Chapter 6
Six
B ennett leaned against the doorframe and watched her go. He’d pushed and she’d run. There was nothing new in that sequence of events, he thought bitterly.
The thought had no sooner crossed his mind than he heard the sound of the front screen door slamming. It would be Carter, of course. He considered knocking to be an inefficient use of his time, or perhaps he was just so certain of his welcome it never occurred to him that he ought to check.
“Dude, what the fuck?” His cousin’s query, without preamble or tact, was typical.
“Mind your own business, Carter,” Bennett said without turning around.
“I figured I was allowed to have an opinion,” Carter groused. “Or at the very least a good reason to bust your balls.”
“You figured wrong,” Bennett said, pouring another finger of the bourbon in his glass. “I can handle this.”
Carter laughed—hard. He bent over double with his hands on his knees and laughed until he couldn’t breathe. Bennett just glared at him as he sipped the amber liquid.
Finally, breathless and wiping tears from his eyes, Carter rose to his full height and shook his head. “You’re so damn dumb, I almost feel sorry for you.”
Bennett poured another glass of bourbon and handed it to his overly opinionated cousin. “I get that you don’t have more than a passing acquaintance with sympathy, Carter, but in general, people don’t express it by laughing so hard they damn near piss themselves.”
“Can’t help it,” Carter replied, taking the glass and slamming the bourbon before handing it back for a refill. “You do realize this is the gust of wind that stirs the shit storm, right?”
Truer words had never been spoken. The feud between their families had gone on for almost a century. Once upon a time, his great-grandfather had been a business partner to Mia’s. They’d started Fire Creek Distillery together but when William Hayes died, his heirs had been unable to produce the documents to show that he’d had part ownership and Thomas Allen Darcy had been less than forthcoming. He’d denied any claim the Hayes family had on the distillery and had instead claimed that William had been nothing more than a trusted employee and friend.
The whole town of Fontaine had known it was a lie, but no one was willing to speak out against Darcy, just like no one in the present day was willing to speak out against Samuel. With Mia and her mother being the only exceptions, there wasn’t a single Darcy that he would piss on if they were on fire.
“You’ve made your point. Why are you here?” Bennett demanded.
Carter shrugged. “Emmitt’s tearing down that old barn today, figured a little destruction might improve your mood.”
“You’re driving,” Bennett said as he moved toward the door. “You’ve had less bourbon.”
He climbed into the passenger seat of Carter’s beat-up truck. Something was jabbing his hip and he fished around in the seat until he produced a high-heeled shoe. He held it up just as Carter climbed behind the wheel. “Changing up your wardrobe a little?”
Carter laughed. “She said she lost that in here. I thought she made it up to have an excuse to come back!”
“Who?”
Carter raised an eyebrow. “Like I’m gonna tell!”
Bennett knew that Carter was a player, but to his knowledge, Carter never promised any woman more than a good time. “So you can butt your big ass nose into my business but I’m not allowed to know yours?”
Carter took the shoe and tossed it behind the seat. “That’s not ‘business.’ That was one wild, crazy and truly fantastic night that will never be repeated. No harm, no foul. This thing with you and Mia is going to bring hell down on all of us. You know that, right?”
Bennett sighed. “I know.”
For the longest time, they sat there in silence until Carter finally turned the key in the ignition. “Is she worth it?”
“A million times over,” Bennett admitted.
“Then do what you gotta do and we’ll sort out the mess later.”
Mia made the climb back up the hill a lot slower than the trip down had been. Part of that was physical. Her body hurt and fighting gravity wasn’t exactly a good option for her at the moment. The second was a little more complicated. She didn’t want to go home. Part of her was still lingering in Bennett’s kitchen, savoring the slow-building heat that flared between them, the hard press of his body against hers.
When she walked back into her house, she wouldn’t be hot, sexy Mia anymore. She’d be Mia the caregiver. It would be conversations about her mother’s feeding, about her intake and output, about seizures and repositioning her and any signs of bedsores or skin breakdowns. Sometimes, Mia felt lost in it, like the pieces that made her a person in her own right just vanished into all those details.
She wanted to hang onto that for just a little bit longer, that feeling of being wanted, of being desired, of being something more .
“You cannot get sucked back into this,” she whispered aloud. “There’s no good way for it to end.”
At the sharp snap of a twig, Mia’s head swung around. She winced in pain, but managed to keep quiet as she listened for any indication of movement.
Coyotes had become a menace and if it was just one, it would probably be more terrified of her than she of it, but if there was more than one, she could be in a lot of trouble.
Another snap and her breath caught. But then the woods went completely still. No birds, no rustling of leaves, nothing. It was dead quiet. Fear hit her then, hard. It settled in her gut and set her heart pounding.
Mia didn’t wait to see who was there, she didn’t wait to see who might come through the trees. She just ran. Turning on her heels, she moved as fast as her battered body would allow.
She was nearing the edge of the woods when she became aware of thrashing sounds behind her. Looking back wasn’t an option. It would slow her down and she couldn’t afford that.
As she broke through the trees into her own backyard, she saw Annalee sitting on the porch. The woods behind her had gone quiet again. Risking it, she glanced over her shoulder. The foliage was so dense it was almost impossible to see anything. Even as the thought occurred, she saw something; a dark, hulking shape moved, slinking deeper into the woods.
“What the hell spooked you so bad?” Annalee demanded.
Mia turned and faced her former sister-in-law. It was the strangest thing that she was the one Clayton had turned to for help, but it all made sense. She knew Patricia, her moods, her needs, and for whatever reason, in spite of their very acrimonious split, she’d agreed to help out.
“I’m just jumpy, I think,” Mia offered.
“I know what’s at the bottom of that path, Mia. It’s your own guilty conscience that’s got you on the run,” Annalee offered sagely.
“I’ve nothing to feel guilty about. Who I see and when I see them is nobody’s business but mine,” Mia shot back angrily.
Annalee cocked an eyebrow. “Ooh! Rebellion! I’ve never seen this side of you, Mia. You ought to let it out more often. You see who you want, you do what you want. You’ve been doing it for everyone else far too long anyway.”
Mia shook her head as she moved past Annalee toward the door. “I’m gonna take a long hot bath. I was sore enough to begin with but running through the woods like a fool sure can’t help.”
“You do that, honey. I told Clay that I’d stay the night and look after Patricia.”
Mia had to ask, “Why are you two all of a sudden getting along so well? Two months ago, you couldn’t be in the same room without drawing blood!”
Annalee shook her head. “You keep your secrets, Mia. I’ll keep mine.”