When he looked over and his eyes lighted on me, his face lit up like Fourth of July fireworks. Okay. Maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but the butterflies he set off in my belly certainly were.
I looked away, ignoring the pheromones I responded to whenever I was within a one-mile radius of William Comfort. I’d managed to keep my distance from him for seventy-two hours and I’d hoped that in that time I would’ve been able to build up an immunity to him, but the physical reaction I was experiencing assured me I had not.
Every exploding synapse in my brain was totally consumed with thoughts about how soft Billy’s lips were. How strong and protective his hands felt as they rested on my hips. I had to actively not allow myself to walk straight up to him and stake my claim by kissing him silly.
After several deep breaths, I managed to gather my wits about me. This was so out of character for me. I was never impulsive like this, and I really never gave in to temptations just because they felt good. I was a rule-follower. I was pragmatic. I was disciplined.
Not when I was with Billy, though. When he was around, I suddenly found I had a wild side I’d been previously unaware of. It was both intoxicating and addicting…two things I did my best to avoid.
“All right, now, settle down. Let’s get started.”
I turned to see where the voice was coming from. A man had joined the group. He wore a faded cowboy hat, flannel button-down, jeans, and a pair of boots that had clearly seen more than one day in the dirt.
Cheyenne asked Nadia, “Who’s that?”
She leaned in so she could speak low. “That’s Harlan Mitchell. He was a few years ahead of me in school. This is his family’s place.”
Cheyenne’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s not dressed for working out.”
“I mean…it is called Farm Strong. He’s dressed for the farm,” Nadia pragmatically pointed out.
I covertly snuck a glance in Billy’s direction, he wore sweats and a T-shirt and the sleeves molded to his biceps. It was downright drool inducing.
Harlan’s voice rang out in the crisp, spring morning air again. “All right, now. The first thing we’re gonna do is called the Feed Bag Carry. You see that pallet truck with bags of feed piled on it? They need to go in the barn. Stacked in the right-hand corner.” He pulled an ancient-looking stopwatch out of his pocket. “I’m timing y’all. You have ten minutes.”
We all just stood there staring at him until he clapped his hands together, sending a sharp crack through the air. “Come on, now! Time’s a-wastin’!”
I looked at Cheyenne and she just shrugged and walked over to the truck. A few other people followed.
The two women who’d been flirting with Billy followed behind him like ducklings as he made his way toward me. I turned on my heels and pulled one of the bags of feed onto my shoulder and headed toward the barn. By the time I was halfway there, my legs were burning. By the third trip, I thought I just might die. I did have to admit I was going extra fast and sometimes really out of my way, to make sure I didn’t run into Billy during the trips.
At one point, Nadia turned to me and laughed. “You do realize that we’re just doin’ Harlan’s chores, right? He’s figured out how to make citiots do his work and pay for the privilege.”
“Citiots?”
“Oh, you know. City. Idiots. The port practically manteaus itself.”
“The port does what now?” I asked, not having a clue what my friend was talking about.
“It manteaus itself.”
“Still not following.”
“Portmanteaus, it means two words combining to make another word. Like breakfast and lunch, brunch.”
“Oh right. Wasn’t that on our toilet paper?” In college Nadia, the English major, insisted on having Word of the Day toilet paper.
“Maybe.” She squinted before lifting her arm and wiping her forehead with back of her hand.
Seeing her sweating at six thirty in the morning on her vacation doing a workout for “citiots” caused me to come down with a sudden case of friend-guilt. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”
She shrugged. “It’s actually a pretty decent workout. Besides, you gotta admire that kind of devious hustle.”
“Hey, you two! Get moving! We’re not here to exercise your yaps! Move it!”
Harlan’s voice rang out over the field and Nadia spun around, her hands propped on her hips. “Harlan Mitchell, you keep that up and I’m gonna tell your Meemaw how you were talkin’ to ladies.”
He dipped his head, looking appropriately chastised. Nadia turned back to me and we got back to work, on our terms.
After moving bags of feed came digging holes for fence posts, then clearing rocks from a field. I could feel Billy’s eyes on me like a physical touch, but I did my best to ignore him. Logically, I knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but in reality, I’d been looking for a reason to distance myself from him.
The list of reasons we were a bad idea was a mile long. There were more red flags than a Canada Day parade. One of which was that, up until a couple of weeks ago, I was supposed to be getting married in two days. Then there was his reputation, which apparently he lived up to. Add to that the fact that he and my boss were sworn enemies, and it was a trifecta of bad ideas.
The first time I’d laid eyes on him I’d known I needed to stay away. The Taylor Swift song “Trouble” should be the soundtrack that played whenever he entered a room. But for some reason I hadn’t been able to stay away from him. Not until Nadia told me about Daisy. For whatever reason, that tidbit of information had served as a repellent for resisting his charms.
But even that was wearing off. Spending this hour in the same vicinity as him began to counteract its effects. Every time I saw him smile, heard him laugh—or worse, heard his voice—I could feel my resolve slipping faster than a rock climber with Vaseline on his fingers and shoes.
At the end of the long, sweaty hour, Nadia and Cheyenne decided they were going to go get breakfast, and I told them I had to get back to get ready for work. I’d hustled out to my car and honestly had no idea that Billy was behind me until he said my name as I clicked the fob.
“Reagan.”
My first thought was to ignore him. I’d done it for the last hour, and for the three days before that. If I could just get in the car and drive away, I’d be home free. For now, at least. But like a moth speeding headlong toward a flame, I turned around.
He smiled as he studied my face, which I could only assume was flushed and blotchy. I didn’t imagine there was much there to smile about—but that was what I loved about the way Billy looked at me. Even in this state, he made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world.
I braced myself for him to call me out on not answering his calls or replying to his texts or thanking him for the flowers. I was already coming up with excuses to defend myself when his grin grew wider.
“Did ya know that your hair curls up at the nape of your neck in the most adorable way when you get all hot and sweaty?”
My hand flew to my neck, ran my fingers over the hair there—which was, in fact, curling.
He winked. “Not the first time I’ve noticed it.”
Turbo-charged butterflies zoomed around in my belly.
He leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the lips in front of God and everyone. Before I could object, it was over. “Anyway, I just didn’t want to leave without giving you that. You drive safe now.”
I stared speechless as I watched him walk away. It was one hell of a view.
CHAPTER 43
Billy
The digital numbers on my dashboard were blurry when I tried to focus on them. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and glanced back down. I was able to make out that it was three thirty in the morning. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, since I’d stayed up to take Cheyenne to boot camp.
I was glad I’d done it, though, since I’d been able to see Reagan. Not only see her, in fact, but steal a kiss. Literally, I don’t th
ink she knew what was happening until it was over.
I’d taken a nap after being out at Harlan’s but hadn’t been able to sleep past noon. My mind had been too busy replaying the look on Reagan’s face after I’d kissed her. It all happened so fast. I hadn’t planned on doing it, I just hadn’t been able to resist.
And now, here I was twenty-one hours later, heading to the boarding house in the middle of the night. When I’d jumped in the truck ten minutes ago, I hadn’t had any idea where I was going. I just knew I couldn’t stay in my house. But now, as I turned onto the main road, I knew exactly where I was headed.
My headlights shone on the road in front of me and I did my best to concentrate on not going over the white line that separated the lanes. Usually, I didn’t even give a second thought to something so automatic that it was basically as second nature as breathing. But right now I was focusing on every tiny detail of what I was doing to keep me from losing my shit.
I went over a bump in the road and glanced beside me as my mama’s journal bounced on the seat. When I’d gotten home from the bar after closing, I’d finally opened up the box. In the back of my mind, I’d known that it might be difficult to read what she’d written, but I hadn’t thought that it would be impossible.
I’d flipped to the last entry, which happened to be the date of her death, and was only able to read the first line before slamming the journal shut again. My chest constricted and it felt like the walls were closing in on me. I started sweating, I couldn’t breathe, and I saw stars.
I remembered experiencing the same things right after Mama died. I would be going about my day, eating cereal, riding my bike, playing down by the river, it could be anything, and all of a sudden my chest would feel like an elephant was standing on it, I’d get lightheaded, sometimes my limbs would go numb. At the time, I’d had no idea what was happening to me. The first time, I’d honestly thought I was going to die. But I didn’t. From then on I just white knuckled my way through it whenever it came on.
Years later, Cash brought up those spells. He asked me if I remembered having them. I’d completely blocked them out until my friend had mentioned the episodes. He told me that they must’ve been panic attacks. He’d suffered with them after returning from his last tour in Afghanistan. He’d had some fairly gnarly PTSD, and had seen a therapist to help him.
It was the only reason I had a clue what was happening to me now. My breaths were still short when I pulled up to Mrs. B’s. In the back of my mind, I knew that it was crazy to show up at Reagan’s door in the middle of the night. She hadn’t returned my calls the past few days, and had ignored me most of the morning.
I grabbed the journal off the seat and jumped out of the truck. If she slammed the door in my face, she’d have every right. But that was a chance I was willing to take. I took the steps up to the house two at a time and grabbed the hide-a-key that Mrs. B stored in the storm drain. She always locked the main entrance after hours, but every local knew where the spare was. Once inside, I strode down the darkened hallway toward Reagan’s room and when I arrived I knocked several times on her door. Just knowing that she was on the other side of it already had my body relaxing.
When I heard the latch being unlocked my heart rate sped up as an entirely separate anxiety flooded me. It wasn’t from my panic attack, it was from knowing that I was about to lay eyes on Reagan. The woman who, sometime in the past ten days or so, had stolen my heart, my soul, and I was pretty sure my sanity.
The door opened and a bleary eyed Reagan appeared, squinting up at me. “Billy, what’s wrong? What are you doing here?”
For a moment I couldn’t speak. She was wearing a gray T-shirt and cutoff sweats. Her hair was piled on top of her head, and her face was scrubbed clean. She was the most breathtakingly beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
“Billy? What’s wrong?” she questioned again.
I don’t know what I’d expected to find, or if I’d even thought of it at all, but the reality of my actions sunk in on me all at once. Disturbing Reagan when she had to be up in a few hours for work was a dick move.
“Sorry. Go back to sleep.” I started to turn but she reached out and put her hand on my forearm.
“Is that your mom’s journal?”
“Yeah.” I shifted back. “I tried to read it, but…”
“Come in.” She opened the door wider and motioned for me to enter.
I walked past her and the faint scent of lavender that her hair always smelled of wafted past me. I inhaled deeply, wanting to take it in and hold on to it. I never wanted to stop smelling it.
“Sit down.” She crossed to the small fridge stored beneath the coffee stand. “Can I get you something? Water? A Coke?”
“No. I’m fine.” Now that I was here, I was feeling a little bit ridiculous.
She grabbed a water bottle and flipped on the small light sitting on the corner desk before lowering down into a chair facing me. She tucked one leg beneath her and her knee brushed mine. Even through the denim covering my leg, I felt the brief contact and missed it when it was gone.
“So, what did you find out?” she asked expectantly.
“Not much. I only read the first line of her journal entry the day she died.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Okay.”
“Can you read it?” It suddenly became clear to me why I was there. I couldn’t face this alone. I needed her to do this.
Her blue eyes widened. “Me?”
“You,” I confirmed.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of your brothers, or Cheyenne—”
“They’re too close to the situation.” I lied. It wasn’t at all the reason I hadn’t brought it to them. “I need someone without any emotional attachment to do it.”
I handed her the leatherbound book.
She took it and opened it up, with extreme care. She handled it the same way one would William Shakespeare first edition. She began gently flipping through the pages, scanning each as she went.
“Can you read the last one?” My throat was tight as I asked the question.
“Oh.” She looked up at me. “Okay.”
She turned to the final entry and I watched as her eyes moved across the pages.
“Out loud. Can you read it out loud?”
“Are you sure?” Her eyes lifted to meet mine and I could see concern brimming in them. “This is very… personal.”
“I need to know. And I think the only way I can is if I hear it from you.” There it was. The truth. The only way I’d be able to take in this information was if I heard it from Reagan.
There was a moment of hesitation before she took a deep breath and tilted her chin down toward the book. “I’m at the end of my rope. This is a living hell. He’s a loose cannon, I have no earthly idea what he might do. I can’t live like this.” A pause hung in the air before her blue stare once again lifted up through her dark lashes. “Are you sure you want me to keep going?”
I nodded.
She continued, “I can only think of one way out. I have to tell the truth. Tell him everything. It makes me sick to think about doing it. It’s going to destroy everything that we’ve built together. I’ve accepted that, as much as it breaks my heart. No. My heart isn’t broken. It’s shattered.”
When she didn’t continue, I asked, “Is that it?”
“No…” She shook her head. “But…”
“Please.” It was a simple plea, but it did the trick.
She took a deep breath. “But I don’t care what happens to me. Just the babies, they’re all that matter. I don’t know what to do. Hank. My strong, silent boy. He will handle anything the world throws at him. But what will it do to him on the inside? Jimmy. My fun-loving little guy. He’s always laughing. Will this take away his smile? Billy. My little charmer. He never met a situation he couldn’t talk his way out of. Will this give him the idea that the world is too harsh to even try? And, then there’s Cheyenne. My sweet little angel. This will hurt her most of all. But I don’
t know what else to do. I have to tell the truth. I can’t live under threat of being exposed. Under his threats. At least now this mistake won’t control me anymore. I can’t go on like this.”
She closed the book and lifted her head. “That’s it.”
I stared at her, trying to process what any of that could mean when a folded piece of paper slid from the back of the book onto the floor. I picked it up and when I unfolded it I saw it wasn’t just one paper, it was several. There was a lot of paragraphs but the headers were bolded and stood out.
Trustee.
Beneficiaries.
Dispensation of Residuary Trust Assets Upon Trustee’s Death.
Amendments I, II, and III.
“I think this is it. I think this is the trust.” I handed it to Reagan.
She started reading it with an entirely different intensity than she had the journal. Her eyes flew over the pages as she flipped from one to the next. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“What? What doesn’t?” I scooted forward and stared at the paper upside down.
She pointed. “It says here that a trust was established in your mother’s name that she would have had access to at age thirty.”
“My mom was twenty-nine when she died. Was that why the trust was never accessed?”
“No.” She shook her head as she shuffled to another paper. “Right here it specifies that in the event of her death, the trust was to be divided equally between her children listed here.” She turned the paper around and I saw our full names listed. I was glad I’d already told her what my middle name was, otherwise she would’ve learned it right then. “You and your siblings should’ve inherited fifty million dollars.”
“Fifty million dollars…” The amount sounded foreign even to my own ears.
She nodded, shifting the paperwork back toward her and reading through them again. “And you were all entitled to collect at eighteen. The only way that the funds would not be released and remain in the trust was if there were outstanding circumstances surrounding your mother’s death.”
Panty Dropper Page 25
