Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Emerson
I’m sitting with Wynter on the back deck, in the shade, and with the warm day, the temperature is perfect. Lane and Myles are working in the shop. Brooks texted me pictures of Hillary cuddling my chickens. I made the one of her and Ethel my lock screen image.
There’s a line of Copper Summit bourbon on the deck table in front of us. She’s been making me mini cocktails. I had a blackberry bourbon lemonade, a huckleberry Kentucky mule, and a flight of samples of various lines.
“I’m afraid I need it mixed.” I smack my lips. The sweetness of the lemonade lingers on my tongue. “I can’t drink a lot of straight bourbon.”
“Have you tasted some of the Foster House Gold vodkas and gins?”
Warm gin trickling into my mouth, with a hint of lavender and a lot of Lane, flashes through my head. The heat flushing my cheeks has nothing to do with the alcohol. “Yes, some of them. I’m not a big drinker.”
“None of us are, and we’ll never pressure you. It’s fun for our family, and a way of life, but it’s not for everyone.”
“Foster House makes a stellar product, but it’s always been the story behind it that draws me in.”
Her brows lift, but she grins. “Yes. And if you know Myles, you’d be really surprised he let that much out.”
“He’s very curated.” I stir the ice cubes in my drink. “So much so that I didn’t realize I hadn’t researched his brothers until I faced Lane and thought Myles looked way younger than in his pictures.”
Her laughter carries on the breeze. “Myles is quite protective, and he’ll take your statement as a high compliment.” She studies me. “Have you caught up on your research now?”
“I’m getting there.” I chew the inside of my cheek. “I don’t know much about Cruz.” I know way more than I thought I ever would about Lane.
“You’re not married to Cruz though.”
I laugh. “Elodie would probably have something to say about that.”
She grins. “She’ll follow through. She’s quiet, but I think she’s scrappy.”
My gaze goes to the shop. “That’s what Lane calls me.”
“It fits. I didn’t expect he would be happy with a wilting flower.”
“Oh, we’re not together together.” At Wynter’s arched brow, I nod.
She swallows what’s left in her tasting glass. “Yes, of course. The trust.”
Her voice is just aloof enough to amp up my defensiveness. She doesn’t believe me, but what else do I say? I spent the night in Lane’s bed. I had sex with him on his desk. But it’s still not serious. All this ends in divorce.
I trace the lip of the glass.
“Would you mind . . .” Wynter starts slowly and there isn’t much I’d mind. She’s a gorgeous woman with an amazing home that she’s welcomed me into, when I’m the girl who might’ve kept Lane from it all. “Would you mind telling me about your holiday campaign?”
Since I already pitched it, I don’t mind.
I’d like to get paid for my insight and my ideas, but Wynter’s opened her home to me.
I outline what I think has been missing from their holiday marketing.
A sense of belonging. “I was drawn to Foster House in Denver because it’s such a well-respected company, but the whole house concept invites a person in. ”
She smiles. “His goal is to go further than skin deep.”
I nod. “For so long, the ads have all said that it’s not the spirits that bring people together, it’s just there for the celebration.
” Pausing, I think about the rest. I gathered my courage to present to who I thought would be Myles and ended up telling it all to Lane.
He’s invested deeply in the company, but he’s still one spot removed.
Wynter was a foster kid. The Baileys adopted her, but Foster House’s message is for people like her.
For people like me. “The last couple of years, it’s been different.
A subtle shift that no one’s probably noticed. ”
“But you did. Why is that?”
She has to know what I pitched: A return to the original message.
Didn’t Lane tell her? “I don’t have much for family.
” The back of my throat burns. “So I guess the idea of belonging and connection appeals to me, and it’s more noticeable during the holidays when I’m only celebrating with Brooks and Hillary.
I think Foster House should go back to making a toast to that concept instead of being the reason for the toast. It’s gotten backward. ”
Wynter switches out her tasting cup for another bourbon, the strongest one we sampled. Appreciation lights her eyes as she works the liquid over her tongue. “Myles thinks you’re absolutely right.”
“He does?”
“Is that a surprise?” There’s genuine curiosity in her question. “That he wouldn’t be the first person to know what you’re talking about?”
“I didn’t think Lane had talked to him.”
She swirls her almost-empty glass. “Those guys don’t have secrets, especially not when it comes to something that’s best for the company. I’m hoping you’ll consider working for Foster House Gold.”
“Foster House Gold?”
Shock crosses her face. “Oh shit.” She puts her fingers to her mouth. “Crap. Lane hasn’t discussed it with you?” She squeezes her eyes shut. “He’s probably gotta talk to the others.”
Has he? Will he? Or would he rather not work with me at all?
So much for belonging. Indignation tastes sour on my tongue.
“Don’t worry. I’m still chugging forward no matter what.
Do you do work for them?” I ask lightly, hoping she won’t see the hurt inside me, or realize that I know the answer.
I just want to move on. “Or just Foster House Gold?”
She gives me a look like she knows what I’m doing. “I help the Foster House Gold guys streamline their ideas, but for the most part, they let the quality of the spirits they make do the talking.”
“That and the reputation of Foster House whiskey.”
She chuckles. “One hundred percent. You have a bunch of guys who want to make quality spirits. Social media and marketing and distribution? Not as fun.”
“Good thing for people like us.” My laugh comes out stilted. Awkward. I repress my wince.
After a few seconds of silence, she tips her head and her pale hair hangs over a shoulder. “I think Lane’s concerned that you’ll resent him.”
It’s getting harder to. “I think he’s going to resent the cock sayings all over his house,” I joke.
Humor dances in her eyes. “I saw pictures. That house needed something. But with the marriage and how you felt tricked, he’s treading carefully.”
“He takes care of everyone,” I murmur.
“He does.” She drains the last sip of the strong bourbon. “I was there when the guys first met. Sort of.”
“Lane and Myles?”
She nods. “Cruz had this devil-may-care attitude, but Lane was speculative. He watched and waited. He was the one who started arranging their mom’s cremation and inurnment. They didn’t have a dime to rub together between them until Myles showed up. But he was doing it.”
The respect in her tone loosens a knot inside me.
Someone else sees what that guy puts into his life, and how much he cares for the people he loves.
Someone else knows that Lane is driven by responsibility and not selfishness.
He won’t take something that’s not his. Someone else sees that this marriage is just an obligation and not a real relationship.
Lane
The view of the valley Myles and Wynter’s house sits over is stunning in the daylight, but in the darkness, there’s a peace I can’t replicate at my house.
But here, with Myles and Wynter on one seat, her on his lap, and Cruz with his arm around Elodie across from them, and my niece and nephew both roasting several marshmallows over the firepit, this is it.
It’s what my place is missing, but not the only thing.
The last part of the puzzle is next to me, one long leg crossed over the other, and her elbow on her knee, chin in hand.
Emerson. My night would be better if I had my arm around her like Cruz is doing with Elodie, or if she was on my lap like Wynter is on Myles.
But Emerson is convinced we’re still not real.
“Here ya go, Emerson.” Elsa turns with a browned marshmallow, her dark ponytail slipping over her shoulder.
Emerson sticks her plate out, and between the two of them, they slide the marshmallow off.
“Thank you,” Emerson says almost shyly when Elsa begins offloading another brownish-white puff onto my waiting graham cracker.
“Does Hillary like s’mores?” I ask to draw my wife into the conversation.
Emerson quirks her lips a moment before answering. “She used to, but she can’t eat the graham crackers anymore.”
“Gluten?” Elsa snaps her fingers. “What’s that thing called?”
Devon pauses eating his third marshmallow off the stick. His mop of dark hair falls over his forehead. “Celiac.”
“Yes,” Elodie says softly. “I have a couple of customers with celiac who special order gluten-free cookies from me. I make them before I do anything else that day to keep any cross-contamination down.”
Cruz beams like he’s the one who does all the work, but he’s just a sappy asshole for his woman.
I rub a hollow spot in the middle of my chest.
“It’s something else. She can eat a lot of gluten-free stuff. It’s the enriched food she shouldn’t have.” Emerson taps her temple. “It affects her moods and behavior, so she takes specific vitamins and sticks to unenriched foods. But those graham crackers just don’t taste the same.”
Wynter reclines in Myles’s arms. “I’ve heard of that. People call it the motherfucker gene.”
“Mom!” Devon’s scandalized, but he snickers because he’s barely out of middle school.
“Hear it, don’t repeat it,” Myles tells him.
“Yes, that’s it.” Emerson nods. “I don’t have the variation, but Hillary does. It made her a little . . . volatile . . . when she was younger.”
“She’ll fit right in here,” Myles says. “We’re a crowd of volatile kids.”
Wynter smirks. “Elsa and Devon, not so much. But when a storm would hit when I was a kid—watch out.”
She shares a special smile with Myles that leaves a green stain on my heart. I know the story of how he could calm her by reading to her. The teen who’d almost aged out of the system and the little girl who had just lost her parents. It’s the first special connection between them.
I have a tattoo of a pickup, but I want more. I want everything.
Emerson nibbles at her s’more but ends up with a smear of white on her cheek. She dabs at it and brushes the back of her wrist against her skin to get it off. If I didn’t think she’d pack up and leave, I’d lick it off.
“The moon’s out tonight,” Myles said. “You should show her the valley from the overlook. You can take the side-by-side.”
“Thought I’d grab a couple of the horses,” I joke.
Emerson pauses mid-licking of her fingers. “It’s been a good twenty years since I’ve been on horseback.”
Myles cocks a brow. “Lane could change that if you want.”
“I could,” I agree. “But we’ve been busy getting the hens settled in.”
Emerson smothers a giggle. “And Phillip.”
“He’s a loud one.”
She shoots me a knowing look. I would’ve said he’s a loud cock, but Myles would find a way to pay me back when his kids aren’t witnesses. The hear it, don’t repeat it only applies to uncles when the parents aren’t around.
“Wanna go?” I ask Emerson.
Wynter slides off Myles. “Time to hit the hay, kids. Devon, remember to dig out your sleeping bag for Uncle Lane.”
Emerson glances at me and frowns.
“Lane said you might not want to share a room, and we only have one spare room,” Wynter says apologetically. “Lane doesn’t like sleeping on the couch.”
“There was enough of that back in the day.” For various reasons I don’t care to remember. “You get the bed.”
“No, I . . .” She bites her lip, her gaze scanning everyone watching us. “It’s fine. We’re adults. We can share a bed.”
Elsa does a little wiggle and grins, oblivious to the warning stares from her parents and me. Devon’s got an earbud in and isn’t paying attention.
“I promise I don’t steal blankets,” I tell Emerson. Will she be more comfortable if she thinks the others don’t know we slept together just last night?
“I’m a fighter, so be prepared if you take one more inch than is yours.” Emerson picks up the last of her s’more.
A smile spreads across my face. “Is that so? What if I get lost on the way back from the viewpoint?”
“I fight bears too.”
Laughing, I eat my sweet treat.