Bennett (Bourbon & Blood #1)

by Seraphina Donavan

  Mia grasped the door knob and twisted it. “I’m not leaving because you made me. I’m leaving because I can’t bear the sight and stench of you any longer. This,” she said, “is my choice.”

  With that parting shot, she stepped outside into the cold, frigid air. Panic hit her, twisting her stomach into knots as she worried about who would take care of her mother. Clayton. She needed to call him, but her phone, her purse, her clothes, everything was inside the house. She was standing on the front porch in her bare feet with nowhere to go.

  Go to him. That little voice whispering inside her mind was more temptation than she could resist. Go to him. The phrase came again to her mind—louder, stronger and with a clarity that left no room for indecision. Broken down by everything that had transpired, she needed him, if he’d have her.

  That thought brought a fresh wave of panic for an altogether different reason. As Mia stepped off the porch, the first raindrop fell, splashing on the bare skin of her arm. She didn’t fight it or bemoan the fact that one more thing had gone wrong in her miserable life. Instead she embraced it. She’d let the rain wash her clean and rid of her all the poison in Samuel’s lies and machinations. He’d made her his puppet and for years, she’d done exactly what he wanted. It was time, she thought, to do what she wanted and to do it out in the open. No more secrets. No more hiding.

  Her steps quickened and she ignored the cold as she walked down the driveway toward the road that would lead her to Bennett Hayes.

  *~*~*

  Bennett sat on his couch, feet propped on the coffee table and a beer in hand. The UK game was on and he was doing his damnedest to be interested in it. The truth was, he was having a hard time being interested in anything. Things with Mia had ended on a note that he didn’t much like.

  It wasn’t just that it was over. He’d been an ass. He knew it and he didn’t like it. But there would be no chance to apologize, no chance to make things right. He’d laid down an ultimatum knowing full well that she wasn’t ready to make those kinds of decisions. He’d pushed and she’d pushed back and now it was done.

  He lifted the bottle to his lips again only to discover it was empty. “Fuck,” he said as he rose to his feet to retrieve another beer.

  “Bennett!”

  At the sound of Carter calling to him from the porch, Bennett cursed again. “What the hell do you want?”

  Carter had come over to watch the game, but he’d been acting weird as hell and had gone outside more than ten minutes ago with his cell phone. The whole thing was bizarre.

  “Bennett, get your ass out here! Now!”

  Bennett rubbed the back of his neck and tried to erase the tension that had gathered there, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Reluctantly, he crossed the living room and stepped out onto the porch where Carter stood staring out into the rain. “What the fuck is it?”

  “You’ve got company,” Carter said simply and pointed.

  Bennett looked in the direction Carter indicated. She was walking along the road, wearing the same shirt and jeans she’d had on the night before. They were soaked through. Her hair was plastered to her skin and even from a distance he could tell that her skin was all but blue with the cold. What the hell was Mia doing?

  She turned at the end of his driveway and walked slowly toward them. At first he thought she was shaking from the cold, but he realized as she got closer that she was crying.

  Bennett stepped out into the rain and approached her. “Are you crazy? It’s freezing out here! Where is your coat?”

  “It’s at the house. Samuel wouldn’t let me take it,” she said between hiccupping sobs.

  His jaw clenched. “What do you mean he wouldn’t let you?” Over Mia’s shoulder, he saw his aunt’s door open. His mother, Carter’s mother and father and a few cousins had all come outside to see what the hell was going on. Of course. Of fucking course.

  She looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears and rain. If the swelling around her eyes was any indication, she’d been crying for a while. .

  “You wanted to know why I didn’t come to meet you that night… Why I didn’t run away and marry you when I was eighteen,” she said.

  He looked up at the audience across the way, they were clearly not going anywhere. “We don’t have to do this now. Not out here in the cold.”

  She glanced at the people gathered on the porch. “No. People want to know. You wanted to know. It’s time it all came out,” she said with a sniff. “The day I was supposed to meet you, Samuel told me that my mother’s accident was my fault. That on the night she crashed her car, she’d been out looking for me while I was sneaking around with you.”

  It felt like a punch to the gut. “Mia—.”

  She held up a hand to stop him from speaking. “I need to finish this, Bennett. Please. If you stop me, I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to start it again!”

  He didn’t like it, but he nodded.

  A sound escaped her that was half sob and half laugh. “It was a lie. Why it shocks me that he lied about that when he’s been lying about everything else for years is something I just don’t understand.”

  Carter had vanished into the house long enough to return with a blanket which he handed to Bennett. Bennett draped it over Mia’s shoulders, but he wasn’t even sure she’d noticed. Her gaze was distant, focused on the events of her past.

  “She didn’t leave to look for me,” Mia said softly. “She left because she found out he was cheating. I know she knew before that. Everyone knew. But this one was different. It was someone she knew, someone she’d trusted. So she left the house, crying, screaming and upset and… all this time, he let me think—no—he made me think it was my fault. That because of what I had done, I was responsible for taking care of her.” She paused there for a moment, drawing in a deep shuddering breath. “So I did. I stayed. And I never told anyone because I felt so guilty, so ashamed of what I’d caused!”

  It was diabolical and cruel. And it was typical Samuel Darcy. “I’m sorry, Mia. I’m so sorry for that.”

  “I found the letter today. The one that Mama’s friend wrote to her confessing everything. Elizabeth Masters, nee Shelby… the caregiver was sent there by her whore of a mother to find it.”

  He closed his eyes. “The woman who almost killed you was in your house?”

  “Yes… I don’t blame her. I don’t like her much, but I get it. She said the same thing to me last night. The one thing we had in common was a toxic fucking parent.”

  She looked up at him then and her gaze was focused and sharp. “I told him that I was done. That I was leaving… I didn’t know where I would go. I thought Clayton and then maybe, if I was brave enough I’d try to talk to you. But then he got so mad because I wasn’t bending to his will that he threw me out. I don’t even have my driver’s license. Or shoes.”

  Bennett glanced down at her bare feet. They were shredded and bloody from her walk. “Come inside, Mia.”

  “It was never because I didn’t love you,” she went on. The words just tumbled out of her. “I loved you more than anything, but he said that if I left, he’d put her in a home and that I’d never see her again. She would have died in one of those places, Bennett. I thought she was in that state because of my selfishness and if I left with you like I wanted, it would be even worse. She didn’t deserve that… to be locked away and forgotten just because he couldn’t be bothered to care for her, because I was selfish enough to put what I wanted ahead of her. There’s no one to protect her, no one to make sure that she’s taken care of if I don’t do it!”

  “No,” he said. “She didn’t deserve it. But neither did you.” He didn’t ask her to come inside again, but swept her up into his arms and carried her up the steps and into the house. Carter had already vanished, making himself scarce in the wake of big emotional scenes was right on target for him.

  Bennett carried her to the bathroom and set her down on the edge of the tub just long enough to turn on the taps and let the water warm. “Th
ese grand entrances are making me an old man, Mia.”

  She chuckled, the sound watery and weak, but it was what he wanted to hear from her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “For being dramatic?”

  “For everything,” Mia answered.

  Bennett knelt in front of her. “If it had been me… if I’d been sinking under the weight you’ve carried this long— I don’t think I could have done it. But, Mia, I would have helped you.”

  “And then it would have been your guilt too… Do you honestly think that either of our eighteen year old selves could have lived with it and not turned on one another?” she demanded.

  No. He didn’t. There was nothing else to say to that. “Get those clothes off and get in the tub. You’re half frozen. Savannah’s got some clothes stashed around here somewhere. I’ll find you something.”

  “I’ll go to Clayton’s once I can call him… I’m not here to put you on the spot. After last night—.”

  “You’re not going anywhere tonight. You’re going to take a bath, get warmed up, we’ll take care of your feet, and then you’re going to sleep. For as long as you need.”

  “I have to talk to Clayton… He’s got to get Samuel out of that house and make sure that someone is there to take care of—.”

  “Mia! For fuck’s sake! Get in the damn tub and for once, trust me to take care of it… take care of you.”

  She wilted in front of him. There was no other way to describe it. “I know you will,” she finally said.

  “Do not apologize or I will lose my shit,” he said. “Bath. Now.”

  She nodded and he walked out of the room. He grabbed his phone off the table and called the only person he could think of. Matt answered after the second ring.

  “Crawford.”

  “I need a cell number for Clayton Darcy.”

  “Am I a fucking search engine?”

  Bennett closed his eyes. “Matt, this is not the time. It’s about twenty kinds of crazy here right now and I need to talk to that asshole.”

  Matt sighed. “Fine.”

  Bennett listened to the sound of tapping keys. At any other time, he’d be giving Matt shit about making someone a great secretary, but at the moment his heart just wasn’t in it.

  Matt rattled off the number, and then added. “By the way, there’s a pretty blonde in the waiting area outside of my office insisting that she talk to no one but me. She looks a hell of a lot like the chick from that picture.”

  “That’s her sister, Elizabeth Masters. Maiden name was Shelby,” Bennett supplied.

  “Katherine Shelby. I’ll be damned,” Matt muttered. “She’s the baby sister.”

  “She’s a goddamn psycho who tried to kill Mia and then wormed her way into the house as a caregiver for Patricia.”

  “Right… so why’s she here?”

  Bennett sighed. “Right now, I can’t tell you anything about the workings of a woman’s mind. You want to know, ask her. She’s apparently been in the mood to confess to a lot of things.”

  “Okay, then,” Matt said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Thanks,” Bennett said and ended the call. Elizabeth was the last of his concerns at the moment.

  He dialed the number Matt had given him. When a male voice clicked on the other end, he said, “Clayton?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bennett Hayes. Mia is at my house and will be for at least the next twenty-four hours. Your father is with Patricia so you probably want to get somebody on that.”

  Clayton was quiet for a second. “Is Mia hurt?”

  “Physically? No. I don’t think so. But that son of a bitch is going to hell for the emotional shit he’s put her through.”

  “That’s an understatement…I know what he is, Hayes. I’ve known for a long time. I’m working on that, but taking down someone who is a professional liar like Samuel isn’t easy.”

  Bennett said nothing for a moment, just let that simmer. “What do you need?”

  “Something damaging enough to kill his social status. If he thinks he’s losing that, he’ll come to heel quick enough.”

  Bennett sighed. Mia wasn’t the only one who’d been keeping a secret. “I need you to meet me at my brother’s farm in an hour.”

  “Will I be leaving it alive?”

  Bennett wasn’t really sure how to answer that. Emmitt stayed to himself, practically a hermit. He liked it that way. And he hated the Darcys. All of them. “Alive, yes. Unscathed? Don’t get out of your car unless I’m there.”

  “Fine,” Clayton agreed.

  Bennett ended that call as well. Standing in the middle of the living room, his phone in hand and his mind whirling with everything that had happened, he took a deep breath. After a couple of minutes, his brain still fogged and enough fury rolling inside him to kill Samuel Darcy with his bare hands, he went to the guest room and gathered up a t-shirt and pair of yoga pants that Savannah had left behind before heading to the too-quiet bathroom.

  “Mia?” he called out. She didn’t answer.

  Bennett opened the door and found her sitting in the tub of water, half asleep. “Come on. Let’s get you out of there.”

  “I’m not a child,” she said, smacking at his hands.

  “I’m looking at your naked body… no, you’re damn well not. But you are asleep on your feet, or your ass at the moment anyway. So stop fighting me and let me help you.”

  “I don’t think I know how,” she answered honestly.

  “Figure it out. I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon,” he shot back as he hauled her to her feet. Wrapping a towel around her he walked her to the bedroom, his bedroom and ushered her inside.

  “Just get under the covers. You can put these on later,” he said. She was too tired even to dress herself. He could see her muscles trembling just from the effort of keeping herself upright. For once, she didn’t argue. She climbed beneath the dark blue comforter and settled her head onto his pillow. He was pretty sure she was asleep before her body was even horizontal.

  Heading back to the living room, he found Carter stealing his bag of chips and what was left of his beer. “You dickhead.”

  “Hey,” Carter said, “I’m just getting out of your way.”

  “Don’t. I need you to stay here with Mia while I take care of something,” Bennett said.

  “No. Oh, hell no. I do not deal with crying women.”

  “You made that pretty clear by running like a whipped dog at the sight of her!”

  “I got her a blanket!” Carter protested. “That was sensitive.”

  Bennett closed his eyes and wondered, not for the first time, how many times Carter had hit his head on shit as a child. Since the things he’d hit the most had probably been Bennett’s own fists, there wasn’t much point in asking. “That was first aid, you dumb fuck!”

  “How long?” Carter asked

  “I don’t know. An hour. Maybe two. She’s going to sleep like the dead… she’ll never even know I left.”

  “Fine. But you owe me.”

  “You’ve been paid in chips and beer,” Bennett called back as he grabbed his keys and headed out. He had to beat Clayton Darcy to the farm or Emmitt might just put a bullet in him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Hayes family farm was on the outskirts of town, on the opposite end of Fontaine from the Fire Creek Distillery. Parking his car on the shoulder of the road just beyond the gate, Clayton was pretty sure that wasn’t a coincidence.

  Getting out of his car, he leaned against the door and waited for the approaching headlights to navigate all the hair pin turns of the tree lined gravel road.

  It was Bennett’s truck and as it pulled up, Clayton rose to his full height and waited for whatever was coming his way.

  Bennett stopped his truck, climbed down and punched in the code to the gate. The chain link rolled away. “Go ahead,” he said, “But don’t even think about walking up to that door without me. Emmitt’s not a big fan of people with yo
ur last name.”

  “I know the feeling,” Clayton muttered, but as he climbed back into his car, there was no question that he would follow Bennett’s advice. Emmitt Hayes was roughly the size of a mountain and looked like he lived on raw, potentially protesting, meat.

  Once they were parked in front of the house, Bennett got out and climbed the steps, motioning for Clayton to stay where he was for the moment. He did, but he rolled down the window to hear every word.

  After a second knock, lights came on in the house and Emmitt appeared at the door. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “What the hell were you doing in bed?” Bennett shot back.

  “I worked last night,” Emmitt replied. “Country vets don’t keep city hours, jackass.”

  “Do you have the file on Darcy?” Bennett asked.

  Emmitt looked past him at the car and, Clayton could tell by his look, that he recognized him immediately.

  “What the fuck are you up to, Bennett?”

  Bennett motioned for Clayton and reluctantly, he got out of his car and walked toward the porch. He remained at the foot of the steps, prepared to make a run for it if need be.

  “We all have one thing in common,” Bennett said. “Samuel Darcy has ruined the life of every person standing here.”

  Emmitt looked at him, and Clayton could feel the weight of his judgement. Standing there in his rumpled dress shirt, with his suit jacket still draped over the front seat, he was about as far apart from Emmitt Hayes and his dirty coveralls as another person could be.

  “I doubt that,” Emmitt said. “I’m not inviting a third generation thief into my goddamn house, Bennett, and I’m sure as hell not giving him what we found.”

  Bennett cursed. “Emmitt, just listen for a damned minute, would you?”

  “One minute,” Emmitt agreed. “Make it count.”

  Bennett looked back at him and Clayton knew that if he didn’t lay it all out, it would just be a waste of time. “Samuel ran Fire Creek into the ground. He borrowed against the company until it was so deep in the hole there was no getting it out. For years, he’s been using it as his own private checking account… taking out money and never investing it back. We were on the brink of foreclosure when the three of us, Quentin, Mia and I, took all that we had, pooled it, and bought sixty percent of the company outright. Right now, I’m looking for anything I can use to make Samuel sign over the remaining forty and the house.”