I imagined that this was what Snow White must’ve felt like when she woke up in the presence of the seven dwarves.

Seven hovering beards.

Seven sets of bewildered eyes.

Seven inquisitive expressions—partly suspicious, partly amused.

The fainting was my fault.

I drove home from the hospital in a daze. I walked to the front porch. Jethro came out of the house trailed by several others. I glanced over his shoulder. The world went black.

I should have known better. I was a nurse for hootenanny’s sake! Two hours of sleep, no food, intense levels of stress; no wonder I passed out. I was lucky to have made it home without crashing my car. I’d never been in a position of forgetting to eat before.

Now I was laid out on the couch in my momma’s house surrounded by a sea of beards. I heard the roosters in the back crowing up a fuss.

My brothers’ expressions were varying degrees of anxious and curious. At last, my eyes settled on the measured, silvery blue stare of a stranger. My brain told me that this stranger’s name was Drew Runous, that he was a pillaging Viking highlander laird, and that earlier in the day he’d mentally pictured me getting my rub on.

Drew was sitting next to where I lay on the couch, leaning over me, one arm braced to the side and his hand at my temple.

That’s when the fuzzy-headedness began to retreat.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him groggily, placing my hand to my forehead as I tried to sit upright.

“Don’t do that.” He pushed my shoulders back to the couch. The hand at my temple moved to my wrist, his index and middle finger pressing against my pulse point. “You fainted. You need to take it slow.”

“Listen to him, Ash. He’s a doctor.” I recognized the voice of my third brother. I turned to see sweet and anomalous Cletus just as he brushed a strand of hair from my face. He gazed at me with kind hazel eyes. “It’s good to see you, baby sister.”

I gave him a small smile. I hadn’t seen him in eight years. An unexpected wave of nostalgia rushed over me. I ignored the tears stinging my eyes and responded, “You too, big brother.”

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” Drew said quietly, and my attention moved back to him.

“What?”

His stern face and gray-blue gaze focused on me. “I’m not a medical doctor.”

I blinked at him and his bewitching eyes. “Okay….”

“But you said you was a doctor.” Cletus glanced between him and Jethro.

“He is a doctor, just not that kind.” Jethro placed his hand on Cletus’s shoulder and spoke softly.

“What kind?” Cletus asked.

“He’s a PhD. It’s like being an expert in something. He doesn’t do the people medical stuff.”

“I know what a PhD is,” Cletus mumbled.

“Fine, you know what a PhD is,” Billy said to Cletus, but his stare was affixed to me. “What’s wrong with you, Ash? Are you sick? Did you see Momma?”

I looked from Billy to Cletus to Jethro, and the events of the day—Get Well Soon balloons, the compassionate nurse at the hospital, rocky road ice cream, speaking with the social worker—crashed over me. I felt like I was being sucked into a vacuum cleaner. The world was eating me and screaming in my ears at the same time. I gasped, closed my eyes against the onslaught, and pressed my hand to my forehead.

“Crap…”

“What is it?” Jethro’s voice was closer. “What happened at the hospital?”

I gathered a deep breath, held it within my lungs. When I was sure I wouldn’t cry, I released it and opened my eyes. They found Drew’s first. Inexplicably, maybe because he wasn’t family and my dislike for him still lingered, I discovered that the words didn’t strangle me as I spoke.

“I saw Momma,” I said, “and I spoke to her doctor. She has cancer. It’s real bad.”

A stunned quiet fell over the room like fluttering snowflakes blanketing a field. It was a soft silence, reverent, and the air felt cold and hollow. I didn’t see my brothers’ reactions because my attention was still fixed on the stranger hovering above me.

Drew’s hand on my wrist gripped tighter, and his eyes flared with some emotion I didn’t have enough energy to decipher.

I ignored all this and continued to address him as though he were the only person in the room. “The doctor is sending her home tomorrow with hospice. He says she’s got six weeks…or so.”

“Six weeks….?” Jethro’s voice broke through my self-imposed trance, and my attention flickered to him. He turned away and walked to the recliner at the end of the couch. He sat down heavily, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. “Six weeks.”

I glanced at the other five Winston boys. They appeared to be equally shocked and dismayed, and my gaze snagged on my youngest brother, Roscoe. The last time I’d seen him in person he was twelve. He was now twenty.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said, glancing around the room as if it would give him answers. “How can she have cancer? She wasn’t even sick.”

I had no words to offer, so I stared at the ceiling making a mental list of all the things I needed to do before she arrived the next day.

“What can I do to help?” Drew’s voice, now gentle and solicitous, pulled me out of my head and back to the scene of quiet chaos in the living room.

I shrugged and my vision blurred again with tears. They leaked from the corners of my eyes.

“Pray,” I said, because it was the only thing anyone could do.

I recognized the frustration etched in his features; it betrayed the helplessness he so obviously felt. However, the last thing I expected him to do was lean forward, hold my cheeks in his palms, and place a soft, lingering kiss on my forehead while his unwieldy beard tickled my nose.

Therefore, when that was what Drew did, I was so astonished that I stopped crying.

He retreated, his hands still cupping my face, and his thumbs wiping away my tears. Drew threaded the fingers of one hand through the hair at my temple and brushed it away from my shoulders. Then, bringing his palm back to my cheek, he said softly, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I stared at him bemused and not so far removed by the insanity of grief and low blood sugar to recognize that Drew was an odd possum. “Uh, okay.”

Drew studied me, his gaze intent and as serious as a thundercloud. I watched him and imagined my expression mirrored that of a deer frozen in approaching headlights. His mouth hooked upward, though his eyes remained solemn.

“Ash is short for Ashley….” I guessed he was speaking to himself, because it emerged as though he were voicing a secret or a private joke.

So…still odd.

My hands moved to where he continued to frame my face, and I wrapped my fingers around his much larger ones. “That’s right.” I nodded as I held him. “Ash is short for Ashley. Is Drew short for Andrew?”

He blinked and looked startled. His hands stiffened, and he pulled them out of my grip, sitting straight for a short moment before standing. He was up, up, up, and away—tall like a tower or a great tree, or a mountain.

Drew was no longer looking at me. In fact, he was looking everywhere but at me. Through my perplexed misery-riddled daze, I thought he might have been a smidge discomfited by his forward behavior. As it was, given the day’s events, his discomfiture and oddness made very little impact on my mental state.

I watched numbly as he picked up a leather-bound notebook from the coffee table and turned to Beauford; he whispered something in the twin’s ear. Beau’s eyes, rimmed with shock and emotion, met mine, and he nodded. Beau moved from Drew, motioned to Duane, and crossed to me.

“Okay, big sister, upsy daisy.” Beau leaned down and gave me a wobbly smile. Before I could comprehend what he was about, he lifted me in his arms like I was a feather. “You need food and sleep. Drew is fixin’ to cook you something good, and I’m carrying you to your room.”

I opened my mouth to protest that I could walk, but Duane hushed me as he led the way upstairs. “Don’t worry about nothing. We’ll all be here when you wake up. You can boss us as much as you like in the morning.”

Duane flipped on the light in my room and began straightening the bed, fluffing the pillow, and turning down the blanket. Beau set me on the floor next to the foot of the bed and wrapped me in his big arms.

“We missed you, Ash.” His voice was watery, though I seriously doubted he would actually cry.

Duane joined us and hugged me from behind. “I’m sorry I put maggots in your macaroni and cheese. I’ve wanted to tell you that for a long time.”

Then Beau said, “And I’m sorry we used to hold you down and spit in your mouth.”

“Ugh! Gross, Beau.” I gagged a little. “I’d forgotten about that.”

The memories stirred something in me. The severity of the twins’ acts of torment was nothing in comparison to the frequency. They had launched volleys at me daily, hourly, whenever I was at home. I’d never thought of them as particularly lovable because my earliest memories involved their constant assaults.

I tried to reach out to my brothers while I was in college to form some kind of sisterly bond with them on a more grown-up level. In return, they showed up at my dorm room stoned, behaved like criminals, and hid buckets of freshly slaughtered pigs’ feet in my friends’ rooms. It took weeks for us to find them all.

I didn’t know what to think about all that now. I tsked and laughed at the absurdity of the moment, the apology for things that happened years ago, yet it wasn’t that absurd. Their wild behavior had kept us in limbo for eight years.

Too tired to talk, I lifted my arms to hug my brothers. We stood together for several moments then Beau and Duane pulled away. Beau held my gaze—his eyes still glassy—then he took a step back.

“You need anything, we’re right next door.”

“That’s right, anything at all.” Duane put his hand on Beau’s shoulder. “But you might want to knock first.”

He hadn’t meant it as a joke. It was a sober warning meant to save me from embarrassment. Too late.

Beau closed his eyes, gave his head a subtle shake, and pushed Duane toward the door. “You’re a dummy.”

“What? What did I say?” Duane said, glancing between his twin and me.

“Just keep walking, dummy.” Beau’s eyes flickered to mine, apologetic and irritated, then he managed to guide his twin the rest of the way, closing the door behind them.

I went through the motions of putting on my pajamas and brushing my hair, thinking about not much, but what I thought about was on the spin cycle, and it was making me dizzy. So I sat on my bed and stared into the mirror.

I had bags under my eyes. In the morning, I would have to go hunting for hemorrhoid cream. Or I could just not care. I decided not to care.

I heard a knock followed by my door creaking open.

“Are you decent?” Jethro’s voice sounded from the hallway.

“Yes. Come in.”

He pushed his way into my room using his elbows because his hands were full. He held a plate in one hand with a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich on it, and a cup of tea in the other that smelled like lemon, peppermint, and bourbon.

“Food,” he said, placing everything on the nightstand.

I glanced at the sandwich and tea, but made no response.

“Come on now, you need to eat.” Jethro picked up the plate and sat next to me. “Doctor’s orders.”

My eyes flickered to my brother then to the perfectly grilled cheese sandwich. I took it. Took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.

He passed me the tea. “Now drink.”

I squinted at him. “This has bourbon in it.”

“Yes, it does. Good, Tennessee bourbon, guaranteed to make the pain go away. Drink it.”

Making the pain go away sounded pretty good, so I took a sip. It was warm, not hot, and tasted like bourbon and honey. I took a larger gulp then followed it with another bite of my sandwich.

“Thank you,” I said; the warmth of the alcohol spread down my throat to my chest.

“Don’t thank me. Thank Drew. He made all this.”

I studied Jethro for another moment, took a bite of my sandwich. I debated whether I wanted to have this conversation at all, let alone now. In the end, I gave in to both curiosity and avoidance of heavier subjects.

“So…Drew. Who is this guy?”

“He’s my boss.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s the federal game warden for this stretch of the park.”

I frowned, not sure what a game warden was, so I asked. “What’s that? Like a park ranger?” I followed this question with another large gulp of my tea-laced bourbon.

“Uh, no. He’s not a park ranger. Game wardens are law enforcement officers. Most are employed by the state they work in. Drew is federal law enforcement. He was appointed to the Great Smokies by some big-wigs in Washington.”

I watched Jethro as I bit, chewed, swallowed, repeat; I thought about this information. At least I tried to think about this information. The bourbon plus no sleep plus no food all day plus news of my mother’s terminal diagnosis were all battling for dominance, Mad Max style, in my brain cage.

“Federal law enforcement.” I shook my head hoping to clear it. “What does that mean in terms of a national park? And why was he appointed? And how come he’s here? And how does he know Momma?”

Jethro nodded toward my tea and waited until I drank before responding. “Well, him being a game warden and a federal officer…what that means is that he’s some kind of big shot, PhD guy sent down from Washington to keep the park safe. And I think he was appointed because he’s an expert in endangered wildlife. He’s here tonight because I asked him to stay just in case you had news when you got home from the hospital. And he met Momma at the library when he was appointed to his position at the park. They’re friends.”

I had trouble believing a few of his assertions. First, Drew “Mountain-of-a-Man” Runous did not strike me as a Dr. Runous unless his PhD was in lumberjacking or plundering or beard growing or headlining in sexy daydreams and dirty fantasies. Secondly, Dr. Runous’s posture of entitlement this morning and odd possum behavior tonight made me question what kind of friends he was with Momma.

My eyes weren’t cooperating; I couldn’t keep them both open, so I peered at Jethro through my left eye. “What kind of friends?”

Even through one eye, I could see that Jethro was scowling at me. “Nothing like that, Ash. Get your mind out of the gutter. He’s one of us. He’s like a son to her and a brother to all of us. For God’s sake, he’s a year younger than me. Plus he’s not like that.”

“Not like what?”

“He’s…shy, I think. Quiet. He doesn’t talk much, not even to me.”

“He doesn’t seem quiet to me, and he looks like he’d be a playboy, impregnating all the local girls with Viking babies.”

“You have a wild imagination, sis. I think he’s just the opposite. In fact, I’m not one to tell stories, but I think he might be celibate.”

That got both my eyes open.

“We’ve all tried to hook him up, but he won’t even go to the bar with us.”

“Maybe he doesn’t drink.”

“No, he drinks. We’ve tossed back beer and whiskey from time to time. He just doesn’t socialize much. And he’s definitely not interested in Momma, so get that thought out of your head.”

I shrugged. “Well, how am I supposed to know? He called her Bethany. And he’s hanging around here, and he cooks, and he kissed my forehead, and his beard tickles, and…and he looks like a Viking.”

Jethro frowned at me. “You’re drunk. You need to eat more of that sandwich.”

Instead, I sipped the bourbon and forced my eyes to focus on Jethro, who was looking blurrier by the minute. “What could Drew and Momma possibly have in common?”

“They talk about poetry, books, meaning of life stuff. He’s always bringing her books. I think they like the same kind of stuff. He’s got that PhD, and Momma, you know she always wanted to go to college.”

I nodded because I did know. I did know that she always wanted to go to college.

But I was tempted to shake my head because I couldn’t reconcile the image of Drew and Momma reading poetry together. This was partly because I used to read poetry with her. This was also partly because my first impression of Drew told me that he only read magazines related to guns, cars, naked ladies, and facial hair.

I finished half of the sandwich and washed it down with the rest of the tea.

“I need to sleep,” I said, swaying a little.

“What about brushing your teeth?” This was an unexpected question coming from Jethro, not because he lacked appropriate dental care. In fact, he had lovely teeth. It was unexpected because it verged on nurturing.

My eyes were closed, and this time neither of them would be opening for several hours. “No…can’t…must…sleep.”

I fell backward against the pillow, already half passed out. I wasn’t fully conscious when Jethro lifted my legs onto the bed, pulled back the covers, and tucked me in. But I did surface long enough to feel his kiss on my cheek, his hand squeezing my shoulder, and to hear him whisper something about sweet dreams before he flicked off the light and closed the door.