14. Mother Dearest
14
Mother Dearest
Bre
B liss, she decided, was best defined by the delicious ache between her legs and the heavy weight of Billy Carmichael’s arm slung over her abdomen. Her mind kept rewinding, to Billy’s drugging kisses, the scratch of his beard across her highly sensitive skin, and the deeply reverent way he looked at her, like she was a damned queen and he was prepared to go to war and back, just for her. She’d never felt so loved.
Love. They had yet to share with each other, that one, silly little four-letter word. She eyed Billy, his eyes closed and features slack from sleep. Did she love him? Was that the ‘more’? Or was this train of thought just the result of a years of familiarity, numerous epic orgasms and the exceptional fluctuation of hormones rushing through her system?
The powerful urge to find a bathroom flooded her, and with some reluctance she pushed aside the latest list that was building in her brain – questions about love and lust and the future that she wasn’t ready to fully realise right now. With even more regret, she realised that the closest bathroom was just beyond the dark line in the earth, at her mother’s house. Eyeing the burned boundary, she almost considered stepping over it, the gherkin bagel gripped firmly between her teeth, when,
“brEANNA HENDERSON!”
“Shit! Mum! Hi.” She clutched the sheet tighter, hoping Billy had the sense to stay hidden and covered by the pillows and plaid in Edsel’s rear tray.
Hands on hips, Elanor’s lips moved too fast, voice so low, as she stormed towards the boundary line, frilly apron frayed at the edges and slightly singed, probably from her flaming fence adventures. Bre watched her mother’s mouth spewing curses like a witch, or – more likely – praying to the gods of wayward young women who refused to become good little housewives with a penchant for neighbourly disruption, like their mothers before them.
A few paces away, Elanor stopped abruptly, calling over to the Carmichaels’ property.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Bre’s shoulders rose and fell helplessly as she wondered when rhetorical questions had become so in vogue.
“LOOKING FOR A UFO?” she shouted, unnecessarily, back.
They were too close for shouting, but Bre assumed her mother was making some point or another with her volume, and going along with Elanor’s charades often meant Bre could escape these awkward situations a lot quicker.
“SAW ONE LAND LAST NIGHT.”
“SO, YOU’RE BACK?”
“WHAT WAS THAT? I DIDN’T HEAR YOU!”
“IS THAT RHETORICAL?” Elanor punctuated each word, eyes narrowed.
From inside Edsel, she heard Billy’s roaring, signature laugh, the sound like a bomb exploding around them.
Elanor froze, eyes narrowing further, as if she could laser-beam the car into a melted hunk of metal.
“WILLIAM CARMICHAEL.” Elanor’s voice was icy. “STILL KEEPING MY DAUGHTER COMPANY?”
“He sure is,” Bre said quietly, unable to stop her mouth, drawing that piercing, disapproving gaze once more.
Elanor chose to ignore the quip she’d obviously just heard. “WHY HAVEN’T YOU VISITED US?”
“HOW ABOUT YOU STOP YELLING, MOTHER, AND COME SPEAK TO MY FACE LIKE A CIVILISED PERSON!?”
Elanor’s pointed glare dropped to the pine needles and the ashy line that separated them. Right. There were some lines her mother just wouldn’t cross – at least, not in the light of day, or without a pocket full of matches.
“DINNER! CHRISTMAS EVE!” Elanor crossed her arms. “TELL YOUR brOTHER!”
In a flash, she spun on her heel and stormed back the way she had come – back to the cold little house Breanna had tried to substitute with the big, warm, and welcoming Carmichael home.
“BUT CHRISTMAS EVE IS THE CARMICHAELS’ PARTY!”
Protests were useless. Her mother knew of the annual Christmas Eve party and was invited every year, along with all the residents of Moonshine. Elanor had probably chosen that date specifically to disrupt any plans Bre, Seth and the Carmichael clan had made together.
Plans, Bre reminded herself, that she wasn’t allowed to oversee any more. Clutching the sheet tighter, she gritted her teeth as the house rattled, the window glass protesting as Elanor slammed the door.
Unable to contain her inner five-year-old, Bre poked her tongue out, mumbling, “Seth is gunna love being summoned, your highness.” He might even show up completely covered in horse manure, just to be told he wasn’t welcome to the table. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone to such extremes to avoid their abrasive mother and the father who was so unobtrusive he might as well have been absent.
“She’s as pleasant as ever,” a familiar Scottish brogue commented as a weathered hand clapped on her shoulder. Jolting from thought, she spun, nearly knocking the hunched form of Billy’s grandfather, Richard.
“That rolling accent made it sound like a compliment – almost. What are you up to old man?”
Dressed in a fresh linen shirt and his Carmichael tartan kilt, he sent a salute to Edsel. Billy’s heavily inked arm flew up to wave in response. “Glad ye seem to have sorted things out with the wee one yonder,” Richard chuckled. He then mumbled something about finding pickles, sending a rare flush of self-consciousness through Bre. “Ye’ll have a grand ol’ day, now. Canna get any worse.”
“What are ye doing, Grandpa?” Billy asked from Edsel, eyeing the man with suspicion.
“Me?” Richard scanned the vicinity, as though there were some other aged fellow Billy might be calling to. “Oh, nothing .” His tone was that of a child caught red-handed, up to mischief. “Just takin’ ma’self for a wee coddiwomple through the trees.”
“Who says coddiwomple?” Bre shook her head.
Richard gave a laugh; a deep, rich sound that reminded her of Billy’s, only more refined. It was a tone she’d always loved. “Actually, I have somethin’ fer ye, lass, tis right here in my sporran.”
She moved closer, to save him the trouble. “Not another rabbit’s foot, is it?”
He let out a very familiar rumbling sound as he searched the traditional Highland bag he always wore around his hips. “Nay, somethin’ much better! Aha!”
In triumph, he lifted his curled hand from the sporran, holding what looked to be a tiny flower. No, not a flower, she realised, a small stone carved and scored to look like a clover.
“Fer luck, lass. Fer the babe and –” his eyes flicked to Edsel, “the pickle, and all it entails.” He chuckled, and ran a finger over the delicate carved lines of the design. She smiled at Richard and he waved off her thanks, continuing his trundle through the trees.
“Is he getting stranger?” she asked Billy as he appeared, dropping a small, hot kiss on the base of her neck, “or is it just me?”
“Nay, lass,” Billy teased, “he’s always been eccentric. Seems to love you, though.” He hurried to add, “We all do,” before pointing with his bearded chin to the Henderson house. “Was Elanor–”
“Her usual ray of freaking sunshine? She sure was. But you know what, William Carmichael?” He grumbled at her use of his full name. “We could make it better again.” She waggled her brows suggestively, but Billy was shaking his head, wiping away the smile that tugged at his beard with a swipe of his hand.
“Piers, Trudy and Jaxon will be here very soon.” He dropped his mouth to her ear, capturing the lobe before adding, “and ye smell like me, lassie.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
His expression boldly stated, Not to me.
“You need a proper breakfast.” At his mention of food, her stomach turned, the familiar queasiness lapping at her like waves. “Additionally, it will allow you the opportunity to give your last orders to our brothers.” She liked the sound of that, and was about to comment to that effect when he spoke up once more. “Then, Breanna Henderson, you’re overdue for a nice long day of sitting on your arse with your feet up.”
“If my parents taught me anything, William Carmichael, it’s that idle hands are the devil’s playground. Growing up with five boys proved that.” She bumped his shoulder, smiling up at those exquisite blue eyes. “I have to keep moving, but I promise I’ll take it easy -er … Trudy said she was going to mic me up today, do the interview portion about how I restored Edsel, how long it took, my story, all that crap. And Piers wants to film more today, so I can’t sit through the entire shoot. He said we’d go through the engine, do some weird close-up slow-mo shots of our hands running over the wooden side panels, take the tyres off then put them back on again.”
She read the unspoken question on his face, sighing.
“Piers wants it to look like the final touches are happening while he’s here. Can’t let a woman do all the hard work and take credit for it. He wants to do some weird car-lovers version of Cinderella being re-glass-slippered with Prince Piers in shot. And no, I’ll be doing it. One, because I don’t trust him with my baby. And two, I can do it. But I’ll take it easy, I promise.”
Catching her chin between his fingers, Billy stooped, meeting her eye-to-eye.
“I promise, Billy.”
He nodded.
“What will you be doing today?”
“The usual,” he said. “Trimming. Weeding. Something. Everything. You know Dad runs a tight ship, especially at this time of year. Though I’d much rather see you bent over the boxes of decorations in the loft.” He smacked her playfully, dodging as she went to swipe back at him. A wide grin spread across his face, the beauty of it and the expanses of ink causing her to stumble.
“Billy, you really are …” She knew men didn’t like to be called beautiful, but that’s precisely what he was. Her eyes roamed his body, searching for the words among the stories inked into his skin.
Some of the stories she knew, like the mountains on his forearms resembling Gorukkin Gorge, where Nick used to take them all camping each October long weekend as children. The hammock and palm trees were reminiscent of the place they’d hidden as teens, drunk and giggling, that holiday of their first, most frantic, passionate kisses.
He watched her, brushing red tendrils back as they blew in the breeze. Bringing his wrist to his mouth, he bit at the hair tie he’d stored there, before offering it to her. Gripping the sheet close to her chest, he preserved her modesty – or what was left of it – while her arms rose to tie the flaming mane into its usual configuration.
“And the farm opens to visitors today,” she reminded him.
I’m aware , his face told her.
“So, you’ll be in your kilt every day from now on.”
“Correct.”
“Excellent.”
His eyebrows rose.
With a wink, she added, “So when Piers decides it’s too hot at 1pm and calls it quits, and you break for lunch … come find me in the barn. You can flip that skirt of yours in the loft of the barn, and I can jingle your bells.” She chuckled, her knees threatening to give out with the very thought of it. “But right now, since I smell like you, I should probably sneak up the ladder and shower.”
“ Crank Shaft awaits,” Billy murmured against her lips. “And so shall I.”