25. Evie
M y phone emits a small chirp from beneath the blankets. Tristan asked me to take it off silent, which it’d been on for years, so that he’d be able to reach me quickly, and sometimes I’m still caught off guard by its little noises.
I set aside the old document I’ve been poring over for the past half hour. It’s one of the files from Daddy’s office, and this one’s a doozy. Apparently, there’s an inheritance clause should the Deschamps and Doyle families ever be joined in holy matrimony. Based on the details, I’m pretty sure this is what the old letters we found were talking about. Bananas. Makes me wonder if this is why Danny Deschamps wanted me to marry his kid.
Anyway, I can’t wait to show Tristan. He was so engrossed when we found all this stuff, but with Daddy’s death and the investigation that’s now unfolding, we haven’t really had the bandwidth to deal with them. Until this morning, anyway, when I picked them up in a desperate bid for distraction.
My phone chirps again, and I dig around until I find it. It’s Opal, asking how I’m doing. Sighing, I roll over, putting my phone on my chest. How am I doing? Well, it’s just past noon and I’m still in bed. The blackout curtains we put up are pulled tight, and the blinds are closed, creating an artificial night. I’m sure it’s a lovely day—I’ve always felt like autumn is my season—but not even the allure of its brilliant blue skies and cold air are enough to draw me out. I don’t want to be outside. I don’t even want to be out of bed. I want to be here, where it’s quiet and safe and I can numb out.
I spoke to Maribelle briefly this morning. I didn’t really want to talk to her, but something kept pulling on me to call, so I finally did. She was subdued, but I could tell she’d been crying. She’d been the one to identify Daddy’s body, a task I wouldn’t have wished on anyone. We agreed to touch base again soon, to figure out the funeral, Daddy’s estate, and everything else that was too difficult to deal with at the moment. It was, ironically, the most civil conversation we’d had in a long time.
I let my eyes close, only to open them a second later at the faint sound of a car pulling up the drive. Car doors, footsteps on gravel, and then the front door, opening and closing. Male voices, one that sounds like Tristan. A tiny fissure cracks in my chest, hope streaming in like sunshine. He couldn’t be back already, could he? He said he had lots to do today, meetings and errands and whatever else he does when he’s not with me. I look at my phone again for the time, even though I just looked at it. 12:17 p.m.
No one comes upstairs, though, and Tristan would have, so maybe he’s not home yet after all. My stomach growls, and I’m abruptly tired of being in bed so I get up. After a brief shower, I pull on one of Tristan’s hoodies and a pair of soft, worn leggings that’ve seen better days, but I just can’t bring myself to toss. I grab my cushiest socks—these hardwood floors can get uncomfortably cold—and head downstairs. Timmy’s not in the living room, his usual haunt, so I follow the voices into the kitchen where Timmy, Alex, Malachi, Finn and Tristan are having an extremely loud, very animated discussion about?—
Alex, who’s leaning against the counter, makes eye contact with me as I enter the room. He nods his chin at me, and Tristan, who’s ranting angrily about those dumb fucks shuts up midsentence, glancing back over his shoulder. His face is bruised, his left eye bloodshot, puffy, and swollen.
My heart drops to the floor. Gasping, I hurry into the kitchen and insert myself into the middle of their huddle, taking his face in my hands. “What happened to you? ”
He winces, peeling off my hands and holding them between us instead. “Cole happened.”
“ What ?” I shake my head. “Why?”
He, Alex, and Finn recount the story, from the moment Cole and his crew rolled up on them in the distillery’s parking lot and took Tristan to when they dropped him off again, about an hour and a half later. “Such a pussy,” Finn finishes with a venomous laugh. “He couldn’t get revenge until he had Daddy and plenty of backup nearby.”
They all snicker, but dread’s filling me like a boat taking on water. Tristan’s the better fighter, obviously, but he was severely outnumbered today and trapped on enemy soil. And of course, Cole sucker punched Tristan—he’s always fought dirty, in every way that a person can. Just thinking about what could’ve happened today terrifies me and pisses me off so much I want to cry again, and I’m so tired of crying .
I’m tired of feeling helpless.
Tristan pulls me into his chest. “Hey, come on. I’m fine. He saw his chance and took it, that’s all.”
“He shouldn’t have taken it—he shouldn’t have taken you at all!” I sniffle into his wrinkled, blue dress shirt.
The huddle breaks up as the boys start rooting around the kitchen for food, and Timmy plops down at the table with rolling papers and a little jar of weed. Nothing like a sobbing girl to ruin the vibe, I guess.
“Yeah well, it won’t happen again,” he promises, stroking his hand down my ponytail. “They don’t realize it yet, but they’ve opened up a nasty can of worms.”
I pull back to look up at him. “What d’you mean?”
One side of his mouth tugs up. “It means I’ve been trying to keep it classy, but that’s done now. My parents are flying down tomorrow with some of their best.”
“Your parents?” I echo.
He nods. “My mom wanted to come and spend some time with you. She doesn’t like you being here by yourself while I’m out, especially after what happened to your dad.”
A fresh course of tears wells up, and I duck my head, wiping my eyes. “That’s sweet,” I whisper. “I’m not really by myself, though. Timmy’s here …”
“You need more than Timmy,” he says, his eyes tender as he lifts my chin. “He’s great, but Mom’s different. She’ll take care of you. Shit, she’ll take care of everybody. Dad’s coming because he doesn’t want Mom coming by herself.”
Guilt worms its way into my consciousness like a flesh-eating virus. “They’re coming here because I wouldn’t go up there, aren’t they? To Boston?”
“Nah, they understand why you need to stick around right now.” I chew my lip, unconvinced, but he dips down and gives me a quick kiss. “Don’t get too in your head about it. My parents are tough as shit, and they don’t do anything they don’t wanna do.”
“Sounds like you.” I smile weakly.
“Who do you think I get it from?” He runs his hands over my hips, squeezing. “Anyway, you’re not the only reason they’re coming. Dad wants to help me handle this situation with the Deschamps before it escalates any further.”
Dread tightens the knot in my stomach. How can things get worse when they’re already this bad? “Are you going to start making payments?”
Tristan’s eyes darken. “Now, why would I do a silly thing like that?”
It’s been over a decade, but Tristan’s parents are the same attractive, elegant couple I remember from childhood. Owen’s tall, ruddy and handsome, his sleek black hair now peppered with gray. Tristan inherited those bright green, perpetually amused eyes from him. Sloane is petite; I didn’t realize this when I was small because she was taller than me but now, I tower over her. She has quietly intense gray eyes that are difficult to look away from and wavy, brown hair that’s shot through with streaks of silver.
They bustle into the living room, barely having cast off their coats and shoes and suitcases before enveloping me in a hug so warm that, once again, I have the urge to cry. Tristan’s been so good with me, and so has Opal, accepting of and careful with my feelings, but the Kellys just feel so safe . I haven’t felt parental love like this since my mother died.
Sloane pulls back, tenderly cupping my cheek. “It is so good to see you, sweetheart,” she breathes. “How have you been holding up? ”
“I’m okay.” I pause, trying to find words to describe how I’ve felt lately, but none come. My brain feels foggy. “Some days are better than others.”
“I’m sure.” She smiles a little. “I know the timing’s awful, with everything that’s going on, but I wanted to congratulate you on the wedding. I wish Tristan had told us a little sooner. We’d have flown down right away.”
“Oh, thank you! We would have! It just happened really fast, and he wanted to …” I trail off. What can I possibly say to explain how and why I married her son? For all I know, she and Owen disapprove and they’re just too polite to say so.
But Sloane gives me another hug. “I can see why Tristan snatched you up. You were always adorable, and you’ve grown up into a real beauty.”
“All right, Sloane, don’t smother her,” Owen says with a chuckle, leaning away when his wife smacks his arm. Still, his eyes are kind as he looks down at me. “It’s true, though. You look a lot like your mother did. She wasn’t that much older than you when we first met.”
“That’s really kind of y’all to say.” I knuckle back the fresh wave of tears. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. Are you hungry? Can I get you anything? Some water?”
“No, no, no. We’re here to take care of you for a while, Evie,” says Sloane, linking her arm through mine. “Now show me into the kitchen so I can figure things out.”
Tristan bursts through the front door, carrying more suitcases. The swollen redness around his eye has begun settling into a dark purple, making him look like a real brute. It’s deranged, but it only makes him sexier. “You moving in, Ma?” he teases. “Jeez.”
“Maybe I am,” she snarks back. “You’re not the only capricious one in this family.”
“Oh, here we go.” He shuts the door, giving me a I told you so look. “Let’s hear it, Mother Dearest. Might as well get it all out now.”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she admonishes. “I’m not the one who eloped!”
My face warms, and Sloane gives me a shrewd look. “Don’t worry, honey, I’m not upset with you. I know how convincing my son can be. Bet you couldn’t say no, huh?” She grins. “And I bet he loves that blush, doesn’t he?”
“I do,” Tristan affirms, swiping a kiss over my blazing cheek as he squeezes by, Timmy and Finn trailing behind. I glance through the window to the front drive, now full of cars and people I don’t know.
One thing about this Boston crew—they roll deep . Tristan flew down here solo, was joined by Finn, Timmy, and Malachi, then Alex and the other guys I still don’t know very well, and now his parents, who’ve arrived with their own entourage. It’s hard to tell if they’re friends or a security detail. Or both.
But everybody seems to know each other, evidenced by the ease and comfort with which they interact. In fact, I seem to be the sole stranger—in my own house, ironically—passed around and introduced as the newest member of the family. By the end of the afternoon, Owen and Tristan have commandeered the living room as their unofficial war room. The bouts of laughter and Boston brogue become rowdier as the hours go by, lubricated by lots of whiskey and beer.
We have groceries delivered, enough to feed a small city, and then Sloane orders dinner from a gourmet deli spot in town, a feast of soups, salads and paninis, with cookies for dessert. She also orders a few gallons of sweet tea with a container of cut-up lemons. Tristan must have clued her in, and that he remembered something so trivial and so particular to me at a time like this makes me feel seen in a way I’m still not used to.
I’d been apprehensive about Tristan’s parents swooping in and taking over, but now that they’re here, it feels like I can take a proper breath. Sloane’s a mom, so she does what moms do: she feeds and fusses over me while delegating tasks to everybody else. We catch up over wine as we pick over what’s left of the charcuterie board she threw together, reminiscing about the summers their family came to visit mine. I tell her the truth about my relationship with Maribelle, which shocks her because my sister’s great at fooling people, and she shares juicy secrets of all the adult dramas that unfolded unbeknownst to us kids.
Sloane talks a lot about her kids and how much she loves being a grandma. And then, to my surprise, she confides that Bria just had an early-term miscarriage, which is why Lucky couldn’t come down this time around .
My heart sinks. I haven’t met Bria yet, but I remember Lucky and I can’t imagine how difficult this must be. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she says softly. “They actually didn’t even know she was pregnant until she began to miscarry, so it was a shock to say the least.”
“Is Bria doing okay?”
“I think so,” Sloane says with a small nod. “She’s just taking it easy right now.”
She tells me of the time she miscarried years ago, after Tristan was born but before Maeve. And then, switching gears, she reveals how worried she’s been about Maeve lately. And how proud she is of Tristan for how far he’s come since the “incident.”
She explains how her career in wine started as a passionate hobby and encourages me to pursue my interests of horticulture and herbalism. “I wonder if there are ways to incorporate that into the whiskey business?” she muses, topping off our wine glasses. “I don’t know much about the distilling process yet, but surely whiskey can be infused with botanicals?”
“It can,” I say, excited that she zeroed in on this so quickly. “I actually made a couple of proposals to Daddy when I came home after graduating college, but he wanted to keep his whiskies traditional.”
“That’s understandable,” Sloane says neutrally. “But maybe we can take the distillery in a fresh direction. Balance the old with the new.”
And then we’re just tipsy. Any decorum or attempts to impress my new mother-in-law fall by the wayside as our conversation becomes more intimate, more real , the jokes bawdier. “What?” she asks with a saucy smile, when her naughty story of a mishap with Owen makes me laugh so hard that I nearly choke on an olive.
“It’s just,” I finally say, once I can come up for air, “different, knowing you this way. You used to be my parents’ friend, and my friends’ mom, and now …”
“I’m your friend,” she says with a knowing smile. “Strange, isn’t it? I remember when I realized that my mother was a fully realized person with an interior world just like me—she’d just been around longer.”
“I never got there with my mom,” I admit.
“You were young when she passed away,” Sloane reminds me. “We’re self-absorbed when we’re young, as we should be. We’re still figuring ourselves out, so our parents feel like extensions of us. We know they’re people, but we don’t interact with them that way. We’re too close.”
I nod vigorously, suddenly missing my mother so acutely. “That makes so much sense.”
“Parents can be like this with their children too, though.” Sloane sighs. “Pinning all their hopes and dreams on them, living vicariously. My father was like that.”
“So was mine.” Irritation for the way he treated me mingles sourly with my grief over his death and the horror of knowing he was murdered. “We had a complicated relationship.”
She nods slowly, her eyes flickering over my face. “That’s okay. You don’t have to figure it out anytime soon.”
After showing Sloane where the linen closet is, in case she needs anything, she disappears into the guest bedroom we made up for her and Owen. It’s nearly one in the morning, but I decide to take a long, hot bath, luxuriating in the suds. I can’t stop thinking about what happened yesterday, how Cole and his guys took Tristan. Sure, they returned him, but what if they hadn’t? What if they’d held him for ransom, or doled out more than a couple of punches? I’m sure they’re capable of far worse than kidnapping—I’ve been hearing whispers about the Deschamps for years .
But I never cared because, besides Cole’s annoying advances, they were never my problem. Shitty to say, but true. Now they are my problem. Besides Tristan’s abduction, there’s a good chance they were behind my father’s murder, and now they’re trying to extort money from us. Where does all of this end? Tristan said they weren’t going to pay, but where does that leave him? Is there going to be a war?
Tristan still hasn’t come to bed by the time I get into my pajamas, but I don’t mind. He’s with his people now, figuring out how they’re going to handle the Deschamps from here on out. I’m relieved he has a support system like this. Tristan’s the most capable man I’ve ever known, but there’s strength in numbers.
I know now that there are two sides to the Kellys. Both sides have reputations for getting shit done, just in very different ways. And oddly enough, I’m okay with that. I respect how passionately loyal they are, how they back up their promises to each other with actions. Tristan’s been trying to tell me this for a while, but witnessing the family dynamic with my own eyes has really brought it home.
Tristan’s protective streak and his desire to take care of me isn’t just his nature. It’s a personal code, the way he was brought up. His parents are the same way; they’ve only been here for half a day, but I already feel so safe with them—not just physically, but emotionally. They make me feel like I belong , something I didn’t even feel with my own blood. Mama tried, and so did Aunt Myrtle, but we never had a family that looked out for one another.
Anyway, I know Tristan’s in his element right now, hatching devious plots, but I’d like to say good night. Padding out to the hall, I go downstairs. Most of the lights on the first floor are off, but there’s a dim glow emanating from the living room. Tristan’s hushed voice drifts out, giving me pause when I hear him say total overkill .
“How many shots?” Owen’s voice responds.
“Two in the back, four in the chest, three to the head,” he says. “They were making a statement.”
My stomach roils. They could be talking about anyone, but something tells me this is about Daddy. I step inside, finding Tristan in the crowded room right away. His brow furrows when he sees me lingering in the doorway, causing everyone else to follow his gaze. Rising from the couch, he glances at his watch. “Hey, did we wake you?”
“No, I was just going to bed, and I wanted to say good night,” I say, acutely aware of the attention on us as he approaches. “Were you talking about my father just now?”
His face falls, but he nods, taking my hand. “Come on, I’ll take you back upstairs.”
We’re silent until we reach the bedroom. Tristan closes the door behind us and turns to look at me. “We had a friend on the police force back home make a couple of phone calls, see what he could find out about your father’s murder since they’ve been so tight-lipped down here.”
I sit on the edge of the bed, and he follows. “Do you think it was the Deschamps? ”
“I know it was,” he says. “Danny basically admitted it to me, and our source confirms.”
“If the cops know, then why haven’t they arrested him?” I cry, aghast. But I already know, deep down. “They haven’t even questioned him, have they? He’s too well-connected.”
“The cops can’t prove it, but people talk,” Tristan says, a shadow crossing his face. “And yeah, he is well-connected. But there are other ways to get to him.”
I wring my hands, sickened. I’m not sure how I’ll ever get to sleep now, not with the gruesome image Tristan described downstairs spinning through my head on repeat. Sometimes I hated my father, but I never, ever wanted him to die. Not like that. “I hate this.”
“You gonna be okay? My mom’s probably got sleeping pills if you want one,” he says. “Or there are edibles in the nightstand, if you’d rather that.”
“I don’t know.” I rub my face, overwhelmed. Sadness, fear. Will they kill us like they killed him if we don’t pay up? “I can’t live my life like this, in constant fear.”
“We’re going to take care of this, I promise you.” He wraps his arms around me, drawing me close. “I don’t want you to worry about it. They might be used to running things around here, but they’ve met their match.”
I nod, remembering how easily Tristan dealt with Cole the night he came after us. How fiercely he’d defended me to my own father that one time, smashing his face into the wall. It was one of the scariest things I’d ever seen, and I know, somehow, that those events barely scratch the surface of what he and his family are capable of. “I know.”
Tristan takes my face between his hands. “You trust me?”
“Yeah.” I give another nod, my eyes closed. “They’re probably waiting for you down there. You should go.”
“Look at me.”
I gaze up into his eyes, one clear and green, the other bloodshot, black and blue.
“Do you trust me?” he asks again.
“Yes,” I whisper, remembering the first time he asked me that. It was right before our first time.
“Good.” He kisses me. It’s been a couple of days since we really kissed, and tonight he tastes like whiskey and true love. Because that’s what he is—my first, only, and truest love.
“Hey,” I whisper, catching his hand as he rises to go. “Have you spoken to Lucky lately?”
“I talk to him all the time.” He cocks his head. “Why?”
“Just something your mom said. I hope he’s doing okay.”
“Mm, you mean what happened with Bria,” he says quietly, running his hands through his hair. “And the baby. I think … he’s okay. They’re just processing right now.”
“Are you okay?” I ask. It didn’t occur to me that he’d be sad, but of course he is. He loves Liam so much—he’d love any kid of Lucky’s.
Nodding, he leans down and brushes another kiss across my lips. “Trying to be. There’s a lot going on right now.”
There’s no way I can sleep after he leaves. My mind whirls with thoughts of my dad, Tristan, babies, the business. You ever hear anything about a silent distillery? His question from the other day floats up from the sediment of my mind, so I google the phrase. Huh. I could see my family having something like that. I reach for the documents on my nightstand, flipping through them. We were especially curious about the one with all the coordinates, so I pull up a maps app on my phone and start plugging them in. Some locations are unsurprising: my old house, the distillery as well as the adjacent plot of land, the warehouse over by City Market. One leads to a location on River Street that has no significance to me, but we can look into it.
The last set of coordinates, however, catch me off guard because they’re right here at Aunt Myrtle’s estate. I stare at the map on my phone, zooming in until a satellite image of this very house pops up. Interesting. Aunt Myrtle might not have gotten along with my father, and she lived quite independently of the distillery and what came with it, but she was still close to the rest of the family. She was still a Doyle. She grew up in that world, and she grew up in this very house, which has been in our family for generations.
Is that why the estate is included on this list of coordinates? I don’t even know where to start, who to ask. Daddy might not have even known about the coordinates—after all, they were buried within a sheaf of papers so old that I had to peel them apart, mindful not to tear the delicate, slightly mildewed paper .
Frowning, I zoom in a little more, scanning the bird’s-eye view map for clues. There’s the house, the garden and its little shed, and the old orangery in the woods out back, abandoned since the fifties. I used to love it, loved making believe in its sad, once-majestic grandeur.
I lie back against the pillows, finally feeling drowsy. It’s been at least a decade since I visited the orangery, but glimmers of memories flash through my mind like fireflies, just out of reach.
In the morning, after a night of restless, broken sleep, I arise and dress in the dark, not wanting to disturb Tristan. God knows when he finally made it to bed. Shrugging into a jacket, I let myself out into the backyard, my breath pluming in the freezing air. Leaves have been falling for the past couple of weeks, and some of the trees are nearly bare.
It would be easier to do this when the sun comes up, but with daylight comes the likelihood of people asking what I’m doing, and I’d rather look into this privately. So, I turn on my phone’s flashlight and walk toward the brambles at the back of the yard, which thicken into a tangle of woods beyond the property line. Shining my light around the ground, I find a stone pathway, barely discernible beneath the dense underbrush. Aunt Myrtle didn’t like me venturing back here. There were snakes, she warned, ticks and brown recluse spiders.
Hoping it’s too cold for critters, I push forward through the brush until I come upon the pale brick and glass structure. It’d been abandoned for decades by the time I discovered it as a kid, and now it’s even more decrepit, partly covered by briars, vines, and Spanish moss. Rusty iron framework surrounds the glass panes of arched windows that are all either missing or cracked.
Saying a prayer that I’m on the right track, I enter through a doorless entry flanked by stone pillars. I step carefully over the broken terracotta tiles that make up the floor, beaming the flashlight around until I spot a rickety wooden bench leaning against one wall. Pushing it aside, I squat down and open the floor hatch hidden beneath, revealing the steep, narrow steps that lead to the orangery’s cellar.
Once, when I was nine or ten, Mama smacked my backside for fooling around in here. I wasn’t supposed to even be in the orangery, let alone playing around the cellar, and she was terrified I’d topple down the steps and break my neck. I shiver, staring down into the inky depths. It’s pretty creepy, I must admit. But I’ve already come this far, and I need to check whether the contents below are what I think they are.
Holding my phone in one hand and a questionable handrail in the other, I begin my descent. Please, please don’t let there be any rats or snakes or bodies down here . After a minute, my sneaker hits more tiled flooring. I beam the light around the room, my breath catching when I spot the rows of wooden crates. Just like I remember. Heart pounding, I walk over and peer into the one I pried open with a hammer when I was a kid.
I’d been so excited to see what was in it, and then so disappointed to find nothing but a bunch of dusty, old bottles. I pull one of those bottles out now, carefully, grasping it by the neck as I blow it off. The label is faded nearly to the point of illegibility, but I can just make out Golden Stag Limited Batch #3 . There’s no family crest, but I suspect that it’s exactly what we’ve been looking for.
The special edition whiskies of Doyle’s silent distillery.
By eight a.m., I’m on my way to my attorney’s office downtown.
Tristan offered to take me, but I insisted on going alone—or with Timmy and Finn, the next best thing—since I’d be meeting Maribelle to discuss what we were going to do about the rest of Daddy’s estate. He didn’t leave a will, so things are a little hairy.
While it’s true that he didn’t leave a will and that it’s been problematic, I’m not actually meeting with Maribelle and my lawyer. Not today, anyway.
“You sure you’ll be okay?” Finn asks, parking outside the old, brick building that was once a textile mill but has been repurposed to house financial and law firms.
“Yeah, I just have to sign something. Shouldn’t take too long,” I assure him, climbing out of the SUV. Entering through the building’s double doors, I walk down the main corridor, bypassing a string of offices, and out to the street on the other side where Cole is waiting for me.
His navy blue truck looks brand-new, but he’s driven F150s since the day he got his license .
He looks around, briefly scrutinizing the building I just came out of, but when he sees that I really am alone, he smiles. “Evie,” he purrs, his gaze raking hotly over me as if he’s envisioning me naked.
“Hi, Cole,” I say softly, my heart pounding so hard it makes me dizzy. “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”
He watches intently as I climb in beside him. “Can’t say I wasn’t surprised to hear from you.”
I shut the door behind me, freezing when I see the gun on his lap. What did you expect, Evie? He’s probably suspicious as fuck. I press myself against the passenger door, glad, at least, for the console between us.
“Didn’t think you still had my number,” he says conversationally.
I bite the inside of my cheek. I didn’t have his number, at least not in my phone. It was, however, still scribbled down in an old journal I kept as a teen. “I’m surprised you still use that number,” I say finally, forcing myself to hold his gaze.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So, what’s up, Red? You’ve been so pissy every time I saw you, I was starting to think maybe you hated me for how things ended between us.” He can’t seriously be talking about high school, can he? He leans over, brushing his thumb over my cheek before dropping his hand lower. “Then again, you always did play kinda hard to get.”
“What’re you doing?” I gasp, squirming away as he begins running his hands over me.
“Makin’ sure you didn’t come in here strapped to kill me,” he says with a dark smile. “Lemme see inside your bag.”
I take a deep breath, allowing the events and revelations of the past couple days to remind me of why I’m doing this. I open my bag and show Cole the contents, moving it away when he starts to reach for the bottle stowed inside. “Hold on.”
Smirking, he rests his arm along the back of the cab’s seat back. “Go ahead, then. Gimme your spiel.”
“I did kinda hate you after how things went down back in the day,” I fib. I might’ve resented him for making a fool of me at one point, but I got over that real fast. The uncharitable feelings I’ve had since then are based solely on him being a shitty human being. But that’s not helpful right now. Playing up to his ego is. “But that was a long time ago and I might as well let bygones be bygones. I don’t want to live my life at war anymore.”
He snorts. “That’s not how it seemed the other night when you let your boy fuckin’ attack me for trying to talk to you.”
“Let him?” I cry. “Cole, y’all practically jumped us! I was terrified!”
“Aw, come on now. Have I ever hurt you?” he asks, rolling his eyes.
God, I’d love to smack that look off his face. “Look, I’m saying I want a truce, okay?”
“You know I can’t promise anything.” He cants his head to the side, skeptical. “But what’s prompted this sudden change of heart?”
“I guess I didn’t realize just how bad things would get.”
“What d’you mean, sugar?” he drawls. “Be specific.”
Repressing the revulsion his pet name evokes, I gaze up at him, trying to remember what it was like to fall for him. To want him. It’s nearly impossible. “I don’t think Tristan realizes what a mess he’s in. He hasn’t been here all that long, and there’s a certain order of things he has yet to understand.”
“Ah. Starting to realize hubby’s bitten off more than he could chew, huh?” Cole chuckles darkly, nodding. “I tried to warn him, you know. Told him to stop fucking around, but he didn’t listen.”
“I know you hate him, but if you have any kindness left for me at all, please consider what I’m trying to do. Nobody knows about this but me, so I’m trusting you, okay?” Trembling, I pull the bottle of special edition whiskey from my bag.
“ Golden Stag #14 .” Cole frowns at it, brushing his fingers over the label. “You were fucking serious.”
“Of course, I was,” I whisper, watching him open the bottle and sniff it. It’s nearly eighty years old.
“You try it yet?”
“Yeah, last night.” I nod. “Wanted to make sure it tasted alright before giving it to you.”
“Can’t wait to try it,” he says. “I’ve been reading up—these might be worth a mint.”
“I know, and there’s more where that came from, but you have to promise me you’ll talk to your dad, okay? No more kidnapping, no more … threats. Please. ”
A smile creeps over his mouth as he wraps his hand high around my thigh and squeezes. “What’ll you give me if I do?” he asks teasingly.
I try to peel his hand off, but he slides it higher, his fingers grazing the inseam of my jeans. “I just gave you—” My words are cut off when he swoops in and licks deeply into my mouth like he’s sampling me. I shove at his chest, horrified. “Cole! You cannot do that?—"
“You taste just like I remember,” he says almost wistfully. His hand slides away, but I can still feel it, like it burned right through the denim.
My stomach churns, and suddenly I’m frantic to get away from him. “I have to go.” Opening the door, I let myself out of his truck and walk quickly toward the glass doors leading back inside the building.
“Evie,” Cole calls.
Pausing, I look back at him.
“Don’t forget now, we have a deal,” he says. “If I sense even a hint of shady bullshit from you or that fucker, you will regret it more than I can express.”
I nod, shaking so badly I can’t speak. He yanks his truck away from the curb and speeds down the street, disappearing around the corner. I take a deep breath, and then another before my mouth fills with saliva and I vomit onto the asphalt.
It’s done.