by Penny Reid
It was, he was, I was, life was perfection. For those endless moments, perfection. My body felt so beautiful and powerful. Everything in balance. Pleasure and pain, longing and satisfaction, hope and fear. Like before, in the bakery kitchen, it just went on and on. Every time I thought my orgasm was at an end, a new peak built, and I was lifted again into the stratosphere.
In the end, my heart beating manically in my chest, I could barely breathe, and—to my surprise—I was crying.
He turned me from the bed, gripping my shoulders. “Honey . . . Jenn are you—”
I sniffled, seeking to bury my face against his chest and hold him tight. I needed the weight of his body on me now, his solid frame, the spicy, warm scent of him.
But he held himself away, his eyes wide as they darted over my face. “Did I—Oh God, Jenn. Did I hurt you?” His voice broke and he sounded horrified.
“No,” I said between sobs, still crying, reaching for him again.
He evaded me, and I could feel more than see his terror in how his body grew stiff and he sought to distance himself, give me space I didn’t want.
“No! Cletus, no! You are so—l—everything is so—I needed—and you—and I—”
I couldn’t complete a thought in my brain let alone speak a full sentence, so I kissed him instead, pushing him onto his back and climbing on top, pouring all of my happiness and love and joy into this connection, holding his head down to the mattress by wrapping my fingers in his hair. I needed him to know how badly I’d needed exactly what we’d just done.
How badly, wonderfully, terribly, wholly, entirely, and completely I needed him.
Chapter Sixteen
*Jenn*
“After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to get back to earth, and to believe that the consciousness of such majestic speeding is derived from a tiny human frame.”
Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
Once he’d realized that my tears were the good kind, we laid together for a long time. Cletus didn’t seem capable or inclined to talk, instead wishing to simply touch me, caress and pet my body, while I did the same to him. It was so nice. Peace for my soul in a storm of dread.
Eventually, he found his voice and burst my bubble of avoidance. “I have to tell you what happened.”
I stiffened. “What? What happened?”
His arms squeezed. “Nothing unmanageable. Nothing we can’t think through and solve.”
“Okay . . .” I lifted my head and rested my chin on his chest so I could see his eyes. “Tell me.”
Our legs tangled, he bent his knee slightly, his calf rubbing along mine. “While you were being held on Tuesday, one of my contacts with the Wraiths reached out on behalf of your brother—”
“My brother?”
“—and Repo.”
I blinked, initially surprised my brother and Mr. Repo would want to talk to Cletus. As I considered the matter, I saw more clearly why it would make sense for the two of them to be in cahoots. Mr. Repo and Isaac were “brothers” in the Wraiths. Mr. Repo was, after all, secretly dating my mother. It never occurred to me that Isaac might know about their relationship—probably because my mother hadn’t told me—but I supposed it wouldn’t be inconceivable for Isaac to have known.
“What did you do?” I asked, pressing my cheek to his chest again and tracing the line of his shoulder with my fingertips.
“I met with them, at an undisclosed location, and learned details of which you should be aware.” Cletus then explained what had occurred while I’d been trapped in the police station: his conversation with Mr. Repo and my brother, that my mother was being blackmailed and they suspected Miller, the plan to help her get out of Green Valley, how the law had tried to force her hand by arresting me. All of it.
When he finished his tale, I gave myself a few minutes to review and consider each of the newly revealed details—many of them truly bizarre, like the nature of the blackmail demands—before speaking. “So let me see if I have this right. On the night of our engagement party, Mr. Repo found my mother in the parking lot at the bakery, trying to stop the bleeding? Or trying to wake my father up?”
“I believe both.”
“And so Mr. Repo, what? Thought she’d done it?”
“Repo saw her hands covered in blood, panicked, and thought maybe she’d done it. His priority seemed to be getting her out of there, first and foremost.”
“Well, he should’ve just asked her what happened and promptly called the police.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty. To a man like Repo, calling the police is always going to be the last option. Often, it’s never an option.”
That made sense. However, it was also stupid.
“Okay, so. He takes her to the bakery, she washes her hands—that’s when you see them from the pantry—Jackson bangs on the back door. They run out the front, into the woods from the north, down the slope to his bike. Then he . . . Wait, what happens next?”
“He took her to a safe house for a few minutes. I guess she told him that she didn’t kill Kip, and he realized his mistake.”
“Quite a mistake,” I grumbled, feeling salty. Why hadn’t he just called the police instead of jumping to conclusions?
“They came up with a plan, a cover story. He then took her back to the lodge and she picked up her belongings. She drove home, changed, and the police came by in the early morning to bring her in.”
I nodded, irritated with Mr. Repo for sure, but also relieved to finally have a version of events from my mother’s perspective. I’d known in my heart that she didn’t kill my father. Except—
“So I really don’t understand this next part. According to Mr. Repo, Mr. Miller then started sending her blackmail notes, wanting his cows in return for not turning over the murder weapon with her prints?”
Cletus sighed and then explained that no one—not Repo, not Isaac, not Diane—had any idea what Miller was thinking. Did Miller have the gun used in the shooting? No idea. If he had the gun, how’d he get it? No idea. If he had the gun, did he actually have my momma’s fingerprints on it? Possible, but no idea.
“So why didn’t Isaac spy on Miller? Why’d Isaac decide to spy on us?” I asked, aggravated with my brother for many reasons.
“I do not know why Isaac didn’t put Miller under surveillance when it became clear that the man was attempting to blackmail Diane. That’s a question I didn’t ask, and it’s a good one. But, as I said, Twilight—Isaac—claimed he thought perhaps you’d killed your father.”
I snorted, rolling onto my back as I rolled my eyes. “That’s preposterous. I don’t believe that. I do not believe Isaac thought I was the murderer for a single second. That’s a lie.” Not unless everything I thought I knew about my brother, and our past, and our relationship had been a lie.
Cletus turned on his side, propping his head in his hand and his elbow on the mattress. I met his eyes when I felt them inspect my profile. “Then what’s your theory? Why would Isaac record us?”
I shrugged, moving my attention to the ceiling. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t because he thought I did it, unless I really don’t know him at all.”
Cletus seemed to weigh my words. “Interesting . . .”
“Anyway,” I said on a huff. “Someone—we’re assuming Miller, and I do think it’s him—claims they have the gun with my mother’s prints, and he wants the Guernsey cows in exchange for the evidence. But we don’t know if it’s a bluff or what.”
“Correct. But your momma left a partial bloody print. Wait, back up. Why do you think Miller is the one blackmailing your mother, other than the obvious Give me the cows or else nature of the blackmail notes?”
“You remember at the will reading? Before I was arrested?”
“Yes. I remember you being arrested.” His tone sounded carefully detached, like watching me be arrested wasn’t a memory he’d like to keep.
I gave him a small smile, scratching my nails through his beard. “Cletus, it honestly wasn’
t that bad. Everyone was real nice. Evans played cards with me, and Boone—”
“Let’s talk about your incarceration later, if you don’t mind.” He didn’t meet my eyes, and his had grown distant. Clearly, my being arrested had been more traumatic for him than it had been for me.
“Fine. But you should know, it felt more like a vacation than anything else. Anyway—” I stretched, enjoying the friction of our naked bodies sliding against each other as I did so “—before the will reading, Miller was one of the people blocking the elevator. You remember?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if you picked up on this, but when Elena looked at the back row of folks gathered—Roger, Kenneth Miller, and Old Man Blount—she seemed terrified by one of them. I couldn’t be sure at the time which one, but now I do think it was Miller.”
“She looked terrified?” He stroked his beard. “Interesting.”
“There’s also what you said—or started to say—when Leeward brought up the Miller farm.”
“Ah, yes. We haven’t discussed this yet. It appears Elena initiated the process of signing Miller’s land back over to him, before she knew you’d inherited everything.”
“Why would she do that?” I asked, but the pooling of dread in my stomach told me the pressing suspicion I hadn’t fully acknowledged—that Miller and Elena were in cahoots—was also shared by Cletus. For better or worse, I still held out hope Mr. Miller wasn’t the villain in any of this.
“I suspect Elena and Miller were, perhaps are, working together.”
Damn. “I guess I do too, since she was going to give him back his land, and it looks like he’s the one blackmailing my mother. Only why did she look afraid of him before the will reading? If they’re working together, why did he show up at Leeward’s office with the others?”
“Unknown. But all good questions.”
“I’m just so disappointed in Farmer Miller if this is the case. Sending my momma blackmail notes, working with Elena Wilkinson. I expected better of him.”
Something flickered behind Cletus’s eyes, telling me he had his own thoughts on the matter, but instead of sharing them he cleared his throat and wiped his expression clean. “Back to Isaac and Repo and the plan. Do you have any other questions?”
I lifted my fingers to my forehead and rubbed, thinking back to Cletus’s retelling of his meeting. “So my momma left the handprints on the car, and that’s why she won’t leave the house. Mr. Repo told her not to, just in case the police can lift her prints while she’s out.”
“Correct, except Isaac told her not to. He’s the one who cautioned her against leaving the house.”
“And now y’all have come up with a plan to help my mother evade the FBI’s watchful eye, sneak her out using my brother as a decoy, while setting up some sort of sound system in her house to make it seem like she’s still there after she leaves.”
“Also correct. That’s where I was earlier today instead of picking you up. Sorry about that.” He snagged my hand rubbing my forehead and kissed the back of it, his gaze apologetic. “The task was time-sensitive.”
“But the wedding shower isn’t for a few weeks.”
“Yes. However, we need three or four solid days of recording we can use for playback after your mother leaves. Not every day will be usable. Alex sent me the equipment yesterday. He told me a month’s worth of recording would be best.”
A giant weight had settled on my chest, growing heavier and heavier the longer we discussed my father’s murder, Mr. Repo, the blackmail and Miller and Elena, Isaac and his weird decision to record Cletus and me, and my mother going on the run. I just realized I’d been twisting the sheet next to me into a tight spiral with my fingers, so I flattened my hand on the mattress.
“What are you feeling?” Cletus asked, his tone quiet, gentle. “I know it would come as a shock to both of us, but please let me know if I made an error in judgment.”
I turned my head to look at him, inspecting his handsome features. “What do you mean?”
“Helping Isaac and Repo, going along with their plan, improving it. I’m not going to assume anymore. So I’m asking.”
“No. I—you did the right thing. My mother is—she’s—well, she’s fading away in that house. Even if she doesn’t go on the run, we need to get her out of there, give her a breather, a chance to tell someone, ideally us, her version of events freely without the pressure of the FBI listening.”
He nodded, his attention and palm dropping to my breast, weighing it, massaging. I fought a squirm of delight, worked to keep my mind focused on the issue at hand, even though all I wanted to do was say, Whatever. I give up. You decide. Let’s have sex.
Surrendering to bliss, ignoring my worries, and instead having sex with Cletus was always the temptation. Let Cletus decide. I trusted him to decide. So why not just let him do it? I could pretend everything would work out just fine while he also kept me well stocked in breast massages and orgasms.
But that wasn’t right. A thorny, blossoming of guilt made breathing momentarily difficult. Listening to Cletus talk about all the ways he’d been running around town, meeting with folks to help me, help my mother plan her escape, thwart Elena Wilkinson and Kenneth Miller, while also fretting about my well-being made me realize how much time and energy he’d already forfeited.
Meanwhile, how had I spent my time? Hanging out in a jail cell eating biscuits, refusing to sort through my feelings about the unanticipated bequeathing of funds and property by my father, and having sex fantasies. That’s what I’d been doing.
I needed to pitch in! I needed to help. Not just use him for his big head. . . either of them.
Focus, Jennifer. What else?
I rubbed my eye, giving myself a little shake. “So, like I said, Isaac is lying about why he recorded us. I’m sure of that. But where did he get the DEA equipment?”
“Unknown,” came Cletus’s distracted response, communicating that he didn’t wish to discuss his theories regarding Isaac’s ability to get his hands on DEA equipment, assuming Cletus had any theories.
Of course he had theories. He always had theories.
I decided to let the matter drop, for now. “Okay. Then why do you think he’s helping Mr. Repo? Helping my mother escape? Why do you think he cares? Do you think it’s Mr. Repo? Isaac has been in town for years and, except for that one altercation in the Piggly Wiggly, he’s ignored me and my mother.”
His big hand continued its ministrations on my body and mumbled, “Perhaps loyalty to Repo. Or perhaps it’s to assuage his well-deserved guilt about being a terrible son and brother.”
My eyebrows ticked high on my forehead. Basically, in Cletus speak, this response meant he wished to change the subject away from Isaac as he had nothing kind to say on the matter and didn’t want to upset me.
“Any more questions?” he asked, his thumb circling my nipple, making it increasingly difficult to focus.
I shook my head, covering his hand on my body with my own so I could form words. “I—I don’t think so. It’s . . . a lot. I need to think.”
He nodded, leaning forward to kiss me. What I thought would be a light peck turned out to be a seductive drag of his lips against mine.
“I want you,” he whispered, nuzzling my nose, the rasp in his voice making my toes immediately curl.
I fought to swallow, tracking his eyes as he leaned back an inch. His gaze had already darkened, his hand gliding south, and I became increasingly aware of the hard length pressing against my thigh.
And just like that, despite my best intentions, my brain scattered.
The weight on my chest dissipated.
The swelling, thorny guilt dissolved.
And I succumbed to blissful surrender. To temptation. To Cletus.
“I feel like I’m using him.”
“Who?” Shelly sat in one of the big Adirondack chairs Jethro had made for the porch.
“Cletus.”
“What are you using him for?”
“His sausage?” Sienna guessed from her chair, sharing a perplexed glance with Shelly.
“Yes,” I admitted finally, not sitting. I was too on edge. “More specifically, s-sex.” There. It was done. The word was out. I am ridiculous.
Sienna narrowed her eyes and mashed her lips together, obviously fighting a smile.
Meanwhile, Shelly frowned as though my statement was an unfinished riddle. “And?”
I turned away from their expectant expressions, leaning against the porch railing and gazing out at the chairs, streamers, and leftover plates of food from my wedding shower. The event had just wrapped up. I should have been out there helping Drew, Ash, and everyone else clean up the yard, not boring my friends with nonsensical thoughts.
But they’d dragged me over here, insisting they required my help. Then they’d cornered me, demanding to know why I’d been in such an odd mood since being released, why I’d been melancholy, distracted, and withdrawn. Sienna had asked if I was truly okay with my mother not being there for the party. Shelly had asked if I needed to speak to a therapist about all the upheaval in my life.
My difficulties and worries stemmed from all of it: my mother’s absence, the upheaval in my life, and my unhealthy fixation with Cletus’s . . . sausage.
But my present distraction and melancholy was more about me being confused than anything else. I didn’t know how to feel about myself, how to think about myself. I’d tried to make it a joke—I’m a sex fiend!—but that didn’t feel right either. My confession probably didn’t make a lick of sense to anyone. It didn’t even make much sense to me. I couldn’t understand myself, so how could I explain my worries to Sienna and Shelly?