I hated funerals. They smelled like lilies and sadness. There were too many hugs and soggy tissues. And the black dress I found on the Target clearance rack made my neck itch where the tag curled against my skin.

“I’m so sorry for y’all’s loss, Scarlett.” Bernie O’Dell’s stoop-shouldered six-foot frame engulfed me in an awkward hug. He’d closed up the barber shop today for the funeral. He’d been one of Jonah Bodine’s only friends who’d stuck with him until the bitter end, even when he no longer deserved friends.

I gave Bernie a weak smile and a pat on the arm. “Daddy was always grateful for your friendship.”

Bernie’s eyes misted, and I handed him off to Bowie, my good brother. Not that Jameson and Gibson were bad, but Bowie was a high school vice principal. He was used to dealing with emotions that terrified the rest of us.

“God has a plan,” Sallie Mae Brickman announced with a reassuring squeeze on my hand. Her hands were always ice cold no matter what time of year. It could have been a hundred degrees on the fourth of July, and Sallie Mae’s hands could keep her lemonade half frozen.

“I’m sure he does,” I said, anything but sure there was a plan or a god. But if it made Sallie Mae feel better to believe, then, by all means, she was welcome to the faith.

The receiving line was getting backed up like a bad septic system with Bernie sharing a fishing story with Jameson. My brother was something of a reclusive artist, and this was probably his personal nightmare. Our father dead in a box behind him and a line out the door of well-meaning Bootleggers.

Bootleg Springs, West Virginia, was, in my humble opinion, just about the best place in the world to live. We had a storied history of bootlegging during Prohibition—my own great-grandfather Jedediah Bodine was legend here for bringing prosperity to our tiny town with his moonshine and hooch—and we were in the midst of a tourism boom thanks to our hot springs and half-dozen spas. We were small but mighty. Everyone knew everyone. And when one of us died—no matter their standing in the community while living—we all spiffed up, baked our casseroles, and shared our condolences.

“Hey, babe.” Cassidy Tucker, the prettiest, snarkiest deputy in all of West Virginia, was dressed in her uniform and dragging her sister June along behind her. My best friend since preschool, Cassidy knew exactly the hot mess that was stewing beneath my sad countenance. I hugged her hard and dragged June Bug into our embrace.

June thumped me on the back twice. “I’m sure you’re relieved you don’t have to worry about your father’s public intoxication anymore,” she said gruffly.

I blinked. June was… different. Human relationships bewildered her. She was much happier spouting off sports stats than making small talk, but that didn’t stop me and Cassidy from forcing her into social situations. Besides, she was a Bootlegger. Everyone here was used to her quirks.

“That’s a good point, June,” I said. Everyone else was too polite to mention the fact that my father drank himself to death. But just because he made really shitty life choices didn’t mean he wasn’t part of the fabric of Bootleg. We all tended to forget shortcomings when the person was laid out in a satin-lined box in the Bootleg Community Church.

“What?” June asked Cassidy, raising her eyebrows as they stepped on down the line. Cassidy patted June on the shoulder.

Old Judge Carwell grasped my hand in both of his, and I sneaked a peek to my right at Bowie. He was hugging Cassidy… with his eyes closed. I made a mental note to rib him about it later. Smelling a deputy’s hair at your father’s funeral, Bowie? Just ask the girl out for fuck’s sake.

“Sorry about your daddy, Scarlett,” Judge Carwell wheezed. The man had been looking to retire from his judgeship for fifteen years now. But Olamette County wouldn’t hear of it. Change didn’t come easy in Bootleg.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “And please thank Mrs. Carwell for the cornbread she sent over.”

Carolina Rae Carwell’s cornbread was famous in four counties. I’d wrestled Gibson, my oldest brother, for the last piece this morning. I fought dirty enough that I won.

I was glad for the sustenance now. It looked like everyone was turning out to say their sorrys and to gossip about how sad Jonah Bodine’s life had been and what a blessing it was that it was all over.

The real blessing would have been my daddy waking up after yet another drunk blackout and deciding to change his ways ten years ago. Instead, my father committed wholly to the idea of being a drunkard, and now the four surviving Bodines were front and center in the church we hadn’t stepped foot in since Mama died.

Yep. I was a twenty-six-year-old orphan. Thankfully, I had my brothers. Those three brooding boys were all I needed in life. Well, them, a cold beer, a good country song, and my little lake cottage. I could get by without much else.

* * *

“Well that was a shit show,” Gibson muttered, flopping down in the first pew. He stretched out and toed off his shoes. A temperamental carpenter and cabinetmaker by trade, he was allergic to suits. He was the quintessential tall, dark, and handsome bad boy. With anger issues. To the rest of Bootleg, he was an asshole. To me, he was the big brother that ran out and bought me tampons in the middle of the night when I was out.

Much to his consternation, he had our daddy’s good looks. Dark hair, icy blue eyes, and that beard that went from nice and neat to mountain man in two days. Gibson was the spitting image of Jonah Bodine, and he hated it.

Jameson lowered his tall frame to the green carpeted steps in front of the altar. He put his hands over his face, but I knew better than to think that he was crying. Sure, he was overcome, but it was from being too social for too long.

Bowie slipped an arm around my shoulder. “Hangin’ in there?” he asked.

I gave him a wry smile. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

Reverend Duane had given us some privacy before daddy was packed up for burial. None of us were real keen on the idea. We’d survived the visitation and the funeral. The burial was private. And it was the last thing standing between us and a whole lot of liquor.

I spared a glance in my father’s direction. I didn’t get when people said it looked like the dead were just sleeping. To me, the second Jonah Bodine’s spirit left his body, there was nothing lifelike about it. I’d had that exact thought four days ago when I found him dead in the bed that he and my mama had shared for twenty-two miserable years.

Of all us Bodines, I was the closest to Daddy. We worked together. Or, rather, I had taken over the family business from him when he couldn’t keep himself sober enough to finish a job. I’d learned to drive at twelve. That summer, Mama had started sending me to work with Daddy to make sure he wasn’t drinking on the job. He was. And I learned to drive stick sitting on a stack of folded-up quilts.

And now he was gone. And I didn’t know how in the hell I felt about that.

“Bonfire still on tonight, Scar?” Gibson was looking at me like he knew I wasn’t entirely in the “ding dong the drunk is dead” camp.

“Yeah, it’s still on.”

My little cottage with its swatch of lakefront beach was the perfect place to ring in the weekends, and we did so with bonfires, floats, and impromptu concerts—Bootleg had its share of musical talent.

While tonight would be just another party to my brothers, it would be my own private send-off to the father I’d loved despite everything.

“So, Bowie,” I said, eyeing him up. He had our mama’s gray eyes like me and daddy’s dark, dark hair. “Was it just my imagination, or were you trying to inhale Cassidy Tucker? How many other neighbors did y’all sniff in the receiving line?”

He clenched his jaw, which only served to highlight the sharp Bodine cheekbones. “Shut up, Scarlett.”

I grinned, my first real smile of the day. “Only pickin’,” I promised.

Bowie had never admitted it, but the man was carrying a torch. As far as I knew, he’d never done a damn thing about it. Me, on the other hand, if there was a guy I liked? I let him know. Life was short, and orgasms were great.