself.”

  “This is the basis for all his guilt? That he made thoughtless, horny decisions as a youth?”

  “He told you about stealing cars?”

  “Yes. But he was never convicted, right?”

  “That’s right, but he did it regardless. Never paid for it either. I think that bothers him, the stealing and not being punished for it. He was going to turn himself in, but my momma asked him not to. She asked him to go to school instead, be a man we would all look up to. She said, and I agreed, he could make up for his thieving by doing right by his family. He wouldn’t have done a lick of good locked up.”

  “He still feels undeserving though. He still feels like he should be punished.”

  “I think so. Never mind all the shit he put up with when he was thieving, from our father and the club. If you ask me, he’s already paid his debt. But, uh,” Cletus hesitated, scratching his jaw, “there was this one time our father tried to do something untoward concerning Ashley.”

  I nodded, noting softly, “Jethro told me about that.”

  “Then I assume he told you about Roxy and Kim?”

  I tensed. “No. Who are they? Are they club women?”

  “Yes and no. Yes, they became club women, but Jethro introduced them to the lifestyle. And now they’re both hooked on drugs and live at the club, getting passed around by those sociopaths. He blames himself.”

  “Ah . . . I see.” And I did see. And that was a big deal.

  “Kim thought Jethro was her old man, and he likely lied to lead her on. And Roxy, who he also led on, was half in love with him when he took her to the club the first time.”

  “What has he done about it? I mean, has he tried to help?”

  “Yes. But neither of those ladies are interested in his help.”

  I was almost too afraid to ask. “What happened to them?”

  “Well now, Roxy is still there. But we haven’t seen Kim in ages. Jethro was going to offer marriage to one of them a few years back, Roxy I think, just to get her out of the club. But Drew counseled him against it, meaning he talked sense into Jet. And these women aren’t the only ones he brought into the Iron Wraiths, but they’re the only ones that stayed. Suzie Samuels for instance. Once she figured out Jethro was stringing her along, she set fire to his motorcycle. She hates his guts and spews obscenities at him every time their paths cross. That’s the way most of them went—the Tanner twins, Suzie Samuels, Gretchen LaRoe to name a few. He’s got a pack of females in these parts who hate his guts and would happily speak to your news people about how terrible a person he is.”

  “Oh my goodness. Why doesn’t he leave?”

  “I suppose he feels he deserves it, after how he mistreated them and all he’s done.”

  Hearing names paired with Jethro’s misdeeds made his past feel more real. The names gave weight to his guilt as well as his concern about hurting my image.

  Even so, he wasn’t the same person. He’d proved that. Five years of living a different life, making good decisions, and being honorable was proof enough for me.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “Tell me what to do, Cletus.”

  “It’s simple. Tell the world you’re together and deal with the consequences. End of story.”

  I frowned at my tea. “And take away Jethro’s privacy? Throw him to the wolves? Give these women a stage for their scorn?”

  “Yes. If that’s the price of being with you, I know he’ll gladly pay it. You’re acting like Jethro is some delicate flower. That man feels remorse for his wrongs, but he’s not hiding from his sins. He’s more concerned about what this’ll do to your image.”

  “I don’t care about that. I honestly don’t. If I had to choose between being an actress and Jethro, I’d chose him each time.”

  “You don’t care about being an actress? A celebrity?”

  “No. I mean, I like that the work I’ve done, the work I’m doing, might pave the way for others like me. Women in film who don’t all look one particular way. If I’ve given hope to one little girl who thinks she has weight issues or brown skin or an odd sense of humor that—yes, you can be successful and no, there is nothing wrong with being different. Being different should be an asset. I like that I might have contributed to changing the perception that women aren’t funny. I like acting, performing. Worst-case scenario—and keeping it real here—having Jethro in my life might knock me off this ridiculous pedestal, but it’s not going to get me blacklisted. I can still perform. It might not be in A-list, big-budget movies. I might not be America’s sweetheart, but screw that. Please believe me when I tell you being with him, sharing my life with him, means more to me than being any level of celebrity.”

  Cletus set his tea on the table between us with a thunk. “He doesn’t care about his privacy. You don’t care about your image. So why not just trust each other and move on?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s as simple as dry toast.”

  “You’re encouraging me to knowingly hurt him.”

  Cletus grunted impatiently and threw his hands up. “We’re talking in circles. Here’s reality: People get hurt and they move on or they don’t. You can’t have it both ways. You either get to be famous, and deal with the hassle that comes with it, or you leave it all behind. Own your shit, Sienna. And let Jethro own his. And then get married and own that shit together.”

  Cletus stood, clearly frustrated, and stomped away from me to the back door. He disappeared into the house only to appear three seconds later to add, “And while you’re at it, beget me some nieces and nephews.”

  ***

  Own your shit. And let Jethro own his.

  2:25 a.m.

  I
was exhausted.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  Cletus’s words from earlier in the day were bouncing around, commandeering my thoughts. He was right. He was very, very right. My job meant that privacy was a luxury, but so what? Either I was going to live my life alone, avoid relationships, give in to the fear of hurting the people I cared about, or I was going to own my shit.

  So . . . where did that leave Jethro and me? I wasn’t going to jump unless he was with me. I couldn’t make this decision for both of us.

  I glanced at the photo of us on my phone, the one I’d taken of us kissing. Just then, I received a text and my heart jumped to my throat.

  Jethro: Are you up?

  I quickly messaged back,

  Sienna: Yes.

  Jethro: I have something to ask you, a new proposal.

  Sienna: Ask me.

  Jethro: I’m coming over.

  Sienna: Okay.

  Sienna: I miss you.

  Jethro: I miss you so much. Sorry I left. I’ll be right there.

  Sienna: I don’t care about my image. I wish you would believe me. If I lose film roles, so what? I love my work but I’ll love it just as much working on smaller films.

  I checked my phone obsessively for five minutes. When he didn’t respond, I sent him another message.

  Sienna: What would you do if I sent this picture of us kissing to every celebrity blogger and reporter I know?

  Jethro: Don’t.

  I quickly typed a new message.

  Sienna: I’m going to do it.

  Sienna: And I’m going to send them your full name and social security number.

  Sienna: And a picture of me giving the double middle finger salute.

  Sienna: Naked.

  Jethro: Hold your horses, woman, I’m on my way.

  I leapt from my bed and darted out my bedroom door. Running down the steps, I had to temper my footfalls when I reached the second landing. I didn’t want to wake Dave and Tim.

  Henry was on duty, and I spotted him as soon as I cleared the last stair. He was sitting in front of the TV, watching a baseball game and looked over his shoulder as I appeared.