Chapter 34 #2
As I lean back into him, his chin rests on my shoulder, and we look out at the same things—family, friends, the chaos of all of it when we come together. It isn’t perfect by any stretch, but I don’t want perfect, I just want them. And him.
“I did. Made plans with my sisters. We figured out a schedule to be at the distillery together and the things we can accomplish on our own. Oh, and I spoke with Lincoln Foxx for a while this afternoon. They want to host an event with us at Foxx Bourbon this spring.” I run my fingers along his forearms that hold me to him.
“Whiskey Women Distillery and Foxx Bourbon,” I say with an unbelieving sigh.
He presses his lips to my neck and asks, “How are you feeling about all of it?”
I have a tattoo appointment set for next week and weekly therapy back on my calendar, but I know myself, or at least, I’m learning more about who I want to be.
I have explanations, about my family, about the night I’d been taken, all of the pieces that had been left making me uneasy have now been accounted for.
And after seeing Laney, thanking her for what she did, it was more than what I thought I’d ever be able to do.
But big life things mean big feelings, and for me, that will always mean finding ways to manage them.
“I’m thinking I’m so fucking excited.” I close my eyes and hum at his touch and the way it feels good to lean on him, talk to him, have him ask me the question in the first place. “How about you?”
“I’m feeling like I missed you today,” he whispers quietly in my ear.
“Thomas,” my mom calls out from inside, peering out the kitchen window. “I thought you were going to help me here?”
“Hold your damn horses, Tallulah,” Tommy calls out. “Julian, am I going to see you for coffee tomorrow morning?” he asks as he starts walking toward the house. Before he heads inside, he says, “There’s this pour-over contraption that Jo brought over, said it’s foolproof good coffee.”
I think the only person who was sad about Julian checking out of the B&B is Tommy. Jameson was heading back out and Julian took the few things he brought with him on his travels and moved them into my place a few days ago.
“I’ll be there,” Julian says. “There’s something I wanted to talk with you about that can wait until tomorrow. Mind if I come by a little earlier. Say seven a.m.?”
“Thomas, if I didn’t mean right now, I wouldn’t have said it!” Mom yells from the window.
Tommy glances at me, and then looks down, smiling. Giving Julian a nod, he keeps his path toward the house, calling out, “What crawled into your panties today? Christ, I’m coming.”
Julian kisses the same spot on my neck again before I turn around.
His hair is pulled half back, and the way the scruff along his cheeks barely hides his dimple beneath and frames his lips makes them look so damn kissable.
I loop my arms around his neck, twirling a piece of his hair with my fingers as he lifts me up, just enough so that my feet hover off the ground. Weightless, that’s how I feel with him.
“Made some progress with a few pieces I’ve been working on for a while,” he tells me as he kisses me softly.
“Anything I can see?” I ask. I love watching him work and talking about the things he is passionate about.
He smiles against my lips. “I’ll show you one I’ve been working on soon.”
“Take it somewhere else, you two!” Jo shouts from her spot next to Nash.
“Is Julian eating her face?” Nash asks. “Julian, when you’re done with loving on Auntie Wyn, can you come show me that airplane trick again?”
“Love on me one more time and go show my nephew your paper folding skills.”
I squeal out laughing as he lifts me off the ground and kisses up my neck. My hands move into his hair as he kisses me.
“Disgusting,” Nash yells out and it has both of my sisters laughing.
He puts me down just after he gives me one more peck on the lips, and he walks backward.
“Alright, Nash, let's do this, buddy,” he says, clapping his hands together and joining my nephew on the grass.
Nash pulls out a stack of colorful paper from his backpack, and Julian starts showing him step-by-step how to fold the first one.
“I swore that he had something to do with it,” a deep voice says from the other side of the patio. I turn and find Jameson finishing off the Lego set that he had built with Nash earlier. At the picnic table by himself, he takes a sip of his drink and adds, “Your disappearance,” he adds.
I clear my throat. “Please tell me you’re not referring to Julian?”
Jameson laughs quietly, shaking his head. “Not Julian. Reed,” he says instead.
Playing off information I already know, I deflect, and he probably knows it, too. “I knew you worked my case, but I didn’t think about the people you would have questioned.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, planting his feet wide as he stands.
“Wyn, you’re Nash’s aunt, you’re family.
Not to mention, that my job is to work homicides.
And homicide was a real possibility when you had been missing beyond the seventy-two-hour mark.
I’ve worked with the local FBI and their Behavioral Analysis Unit.
Serial cases usually need bodies, and we didn’t have one for you.
The evidence that had been left in your wake didn’t point to you being killed.
But the night you disappeared . . .” He shakes his head.
“Reed was one of the last people to see you, and I had a gut feeling about that asshole. There hadn’t been anything tangible for me to move on it, though,” he says, looking toward his grandson.
“If that’s true, your gut instinct, then I hope whatever has happened to him was deserving,” I say with a shrug before moving toward the kitchen, pointing at the house. “I’m going to see if my mother is causing irreparable damage.”
I want to see if Tommy needs rescuing from her, but mostly, I need to cut this conversation off. Jameson is smart, and I wouldn’t doubt that if he wants, he could figure all of this out—what happened to Reed, who made that happen, hell, even whatever sorry shitheads came before.
Just before my foot hits the step, Jameson calls out behind me. “Sheriff Fury is doing a fine job of effectively not closing cases, as your sister keeps pointing out.”
“Is that a gut instinct I’m hearing about your boss?” I ask with a quirked eyebrow.
He takes a big breath before he says, “Yeah, maybe. We’ll save that story for another day.”
Nash starts laughing, pulling both of our attention his way.
“It’s convenient . . .” Jameson adds a beat later. “Reed disappearing like that. Officer Billings, too. Don’t you think?”
I give him my best casual smile when I say, “Convenient? Maybe just good old-fashioned karma.”
He pauses, his cup halfway to his mouth before he smiles into it, making me take note of the things left unsaid.
“I don’t know much about karma, Wyn, but I do know patterns.
A few of them seem to point in places that I’d rather not be looking.
” He looks out at Stevie and Nash belly laughing about something.
Swallowing, he looks back at me. “I like being at this family table and on your side.”
I raise my chin and reach for the handle on the double doors. “It’s a smart place to be, Detective,” I say with an appreciative smile, and then move inside.
I’m not going to overthink any of it. If Jameson wants to, he’ll ask questions and dig a little deeper, but I really hope he doesn’t.
Passing through the solarium, I see Birdie on the chaise lounge.
With a joint in one hand and her corded phone in another, she says, “You’re an Aries rising, Luna, so that makes sense that you want Mickey to step aside a bit.
” She glances up at me and smiles, but continues talking.
“That reminds me, have you heard about the billionaire who’s apparently buying up a bunch of real estate here?
Heard he was one of those old money men. ”
I shake my head, knowing that the source of rumors aren’t just a single person, but rather a handful of women, a garden club perhaps, who look out for each other in ways that are bigger than most could ever understand.
As I turn the corner, the smell of sage burning hits me.
Not as hard, however, as that sage burning on a dish next to the sink, where my mother’s hands are submerged in water, and pressed up behind her is my Uncle Tommy.
I watch for a few seconds at the way they sway back and forth together—no music—just the sound of each other and whatever they’re quietly exchanging.
In another life, I would have never paid attention to it, the way they regarded the other.
The years they’ve spent arguing, but always being around.
I wonder if it’s an entire love story that I was just too closed off to seeing until now.
I’ve experienced enough to know that it’s none of my business unless they want it to be, so I take a few steps back the way I had come and call out, “Mom? You need any help?”
When I turn the corner again, Tommy is leaning against the counter with a beer in hand as my mother says, “I wouldn’t mind it. Thomas thinks opening a beer and watching me wash dishes is a masterclass in helping in the kitchen.”
He sniffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “Lu, a goddamn pleasure, as always.” He moves past me and gives me a wink. “Wyn, I almost forgot. The latest batch needs something—can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s close. Mind an old man lurking around to spend some time on it?”
I give him a nod. “Always.”
The smile he gives me is one that I won’t ever tire of seeing—a proud fatherlike figure who was over the moon when we told him about our plans for the distillery.
He kisses my cheek as he walks by me. “Love ya, kiddo,” he whispers. Hearing that from him will never get old.
I move closer to my mother and hit her hip with mine. “Wouldn’t mind your input on this batch too.”
Her head whips to the side to look at me, just as surprised as I am that I’m suggesting it. But this is as much their legacy as it will be mine. “It’s going to be the first official batch of Tennessee whiskey that we’ll eventually put out. I could use another opinion.”
She smiles. “You know I have lots of those.” She waits a beat before whispering, “Thank you.” I’m not sure if it’s for including her or not making a big deal about her and Tommy, but I’ll take it.
Tipping her chin toward the cake that was freshly frosted next to her, she says, “Bring that outside for me. I’ll bring out some fresh glasses for a little late-night sipper. ”
The cool evening is welcome, my breath just starting to be visible as I step back outside.
When I deposit the cake on the picnic table and glance around the yard, I run my fingers along the edges of my leather cuff.
I use it often, when I feel overwhelmed or find myself drifting toward a bad memory.
It grounds me, much like the man sprawled out on the grass with my nephew folding airplanes.
“Mom, look at this one soar!” Nash yells out to my sister. “Mom, you gotta see the necklace Julian made for me, it’s actually the coolest.” He holds out the black leather chain with his orange-colored rock hanging from the center, trying to look down at it.
Stevie gives him two very enthusiastic thumbs-ups as she walks up next to me. “Is your uterus contracting watching that? A sexy-ass man playing on the ground with a kid and making paper airplanes?”
“Not everyone believes that watching grown men play with kids is attractive,” Jo says, flanking the other side of me. “There is nothing cute about that thought in the least.”
“Bite your tongue, wench. Nash is the cutest human alive,” Stevie barks back.
Jo just looks down at her boots and then raises her eyebrows at her. “What was that?” She cups her hand around her ear. “You’re forfeiting your turn with the Pradas?”
Stevie flips her off. “You’re losing your hearing,” she mumbles with a smirk.
“Oh look, it’s your father-in-law,” Jo says, her voice laced with sarcasm.
“The fuck is he doing still here?” Stevie breathes out. “Should have left by now.”
“Its been a little while since we’ve all had dinner together, maybe he’s digesting,” Birdie interjects, her chin resting on my shoulder. I tip my head to touch hers as her arms wrap around me. “And I believe your husband invited him.”
“Dinner’s been over for a while now,” Stevie says, and it has both Jo and I looking at each other, knowing there’s something going on in that chaotic brain of hers.
“What are we gawking at?” our mom asks, joining the viewing party. She settles a tray of glasses all filled with a shot of something. “You all look like hens on the hunt.”
“Mom, what the hell does that even mean?” Jo deadpans.
“You know, hunting for the cock,” she says nonchalantly.
“Mom!” I screech out and cup my hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh.
“Jesus Christ—” Stevie says with a clipped laugh.
“Lu, are you kidding me?” Jo grumbles.
But she and Birdie just start cackling like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “The three of you girls, my goodness, it’s like nobody has ever heard the word cock before,” Birdie says, catching her breath. “Especially when I know for a fact y’all have enjoyed one a time or two.”
Mom mumbles, “Hopefully, more than two.”
“Oh my god,” I say on an exhale, and my sisters and I exchange the classic side-eye that silently says, Yes, she just said that.
“Alright, you prudes, here,” our mom says, grabbing the glasses she brought out, popping the stopper off the bottle of whiskey that proudly shows the beautiful logo Jo already made.
“I didn’t think I’d have you girls together like this.
I thank every goddess in the universe that we can all be together. ”
Birdie holds up her glass and lifts her chin. She looks at our mother, and they have a wordless exchange, both of their eyes brimming with tears. “To my family, my beautiful girls, my whiskey women, you make me proud every single day.”