Beard Necessities: Winston Brothers Book #7 Read online

You don’t want to know. Sweet dreams.

  “If it’s nothing of consequence,” Dani kept on pushing, as she was prone to do, “then you should have no problem telling me.”

  “Fine.” I decided to relate just the facts. “She wouldn’t leave until I ate.”

  “Why didn’t you just ignore her?”

  “Because she sat in this rocking chair in my room that makes incredibly annoying noises whenever it’s rocked, and she wouldn’t stop rocking until I ate her chicken soup.”

  Dani sputtered a laugh. “Are you serious? That’s hilarious.”

  I said nothing.

  “Then what happened?” Dani pressed after I’d been quiet for a stretch.

  “I ate, then she stayed and—” a bleak laugh tumbled out of me “—she watched me sleep.” I didn’t tell Dani the importance of this, or what Scarlet had said about monsters, that wasn’t for sharing. That was for us, Scarlet and me.

  Vaguely, unbidden, I wondered if Scarlet still had nightmares. The thought penetrated enough of my present numbness to send a sharp ache through the center of my chest. I closed my eyes again.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about her.

  Dani was likewise quiet for a while, like this time she was truly shocked, saying when she finally recovered, “She stayed and watched you sleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well then. I did not expect that. Yet you don’t sound too happy about this development. I mean, I thought you’d be elated. This is the woman you’ve been pining for basically your entire life.”

  As usual, it was at this point I regretted confiding in Daniella Payton all those years ago, on the night of Jethro’s wedding. I didn’t usually regret that evening—us swapping our sad stories, drunk in the library of my family’s house—just whenever she asked too many questions or used words like pining.

  “Anyway,” I said. Time to change the subject for good. “How are you?”

  “Oh, no. I’m not finished. Why aren’t you happier about this? When she came for Christmas last year, you had all these high hopes and plans, you were going to show her that you’d grown, you were going to let her come to you.”

  “And that worked so well,” I said stonily.

  “Your only mistake was—”

  “Loving her.”

  “Noooo.” I couldn’t see Dani, but I knew she was shaking her head. “Your only mistake was—and is—still resenting her. You were—are—still mad, that she chose Ben over—”

  “She chose guilt! Not Ben.” My eyes flew open and a subdued rush of fury roughened my voice. “Her great love is guilt, not Ben McClure. He was just the peddler of it, the one who got her addicted, with all his bullshit ‘saintly sacrifices.’ Scarlet is addicted to her guilt and shame and fucking self-righteous—”

  “Yeeeeah. You don’t sound angry at all.”

  My forehead fell to my palm. Damn. Dammit! Dani was right. I sounded pissed. I was pissed. I was still so damn angry with her.

  “I’ve been telling you for years, you need to let that shit go.”

  I rubbed my eye with a fist. “If I could, don’t you think I would’ve by now?”

  “Maybe if you got laid, you’d chill out. Being celibate all of your adult life is unhealthy.”

  “We’re not talking about this.”

  “Okay, think of it this way: Which is worse? Scarlet being addicted to her guilt or you—Billy Winston—being addicted to your bitterness?”

  “You think I’m addicted to resenting her?”

  “I know so. If you wanted Scarlet more than your anger, you would’ve told her what you did for her when she left at fourteen.”

  This was an old, tired argument. We’d had this same conversation several times, usually after we’d drunk too much scotch and she cried about Curtis Hickson, aka Catfish, Iron Wraiths captain and criminal. The woman looked like that actress Gabrielle Union and was a financial genius. I still didn’t understand why someone like Daniella Payton—brilliant in every conceivable way, good and charismatic and gorgeous—had a weakness for an asshole like him.

  “No, Dani—”

  “Yes! You could’ve closed the distance between the two of you a long, long time ago by just telling Scarlet the truth. If she knew you took her punishment, you almost died, you lost your chance to play ball in college, you—”

  “If she knew,” I spoke through gritted teeth, “then she’d feel obligated to me, like she did with Ben. She doesn’t need more guilt, more people making demands, and I don’t want her to choose me out of a sense of duty. That’s no choice at all. He ruined her. He wrecked her spirit.”

  Dani made a sound of impatience and I reckoned she’d just rolled her eyes. “She is not ruined, she’s fabulous. Have you heard her latest album? I don’t even like country music and her voice gives me chills.”

  I ignored the question and the content of her statement, focusing on the real issue. “I’d rather never have Scarlet at all than be with her like that. I don’t want her to repay a debt, I don’t want her guilt. I just want her.”

  “Then use this opportunity! She’s there, in Italy, right now, with you. Let go of being angry, stop hating her, and just love the woman, Billy. Just. Love. Her.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” Another stab of pain in the center of my chest pushed the words from my mouth.

  “Fine. Let’s talk about the bone marrow transplant.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that either.”

  Dani chuckled. “Fine. Whatever. There’s lots of things you don’t ever want to talk about. So, let me say this one thing. On behalf of my entire family, thank you. Thank you for being there that night to help my sister. Thank you for donating the bone marrow. You’re doing the right thing.”

  I stopped myself from hanging up on her. I definitely didn’t want her gratitude for donating my marrow to Darrell. I hadn’t done it for her, or her family, or even my family. I’d done it for revenge.

  Dani kept on talking. “All those people that Razor killed, they and their families are going to get justice. He’s going to jail for the rest of his life, or he’s going to get the death penalty—one or the other—and that’s because of you. Your father would’ve died if not for you. Yeah, Razor would’ve been charged in the attempted murder of your brother and my sister—a federal officer—but that’s not, I mean, he could’ve been paroled in twenty years.”

  “Maybe he would’ve died in prison,” I said quietly, “before he was paroled, now that he can’t use his hands.”

  “Hmm. Maybe. But think about all those families who wouldn’t have gotten justice.”

  Shrugging, I glanced out the window. “I guess that’s true.”

  We passed the next few seconds in silence, each with our own thoughts. I watched a wasp tap itself against the sliding glass door of my room, looking for a way in. Of their own accord, my eyes focused beyond the wasp to the landscape beyond. If I’d been in a mood or mind to notice such things, I would’ve said the view was beautiful. Green hills, the chaos of forest patched intermittently with tidy vineyards, gray stone red-roofed villas, and—every so often—a white church steeple pointing to a cloudless blue heaven.

  The Smokies were yellow and green, hot in the summer; blue and brown, cold in the winter; every shade of the rainbow during spring and fall. But my old mountains were never this dreamy combination of orange and purple and warmth. I’d been right. The light here was different.

  I heard Dani’s chair creak again, bringing me back to the room. I heard her breathe out, and then breathe in like she was preparing to say something. Clearly, she was teetering on uncharacteristic indecision. I sensed it through the phone and the thousands of miles between us.

  So, curious, I asked, “You have something to say?”

  “I do, actually.” Once more, her chair creaked. I heard papers shuffle, or something like it. “I have to talk to you about something other than just checking on you. But, I don’t know how to put this.”

  �
�What?”

  She eventually said, “I got a visit from the FBI—oh man, it was awkward. They showed up at my office on Wall Street unannounced, a gang of them in cheap black suits and white shirts and badges. They said FBI so many times. So many, like I was going to forget in the ten seconds they last said it. Anyway, um, it was about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes. They wanted to know if you’d talked to me about or discussed the events of the night Razor tried to kill your brother and Simone.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Precisely. But they wanted to know if we had because Razor is apparently claiming that after you knocked him out, you assaulted him.”

  “Assaulted.” She couldn’t see me, so she couldn’t see the small, satisfied twist to my lips. “Is that what he said?”

  “He’s saying you knocked him out, and then you cut his hands with his own knife, sliced right through his tendons.”

  “If I knocked him out, how could he possibly know what I did after?” The cold, calm mantle of detachment settled firmly around me, a cocoon of soothing starkness.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Dani said just before I heard a door clicking shut on her end. “No one else was there except Simone and Roscoe, and they were both passed out. But that also means no one else was there to cut his hands, right?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps?”

  “I can’t say whether anyone else was there. I was busy trying to keep Simone and Roscoe from dying.”

  “True, true.” Her voice wavered, like she fought a shiver. “Anyway, I told them I didn’t know anything because I simply don’t know anything. You haven’t told me anything, so how could I know anything?”

  “Right.”

  “And they seemed to think that was strange, since we’re engaged and all.”

  “Oh?”

  “But then I told them you’d called off the engagement and that seemed to make them feel better about my lack of knowledge.”

  “Ah.”

  “And I asked them what difference it made whether or not you cut his hands—again, reiterating I had no idea one way or the other—because you would’ve been acting in self-defense. But the agents said it did make a difference because you wouldn’t have been acting in self-defense.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. They said since Razor was unconscious, if it’s discovered that you did, indeed, cut his hands then you could face jail time for that.”

  “Hmm,” was all I said. But what I wanted to say was, I don’t care. If that’s my punishment, so be it. It was worth it.

  “I told them I actually thought it was pretty shitty. Here you are, donating bone marrow to their number one witness, and then here they are, conducting an investigation, trying to put you in jail. That’s stupid. Again, I don’t know anything, except for how asinine it would be to put you in jail for stopping a mass murderer. Other than that, I know nothing.”

  That drew a little bit of a laugh from me, one with humor. “You know nothing. That would be a first.”

  “Ha-ha. Anyway, they also asked when you were planning to be back in the country. They said when you come back to the States, they need to bring you in and talk to you about it. But that they understood you are recovering from your second bone marrow donation and would leave you be until you returned. There you go, that’s what I wanted to tell you.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” I said evenly, meaning it. I’d have to figure out what to do about this later. Maybe I’d turn myself in, maybe I’d say nothing at all, I hadn’t decided yet. But I wouldn’t lie. If it’s not true, don’t say it.

  I did my best to live this every day. The only exception over the course of my life had been Scarlet. The woman was my only secret, the only person I’d lied about, or for, or to, and always as a means of protecting her.

  “Anything you want to tell me Billy? About what happened that night?” Dani’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  I didn’t hesitate. “Nope.”

  “Then I’m just going to ask, did you cut his hands?”

  “Bye, Dani.” I was tired of talking; I needed a shower; I needed to stretch.

  She made a soft grunting sound of displeasure. “You’re an interesting and complicated person, Billy Winston.”

  Working to stand, I kept the strain out of my voice, saying, “Coming from you, Dani Payton, I’ll take that as the highest of compliments.”

  “You know, I think in an alternate universe, I could’ve fallen in love with you . . . if I hadn’t fallen for Curtis first.”

  That pulled a small smile from me. “Same.”

  “You fell in love with Curtis?”

  I smiled despite myself and she laughed, it still sounded reluctant. I wondered if there’d ever been a time when Daniella Payton laughed with abandon, before life and love had broken her trust.

  “Why are we like this?” she asked, right on cue. Dani and I didn’t talk like this often, maybe once a year, maybe twice. But whenever we did, she always ended up asking, “Why can’t we just let them go?”

  “I still don’t have an answer.” I glanced at the glass door again. A wasp—maybe even the same one as before—was tapping against it again, trying to find a way inside. “Maybe we’re stupid.”

  “No. That’s not it,” she said dismissively, then added with a note of distraction, “Maybe we’re too smart.”

  “How you figure?”

  “We are atypically successful in all facets of our lives to an extreme degree, save this one. You’re the youngest state congressman in Tennessee’s history, and you’ll be one of the youngest federal senators ever.”

  “If I’m elected.”

  “Oh, you’ll get elected. You are beloved, not just in Tennessee, but by everyone. My grandfather has already written in support of your candidacy. Senator Parker from California has already said she’ll endorse you—she’d make a great vice-presidential running mate by the way, when the time comes. You’re smart and gorgeous and way too charming when you decide to be. You have no skeletons in the closet because your closet is empty. Plus, the accepted spin on the whole Razor Dennings thing is that you single-handedly caught a serial killer and are responsible for saving the FBI’s case. You. William Winston saved his brother’s life and ended the June reign of terrors. The press is in love with you, Twitter is in love with you—the memes, Billy! My secretary showed me the Twitter account—what’s it called? Congressional Beard?”

  I continued to track the wasp while Dani spoke, certain now it was the same one as before, hurling itself against an invisible, impenetrable barrier with the idiocy of either an insect or a man.

  “Where, I guess, they tweet about how your beard basically seduces men, women, and children with its gloriousness? Something like that. Anyway, it’s epic. I laughed so hard.”

  I hadn’t seen the account. I’d never been on Twitter, or Facebook for that matter. Staff members wrote all my tweets. I wasn’t a fan of the platform. Any website encouraging people to consume misleading headlines over facts seemed counterproductive to the survival of the human species. It was like folks had become willing, voracious consumers of propaganda. Bizarre.

  Plus, Cletus was always asking me to live-tweet stuff, like going to the grocery store during blueberry season or getting my beard trimmed at the barber shop.

  “Your point?” I asked, unable to look away from the persistent and foolish wasp. Tap-tap-tap. Why doesn’t it leave? Why doesn’t it give up?

  “My point, Gruffy McGrufferton, is just this: if you ultimately decide to run for that senate seat next year, it’s yours. And maybe that’s our problem. If we want something, we work and work and work and push and push and push until it happens, and then it always happens. But with Curtis . . .”

  I listened as Dani gathered a deep inhale, the sound overlaid by the tap-tap-tap of the insect. Her melancholy sigh the melody of futility; that imbecilic wasp provided the percussion; my silence was the accompaniment.

&
nbsp; “Pushing gets me nowhere with her,” I stated stoically. “I know that already.”

  “And yet,” she said with a hint of sadness, “you can’t help yourself, can you? You still push.”

  Chapter Four

  *Billy*

  “I’d always secretly believed that a love as fierce and true as mine would be rewarded in the end, and now I was being forced to accept the bitter truth.”

  Alma Katsu, The Taker

  The door to my room opened as I was leaving the bathroom. Unable to see who’d opened it from where I was standing—or much of the hall either—I stopped and gripped the towel at my waist to ensure it wasn’t about to fall. I’d just taken a shower.

  “When I walked by, I heard you talking to someone, so I know you’re up. If you’re awake, then you can eat.” The sound of Scarlet’s voice hit me right below the ribs mere seconds before she—in profile—came into view. Wearing a pale pink summer dress that ended above the knee, held together at her shoulders by mere strings, she walked down the two stairs into my room, carrying another of her food laden trays.

  Her eyes were affixed to the steps and the tray, not the room. Torn, I took a hasty step backward but then stopped. My clothes were in my suitcase, several feet beyond where Scarlet now stood.

  What could I do? Turn around and hide in the bathroom until she left? No.

  . . . Maybe.

  “I didn’t wake you up for dinner last night, you were sleeping so peacefully, but you do need to eat more than once a day. So here I am, and I’ll be back with lunch in a few hours.” She set the tray on the corner of the bed. Her back to me, her hands lifted to her hips as she finally looked up. I braced as she turned at the waist, searching the room. “Where are you hid—oh my God!”

  Well, she saw me.

  Scarlet faced me, her hand flying to her chest. Eyes wide, her stare grew distracted, then hazy, then mesmerized, and it never lifted higher than my neck even though her cheeks were turning pinker with every passing second. I didn’t move other than grind my teeth, just let her look. I was certain at some point she’d realize she was gaping at my body and probably run out of here embarrassed.