Beard Necessities: Winston Brothers Book #7 Read online

  Thus, I’d baked. I’d cooked. I’d basted and marinated and frosted a cake and, today, I’d spatchcocked three chickens.

  “This chicken is so good, Miss Claire, it doesn’t even need ketchup,” Benjamin said, and I lifted my eyes just in time to catch his flash of a smile. He had his daddy’s smile, that was for sure.

  “Glad you like it, sweetheart,” I said.

  “You sure are a good cook, almost as good as Mom,” he continued, shoving a bite into his mouth that would’ve been too big for me. But he chewed like a champ, eventually swallowing before saying, “Too bad you don’t live with us.”

  Sienna chuckled and I gave her my eyes; we shared a quick, amused look.

  “I had similar thoughts before your father and I got married, mijo. Between you and me, I almost married Claire instead.”

  “Really?” Benjamin seemed to seriously consider this, weigh the pros and cons, his big brown eyes moving between us.

  “Did you now?” Jethro asked, sending his wife a twinkly grin. “Now here, I had no idea you had a taste for clams.”

  Someone down at the far end of the table choked on something, drawing all eyes. It was Sheriff James having trouble with his water.

  Jethro glanced at the Sheriff, explaining, “Claire has a great clam recipe.”

  “Sure,” the older man rasped.

  Sienna ignored the commotion, saying to her husband while winking at me, “I usually don’t like clams, just hot ginger clams like Claire’s.”

  Despite my meditative, melancholy mood, I felt my lips tug to the side.

  “You’ll have to give me that recipe,” Jess chimed in, brushing her blonde bangs to one side, her face and tone as straight as a line. “I do love the taste of ginger.”

  Now Mrs. James coughed, but I wasn’t looking at her, I was sharing a wide-eyed stare with Duane.

  His seemed to say: She keeps doing this to me in front of her folks.

  So I tried to communicate: You know what she was like before you married her.

  To which he said: I know, but I feel bad for the Sheriff and Mrs. James.

  To which I responded: Don’t. They gained you as a son.

  At that sentiment, Duane’s mouth curved into one of his rarely bestowed small smiles and it warmed my heart, easing some of the rawness.

  But our silent exchange was interrupted by Jethro. “Holy cow! Are you two doing that thing? Where you read each other’s thoughts? I thought that was just a twin thing.”

  My brother pulled a face, sneering at Jethro. “What are you talking about? That’s not real. That’s just Beau and me trying to piss off Cletus. We can’t actually read each other’s thoughts.”

  Jethro squinted at Duane, then at me, then at Duane, like he was suspicious. “You only do it to piss off Cletus?”

  “Of course.” Duane rolled his eyes, stabbing a piece of chicken with his fork, and then glancing at me real quick as though to say, Keep up the ruse!

  Jethro hit the table with his palm. “There. Right there. You just did it again.”

  Sienna was laughing behind her napkin while I fought my own grin, rolling my lips between my teeth.

  “What did I do?” Tone surly, Duane ate his third helping of chicken and gave his brother a shrug, like he was confused. “I didn’t do anything. You’re crazy.”

  “Uncle Billy!”

  A new commotion erupted and so did my insides. Movement and exclamations at the far end of the table had all eyes turning that way, even mine. Especially mine. I could barely manage a swallow as I leaned forward, searching for Billy. And when I saw him, my heart grew confused about whether to beat or play dead.

  He looked better, stronger. Thank God.

  But that meant he was now mobile. Well, crap.

  Devouring the sight of him, I noted his beard was a mess. This didn’t at all detract from his attractiveness, instead lending him an air of casually haphazard handsomeness that also felt oddly foreboding. He wore jeans, a white undershirt, and that’s all I could see from this far away.

  Greeting Sheriff and Mrs. James first, his eyes seemed to warm as they settled on the infant in her arms.

  “What do you think?” Mrs. James asked, lifting up the babe, grinning like a woman in the throes of grandmotherly bliss. “Isn’t your namesake handsome?”

  “He’s gorgeous, looks like his grandmother,” he said smoothly, fitting his big index finger into the fist of little Liam’s hand. My heart squeezed painfully.

  The woman giggled—giggled! Like a teenager! “Oh stop,” she chided, tutting at him but looking pleased. “He does not. He looks just like his daddy. Look at those red curls.”

  “Can I hold him?” He directed this question to Janet James first, and then Jess, both of whom were staring at him with dreamy-looking smiles.

  “Of course!”

  “Absolutely. Go for it.”

  He accepted the child as Duane rushed over as though to supervise. Billy fit the tiny human in the crook of his elbow and placed a kiss on Liam’s forehead. That’s when I tore my eyes away, leaning back in my chair, needing to focus through whatever insurrection my organs were staging. I couldn’t stand it, the sight of it. Billy Winston fussing over a baby did weird things to my insides, sent pangs of longing from one corner of my torso to the other.

  I was officially ridiculous.

  Sensing the weight of someone’s gaze again, I hazarded a glance at Sienna. She wasn’t looking at me. Like Jess and Janet, her smiling eyes were on the action at the end of the table, the breathtakingly handsome man holding the cutest baby in the world. Shifting my attention one seat over, I met Jethro’s gaze.

  He was studying me. Carefully. Like he was looking for something. Maybe he found it, I had no idea, because upon discovering his inspection, an alarm bell rang between my ears.

  I stood. I grabbed my plate. “I’ll start the dishes,” I muttered, and I darted to the kitchen.

  For the record, I didn’t mind darting to the kitchen, I loved this kitchen, it had definitely become my safe space. Big but not too big, the style fit the structure. Solid olive wood cabinets, gray granite from an ancient quarry somewhere in Italy, hand painted blue, green, and yellow ceramic tile backsplash, a farmhouse style porcelain sink big enough to wash a toddler. Jess had called it modern rustic and that was an apt description.

  Setting my plate on the counter, I realized I’d barely touched my dinner, so I stuffed a piece of chicken in my mouth and dumped the rest of the food into the compost. I then pulled all the dirty prep dishes out of the sink, clearing space for me to skip the dishwasher and clean everything by hand. Why not? I had the time and my hands wanted to be busy.

  “Claire?”

  I tensed at the sound of my name, relieved I hadn’t been holding a breakable dish.

  “Jethro,” I said brightly, keeping my back to him. “You can just leave that right there with the rest of it. I got all this.”

  “You wash, I’ll dry.” In my peripheral vision, I saw he’d placed his plate next to mine on the counter and was hovering at my shoulder, looking at me. “I don’t mind. It’ll give us a chance to catch up. How are you? How’s work?”

  “Work is fine.” I faced him, giving him a tight-lipped smile, prepared to behave as though everything was just fine and dandy, because everything was fine. And dandy. “They booked me a studio in Rome, so I can finish the new album for a fall release. That’s good.”

  “They’re releasing in the fall? I thought you said they were delaying things on account of the bad press.” Jethro pulled a towel out of the third drawer, slinging it over his shoulder.

  “Oh, well, you know. Some big executive overruled that idea.” I shrugged, flipping on the faucet and reaching for his plate, ignoring the twinge of unidentified emotion making my chest feel too tight. “All press is good press, or something like that. They already try to pass me off as the bad girl of country, and I guess my new nickname, ‘Devil’s Daughter,’ doesn’t change that any, so . . .” Truth was, I hat
ed the nickname. I hated it.

  “Yeah, why’d they do that? Why dress you in all that black leather and such?” He accepted the wet plate I handed over, leaning his hip against the counter.

  “I don’t know. Sex sells, maybe? When I signed with the label, I didn’t realize an image revamp was required. But I shouldn’t care. And it kind of makes it easier, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I felt myself settle, relieved at the benign direction of the conversation. This felt comfortable, like old times, back when I was teaching music and drama at the high school and Jethro would come over on Sundays. I’d make him dinner, he’d fix up the house, and then I’d help him study, first for his GED and then later for his AA.

  “Well, if I can wear a costume, play a part up there on stage—this vixen role they’ve defined for me, something so hugely different from the real me—it should make it easier to separate my real life from my stage life. Make sense?”

  “I guess so.”

  I handed over the big pan I’d just scraped clean and picked up the frying pan I’d used to make the squash flowers. “Anyway, letting them dictate the brand part means they let me dictate the music part. Every single one of the songs I wrote for this album was greenlit on the first pass, and that’s no small accomplishment with these people.”

  “It also helps that you’re an amazing musician, Claire. Don’t forget about that.”

  I suppressed the instinct to deny or deflect his statement, instead forcing myself to say, “Thank you, Jet. I appreciate that.” Look at me, I’ve matured.

  “Oh my!” Jet reared back, his hand coming to his chest in a movement that could only be described as dainty. “Did you just accept a compliment? Did Claire McClure just accept a compliment? Did that just happen?”

  I made a face at my friend while scrubbing the cast iron skillet, careful not to use soap. “Well, not if you’re going to give me shit about it, I won’t.”

  He laughed, likely at my exasperated expression; exasperated expressions on other people were his favorite.

  “Then I shall not give you shit. But I do want to mark this day down on my calendar as momentous. All it took was a big record contract, one platinum album, and a fancy trip to Italy for you to start putting on airs.”

  I laughed too, flicking water at his face with my fingernails. “Shut your dumb face.”

  He caught my wrist before I could flick any more water and pulled it down, lowering his voice to say, “Claire. That ain’t lady-like.”

  I laughed harder. This was something Jethro and I used to chuckle over. Every so often, Ben would tell me I wasn’t behaving in a lady-like way. This used to irritate the heck out of Jethro, and so he’d make fun of Ben, and that would make Ben laugh, and then we’d all be laughing.

  “Did I ever tell you, I loved it when you did that?”

  “What?” He dried my hand and then released it, grinning at me.

  “I loved how you diffused those situations with humor, intervened with Ben when I didn’t have the right words. Thank you for doing that, it meant a lot.”

  Jethro’s grin waned, his gaze turning inward, introspective. “Is it weird that sometimes I felt like Ben and I were different species? I loved him, Lord knows I did, but he did things that made no sense to me.” Jethro seemed to pull himself from a memory, the side of his mouth curving good-naturedly. “Like when he’d say that shit to you, as though he was your father or drill sergeant instead of your fiancé. Used to piss me off, honestly.”

  “No, not weird. I get it.” I flipped off the water, taking the towel out of Jethro’s hands to dry my own. “His disappointment often caught me off guard too. Like, one time, I was painting my toenails in the living room and it made him mad.”

  “Exactly. I remember once he threw a fit because I ordered him a hamburger with cheddar cheese instead of Swiss. But then, I’d fuck up in a big way—like huge—and he’d forgive me right on the spot, wouldn’t even get mad. Like he’d expected it and had just been waiting there, ready to extend grace.”

  I bit the inside of my lip, studying the laugh lines around Jet’s eyes, feeling like we’d both been abruptly caught in a rising tide of melancholy. But at least we were together . . . Except, were we? Really?

  Jethro missed Ben. He still missed Ben a lot. Whereas, I didn’t. I didn’t feel the grief of a wife losing her husband, and what did that say about me?

  I’d struggled for so long to miss him. I’d talk about him wistfully to folks, trying to force it, saying all the right things. But ultimately, I felt like a traitor for not missing him more, guilty about not being devastated, which—in the end—devastated me.

  Currently inspecting me just as he’d done at the dining room table, like he was looking for something, Jethro had his mouth as though a thought sat on the tip of his tongue. I stood still, meeting his gaze, no longer panicked by whatever it was he was looking for.

  Now that I was no longer flustered by Billy’s sudden appearance, my earlier alarm seemed silly. This was Jethro. I’d known Jethro my whole life. We’d been through a lot, and not once—not once—had he ever made me feel like less, like a burden, like a source of disappointment or unhappiness. Not once.

  He’d been my family before I knew I had any remaining family worth knowing, visiting me in Nashville when Ben was deployed, and then—after Ben’s death, when I’d moved back to Green Valley to be close to the McClures—he’d taken care of me and let me take care of him.

  Eventually, he inhaled deeply and said, “You know, it’s okay to love someone else, other than Ben. Right?”

  In my ancestry there must’ve been a deer, because I froze. Jethro’s statements were high beams and I was caught. What the heck?

  He inspected me for a moment more, must’ve noticed the shift in me, my alarm, because then, using the voice he reserved for occasions where the utmost care and consideration were required, he said, “As you know, I only became a ranger at the park because it was what I thought Ben wanted to do, and I wanted to be the person he saw in me. I wanted to live up to his hope for me, after he died.”

  I managed a small nod.

  “Well, turns out I liked it. I liked staying at home with my momma in the evenings, learning how to knit. I liked getting my GED, studying, earning my AA. I liked getting to know my brothers—well, the ones who wanted to know me—wearing the uniform of a ranger, working with Drew and the other ladies and fellas, even that Griffin. I liked it, and I was content doing it. For a while. But something was missing.”

  “What?” I asked breathlessly, still alarmed. Had Sienna told him about my drunken confession session?

  “I liked being a ranger all right, but I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy living a life as a monument to someone else, someone I loved, still miss, but who’s gone. It wasn’t fair to me, but it also wasn’t fair to Ben either.”

  That got my attention, broke through the dread trance. “What—what do you mean? Not fair to Ben?”

  “I didn’t realize this until my momma died, but the living change, the dead don’t. Who a person was at the time of their death is who we tend to assume they always were, and who they’d always be, if they were still here. But that’s not true, is it?”

  I frowned, frantically trying to follow, but not quite understanding his point.

  Thankfully, he must’ve discerned my confusion, because he said, “Take me, for instance. If I’d died while I was still with the Wraiths, well then folks would’ve just assumed that’s who I was and who I would always be. But that’s not the truth of me, of my life. I changed, I grew, I worked to make something of myself, to earn my family’s trust.”

  “Yes, you did,” I agreed quietly, pride pushing aside anxiety. I was so proud of him.

  “Now, take Ben. He was my best friend, I loved him something fierce. I’d screw up, do something monumentally stupid, and he’d forgive me, over and over. He’d offer a hand instead of judgment. For so long, I was grateful for him, for his categorical absolutio
n of my shitty choices. That’s who he was when he died. But do you think, if he’d lived, he would’ve continued putting up with a friend who was an asshole?”

  Surprised laughter fell from my lips as I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms. “You weren’t an asshole, Jet. You were—”

  “An asshole.”

  I laughed again.

  “I was, and you know it. And if Ben had lived, I hope he would’ve changed, called me on it, stopped enabling me and started calling me an asshole. Loving someone means wanting the best for that person, not indulging selfishness. I love my children, and that means I don’t spoil them or let them play with knives, right? Love sometimes means calling another person on their bullshit, even if doing so requires an awkward, uncomfortable conversation, like this one we’re having right now.”

  Covering the lower half of my face with my hand to hide my rueful smile, I peered up at my friend, impressed with how he’d circled this conversation back around to me, to us.

  “Claire, Scarlet, whatever your name is, I love you. Not like a sister, I got one of those already and she’s the best. And definitely not like a wife, I got one of those too and she’s the best ever.”

  My smile grew and I dropped my hand.

  “I love you like a best friend,” he said, his twinkly eyes beaming down at me. “I love you unconditionally, but you’re being an asshole.”

  My mouth fell open and, unthinkingly, I smacked his arm with the back of my fingers. “Hey!”

  “To yourself!” He gripped the spot I’d hit and angled away, not trying to hide his laughter. “You’re being an asshole to yourself—and don’t you deny it. Your smiles are forced, they have been for years. Not all of them, but most. You put everyone else’s needs first. You haven’t gone on a single date since Ben died, not a single one. I’m not saying you need a man, but you’ve closed yourself off to all possibilities.”

  Glaring at him, I tried to read him like I’d done with Duane at the dinner table.

  “Fact is, Red, you’ve been living someone else’s idea of a life.” Jethro stared back at me, guilelessly, yet giving none of his thoughts away as he added, “And I suspect I know whose.”