8. Claire
8
CLAIRE
R unning clears my head.
Normally, James and I wake up when the sky is still kissed pink with dawn light. We’re late today, jet-lagged, and we don’t make it out of the house until nearly nine. It’s a cool morning. My emerald-green, velvet tracksuit keeps me warm. James is dressed in matching green (I got us a set for Christmas) with a smart watch to calculate his movements and his AirPods. His bare neck and cheeks pinken in the chill.
In Paris, we run loops around the city parks. Here, we have actual woods.
He slows his pace to keep alongside me, and I pick up mine to match his.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I say.
“Tell me,” he encourages, opening the door for me to vent.
As we cut deeper into the woods, the sky dims, hooded with thick oak trees.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” I tell him. “So I started going through Daddy’s finances. ”
“Alright.”
“Most of it is pretty standard—breeding expenses. Horse care. Equipment for the stables. Salaries.”
“Mmhm.”
“But he’s been sending money to something called the Semper Fi Fund.”
Twigs snap under my feet. My thighs burn, and I push through the pain.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know. Some sort of…nonprofit for veterans. Military fundraiser bullshit.”
“I didn’t know he served.”
I scoff. “He didn’t. Ever. I don’t think he’s ever even voted . Daddy hated politics.”
“Maybe he became patriotic in his old age.”
I take a couple of seconds to inhale. Exhale. Jog. “It’s just…it’s just off .”
We’re coming up to a river. “Left or right?” James asks.
“Right. We can circle back to the house.”
We swoop to the right like geese on a migration path. James’s feet fall quickly and quietly in line with mine, and for a minute, we pick up the pace. I let the beating of my heart do the talking.
But then I say, “What if it’s a front?”
James’s breath is light. I can hear his soft inhales and exhales.
“A front for what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Daddy was…cheating on his taxes. Something. He always thought he was invincible. Better than everyone else. What if he was doing something illegal…and it caught up with him?”
“You think the tax man killed your father?”
A strand of hair springs free from my ponytail. I blow it out of my face. “No…I don’t know. It’s just a theory. But it’s strange, isn’t it?”
James is quiet for a minute. “You said it yourself,” he says. “You really didn’t know the man in the past five years.”
“So?”
“I think you’re reaching.”
I stop. I put my hands on my thighs.
James stalls. He keeps moving, though, jogging in place. “Are you okay?”
My chest is tight. I grip my knees and lift so I can look him in the eyes.
“Daddy is dead,” I tell him. “He had his head blown off in his own bed. What part of that sounds normal to you?”
The edge of his mouth tucks downward. He says nothing to his own defense.
I bow my head. Air hurts. Breathing hurts.
Being alive hurts.
When I stand up again, my gaze moves beyond James. We’re almost back to the house. And then I see it—three familiar figures perched like flamingos in front of the gate.
“Oh, fuck ,” I swear.
He follows my gaze to the women at the house. “You know them?”
“They’re my…Promise Sisters.”
A pink, puff-pastry-shaped form steps toward us. She holds her hand over her brow to see us through the morning sun and then waves her hand.
“Claire!” Mary-Kate shouts. “Is that you? Running in the morning—aren’t you fit!”
Like a skittish deer, James starts to take off for his second loop. Cobra-quick, I grab his arm and yank him back.
“If you leave me alone with these vipers,” I hiss at him, “I swear to God, I will eviscerate you. ”
He slips his arm around my back instead. Cordially, he waves at the women.
The second we’re close enough to the Promise Sisters, they descend on us. The flock of pastel dresses swarms around me, and one by one, they pull me into a hug.
“Claire! I can’t believe you’re home!”
“You and me both,” I wheeze between tight squeezes.
“I’m so sorry about your daddy, bunny,” Violet says, and her eyes are instantly wet, a cry-on-command trick she picked up from drama school. Terrified she’s about to burst into tears just for the applause, I quickly change the subject.
“This is my fiancé, James.”
I put my hand on James’s back. Their eyes snap to him, and immediately, they begin assessing. Elsbeth even squeezes his bicep.
“Oh,” she says pleasantly. “Well done, Claire.”
“Thank you. What are you doing here?”
“We’re picking you up.” Mary-Kate smiles. “We’re going to brunch at the Equestrian Club, and you’re coming with us.”
“It’s a Friday must ,” Violet emphasizes, her dark curls bouncing as she nods.
“Oh…I don’t know. We have a lot to do before the funeral?—”
“But you must ,” Elspeth repeats, her fingers flying frantically together, twisting.
I glance at the car they drove up in—a white Pontiac. “Is that Hudson?”
“Oh, yes,” Mary-Kate says. “And Jake, my youngest. Wave hi.”
We wave. Hudson looks tired, but he spots us and lifts the infant on the steering wheel. He manipulates the baby’s hand so it waves back, and the child starts chewing on the wheel.
“Do they want to come inside?”
Mary-Kate waves them off. “No need. I cracked a window. Do you have bubbles?”
It quickly becomes clear this isn’t an invite I can talk my way out of, so I open the gate. Once we’re all inside, they invite themselves to Daddy’s bar while James and I excuse ourselves to rinse off from our run.
We share the shower. It’s quicker this way.
“What do I need to know?” James asks. The hot water steams as it hits his strong chest.
I cover myself in suds. “Mary-Kate is the daughter of my father’s bloodstock agent, so we were forced into friendship. We grew up together. Then Elsbeth, Violet, and Bonnie joined our crew. We called ourselves the Promise Sisters . I didn’t see Bonnie downstairs—maybe she actually left this godforsaken town.”
“Promise Sisters?”
God, this town is so bizarre. Trying to explain it to an out-of-towner feels like unraveling a mummy’s tomb and reading some ancient inscription.
“You know…purity rings? How little girls get a ring when they promise to stay clean for their future husbands? And it’s all…bizarre and culty?”
“Sure.”
“Well, we had a tradition like that in Belleflower. Sort of. Except instead of purity rings, if you were very, very good, you would get a ring from the Benefactors’ Society. It was called a Promise Ring. It’s a term for promising young girls who are on the path to be future Belleflower Queens. Sort of like…junior queens, I guess. Only a handful of girls ever got them. ”
“And you all had your Promise Rings.”
“Yes. It was like…an elite group.”
“You take this Belleflower Queen thing very seriously, don’t you?” James says.
“It’s a religion,” I say without a hint of humor.
He stares at me. Droplets of water hang over his long eyelashes.
“Switch,” I say.
We do a small dance to swivel around in the shower so I can rinse off while James takes the soap. He suds up under his arms. Over his strong chest.
The most shocking thing about naked James, probably, is his tattoo.
Everything about him is so prim and proper… and then . The lower half of his left arm is engulfed with the image of a dark wolf head swallowing a dagger. The first time I saw it, I asked him what it meant. He showed me the purpled skin underneath.
“The tattoo is to cover the burn,” he told me.
“What’s the burn?” I’d asked.
He gave me a strange smile. “To cover up the boy.”
I tilt my head back into the stream of hot water. I close my eyes under the downpour. “Anyway. We were spoiled, entitled teenagers. We rode our horses everywhere and terrorized the town.”
“You? A terror? I can’t imagine it.”
“On weekends, we took our horses to the river, where we went for a swim and sunned in our bathing suits and teased the old men who fished there. Then—still bathing suit clad—we’d hop back on our horses and ride bareback into town, where we’d hitch them up and go to Margie’s Cafe, and we’d get free coffee—no sugar because we weren’t allowed to intake sweets. ”
“So not much has changed.” I open my eyes to see James wearing a sly, sideways smile.
I elbow him for it, and he grunts as I exit the shower. I grab my towel and shake my hair dry.
There’s a double knock on the door before Elspeth bursts in. I barely have time to cover myself with my towel.
“Knock, knock! We brought you a dress!” Elspeth says. To my dismay, she holds up a matching, fluffy, pink dress.
Dear God .
“You’re too kind.” My smile could kill kittens.
“I know,” Elspeth says.
The shower cuts. James opens the shower door and blinks when he sees our company.
Elspeth, unashamedly, gawks.
I guess I can’t blame her. My fiancé is wonderfully endowed. To be honest, I get a small surge of pride when she loses her tongue and simply stares at his handsome, naked figure.
James clears his throat. He nods to the towel rack. “Would you be so kind?”
Elspeth fumbles. She goes in the direction of his nod but hands over his glasses instead of a towel.
I have to bite back a laugh as James, crestfallen, adorns his glasses. Naked, wet, but at least he can see now.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. See you dears downstairs!” Before Elsbeth leaves, she mouths to me, Oh my God .
I quirk a grin. I shrug. I’ve won the fiancé lottery.
James crosses the bathroom and finally grabs his towel.
“Blink twice if you’re in danger,” I tell him.
“I’m in danger.”
I wind my arms around his shoulders. His body is shower-warm and pink against mine .
“If I can survive a pink dress, you can survive being my arm candy.”
“So stay quiet and look pretty?”
“Yes.”
“And if they eat me alive?”
“The Promise Sisters might be the Belleflower matriarchs…but lucky you, you’re engaged to me. And no one touches what’s mine.”
I touch my nose against his and rest my hand on his hip. He stirs underneath his towel, the hard swell of him nuzzling my belly.
I’d love nothing more than to let him take me right now. To remind myself that he’s mine, and I’m his, and we can get through this shitshow as long as we’re together. But?—
“They’re waiting. Come on.” I lift my arms. “The quicker we’re in, the quicker we’re out. Help me into this monstrosity.”