Grin and Beard It (Winston Brothers #2)

by Penny Reid

  “Do you drink now?”

  “Yes. But not to excess like before.”

  “When did you start going out again? At night?”

  “A few years back. But not every night, and not to places where trouble would find me.”

  She studied me from where she lay on the carpet, her brow pensive. “You drink in moderation, you go out in moderation, so why not date in moderation?”

  “Because drinking and going out only have ramifications for me. Dating in moderation, as you put it, comes with the possibility of hurting someone else.”

  Something clicked behind her gaze. “You didn’t want to lead someone on.”

  I nodded, because that was exactly right.

  “You mean to tell me you haven’t met a woman you liked in the last five years?”

  “I’ve met plenty of women I liked, but I’d always decide to wait a little longer. When push came to shove, I found it plenty easy to walk away.”

  Her pretty eyes widened until they were almost round. “But not with me?”

  “Not with you.”

  “Why?”

  I searched her gaze, found myself lost in her eyes.

  Getting the sense I was taking too long to answer her question, I finally just admitted, “I honestly don’t know. It’s everything about you, I guess. Everything together that makes you impossible to leave, impossible to forget.”

  And that was the truth.

  Her cheeks warmed with a pleased blush at my words. “Jethro.” She said my name tenderly, lifted her chin as though to kiss me, but I evaded her mouth.

  “There’s more.”

  “More?” Sienna’s mahogany gaze widened again, her lush lips forming circle and a pout. I had to bite my lip to keep from biting hers.

  “Yes.” I nodded firmly, gritting my teeth and steeling my resolve. “I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t . . . that the next woman I made love to would be my wife.”

  She stared at me, her eyes growing impossibly wider. Seeing I was serious, she jerked backward and sputtered, “But . . . but . . . what about . . .” Apparently having trouble forming the words, Sienna motioned to her body with stilted movements then blurted, “What do you call what we just did?”

  I tried to keep a smile from my face because she was just too fucking cute. “Third base.”

  She growled, lifted up on her elbow, and jabbed a finger at my chest. “Well I call that making sweet, sweet love, buster.”

  “You’re right, that was sweet. But I’m talking about a home run and you know it.”

  I kept my tone reasonable and gentle. She was teetering on the edge of real anger, her eyes flashing fire. I reached for her. She began to draw away but I held on.

  Bringing her palm to my heart I laid it all out. “I’m falling for you, Sienna. I have been since I helped you down from my truck that first day when you were lost. You touched my hand and that was it, whatever you want to call it. I was hooked. I am hooked. It might be an arbitrary line in the sand, but I needed the line to keep me walking the straight and narrow. Wanting to wait doesn’t mean I don’t want you.”

  “I know,” she admitted reluctantly and I saw she was melting, her expression a mixture of helpless and hopeful. “You are pure evil, telling me this now, now that I’m addicted to you.”

  A twinge of regret—of concern that I’d inadvertently hurt her—had me frowning, and I scooched an inch away. “I see—”

  She grabbed fistfuls of my shirt and tugged me closer. “No, no, no. You’re not going anywhere. Don’t even think about it.”

  “I wasn’t going anywhere,” I said, my voice rough. I brushed a sheet of soft, thick hair from her shoulders, trying to ignore my desire to wrap my fingers in it and pull, expose her neck, bite, and mark her perpetually sun-kissed skin. “I’m just sorry if you feel I misled you.”

  “I don’t.” She shook her head. “I don’t, I mean—when would you have brought it up before now?”

  “I appreciate you being so understanding.”

  Her mouth opened then closed as she stared at me, finally saying, “I understand, but I don’t. I mean, if you’re in a committed relationship—and since we’ve discussed the possibility of forever, I would call this a committed relationship—I don’t see the need to wait until marriage. I don’t understand that. But given what you’ve told me about your past, I understand that you might not trust yourself. And so you, as you say, drew an arbitrary line in the sand.”

  I slid my hand down her body, feeding and torturing my need to touch her, until my fingers met the bare skin of her thigh. “I made the decision in order to keep from hurting someone again.”

  “Sure, okay. Maybe. I’ll buy that. If you know sex is off the table, you won’t be motivated by it.” She squinted at me. “But maybe it’s also a way to keep yourself from getting hurt. Maybe it keeps you from losing control, from fully investing in someone who might leave you.”

  I glared at her. Her words struck a chord, and it was an uncomfortable one. My first instinct was to reject her assessment. Of course I wasn’t trying to protect myself. That was just silliness. That would make my sacrifice a selfish one.

  But the longer she stared at me with her serene expression, patience in her eyes, the better I could see past my initial impulse. I liked to think I could’ve settled down a hundred times over in the five years. But that wasn’t true. I have a healthy dose of ego and self-confidence, quite possibly bordering on arrogance. But when it got down to brass tacks, what woman worth having would want me for something other than a fling?

  “What are you thinking?”

  My gaze cut to hers—to this gorgeous, clever, strong woman—and I made two decisions: first, I might not ever truly deserve her, but I would work every day to be a man who did. I would work to merit her trust, loyalty, and love. I would earn it no matter how freely she might be willing to give it.

  Second, I was going to break my rule. I was going to make love to her when that’s what it was. It wouldn’t be just sex, and it certainly wouldn’t be fucking around. When the time was right, regardless of whether or not we were married, I was going to take that gamble.

  “Jethro?” Her eyes were wide, her features bracing. My silence and the look in my eye must’ve been making her nervous.

  “I was just thinking,” I tempered my expression, gave her a warm smile, and kissed her shoulder, “we should get Daisy’s doughnuts every morning.”

  CHAPTER 25

  “Aging is not 'lost youth' but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

  ― Betty Friedan

  ~Sienna~

  Susie arrived just as Jethro was leaving. He tipped his hat with a rumbly, “Ma’am,” needing to bend at an angle to clear the trailer door because he was so tall.

  She didn’t say anything, just turned her head as he walked past, her eyebrows suspended over a stunned blue gaze. We both watched him saunter away through the south-facing window.

  Then she said, “Whoa.”

  I nodded, my eyes still on him and his audacious stride. “Yeah. Whoa.”

  He turned the corner, slipped out of view, and we both sighed.

  “Nicely done.” Susie patted me on the back.

  I grinned, biting my lip, feeling oddly shy. “I know, right? And he’s more beautiful on the inside than he is outside.”

  “How is that possible?” Susie looked back to where he’d disappeared, frowning out the window.

  I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know.”

  “He looks like he’s good with his hands.”

  Immediately, I flushed scarlet, because I now had intimate knowledge of how very good he was with his hands. But then my heart twisted, because I might never know how good he was with other parts.

  Namely, his penis.

  And I really, really wanted to know what he could do with his penis. Based on the way he rolled his hips when we made out, I was pretty sure he was a master dill pickler, if you catch my meaning.

  Susie’s gaze
slid to mine and she gave me an impish smile. “Aha.”

  I laughed, hiding my face behind my fingers. “Ahhh. I like him so much.”

  She pushed my shoulder. “Good. You’re a gorgeous girl, but your real beauty lies within, doll. You deserve someone in your life who makes you happy.”

  “Thank you, Susie.” She may have been my employee, and we might always have that barrier between us, but I didn’t realize until that moment how much I’d needed someone to be happy for me. On that note, I needed to call my mom, because I suspected she’d be happy for me.

  But then Susie had to add, “And makes you moist.”

  “Thank— Ugh!” I gagged, laughing again.

  She laughed too, wagging her eyebrows. “I’m serious. I was worried about you last year. Tom is pretty, but I knew he wasn’t the one for you.”

  “Well, what can I say? His looks and star-power made me stupid for five minutes.”

  We turned to the interior of the trailer, and she began setting up to do my makeup.

  “But what’s interesting,” I continued, reaching for my coffee as I sat, “now I don’t find him attractive at all. I mean, I can see he’s good-looking, but he does nothing for me. It’s like, I see him, and my vagina—afraid of his impotency—plays dead.”

  She grinned at that. “So, not moist?”

  “No. Not moist.” I chuckled. “More like a damp, wet blanket.”

  “Yes. I agree.” She snickered, applying the undercoat to my face and neck.

  We were quiet for a while, and I found myself smiling at intervals, remembering events from the morning, some small thing Jethro had done or some detail about his face. And then I would frown, because of the giant celibate elephant in the room. And then I’d smile again, because he’d kissed me senseless before leaving.

  I was lost in these reflections when Susie, who apparently had been lost in her own reflections, broke our comfortable silence and offered philosophically, “Think of how much better the world would be if people craved compliments about the beauty of their heart rather than the beauty of their face.”

  The unexpected wisdom of her words startled me. She smiled softly at my surprised expression, and I found myself looking at her, entranced.

  I noticed, maybe for the first time in our acquaintance, she had wrinkles around her eyes and her mouth, deep crinkling creases made deeper by her grin.

  They were laugh lines.

  And they were breathtaking.

  And so was she.

  ***

  “Why do I feel so weird about this?”

  Jethro slid his eyes to mine, then back to the road. “I don’t know. She doesn’t bite.”

  I stared at the artichoke dip I held on my lap. “You have dinner with her every Sunday.”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “I’m meeting the woman you’ve had dinner with every Sunday for over five years. She’s not a relative. She’s a friend. A good friend.” I reiterated the facts.

  “Yep.”

  “I’m meeting the other woman. Or am I the other woman?”

  Jethro lifted an eyebrow at me. “Neither of you are the other woman. There’s no reason to be uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable. I’m just feeling weird, and I don’t know how to un-weird myself.”

  “Well, don’t un-weird yourself on my account. I like you weird. And Claire will, too.”

  We drove in silence, me with my thoughts, Jethro with his, until I blurted, “I just don’t understand how you have dinner with a woman once a week, every week, who isn’t a relative, and not try to make a move.” I didn’t add especially this woman.

  Last Tuesday Jess, Duane’s girlfriend, had shown me a picture of Claire. I’d mentioned to Jess that Jethro and I were going over to Claire’s house for dinner and Jess pulled out her phone to show me a picture. Apparently they were really good friends and taught together at the local high school.

  I momentarily forgot how to blink because this Claire woman was gorgeous.

  No. That’s not right.

  She was fuckingly gorgeous. She was so gorgeous, her beauty deserved the f-bomb used as an adverb.

  How could Jethro spend time with her every week, week after week, and not succumb to her? Cletus told me she was tough and smart. Duane told me she was sweet and kind. Beau told me she was a great cook and had “real pretty eyes.” Roscoe told me she was his favorite teacher in high school, and he’d paired that statement with an eyebrow wag.

  Side note: Roscoe was too freaking adorable for his own good. End side note.

  Billy, however, had remained stonily silent on the matter of Claire. I was growing accustomed to Billy’s stony silence.

  So why hadn’t Jethro made a move?

  I was already a little in love with her, and I hadn’t even met her yet.

  “Not every week. Sometimes I have to travel for work. On those Sundays, my momma would invite Claire over for dinner. But, as far as I know, she never . . .” Jethro’s easy expression morphed into a thoughtful frown, his eyes growing unfocused, like he’d just realized something of importance.

  “She never what?”

  He shook himself. “Sorry. She never accepted the invitation. She hasn’t been to our house since she was a teenager.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Why haven’t you made a move on Claire? According to your family and Jess, she’s an ethereal goddess of perfection.”

  Jethro rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, I know Claire better than they do. She’s human enough, got scars and flaws like everybody else. Plus, I don’t think about her that way. We’ve known each other since we were kids. She’s like a sister to me. Objectively, I can see that Ashley is beautiful on the outside, but when I look at her, I see her heart and her warts in equal measure. It’s the same with Claire.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. But just so you know, I have no warts. I am an ethereal goddess of perfection.”

  Jethro grinned, pulling onto a long dirt driveway leading to a small white farmhouse with a red door and navy trim. “I never doubted it.”

  His eyes conducted a quick, appreciative sweep of my body before he closed them briefly and exhaled, like he was trying to control himself.

  Meanwhile, my stomach was a bundle of nerves.

  Despite what he said, with his sister just recently returned after an eight-year absence and the passing of his mother, Claire was the woman in his life. She was important to him. They may never have been romantically involved, but what she thought mattered. Also, she was single. Jethro told me she was an only child and had no family to speak of. She had no other person in her life to make dinner for on Sundays.

  I felt like a usurper.

  I also felt a little irritated with her for making me feel like a usurper even though she’d done nothing but exist.

  How’s that for mental health?

  Claire’s house had flowers in boxes under the windows and along the porch. Gorgeous, neatly trimmed topiaries sat on either side of the porch steps and the door. The house looked like something out of a magazine.

  “Wow,” I said, scanning the front yard. “This is a really pretty house.”

  Jethro grinned like he was proud. “It is, right? I added the porch two years ago. The boxes were Claire’s idea last spring. I painted them to match the trim.”

  I gaped at Jethro. “You built her porch?”

  He nodded, completely clueless as to how that news sounded to me. “I did. And the gazebo and deck out back. I’ve done a little work around the house, from time to time.”

  A little work. You know, like building porches, decks, and gazebos.

  Maybe this news wouldn’t have struck me so acutely if Jethro and I had been together longer, or if we’d been physically intimate since the Daisy Doughnut incident last Monday. But we hadn’t. This thing between us was new and tentative and just a week old.

  Dating a guy who wasn’t trying to get in my pants every ten minutes was a new experience for me. It was
. . . unnerving.

  Good. But unnerving nonetheless.

  Thus, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wasn’t a joke, so I just stared at his dashboard.

  Jethro parked and grabbed the pie he’d made from the back seat. I took the opportunity of him walking around the truck to take a deep breath, giving myself a mental pep talk: You’ve got this. You go in there and be charming. You charm the freckles off her face! Do it!

  He opened my door and helped me down, tangling our fingers together as we walked to her front door.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he whispered, squeezing my hand.

  “I’m not nervous. I’m Sienna. How many times do I have to tell you my name?” The terrible joke slipped from my mouth before I could catch it.

  He cocked an eyebrow at me, his lips twisting then flattening, but said nothing.

  I was nervous.

  Maybe Jethro, Claire, and I can live together in harmony. Maybe she can be my sister wife. Yes. That was the answer. She could have her pretty farmhouse and custody of Jethro on Sundays. I could have him the rest of the week. And if she touched him, I would claw her eyes out.

  Perfect. Solution.

  Jethro knocked on the door, then slid his eyes to mine. “You look like you’re anticipating eating a bug.”

  I didn’t get a chance to respond because Claire immediately opened the door, almost like she’d been lying in wait.

  And fuckingly hell, Claire was even more gorgeous in person.

  “Hi!” she shouted at me, her very pretty eyes big and excited.

  “Uh . . .” I glanced at Jethro—he was no help as his features were carefully expressionless, and he was looking above her head at the door jamb—and managed to say, “Hi—”

  She stepped forward and pulled me into a hug. “I am so excited to meet you!” She was still shouting.