by Stacy Gail
And the most distracting.
And, when her father had been watching her constantly, the one Brody she’d needed to avoid most of all.
Thankfully, that monster wasn’t watching her anymore.
As she marched toward Des and his brother Fin, a flutter in the pit of her stomach let her know that no matter how cool she tried to appear, there was no overlooking the fact that for the first time, she was about to speak to the man who’d gone out of his way to ignore her when they were younger, when she had never been able to ignore him.
Whatever she said, it had to memorable. Spectacular, even.
She took a breath, preparing to devastate with words alone.
“Uh, hi…there.” Oh, God. Could she be any more lame? Could anyone? “You’re Desmond Brody, yes? And Finian.” At least she’d remembered Finian at the last moment.
“What the hell, woman.” Des Brody came to an abrupt halt, hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans and scowled at her. “Don’t play games. I hate games. You know exactly who we are.”
Like that, the secretly held belief of Des Brody might be the epitome of masculine perfection faceplanted hard into the dirt. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” she muttered to herself, though something inside wilted with disappointment. Why were all the pretty ones the equivalent of mean girls? It wasn’t fair.
Those peridot-colored eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I said, I think you two might be lost.” Winnie raised her voice while jamming her hands on her hips. If aggressive was how he wanted to play it, she could dance to that tune. “I’m more than capable of giving you directions on where you can go.”
The narrowing of his eyes became an unpleasant squint. “Tell me you didn’t just say what I think you said.”
The menace emanating from him had her finely honed survival instincts telling her to scamper for the nearest hiding spot. Instead, she locked her knees and stood her ground. “I said what I said. Leave if you can’t take it.”
“Winnie.” Fin Brody swept his tan cowboy hat off, shooting his brother a quelling glance as he did. “Let’s start over, okay? We’ve been next-door neighbors all our lives—hell, the three of us even rode the school bus together for a time, before Des and I got our licenses our junior year. Remember?”
“Do I remember?” Nothing in the world could have stopped her gaze from sliding back to Des, recalling all too well how he’d climb the bus’s stairs, scan all those empty seats, and proceed to lead Fin to wherever she sat just so they could go through their elaborate ignoring-her-existence routine. “Oh, yeah. I remember. Vividly.”
“Good. That means you know we’re not strangers. We just wanted to say that you have our deepest sympathies. Able was…an interesting guy.”
“Don’t bother trying to find nice things to say about my father, Fin. Not even the preacher could bring himself to say that my Granny and I actually loved him. The world’s a better place now that Able Smiley is finally burning in hell where he belongs.”
Fin looked momentarily uncomfortable while Des, to her surprise, smiled at her words. “Look at you, sounding all hard-hearted. Dancing on his grave already, are you?”
“I might when they finally plant him. Right now his grave is nothing but an open hole—much like his heart when he was alive. Feel free to keep judging me for saying that,” she added, still wrestling with the irrational disappointment that Des really was the cruel jerk he’d seemed to be while growing up. “I couldn’t care less about what you think of me.”
“Look, Winnie, we’d be the last ones to judge anyone when it comes to people and their relationships with their parents,” Fin said while Des offered a huff that could have been laughter. “We’ve heard there was no love lost between you and your old man, but the fact remains you are his only heir. We also know that you don’t live at the homestead—you haven’t for years. You live in town and work at Cleone’s Closet, yeah?”
It was her turn to narrow her eyes as she turned back to Fin. “Did you have me investigated?”
“It’s Bitterthorn,” Des answered for his brother. “Everyone knows everyone else’s business. Hell, half the town probably knows the Brodys and the Smileys are talking right here and now—and they’re probably making it out to be worse than the Hatfields and the McCoys.”
“The Hatfields and McCoys have nothing on the Brodys and the Smileys,” Winnie drawled. “Or do you not know your ancestors bought what was once the Bitterthorn Bank just so they could foreclose on the Smiley homestead and take it for themselves? If my ancestors hadn’t found a way to come up with the balance of the house loan, Smiley Lake would have become part of Green Rock Ranch.”
“Holy shit, that happened a hundred and fifty years ago,” Des finished for her, shaking his head. “My brothers and I aren’t stupid enough to live in ancient history. Can you say the same?”
“The point I was trying to make,” Fin went on while she sucked in a furious breath, “is that you’ve never shown any interest in working the land at your family’s homestead. You sell dresses, yes?”
“I design dresses, along with everything else, and sell them at Cleone’s Closet, as well as through my online shop, Passion for Fashion,” she grated through clenched teeth. As much as a pacifist as she was, the thought of taking a swing at Des’s perfect square jaw gave her savage delight. “So?”
“So, you’re no rancher, or farmer,” Des said with a careless shoulder lift. “Hell, you’ve been gone from that broken-down old homestead since you were a teenager. I doubt you know one end of a hoe from the other.”
Asshole. “I’ll have you know I slay at running combines and tractors.”
“But you prefer needle and thread.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Or course there isn’t.” Fin jumped into their back-and-forth like an overzealous ref separating fighters in a boxing ring. “It’s great that you figured out early on that your talents lie in the world of fashion. But since those talents have nothing to do with farming or ranching, the question of what you’re going to do with the homestead is eventually going to come up.”
“What my brother is trying to say,” Des cut in before she could respond, “is that we’d be more than happy to take Smiley homestead off your hands. We’ll pay top dollar, you have my word on that.”
Wow. “Just… wow.”
Des tilted his head, and she hated herself for wanting to cringe at the menace in it. “Explain that.”
“I’m just shocked by your audacity.” The words were out before she could help it. The arrogance of the Brody clan was legendary, but not even she could believe their gall. “I honestly never imagined anyone would have the bad taste to talk about buying up the homestead while Able Smiley’s grave is still open. But here you are, so…wow.”
“You can’t get away with playing the sentimental card now,” Des chided, pursing his lips as he gave her a thorough once-over. Without warning, she wished with all her heart that her black sleeveless dress was suddenly a haute couture item that would knock the socks off any male with a pulse. “After talking about dancing on your old man’s grave, the idea of sentimentality’s not going to fly.”
“I’m talking about common decency here. It’s not my fault if you don’t know what that is.”
“Hell’s bells, listen to that mouth.” With a corner of his mouth still curled upward, Des shook his head. “Standing there in the sun, I can see a hint of red in all that golden-brown hair of yours. Just so happens I’ve got some familiarity with a redhead’s temper. Is that what this hostility is all about, or is it something else?”
“Hostility? Me?” Automatically she put a hand to her tightly bound hair, flabbergasted. “Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious.”
“To a fault,” Fin added, giving his brother another speaking glance. “If you can get Des to laugh, it’s better than winning the lottery.”
“I’m not interested in getting Des to do anything.” Not w
hen she knew a hardcore jerk hid behind that supermodel face. Man, what a waste. “All I care about is squaring away why you’re really here crashing a funeral.”
“I would’ve thought you’d welcome more people around to see old Able off to his just rewards.” Des nodded at the grave, now attended only by two men lowering the coffin. Even the minister had done a quick fade. “Not exactly loved by all, was he?”
“Loved by none, actually. That’s hardly the point.”
“Then what is?”
“You say you don’t live in the past, but there’s only one reason why you two are here now. You might as well say it out loud.”
“Smiley Lake.” Des again lifted a shoulder, like he didn’t much give a damn about the one thing the Brody clan had never been able to possess. “Back in the day, our ancestors didn’t have the tech to know where to drill for water, so that made your spring-fed lake a big deal around these parts. But we’re in the 21st-century now. Aside from the Nueces River, we’ve got plenty of water to go around.”
“The drought’s brought the Nueces River down to a trickle. The county’s put emergency restrictions on how much you and all the other commercial agro properties in this region can draw from the aquifer. I might live in town now, but I remember what it’s like out here during times of drought. No matter how cool you’re playing it, you’re frigging desperate for water.” She crossed her arms and tried to bowl him over with a look. “And I thought you didn’t play games.”
He returned that look in spades. “I never play, Winsome. I just win.”
“You haven’t won Smiley Lake,” she took great pleasure in pointing out. “Picture it—a spring-fed lake no more than a mile from Green Rock Ranch, just sitting there all pristine and beautiful… and completely on Smiley property.” It was her turn to lift a shoulder as she turned away. “By the way, don’t ever call me Winsome. Thank you for your condolences. ‘Bye now.”
“This isn’t over, Winsome Smiley,” she heard Des call after her, but she just kept walking toward the truck where Rufus and Granny waited. “This is just the beginning.”
*
“Just the beginning,” Winnie muttered as she jammed lily after lily into a ceramic vase. The flowers had been sent by Granny’s quilting bee, along with a lovely card. Winnie’s friend, Cleo Goddard and her mother Cleone, had also sent a beautiful flower arrangement, which now sat in the middle of the round wooden kitchen table. But no flowers had come from any of Able Smiley’s friends, mainly because he hadn’t had any. “Who the hell does Des Brody think he is, giving me a warning like that? Who even does that?”
Silence was her only answer, and she glanced around the empty kitchen that hadn’t been updated since avocado was a popular appliance color. As she stood there taking it all in, her blood suddenly chilled.
Dear God, she’d almost forgotten how much she hated this kitchen. Her old bedroom had been located just off of it. That meant if she’d wanted out of her bedroom to go to the bathroom or to get food—or to escape the house entirely—the kitchen was the one room she hadn’t been able to avoid.
Whenever her father was on a tear, she’d spent countless hours imagining him on the other side of her door, just waiting for the moment she dared to poke her head out. More than a few times she’d nearly wet herself trying to hold her bladder until she heard him leave.
Sometimes, though, she hadn’t been able to stand it. And when she was forced to step out into the kitchen…
No.
Stop thinking about him, she thought fiercely, shaking her head hard enough to make the hair she’d freed from its tight knot to bounce around her face. The horrible monster who was her father was dead. Dead and gone. His reign of terror was finally, finally over.
As long as she didn’t keep resurrecting the bastard in her own mind.
“You can do it, Winnie,” she muttered, jamming the last lily into the arrangement. “Just take one day at a time and remember that you’re okay. You’re always okay.”
“Talking to yourself?” Her grandmother tottered in, using her canes within the house rather than her much-hated wheelchair. Her white hair was still carefully coiffed from the funeral, but she’d changed out of her black dress and into one of the countless housedresses she preferred. Winnie kept trying to offer up new and equally comfortable alternatives to a housedress, but Granny was a creature of habit. “They keep telling me that’s the first sign of having bats in your belfry.”
“If that’s the case, I’ve had bats in my belfry for a long, long time.” Fussing a bit with the lilies, she transported them to a sunny place by the window and shot her grandmother a searching glance. “How are you holding up?”
“Oh, you know.” With great care, Granny lowered herself into a kitchen chair and sighed. “I became Able’s mother when he was only six years old, you know. I did all I could to be the best possible mother for him, but there was a hole in Able’s soul that could never be filled, no matter how much love and attention I poured into him. He was broken, right from the beginning, and he made everyone around him broken, too.”
“Not everyone, Granny.” Winnie’s eyes burned even as she tried to smile. “You never broke. You’re the strongest woman I know.”
“And you’re not? Child.” She held out a gnarled hand, and in a flash Winnie crossed the room to kneel in front of her. “We may not share any blood, my girl, but we share the same spirit. Never doubt that for a minute.”
“I don’t know about that,” Winnie whispered, choking back the tears she fought so hard to not let her grandmother see. “I don’t think I’ll ever be as good a person as you.”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“My father falls over dead from a sudden heart attack, and the first thing I felt was… relief. Not grief. Not even a little heartbreak. Just relief.” She released a shuddering breath, and the weight of her guilt dropped her head onto her grandmother’s lap. “I’m not religious like you once were in the Quaker faith—or any faith, for that matter. But I’m pretty sure that kind of thing buys me a one-way ticket to hell.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Winnie.” Granny brought her head up so she could smile into her eyes. “Don’t blame yourself for being human, do you hear me? You’ve suffered so much, in part because you didn’t want to leave this place because of me.”
“No, Granny—”
“But you got out of here, and you did survive,” her grandmother went on determinedly. “Don’t inflict more wounds on yourself just because you reacted like any human would. Don’t you think you’ve suffered enough?”
Pain oozed through her like a river of poison until she had to squeeze her eyes tight to shut it out. “Yes, Granny.”
“Then don’t go looking for trouble. And that means you don’t go crossing paths with any of those Brody men,” she added sternly, like she was lecturing her for slamming the back door the way she did when she was a child. “They are the definition of trouble, you hear me? Marching right up to them the way you did earlier today was like watching you play with rattlesnakes. I’m still not sure they didn’t bite you.”
Though she tried to ignore it, the memory of Des Brody’s parting words echoed in her head. This is just the beginning… “I’m sure I’ll never cross their paths again, Granny. Why would I? I’m nobody to the likes of a Brody.”
Chapter Two
Stunted, dry grass crunched like glass under Winnie’s booted feet as she headed toward Smiley Lake, the only source of green in the deadened, drought-ravaged Texas landscape.
Not that she could actually see any colors in the dark. It was well past midnight, still almost ninety degrees, and not a cloud in the star-strewn sky.
Behind her, the box-like, single-story house in which she’d grown up sat in miserable silence. Within those walls the heat was downright stifling, with only window-mounted air conditioning units to bring the temp down a few meager degrees. Sadly the window unit that had once been in her childhood room was no longer there—no doubt remo
ved when she finally fled that nightmare of a house once and for all. The only other A/C unit was in her father’s bedroom, and there was no way she would ever sleep there.
Even though he was dead and gone, the mere thought of stepping foot into that room at night made her stomach roll.
She should have gone back to her apartment in town after the funeral, she thought, coming to a stop at the dock jutting out over the glassy-calm lake ringed by cottonwoods and willows. But she’d thought that staying overnight would give her a head-start in cleaning out the house so her grandmother could move back in. When Winnie had at last fled the homestead, she’d only done it on the assurance that Rufus would move Granny into a mother-in-law apartment attached to his garage, with Winnie and Granny paying for rent as well as giving him a monthly caregiver’s fee.
If Rufus hadn’t agreed to this arrangement, Winnie never would have left.
Eventually, that would have killed her.
With a quick glance around, she pulled off her boots, then bent down to dip a hand into the crystal-clear water.
Ahhhh.
Like cool, liquid silk.
Perfect.
With another furtive glance around, and reminding herself that her father was now dead and couldn’t do a damn thing about her daring to skinny-dip, she shucked the pajama shorts set she’d designed, kicked off her panties, then jumped in before she got too weirded out by being naked while standing under the open sky.
With her father dead and buried, it was now high time she started burying all the crazy-inducing hang-ups he’d given her along the way.
Blissfully cool water encapsulated her in a dark and silent world. White lines of bubbles danced to the surface and she followed them with a lazy kick, rolling through the initial shock of cool water hitting her overheated skin. She broke the surface even as she adjusted to the sudden temperature change, and with a sigh of relief, she dolphin-dived back down into the dark, watery world of peaceful silence.
Damn. If she’d known skinny-dipping felt this good, she might have chanced going for it years ago.