Truth or Beard Read online

  “Exactly! I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like, if he actually wanted to kiss me I think I’d die of mortification.”

  “So you think of Beau like a celebrity or something?”

  “It’s complicated. I have similar—but not exactly the same—feelings for Intrepid Inger, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Tina Fey.”

  “Intrepid Inger? Isn’t she that solo travel blogger you’re always talking about?”

  “Yes. She is she.”

  “Who is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz?”

  “The Father of Calculus. He’s dead.”

  Claire twisted her lips to the side and she looked like she was trying not to laugh.

  I shrugged helplessly. “I know. I’m a math nerd.”

  “Yes. You are a math nerd. But you’re a math nerd who can totally pull off a sexy Gandalf costume.”

  “Oh my God. I forgot!” My hand flew to my beard. “Maybe he won’t recognize me.”

  Claire tsked. “Let me get this straight, you’ll kiss a random guy on the street with nothing but sass. But if you had to talk to one of your hero-crushes—a famous woman travel blogger, the father of calculus, arguably the funniest woman alive, or Beau Winston—you develop aphasia and faint?”

  I nodded.

  “Honey, Beau Winston puts his pants on one leg at a time. He’s completely normal. Why the hero worship? Go talk to him.”

  “Every time I saw him while we were growing up he was always doing something brave, heroic, or remarkably kind. Did I tell you he saved my cat? And one time I saw him rescue two little boys from a rattlesnake. And one time he—”

  “It get it. You’ve spent years building him up in your head.”

  “I can’t talk to him. Not yet. Maybe one day, after some extreme mental preparation.” My whisper was harsh, urgent.

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No. Really. I can’t.” I felt my eyes widen to their maximum diameter. “I’ve never successfully carried on a conversation with Beau Winston. It’s not just the fact that I’ve built him up in my head. I have a terrible record of failure where he is concerned. Every time I try to speak my brain forgets English, and I start slurring Swahili or Swedish or Swiss. He thinks I’m a total idiot.”

  “People of Switzerland don’t speak Swiss. They speak German, French, Italian, and Romansh.”

  “See? I’m becoming dumber with each second.”

  I sucked in a breath because I could hear his voice now; he was speaking to the little girl, and the sound was so fantastically charming it caused my stomach to pitch then lurch like I was in a small boat in the middle of the ocean. I placed my hand over my belly and braced my feet apart.

  When he entered my peripheral vision, my attention was drawn to him like a magnet. He was still smiling, but it was smaller, polite. He was handing the little girl off to a lady I recognized as Mrs. MacIntyre, the lead librarian at the local branch in town. Tinker Bell must be her granddaughter.

  She said something about a chicken or a rooster. He said something in response. They laughed. I stared, letting the velvety sound wash over me. Once again I was caught on a big wave in the middle of the ocean—pitch, lurch.

  Then it happened. His eyes flickered to the side, likely feeling my stalker stare, and he did a double take. His gaze ensnared mine. My throat worked without success, and I was a heat wave of cognizance. His stare narrowed just slightly as I continued to meet his gaze.

  God, I was such a creeper.

  I wanted to look away, but I physically could not. He so rarely looked at me. I felt like I was falling, my surroundings fading away—everything except him, and his goodness and magnanimity and blue, blue, blue eyes.

  Annoyingly, the music only I could hear whenever he was near started playing between my ears—this time it was Dreamweaver by Gary Wright—therefore I missed the sound of his voice when he said, “Hey, Jessica.”

  Instead, I guesstimated what he’d said based on the movement of his lips, and subsequently tried my best to turn down the volume in my head. I nodded at him, still unable to look away.

  Then, horrified, I watched as he excused himself from Mrs. MacIntyre and Tinker Bell, and walked to where I was standing with Claire. I swayed a little, took a step backward as he advanced; Claire slipped her arm through mine and fit herself against my side. She probably thought I was going to either faint or make a run for it.

  Unfortunately, I managed neither by the time he made it to where we were standing.

  “Hey…Beau,” Claire said, the hesitation in her voice obvious. “You are Beau, right? Or are you Duane?”

  He gave us a crooked smile that looked completely delectable and mischievous, his eyes darting between us. “You can’t tell the difference?”

  Claire returned his smile with a small one of her own. Beau’s charm was contagious and addictive. I’d once overheard my daddy tell my momma that the six Winston boys had inherited their father’s ability to charm snakes, the IRS, and women.

  I was also smiling, although mine probably looked dazed and weird. I was thankful for the long gray beard around my mouth. I hoped it camouflaged my expression of dazed, worshipful adoration.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re Duane,” Claire said, then indicated me with a tilt of her head. “But Jess thinks you’re Beau.”

  His eyes moved back to mine—somehow more intense, interested, and more piercing than they’d been before—and he swept me up and down again. On the return pass I saw what I thought might be appreciation, and that’s when I remembered I was wearing my ironic sexy Gandalf costume, which basically hid nothing except my face and hair.

  The point of the costume was to irritate my daddy and Jackson, and amuse myself with delightful irony while doing so. I may no longer be the bratty teenager who left home four years ago, but I still enjoyed little tokens of rebellion against the overprotective males in my family. It hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment someone who mattered might look at me, my curves in this scrap of fabric, and see more sexy than irony.

  “What’s this costume, Jessica? Are you a wizard?” His lips tugged to the side, but his tone deepened when he added, “I like it.”

  The tenor of his voice paired with the words sent a new jolt racing through my body. But it was different than anything I’d felt in his proximity before. This wasn’t me going gaga for a childhood hero crush.

  This feeling was…mature.

  I gripped Claire tighter in surprise.

  “She’s sexy Gandalf. She was going to be a sexy bee, but the shop sold out of pollinator costumes.”

  Beau laughed—a sound that, for reasons unknown, I felt in my uterus—and reached for the beard at my navel. The back of his fingers brushed against my stomach as he plucked the length of synthetic facial hair from my inconsequential sheath of a costume.

  “The beard adds a certain something…” He tugged just gently and winked at me.

  Of course, my response was to stare at him mutely because the grin plus wink plus the light touch of his fingers meant I was terribly confused. Instead of outgrowing my crush, apparently I was now unwillingly compounding my adoration by adding new, very adult feelings. Some odd little corner of my brain briefly thought about the logistics of wearing this long white beard always, every day.

  “Hey, if you tug her beard, she gets to tug yours,” Claire teased.

  His smile growing, the redhead stepped forward and into my space, his eyes at half-mast as they glittered down at me. “Go ahead, Jessica…Touch it.”

  He said my name like it was a secret. Beau’s words and nearness stole my breath.

  I could smell him, and it just made me want to…want to…I don’t even know what. I’d had boyfriends before, guys I liked, but the sudden depth and breadth of my dirty, sordid thoughts took me by surprise and I felt a hot flood of confused alarm in my chest.

  Beau’s eyes seemed to flicker then flare as though he could read my thoughts; they dropped to my lips.

  Once again, a new rush of so
mething not at all hero-worshippy made my stomach twist. My female reaction to his maleness made no sense!

  Well, it made some sense.

  Both Winston twins were seriously good-looking. It hadn’t escaped my notice how he’d walked just moments before, how his hips moved, the way his T-shirt pulled over his pectoral muscles and was tight where the short sleeves ended at his biceps.

  “I am so sorry about your momma, son.” A voice to my right and his left pulled our attention away from each other. We both turned our heads to find Mr. McClure, our local fire chief and Claire’s father-in-law, standing there with his hand outstretched. Beau looked down at it and then, taking a step away from me, accepted the offered hand as the man continued. “She was a good woman, and she’ll be missed.”

  I shook myself a little, a spark of sobriety cutting its way through Dreamweaver. The Winstons had just lost their mother not more than four weeks ago. Bethany Winston had only been forty-six. It was very sad and had been quite sudden. I hadn’t gone to the funeral as I was sick with flu, but apparently everyone else in town had shown up to pay their respects to Mrs. Winston, her six sons, and her daughter.

  “Thank you, sir.” Beau nodded once. The heat of his earlier expression was now extinguished, replaced with a tight-lipped smile and a shuttered gaze.

  Mr. McClure nodded at Beau, then turned to Claire and me. He greeted us warmly, stepping forward to give Claire a kiss on the cheek. During this intermission, I felt Beau’s eyes follow my movements. I gave myself a mental high five for keeping my attention on Claire’s father-in-law.

  After hellos were exchanged, Mr. McClure narrowed his eyes at Claire, “Claire, did you lock your car?”

  I thought it was cute how Mr. McClure looked after Claire like she was his daughter; it warmed my heart. Claire had married her childhood sweetheart. Her husband, Ben McClure, had been a marine; he’d died overseas two years ago.

  Claire nodded and her lips curved in a warm and patient smile. “Yes, sir. I locked my car.”

  To my surprise, Mr. McClure swung his blue eyes to me, “Jessica, did you lock your car?”

  I blinked at him, caught off guard, and glanced at Claire.

  “There’s been some thefts,” Claire explained, “and not just tourists, like usual. Jennifer Sylvester’s new BMW went missing last week.”

  “Her momma told me she had a banana cake in the front seat, too.” Mr. McClure tsked, like the real crime was the disappearing banana cake, then he turned his attention back to Beau. “Are your brothers here?”

  “Yes, sir. Everyone but, uh…,” his eyes flickered to mine then back to Mr. McClure, “everyone but my twin.”

  “I see.” He nodded, glancing down the hallway toward the sound of music. “I need to talk to your brother Cletus about the transmission work he did.”

  Beau stood a little taller. “Is there something wrong?”

  Beau, Duane, and their older brother Cletus owned the Winston Brothers Auto Shop in town; hence the blue, grease-stained coveralls he currently donned.

  When I was growing up, most new-to-town people had trouble keeping all the Winston boys’ names straight. I used to describe the family as follows:

  Jethro has brown hair and true hazel eyes—though sometimes they look almost gray. He’s the oldest and the most likely to give you a sweet smile while he steals your car and/or wallet.

  Billy is the second oldest. His hair is a darker brown and his eyes are a bright, startling blue. He’s the most serious and responsible (and incidentally the worst tempered) of the bunch.

  Next comes Cletus, number three; shortest, brown beard, olive green eyes. You can tell him apart from Jethro because he doesn’t smile often and his beard is longer. Instead of stealing your car, he’s more likely to take apart your toaster and tell you how it works. And he’s always been a little…odd. Sweet, but odd. As an example, he’d started attending my first period advanced placement calculus class two months ago. Apparently, he’d talked to my principal and had been cleared to sit in for the rest of the year.

  Ashley is number four. She’s the girl and looks just like a beauty contestant version of Billy.

  Then the identical twins—Beau and Duane—with their red beards and blue eyes. Good luck telling them apart if they don’t talk; but if they do, Beau’s the friendly one.

  Last but not least is Roscoe. He’s a mixture of Jethro and Billy—big smiles that hide a more serious nature. He’s also a huge and indiscriminant flirt (or at least he was when I last knew him).

  The fire chief shook his head. “No, no. It’s not for my truck, son. It’s Red, the fire engine. He’s helping me get the old girl running again for the Christmas parade.”

  “Ah. I see. Yeah, Cletus is playing his banjo.” Beau tossed his thumb over his shoulder. “Only one room is jamming so far tonight; I think everyone else is waiting until the trick-or-treating is over.”

  Mr. McClure glanced in the direction Beau had indicated. “I’ll go sit in then and wait for a break.” He then turned a friendly smile to Claire and me. “Girls, I’d be honored to be your escort.”

  Claire nodded for both of us; but before she could verbally accept the offer, Beau reached out and grabbed my arm lightning fast.

  “Claire, you go on.” Beau pulled me away from my friend in a smooth motion. “I’d like to catch up with Jess. See y’all later.”

  He didn’t wait for Claire or me to react.

  Before I knew what was happening, he’d slipped his rough palm into mine, grasped my fingers, and turned toward the converted cafeteria, tugging me after him. I was so shocked by the sensation of his skin and the electric current running up my arm, I followed mutely because I could only focus on where our palms touched.

  I loved the feel of him. In truth I was in danger of climbing him. I just wanted to be near him, touch him, snuggle against him. He was so epically enticing.

  We wove through the crowd as I tried to memorize the feeling of his hand grasping mine. I had difficulty drawing breath; my stomach was an eruption of suspiciously amorous butterflies. People said hi—to both him and me—but we didn’t pause. I was his shadow as Beau led me to the buffet table; I dreaded reaching it because he would likely release me. To my surprise we kept on walking.

  He didn’t glance back at me as we skirted around a table laden with lemonade and sweet tea, heading behind a curtain that ran the length of one wall—from ceiling to floor—and obscured a set of stairs leading to a small stage. The stage, likewise, was hidden by the curtain. Beau didn’t pause once we were up the steps or on the stage. Instead he continued tugging until he had me to one side, backstage, completely hidden by the curtain, around a corner, and behind a wall.

  It was dark and my eyes required several seconds to adjust; likewise, my brain hadn’t yet caught up with where we were and how we’d arrived here, not to mention who I was with. A single overhead light source cast our surroundings in a grayish murkiness. I nearly tripped over my own feet when Beau turned, placed his hands suddenly on my hips, and backed me into the wall.

  I felt solid concrete behind me. Beau and all his heroic gorgeousness loomed before me, scant inches away. His glittering eyes ensnared mine. Then and only then did he stop.

  I was so confused—really discombobulated was the word for it. This was like something out of a music video fantasy. (Did I forget to mention that my daydreams actually present themselves as music videos à laPaula Abdul’s Rush, Rush complete with glowing, imperfection-blurring lens filters?) I could only gaze up at him in wonder.

  He leaned forward, and his forehead hit the rim of my hat. Scowling, he pulled it, the wig, and the beard from my head, dropping them to the floor.

  “I like this costume,” he said in a low voice as his hands reclaimed their spot, his thumbs rubbing the area just above my hips like he was entitled to touch me and my body how he liked. The heat from his palms sent spiking shivers to my lower belly. “But I do not enjoy that hat.”

  I’d known Beau for almost f
ifteen years, but had never imagined a moment like this, not in my wildest dreams. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Claire that my crush on Beau was complicated. My daydreams involved him and me saving people together, a team of rescuers—like the one time I watched as he saved two little boys from a rattlesnake. He’d always been patient, verging on saintly.

  Basically, they were the neutered fantasies of a young girl with extreme hero worship.

  But Beau didn’t look patient or saintly now and he felt very, very real. Even in the murky dimness, his eyes sparkled like sapphires, like they possessed their own internal radiance. I thought mournfully of my plain brown irises and, like the weirdo I was, I hoped that our make-believe children would inherit his eyes.

  His hands slid up my body then pushed my cape over my shoulders with a whisper-light touch. He removed the staff from my hand. I watched as Beau leaned it against the wall with care, his boots scuffing against the wooden floor.

  “Jessica James, you’ve been giving me hot looks that are difficult to ignore.” He said this in a near growl, leaning a fraction of an inch closer.

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what a hot look was, what it meant, or how to make it on purpose. Regardless, I surmised my inadvertent hot looks were responsible for our alone time. My heart twisted then leapt as he wet his bottom lip just before drawing the succulent flesh into his mouth, between his teeth, and biting.

  That’s right, bite that lip.

  I almost groaned.

  I was maniacally and fiercely aroused, and I was completely ill-equipped to deal with these feelings.

  A broken hymen while horseback riding at thirteen; lots of random kisses with random guys for fun and practice; a few inconsequential and forgettable gropings in high school and college; a drunken, laconic coupling in my dorm room with my physics lab TA last year. These were the pithy total of my adult sexual exploits.

  In all honesty, I’d enjoyed the horse ride more than the man ride. At least the horse had been a stallion. Looking back, my lab TA was more like a Shetland pony—hairy and small.

  Truly, I didn’t know what I was doing, what we were doing. This was beyond bizarre. If the Father of Calculus or Intrepid Inger had brought me backstage at the Green Valley Community Center, I doubt I would be having such divergent thoughts.