Chapter Ten
“Are you sure you don’t want to—”
“No.” Nick softened the terse refusal with a smile, and a “We gotta get you in somethin’ dry and warm before you crystallize.”
“I’m not asking just for you, you know,” Eve huffed from the passenger seat, where she sat huddled, arms wrapped around her knees, teeth chattering.
Yes, he would very much like to go somewhere and finish what they’d started back in that muddy field, but with Mason’s arrival had come some much needed common sense.
He had no business screwing this woman in the back seat of a pickup truck. She deserved clean sheets, candlelight, and roses. She deserved someone better than him, but he wasn’t so noble that he was willing to walk away just yet.
That thought gave him pause. He was the walk away guy. He never promised tomorrow to his employers, much less his lovers. And here he was looking forward to more time with Eve. Not that he had any illusions there was a future for them.
Hell, he was an alcoholic and she lived at a distillery, which was her life. She was a forever kind of a girl, one who lived with a planner in her hand and her phone in the other, taking care of everyone and everything, and he couldn’t promise he’d be sober tomorrow, much less be a faithful and reliable boyfriend.
Not that she’d want him, even if he were so inclined. Back to that distillery thing again. She was a Bluegrass princess and he was the son of a deadbeat drunk.
“What are you thinking about right now?” she asked, her head on her knees turned toward him. She’d put his soggy T-shirt on, but had left her wet jeans in the back seat, and her slim legs were folded up inside his shirt for warmth. Her short dark hair was starting to dry, curling slightly and sticking up in places.
“I’m thinking about how I’m going to get that wood to your place tomorrow,” he lied. He was thinking about stopping the truck and taking her up on her suggestion in spite of his good intentions.
“How are you going to do it?”
Slow, and long, and— Oh. She meant get the lumber. “I’m going to have to get the tires pumped up on my dad’s old trailer. Mason will help me load it.”
“With the exception of his surprise visit back there, you seem really glad to see him again,” she commented.
“Yeah. I didn’t realize how much I missed him.”
“How long had it been?”
“Five years.” He traced the outline of the coin he kept in his front left pocket. “Five years, three months, and six days.” Shit. He hadn’t meant to be that specific.
“It seems weird to me that you took off without staying in touch with him.”
“I kind of left in a hurry, and then I got busy…”
“Must have been some job you started.”
He barked out a laugh. It had been a job all right. A major undertaking. But he wasn’t going to tell her about needing to leave to get sober. About the shitty rehab he’d signed himself into and still hadn’t completely paid off. She would feel sorry for him. She’d know he was in a dangerous place at Blue Mountain, and while she probably wouldn’t fire him, she’d definitely worry. And he’d worried enough people in his life. More, realistically, selfishly, he wanted this—thing—between them to continue for a little longer. She’d definitely cool off toward him if she knew everything there was to know.
The setting sun was starting to shine through the clouds as the truck turned onto the Blue Mountain property. Eve’s mom’s house had a driveway full of cars.
“Oh shit,” Eve said. “I forgot tonight was Open Barrel Night.”
“Open Barrel?”
“That’s the event we’re hosting when the tasting center’s finished as part of the David and Jamie McGrath Foundation for about fifteen different organizations. Mom was always doing fundraisers for each one, which was exhausting—for all of us. So rather than cut anything out, this year she’s coordinating a big conglomerate event for all the groups to participate in. They invite however many people they want to come and sell the tickets themselves and spend a lot of money on food, liquor, and entertainment—which Blue Mountain provides—hence, the open barrel—and then they divide the proceeds. Tonight’s her last organizing night before the big event.”
“That’s pretty cool.” His impression of Lorena softened. She was mean, but at least she had a reason to be a pain in the ass about getting the tasting center finished. Except now he was inclined to help Eve shoulder the weight of the obligation to get the job done on time.
No pressure.
A crowd of people stood on Lorena’s porch holding glasses and chatting. A few sent curious glances at his big rumbling truck.
He looked at the woman sitting in the front seat of his truck, disheveled and wearing nothing but her underwear and his oversize, torn, wet T-shirt. She held her soggy jeans in a plastic grocery bag, and her boots sat on the floorboard.
The driveway between his truck and her garage-top apartment was filled with Lincolns, BMWs, and Cadillacs.
“How are we going to get you into your apartment without anyone seeing you?” he asked. “Do you want me to take you to your sister’s place?” Allie, he knew, lived across the main street, out of sight of their mother and her friends.
“Nah. She’s already seen me. Hi, Mom!” she said, waving to the straight-backed woman who’d come to the top of the porch steps to see who was lingering at the end of her driveway.
“Ohhhkay.”
Eve turned and shot him a grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
And she was out of the truck. Walking across the driveway in her bare feet, carrying her boots and bag of wet clothes, wearing his T-shirt. Which had rucked up in the back and was tucked into the back of her thong, baring her ass to his sight. She shot him a look over her shoulder, grinned, and untucked it right before she’d gotten far enough that the people on the porch—and her mother—could see her ass.
But damn. The view he got was surely enough to keep him awake all night.
Knock, knock, knock.
Five minutes past eight. About four more than the two minutes Eve had given her mother before she came knocking on her door to find out why her oldest daughter was marching mostly naked across the driveway.
“Come in,” she called from the bathroom, where she’d rinsed off the last vestiges of mud and grass from her outdoor adventure and was now dropping a sundress over her clean body.
“It’s just me.” Allie pushed the door open and padded across the room to flop on Eve’s couch, an Ikea treasure.
“I was expecting Mother.” Eve came into her tiny combination living room/kitchen and took a couple of bottles of water from the fridge. She tossed one to Allie and opened the other, leaning back on the counter.
“Yeah, she sent me. I think it would have been too obvious that she was disturbed if she excused herself from the pre-shindig shindig to come over and interrogate you herself.”
“Interrogate?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, sister.” Allie produced a bag of M&M’s from somewhere and tore it open. She tipped it into her mouth. “What’s the deal with Hottie Mc Carpenterson? And why were you doing the walk of shame up the driveway in the middle of the evening?”
“It wasn’t a walk of shame,” Eve protested.
“Really?”
“Really.” Unfortunately.
“So then, what’s that on your neck if it’s not a hickey?”
“Oh no!” Eve automatically put a hand to her throat to feel for—
“Ha-ha! Gotcha.” Allie rubbed her belly, smugness oozing from her pores. “I thought you were going to help him tear down a barn.”
“I did.” She was going to stop there, but in the face of her sister’s knowing stare, she crumbled. “We did. Tear down the barn. And then it started to rain.”
“So you took off your wet clothes and then borrowed his equally wet shirt because…reasons. Makes sense.”
And to Allie, that would make sense. But not for her. Not for Eve, who planned out every aspect of her life. Who had only ever had sex with two men, and it had taken months and many carefully planned dates before she even got to second base with them.
“You work fast. I can’t believe you already got him through your homeland security high risk background check,” Allie commented.
“Ha-ha.”
“Well. You have to admit, you do usually schedule things pretty carefully with the guys you get involved with.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not sure what’s come over me.”
Allie smirked. “I do. It’s called testosterone poisoning. It floats through the air with pheromones, into your sinuses, and travels to your tootie. And you can’t get rid of it. It occasionally has permanent consequences.” With that, she pointed at her burgeoning belly.
“Waugh!” Eve shrieked and threw her arms over her head. “Get it out! Get it out!”
Allie cracked up. “Chill. He seems like a nice guy.”
Eve straightened and nodded. “Yeah. He is. I like him. But seriously, I just met him, he lives in Knoxville in real life, and he’s got…I dunno. Some kind of…darkness or something.” She wanted to know what that was about, but reminded herself that he wasn’t here for long. He wasn’t hers to keep, and he wouldn’t appreciate her pushing the issue.
“I thought he seemed really easygoing when I met him the other day,” Allie observed.
“He is. But it’s like…like a mask—no, that’s not right. He really is easygoing. But he’s hiding something, or hiding from something, maybe.” Something about why he’d left Kentucky for Tennessee. What had happened to him here before he left? She suspected it had something to do with his parents, but maybe that was just her own projections—her issues were about her alcoholic father—surely everyone else’s were, too.
“We’re all hiding things, though, aren’t we?”
“Not me! I’m a totally open book.”
“Really?” Allie’s eyebrow rose. “You’ve told him that you sucked your thumb until you were in the fourth grade?”
Sixth, actually, though she appreciated Allie didn’t remember that whole issue as well as Eve…and their mother…did.
“You also don’t have to give the rest of your life to this place,” Allie said.
Eve froze. “What are you talking about?”
“I know you hate this job.”
“No! What are you talking about? I’m good at this job.”
“You are. But I think there are days when you’d rather be anywhere but here.”
Was that true? She’d had moments now and then where she wished for more than the problem solver role she’d slid into so easily at both work and home, but did she hate it? Maybe in her darkest, loneliest nights, she admitted it wasn’t everything she wanted, but hate—that was a strong word.
“He seems to be good for you. Getting you out of your comfort zone.”
“How so?”
“When was the last time you walked nearly naked down the driveway in front of two dozen of Mother’s friends?”
“Good point.” She was starting to loosen her tight grip on herself, wasn’t she? Was that a good thing? “Anyway. Not to change the subject,” Eve said, “but Mother sent you up here to find out why I was frolicking naked with Nick while I was supposed to be here serving mini hot dogs, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“Tell her we got stuck in the thunderstorm, and that’s why I was late and semi-naked, and I’ll be down as soon as I put on some makeup.” She picked up her bag and rooted for her organizer.
“Cool.” Allie didn’t get up.
“Anything else?”
“Have you been to a meeting lately?”
Eve sighed. Al-Anon. The twelve-step support group she and her sister had started attending when they’d reached high school and realized their father was an alcoholic. It helped them both practice letting go of the idea that they could fix other people—not just the alcoholic in their lives, but other loved ones like Lorena, who was fragile and holding onto her illusions of a perfect life so tightly. Well, it helped Allie stop trying to fix their mother.
No, it helped Eve, too. She was no longer trying to fix her mother. She was still running around trying to make sure Lorena’s path was clear of obstacles.
“I went two weeks ago. You?”
“I’ve been so busy…but I should go again soon. Let me know next time you’re going, we’ll ride together?”
“Sure.” She’d been busy, too. Which was when she really needed to get in there and hear the message most.
Allie heaved to her feet. “Okey dokey.” When she reached the door, she turned and said, “You might want to put some of that Burt’s Bees lip balm on. Your mouth looks like you’ve been eating raspberries—and you’re allergic to them.”
When the door shut, Eve ran to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror. Damn. No hickey, thank God, but she did look like she’d been well and thoroughly kissed.
Maybe soon she’d be well and thoroughly…you know’ed. Nick Baker might not be planning to stay in the area long, and Eve might be the plan-it-out-to-the-minute-detail girl, but she was beginning to think she might be able to tuck her organizer into her purse for a couple of hours and take a chance—see what happened if she hung around the carpenter for a while longer. He didn’t seem to mind her company.
She shot herself a grin in the mirror and then started digging through her makeup drawer.
Mason was lounging on the porch when Nick pulled his truck up to his dad’s house.
“What are you doing here?” He grabbed his muddy boots from the back seat and picked his barefoot way across the gravel driveway to the steps.
Mason tipped the beer he held into his mouth, belched, and grinned. “Just thought I’d come shoot the breeze with you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I bet you need a beer, doncha? After all that lovey-dovey stuff, a guy needs to rehydrate.”
“No thanks.”
Mason, who had been reaching into the cooler at his feet stopped and stared, mouth hanging open. “Did you just say ‘no’ to a beer?”
Nick sighed. Why he thought he’d be able to avoid this was anyone’s guess. “I don’t want one, thanks.”
“You all hoity-toity now that you’re doing the Blue Mountain girl? Only the finest bourbon and branch water for you, huh?”
“No, that’s not it,” Nick said, reaching the top of the steps, wanting to get inside and put on clean, dry clothes more than anything—except that he didn’t want to invite Mason and his cooler full of beer into his house. His dad’s house. There hadn’t been any alcohol to clean out when he’d arrived…Dad didn’t leave any bottle unemptied, so Nick had gone around throwing away dead soldiers. It wasn’t that he thought he’d drink if there was beer around, it was more that—well, he didn’t want to tempt fate.
Or spend the evening watching his best friend get sloppy drunk. Or explain everything about what happened when he left town, and why he’d gone to rehab, and what it was like to live sober, and if he ever really just wanted to get shitfaced, and if he’d gone this long, surely he was okay and could have just one… “I don’t want a drink,” he finally said.
“Okay.” Mason shut the cooler. Just like that.
Nick jerked in surprise. Huh. Maybe it was more of a big deal to him than it was to anyone else.
“You gonna sit down and enjoy the evening, or you going to stand there all awkward and make me feel unwelcome?” Mason leaned back in his seat, feet propped on the porch railing.
“Don’t you have a family to get home to? Kids to put to bed or something?”
“Nope. Misty took the kids to her sister’s for some kind of Disney something-a-thon, and they’re all spending the night.”
“So here you are.”
“Here I am.”
“What did you do with your spare time for the past five years?”
“Watched SportsCenter. So you see, you’re obligated to make up for lost time and entertain me for a couple of hours.”
Nick considered his jeans, still mostly wet and beginning to bind uncomfortably in places. Oh, what the hell. It’s not like he was going to have many more opportunities to shoot the shit with Mason like this. Once Raleigh was back in business, Nick was out of there.
“Man, the bugs are making a hell of a racket, aren’t they?” Mason tilted his head. “Remember that time them seventeen year cicadas came?” He shuddered. “There were millions of ’em, and they were as big as a fuckin’ blue jay.”
“More like a hummingbird, but yeah. They were big sons of bitches, weren’t they?” The cyclical insects swarmed up out of the ground every seventeen years, and it was such a huge event that the local news stations had a field day—people wore cicada T-shirts, masks, had cicada eating contests— “Remember the time I convinced you I’d been stung by one?”
Mason hooted. “Shit. You colored on yourself with a marker, made this big red and blue spot on your leg, and poured honey on it so it looked like it was oozing pus.”
“You were freaking out. Gluing a thorn to the dead bug’s ass was genius.”
“I called 9-1-1 and the operator didn’t believe me, since cicadas don’t sting, but then I told them about the marks and the pus, and they sent the squad, and your mom was soooo pissed!”
“Yeah.” Nick smiled at the memory of his mother running outside to see why there were sirens screaming in her front yard and how she’d tried to punish him but couldn’t stop laughing about it.
“How is your mom?” Mason asked. “She doing okay down there in Tennessee?”
Nick hesitated. Questions about his mother always tripped him up. But then he said, “She is,” and realized he meant it.
“That’s good. I remember hearing she went through some bad stuff right after she left your dad.”
“Yeah.” Bad stuff Nick could have prevented, if he hadn’t had his head so far up his own alcoholic ass. “She had a stroke right after she got to Tennessee.” Which wouldn’t have happened if Nick had been sober and available to help her move.
“That sucks. She almost escaped unscathed, huh? Well, that’s cool that you were able to go down there and take care of her until she got better.”
But that’s not what had happened. She’d asked Nick to help her move, and he’d promised that he would—and went on a bender instead. And just as she’d carried her last box herself into her new apartment, she’d collapsed. By the time Nick sobered up enough to realize what had happened, she’d been on the road to recovery and ready to help him check into rehab. But the damage was done. It had taken years of physical and occupational therapy before she could work again.
But, as she constantly reminded him, she was fine now and more than able to live her life without him standing guard over her.
“She’s a teacher now and loves it.”
“I can see your mom in a pair of those little glasses, holding a ruler…”
“Jesus, man.” Nick punched Mason in the shoulder, but he was laughing. “Have some respect.”
“Not my thing,” Mason said. “Since I’m being inappropriate, what’s with the Bourbon Babe? Damn, boy, you don’t come around for years, and when you do, you score the best filly in three counties.”
Nick wasn’t about to compare Eve to a horse—even a thoroughbred. But he thought three counties was a little narrow. The whole state of Kentucky, at least.
Well, hell. Here he’d gone and decided she was special.
“She’s a nice girl, Mason. Don’t forget that.”
“I could see for myself that she’s nice.” He blew out a breath and fanned his face.
“You also need to remember that she’s the boss, too.”
“Kinky.” Mason dodged the punch Nick aimed at him this time. “And I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“I know you will.” He did. He’d been so afraid of falling victim to his friend’s bad influences, that he hadn’t given him a chance to still be his friend. Maybe he needed to start trusting other people a little more. Maybe even trust himself, too.