Chapter Twenty-Two
“Thank you sooo much, Lorena,” Babs Howard cooed as she left. “I’m so glad you’re here today. Hold your head up, sister, and don’t let those assholes win.”
Eve suppressed an eye roll, which she’d been doing all evening, as almost everyone addressed Lorena’s meltdown in overt or subtle ways—nearly everyone who gave Lorena an “atta girl” could also be overheard saying, “Can you believe she—”
Her mother smiled graciously and nodded, as she’d done a thousand times today when anyone offered their support. Apparently kicking Raleigh had been seen by everyone—or at least all of Lorena’s crowd—as self-defense, and her outburst nothing more than truth. At least, that’s what they said to her face. Had she never told anyone where she’d come from? That she’d grown up in poverty and been a waitress in a biker bar before she’d married Jamie McGrath?
There were no cracks in the facade Eve could see.
Allie waddled from the gift shop into the nearly empty main room, rubbing her lower back. “Oh my God,” she said, as she waved good-bye to the last guest. “I’ve got how many more months of this to go? I need to be put on bed rest. Yesterday.”
“You’d hate it, babe,” Justin said, dumping another handful of losing raffle tickets into the recycling bin.
“And I’m not really sure who would take over your duties with the Jamie and David McGrath Foundation,” Lorena added. “Unless you plan to ask your sister, and she’s got enough on her plate.”
Wow. Was that her mom defending Eve’s time?
“After all, I was going to save this announcement for later, but I might as well tell you now. I’ve decided that we’ll be making this an annual event, and that Eve is to take over my position as CFO so I can devote more time to outreach.”
So much for defending her time.
“Evelyn, you should probably get your planner while we’re thinking about it.”
She almost lied and said she didn’t have it, but no one would believe her. It was in her bag behind the gift shop counter.
Eve went in to find it and saw the box of shot glasses sitting on the shelf behind the counter. Just like the ones she’d been counting the day Nick came in to ask her for tape. Remembered what had come next, their interlude in the supply closet. The brief flash of heat was followed by…emptiness. Damn. She’d never again get to see that smile of his shining down on her with that special little glint in his eye. Did she also have to give up that spark of spontaneity he’d left behind with her? That ability to take each day as it came and stop trying so hard to control the future?
She pictured herself at forty, running around after her mother with her damned notebook, taking directions and— “No.”
“Did you say something, Eve?” Allie stuck her head in the door. Something in her face must have alarmed her sister, because she came in and said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Eve thought for a second and said, “Everything. But not for long.” With a flourish, she tossed the notebook into the tall trash can next to the cash register. She pushed past her sister—gently, because she wasn’t mad at Allie—and went back into the main room, where her mother blithely pushed buttons on the calculator she had next to a laptop and an old-fashioned ledger.
“Oh, good. You’re back.” Lorena didn’t even look up. “Take a note about this—”
“No.”
The silence that filled the tasting center was so absolute, she could have sworn she heard Justin’s tattoos whispering to each other in shock.
Everyone had stopped their cleanup activities and turned to stare at her.
“What?” Lorena asked, incredulous.
“I don’t want to be the CFO of the McGrath Foundation.”
“Oh.” Her mother blinked. “Then what should we call your position?”
“Nothing. Not for me. As a matter of fact, I’d like a little less responsibility from now on.”
“What on earth for?”
“Because I want to do something besides take care of shit that happened years ago that I didn’t have anything to do with.”
The only gasp in the room came from Lorena, but Eve was pretty sure she felt a breeze when everyone else inhaled sharply.
“What on Earth do you mean?” Lorena asked.
“Everything you’ve done since Daddy died has been about making sure his memory lives on in some pseudo-colored facsimile of reality. Daddy didn’t give two shits about raising money for starving kids in Crockett County or Africa. All he cared about was this family, his girlfriend of the moment, and where his next drink was coming from.”
Lorena stood, the color draining from her face. “How dare you talk about him that way.”
“I dare because you won’t. You walk around pretending like he walked on water, and the rest of us tiptoe around trying to help you believe it. In the meantime, I managed to lose a perfectly wonderful man because he believes I’d choose this fricking distillery over him, and you know what?”
Lorena shook her head.
“I hate the taste of whiskey. Hate. It.”
“Now she’s done it,” muttered Justin.
Allie snorted, and Brandon sighed.
Lesa smiled supportively.
“But what else would you do? Are you…are you leaving Blue Mountain?” Lorena asked, as though she couldn’t imagine any other possible career for Eve.
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on whether or not I’ve got anywhere else to go.” She was going to find out, though.
She marched to the gift shop, grabbed her bag, and put her hand on the doorknob. If Nick hadn’t gone to his father’s house after he left Blue Mountain that morning, she’d go look for him at Mason’s house. If he wasn’t there, she’d drive to Tennessee.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to go anywhere, because when she opened the door of the tasting center, Nick was on the other side.
Nick didn’t know what had just transpired inside the tasting center, but by the determined set to Eve’s mouth and the shell-shocked looks on the faces of her family and friends, it must have been something profound.
“Oh. Good. There you are.” Eve marched out, grabbed his arm, and pulled him along with her. “I was just coming to find you.”
“You were?” He felt a grin try to steal across his face, but held it in, just in case she wasn’t coming to find him for the same reason he had come to find her.
She didn’t speak until they got to his truck, released his arm, and climbed into the passenger seat. So he got in on his side. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the tasting center, eyebrows furrowed. He wasn’t sure she even knew he was there.
He put his keys in the ignition but didn’t start the engine. Instead, he breathed in her summer sunshine scent and appreciated how perfectly she fit there, next to him.
“So what’s new?” he asked.
She turned to face him and opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again and said, “I think I just broke up with my family.” And burst into tears.
It wasn’t exactly the romantic reunion he’d hoped for, but when she dove across the console and curled up in his lap—it was a snug fit between his body and the steering wheel—he managed to free one arm enough to slide the seat back and cuddle her against him comfortably while she sobbed.
Ah hell. Surely this could have gone any other way. She could have thrown some dishes and broken a window he could replace. Or he could dig a hole to bury a body for her. But this holding a girl while she cried— Sitting helplessly, stroking her back, and murmuring nonsense was for the birds. Apparently, that was all that was required of him, though, because after about three minutes, his shirt was soaked and she began to settle, sniffing and shifting around. He found a pile of unused fast food napkins in the side pocket of the door and handed them to her.
“I should probably…” She gestured toward the other side of the truck.
“No, you can stay here as long as you don’t want me to drive in this position.” Actually, she felt pretty damned good right there on his lap, her soft backside pressing down against him, and he tucked her head back under his chin and said, “What happened?”
“I-I’m not sure. I think I snapped. Everything…everything was so terrible after you left. I thought Raleigh was fine, but then all of a sudden, he wasn’t, and then my mom freaked out. She—”
“I saw the video.”
“Is your dad okay?”
“He’s hung over.”
“I mean from my mom—”
“Yeah. I saw what it looked like, but I don’t think she really made contact with him. I, uh, took him to the doctor and he doesn’t even have any bruises.”
“You took him to the doctor? Oh no. Is he sick again?”
“No sicker than usual. This was actually a good trip. He agreed to go into a treatment program.”
“What?” She pulled back and looked at him. “That’s wonderful!”
Nick shrugged. “We’ll see. It’s something, but not relevant right now. Back to your story.”
“My mom has been a basket case—and I don’t mean from your dad throwing up on her in front of the whole internet. She’s been a mess for—at least since before my dad died. But she managed to hold it together. And then he died, and I held it together for her.”
“I noticed.”
“Meeting you…something made me look at that.”
“My refusal to hold it together for anyone?” He laughed.
She shrugged. “You are a good guy, in spite of what you seem to think about yourself. You do a lot of things for other people. But…I guess what I saw was you taking care of yourself.”
Now he really laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“That whole ‘I don’t make promises’ thing. I thought you were just scared, but now I know you’re being careful not to take on more than you can handle at any one time.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You were right the first time. It’s fear. Plain and simple. Afraid of turning into my father. Afraid of hurting people. Afraid of getting hurt.”
“Hmm.” She toyed with the sleeve of his shirt. “I guess there are two sides to every coin.”
“Whatever you want to believe, darlin’.”
“So anyway, you came and saved the day for my family. Thank you. The party was—well, it wasn’t fun, but it was successful, I think. Mother is in there counting a lot of money.”
“Good.” He’d done something right.
“But she was going on about all the stuff that she wants me to do next, and I was just so damned upset you didn’t want to see me when you were here, and—”
“It’s not because I didn’t want to see you.”
“I know. Or at least, I decided to hope that was why. I know you can’t be here—at Blue Mountain—it’s not good for you. And I realized I’m not even sure I want to be here, either. I don’t know what else I want to do. I’ve never looked past the front door, but I think— I think I want to find out.” She bit her lip. “And I want to know if you want to find out with me.”
His heart, already thumping like a bass drum, added a little snare. Here he was, totally at a loss about how this was going to work, but willing to try anything, and his Eve, ever the problem solver, had it worked out. But…
“I don’t want you to leave your family for me. You’re good at this job. If you want it, we’ll find a way to make it work. Maybe…maybe if things work out…”
He didn’t know how to say it, but she did.
“Maybe if I’m a failure at working in the outside world, and yet we decide to live happily ever after, it can be anywhere but here?”
“Pretty much.”
She tilted her face up to him, and their lips met in a long, hot kiss. She slid her arms around his neck and turned toward him, her breasts pressed up against his chest, and the half erection he’d been sporting since she’d crawled onto his lap hit full-mast.
A long few minutes later, they came up for air, and he leaned his forehead against hers.
“You wanna get out of here? I’ve got to go back to my dad’s and take care of Franklin, but then”—he took a deep breath—“you wanna go meet my mom?”
“Oh yes,” she said, all smiles, like he was offering her an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii.
She scrambled back to her side of the truck and pulled the seat belt around her waist.
“Do you need anything before we go?” he asked.
“Nope. I’ve got a credit card and Walmart has everything I might need.”
“Okay.” He turned on the ignition, but she was looking around the inside of the truck.
“Wait. I left my bag inside. I’ll be right back.” She jumped out of the truck and was at the tasting center before he could get his door open to follow her.
He waited in the doorway for her and nodded to Brandon and Justin, who were cleaning up trash from the party.
Eve stood in front of her mother and said, “So, Mom, I need a few days off, then maybe we can talk.”
Lorena didn’t look up, but said, “Fine.”
She glanced at Nick and went into the gift shop where Allie and Lesa stood next to the counter. She whispered something to them, and they grinned at him, Allie giving him a thumb’s up.
Eve picked her bag up from the counter and walked back toward Nick, toward their new life together.
“Just a minute.” She ran back into the gift shop. She pulled a notebook—her notebook—out of the trash and shoved it into the bag, then hurried back to his truck.
“You ready?”
“You betcha.”