Beard Necessities: Winston Brothers Book #7 Read online

  Determined to quit being so anxious, I turned to Duane and worked to keep my voice light. “Oh, this? This is for your brother.”

  “My brother?”

  “Uh, the second one.”

  “The second one?” Duane lifted an eyebrow. “You mean Billy?”

  “Yeah. When I talked to Cletus this morning on the phone, he asked that I make sure your brother eats some good food.” I set the bowl back on the tray, arranging the napkin and spoon just so, and then shifting the small bud vase with two vibrant, red wild poppies back and to the side.

  “Cletus asked you?”

  For some reason, his question made me feel guilty, like I’d been caught in a lie even though I was telling the truth. “Yeah, well, you and Jess got enough to deal with, and Jet and Sienna just got in, plus they have the boys to look after. Janet and the Sheriff want to sightsee, and that makes sense. But I’m just here kinda in an extra capacity, if you think about it, only having myself to look after for the most part. And so, it makes sense that I be the one to feed, uh, B-Billy . . . uh, food . . . and, uh, such . . .”

  Duane’s gaze sharpened (or dulled, depending on how you look at it) and morphed into a stare. Holding still except for the twisting of my fingers, I knew I was behaving strangely, but I’d never been good at wrestling my guilt. Even if it was baseless, the guilt always won, but I was working on it. I’d been working to forgive myself.

  So, you know what, Mr. Guilt? Go take a long rollercoaster ride on an unfinished track.

  “Claire.”

  I started. “Duane.”

  “You nervous about something?”

  I tore my eyes away. “No. Not at all.” My voice was so high, it was almost falsetto.

  “’Cause you’re acting nervous.”

  Now I forced my voice deeper, asking, “Am I?” and cringing when it came out baritone this time. Curse my vocal range!

  The timer went off for the rolls and I lunged, flipping it off, spinning to the oven, opening the door, reaching for the dinner rolls, and then snatching my hands back when I realized I wasn’t wearing oven mitts.

  “You might want to use some oven mitts,” came Duane’s flat voice from behind me.

  “Yes. Obviously,” I said, frowning at my surly brother.

  Loving Duane had been easy, but his grumpiness definitely took some getting used to. He didn’t mean anything by it, it was just how he was. But whenever Beau, Duane, and me were together, Beau and I shared a fair number of commiserating glances.

  Seizing the oven mitts, I pulled out the rolls, pleased at the color of their browned tops. Basting them with butter before and during the baking process had made a difference, and I took note.

  “Man, those smell good,” Duane said around a bite of his cinnamon bun, swallowing before asking, “Can I have one of those too? And some chicken soup?”

  I nodded, whipping off the mitts and grabbing two hot rolls for the tray. “Yep. But you can either serve yourself or wait ’til I get back from taking this up to your brother. I shouldn’t be long.” God willing.

  He pushed back in his seat, bent to give Liam another snuggly kiss, and rounded the table. “No problem, I can get it. I just wanted to make sure it was allowed.”

  “Allowed?” Putting the finishing touches on Billy’s tray—a stick of butter, a linen napkin, a butter knife, blackberry jam—I gave Duane a look. “Why wouldn’t it be allowed?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Cletus.”

  I laughed. He didn’t have to say anything else.

  I picked up the tray and walked mindfully out of the kitchen, refusing to think about the next ten minutes. No use speculating on a future I couldn’t see, but I did have a plan.

  I’d worked it all out over the course of the morning: I’d walk up the stairs very carefully, my mind and attention on the stairs so I wouldn’t trip; then I’d place the tray on the table just outside Billy’s door; then I’d knock, pick the tray back up, and wait for him to answer. When he did answer, I’d hand him the tray—saying something like, Here you go, Billy, or Eat this, please.

  It was a good plan, solid, normal. My mind behaved while I climbed the two flights of stone steps, and even though I was a little out of breath when I reached the top landing, I was certain it was due to exercise and not nerves. I was fine. It was fine. Everything was fine.

  Setting down the tray, I wiped my hands on the towel still stuck in my pocket, lifted my fist, and knocked on the door. My heart chose that moment to jump up my esophagus. I ignored it. I was an adult and I didn’t have time for jumping hearts anymore. Jumping hearts were firmly in my past along with unfounded guilt, making excuses for folks being a-holes, trying to live my life for a dead person, and serially apologizing for things that didn’t need to be apologized for, like saying hi. Or bumping into someone. Or ordering dinner at a restaurant.

  No. More. Apologizing.

  I picked up the tray. I turned back to the door. I waited, bracing for the impact of his voice. I figured he’d say something like, Yeah? or Who’s there? But he didn’t. He didn’t make a sound. One full minute ticked by and my ears encountered nothing but silence.

  Setting the tray down again I knocked again but this time louder and picked up the tray. I waited.

  No answer.

  Frowning, I stared at the door, my heart jumping with a new kind of anxiety as Cletus’s words from earlier returned to me: I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t serious.

  Setting the tray down a third time, I lifted my hand to knock but stopped. Duane had been right. There was no forcing Billy to do something he didn’t want to do, not without offering him something in return, something he wanted.

  Sensitive pinpricks of awareness were chased by a crest of heat, racing over my skin. I was breathing hard again, staring forward, the door blurring as I worked to ignore the sensations turning me hot and cold and making my insides freeze and boil.

  . . . I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t serious.

  “Dammit,” I grumbled, raising my fist and pounding on the door. “Billy Winston, open this door.”

  Silence.

  Then, a bed squeaked. It squeaked again. It squeaked a third time followed by more silence. A whole damn ocean of it.

  Obviously, he was inside. Obviously, he hadn’t eaten. Obviously, he knew his family was in a tizzy, worried about him. Obviously, he wasn’t too sick to move around on his bed.

  Not obvious? Whether he was too sick to stand or speak.

  I glared at the latch, allowing myself to get worked up. I was going to need to be worked up if I was going to open the door.

  You can do this. He’s just a man. Just like any other man. Except, not the boogeyman. He’s not the boogeyman. He’s just like all ordinary, regular men. He is a normal, run of the mill, average man.

  Even as I was thinking these thoughts, I knew they were nonsense. Billy Winston wasn’t just a man, and he’d never been just a man to me. When we were teenagers, he’d been my enemy, and then my friend, my love, and ultimately a traitor. He’d betrayed me, he’d abandoned me.

  When I returned to our hometown at eighteen, secretly married to my husband but engaged as far as anyone else was concerned, Billy had been my dream, my fantasy, my solace and comfort, and ultimately my enemy once again.

  That’s where we’d been for ten years. I didn’t know if that’s where we were now. I didn’t want to be standing at two opposing sides of the battlefield, unable to resolve our differences or coexist within each other’s orbit. But Lord help me, even if we were, I still loved my enemy. The thought of Billy in there, suffering, unable to stand or speak, needing my help, was agonizing.

  Similarly, the thought of him in there, not suffering but ignoring me after I’d been cooking all day for him, making rolls and buns and chicken soup and homemade pasta and picking damn poppies, was infuriating.

  Gripping the latch, I tugged it, half expecting the door to be locked. The door swung open, revealing two steep stone steps and darkness. Evidently, he’d dra
wn the blackout curtains; a moment was required for my eyes to adjust and my heart to stop ping-ponging around my rib cage.

  But when I could see, I spotted a king-size bed in the center of the large room and a figure lying on top of it. Not under the covers, on top of the covers. His back was to me, and a chill raced down my spine, a stark sensation that had me leaving the tray on the table outside the door and taking those two steep steps into the room on autopilot.

  “Billy?”

  He didn’t move. My stomach sunk, concern choking me, and my breath came even faster.

  I crossed to the bed and reached for his shoulder, but before my hand could make contact, his deep, grumbly voice said, “Leave.”

  I flinched, yanking my hand back. “I, uh—”

  “Please. Leave,” he said, quieter this time.

  I stared at his back, his broad shoulders, the dark hair on the back of his head. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt—black or dark blue or dark green, I couldn’t tell which—jeans, and black boots. He hadn’t even taken off his shoes. From the way he was lying, I could see he had his arms crossed over his chest and his face mostly pressed against the pillow. Caught between my confusion, worry, and irritation, I wasn’t surprised when the worry won.

  “Cletus told me what happened,” I said softly.

  “Did he,” he said, sounding distant, cold, disinterested. I was familiar with this version of Billy, and as much as it saddened me, disinterest from him was—in some ways—easier to handle than interest. Billy Winston’s interest was basically a stun gun to my good sense.

  “I brought you food, chicken soup and—” Twisting my fingers, I frowned at his unmoving form. Jethro had been right this morning, Billy looked smaller, thinner. The worry bloomed, filling my chest, stomach. “You need to eat, keep up your strength.”

  “Leave it.”

  I scrunched my face. Leaving straightaway had been my plan before I’d seen him. But now, oddly, I wasn’t ready to leave.

  “I have everything on a tray just outside here,” I said, loitering, not sure why I was loitering. Instinct told me to get him talking. “I brought blackberry jam,” I said inanely, “but we also have strawberry if you’d prefer that instead. But not grape.”

  Silence.

  More silence.

  All the silence.

  I glanced around the room and spotted a dark wood rocking chair. I walked to it, keeping an eye on Billy’s back, the worry now eclipsing every other good instinct.

  Uncertain what I should do—leave or stay—I asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Do—do you want—”

  “No.”

  “I could—”

  “Claire,” he said, his tone even, emotionless, and I recoiled.

  Claire.

  The single word effectively drove all the air from my lungs. Like Cletus, Billy wasn’t partial to calling me Claire when we were alone. In fact, this was the first time he’d ever done it.

  “I’d like to sleep,” he continued, carefully, slowly, like he hadn’t just called me Claire, like we were friendly acquaintances, like he was being polite. “Will you leave, please?”

  Sliding my jaw to one side, my front teeth scraping together as a long dormant spark ignited within me, I said, “No.”

  Then I sat my ass down in that rocking chair and I rocked. It squeaked every time it moved forward and clicked every time I rocked back. Squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click. Honestly, the noise was irritating as hell. Good.

  Billy didn’t respond at first, lying perfectly still for several long seconds while I aggressively rocked in the chair, that dormant spark burning brighter the longer I stared at his unmoving back in the dim quiet, punctuated with squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click.

  Then he moved.

  I gripped the curving arms of the rocker, holding my breath as Billy rolled slowly to his back—like the movement cost him, like it was painful—and then turned just his head to glare at me. I’d braced for the force of his stare and the ruthlessness of his handsome features, expecting one of Billy Winston’s signature intense looks that stunned and scattered all at once.

  What I got was much worse.

  He wasn’t happy, no surprise there, so his irritation barely registered.

  Also not a surprise, Billy was still undeniably and brutally handsome. Strong, angular jaw covered in a thick, black beard, high forehead, Roman nose, glacial blue eyes. From last Christmas, I recalled he had the faintest bit of gray at his temples and the first crease of wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead. Both only served to make him look more distinguished and unattainable.

  What made my heart seize wasn’t his irritated glaring or his attractiveness, but the sallowness of his skin, the sunken darkness around his eyes, and the distinct lack of brilliance behind his gaze.

  Thus, I was surprised. A short puff of air escaped my lungs, and I stopped rocking as I took another moment to study him. His typically glacial irises were hollow, lifeless, hopeless, defeated. This man who had never been average was diminished in every sense of the word. Seeing him this way physically hurt, ripples of disquiet just under my skin. The sensation was not unlike listening to an out-of-tune piano or a fork scraping against a ceramic plate. He was truly ill. And yet, as I inspected him, I felt certain that the root of what ailed him was more than physical.

  Something about my face must’ve annoyed Billy, because he clenched his jaw tight, his eyes narrowing. “Leave.”

  Realizing I’d been gawking—and maybe also cringing—I worked to school my expression and pushed the chair to resume forward and backward momentum. Squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click.

  “No,” I said.

  “No.” He drawled the word, like he was tasting it, or spitting it.

  “No.” I shook my head quickly, my pulse racing for several reasons but mostly because Cletus hadn’t been exaggerating, and I didn’t know how to wrestle these feelings of mine into a semblance of order. “But you can sleep,” I said, mostly just to say something. “I’ll, uh, sit in this rocking chair.”

  What are you doing, Scarlet? What has gotten into you? Don’t poke the Billy-bear!

  I told my internal thoughts to hush up and let me be. Maybe I didn’t know what I was doing or why I was doing it, but instinct had taken over, and sometimes there was no arguing with instinct.

  “Why?” he asked impatiently, his chest rising and falling quickly. “Why won’t you leave?”

  “Because I like this rocking chair.” I lifted my chin. “It’s comfortable.” Squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click.

  His gaze wandered to where my hand gripped the armrest. “No other comfortable chairs in the house?”

  “Not as comfortable as this one.” Squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click.

  Billy continued to stare at me with his dull expression. “I could move it into your room.”

  “No. You’re too tired. You just said so. Go to sleep. I’ll be here.” Squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click.

  His jaw worked. “I don’t want you here.”

  “Good to know.” Squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click.

  His chest rose and fell again, but there was no heat behind his eyes, no ice either. Just . . . nothing. It made me want to cry. Instead, instinct told me to glare right back and keep on rocking.

  Squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click, squeak, click—

  “Fine,” he ground out, closing his eyes.

  “Fine?” I stopped rocking but leaned forward, perching myself at the edge, ready to . . . do something.

  “Bring in the food. I’ll eat it.” Not looking at me, Billy pushed himself up to a sitting position, a flash of pain distorting his face for the barest of seconds, making my heart squeeze anew.

>   I wanted to go to him. I wanted to help him sit up. And then I wanted to wrap him in my arms and give him kisses all over his face and cuddle him and tell him everything would be just fine.

  Reminding myself that there was a lot more distance than just five feet between me and cuddling Billy Winston, I stood and walked up the steep stone steps; I grabbed the tray of food, descended the stairs, and crossed to the big bed. Setting the tray on the night table, I picked up the bowl and—in my mindlessness—was about to scoop a spoonful of soup and feed him when Billy reached for the bowl and took it out of my grip.

  Startled by his gruffness and my weird instinct to literally spoon-feed him, I stepped back to the end of the bed, sat, and folded my hands in my lap while I watched him. Billy ate for a bit, three, four, five bites of chicken soup, his eyes half-mast and seemingly staring at nothing in particular. This, too, struck me as concerning.

  Even so, I took advantage of the rare, quiet moment, sharing space with this man I so often dreamed of, studying his movements, the lines of his face.

  Years ago, I hated that I dreamed about Billy with any frequency. I’d wake up feeling guilty and ashamed of my subconscious, considering the unbidden thoughts further proof of my despicable nature. I’d been married to one man and dreaming about another. Even while I slept, I’d been unfaithful.

  So. Much. Guilt.

  But at some point over the last ten years since Ben’s death, and especially in the last six months since I’d started seeing my therapist, I looked forward to my Billy dreams. Maybe because Ben was gone and we weren’t married anymore. Maybe because the dreams were always so nice and we got along so well—us singing, us talking, us walking through the woods, laughing, lying together, touching with sweetness.

  Or maybe because I’d grown old and wise enough to understand the difference between thoughts and actions. I thought about Billy often. I thought about what it would be like to be with him often. But my thoughts didn’t feel like a trap anymore, like an inescapable snare. I didn’t have to act on my wishes and desires. They just were, and I had the power to decide if they were separate from me.