Beard In Mind: (Winston Brothers, #4)

by Penny Reid

  “Shelly—”

  “We need to speak, but it can’t be here.” Her eyes remained trained on the wall in front of her.

  “Why can’t it be here?”

  “There is a high probability that I’m going to cry, and I don’t want to cry here.”

  My heart beat loudly between my ears, my mind overflowing with possibilities for why this woman with nerves of steel might cry and hating the worst case scenario.

  She’s leaving for good.

  “Okay. Where?”

  “Why are you using that voice?” She glanced at her hands and so did I.

  A noise of alarm sprang from my throat. Her fingers were red and raw. She’d scrubbed them too long and too hard. Unthinkingly, I covered her hand with mine.

  “Please stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  She stopped. She stopped her scrubbing, she stopped moving, she stopped breathing. Everything about her stopped. And then she turned her face toward me and rested her forehead on my chest.

  “I miss you,” she said. She sounded so broken. “I miss you so much.”

  My heart bounded toward her, wanting nothing more than to alleviate her pain. I immediately wrapped her in my arms, setting my cheek on the top of her head, and exhaled a world of worry.

  Rightness, certainty, relief rushed through me. I should’ve told her how I’d missed her too, but the only words on my tongue and racing through my mind were, I love you and stay with me.

  I said nothing. This wasn’t about me. This was about us. And how we were going to move forward from this moment. If she didn’t love me back, then so be it. I would love her enough for both of us, I would be the more loving one.

  Just as long as she stays with me, no matter where we go.

  Shelly was quiet for a stretch, inhaling deeply, like she was breathing me in.

  Seconds became minutes and she turned her head, pressing her ear to my cheek. “Meet me at my house?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded softly, snuggling against my chest. “Promise?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “I promise.”

  I’d promise you anything.

  * * *

  Shelly left first.

  My hands still necessitated a good scrubbing, so I left a few minutes after. The early November day was cool, just on the brink of being chilly. Even so, I had a day’s worth of dirt and sweat layering my skin. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve gone home for a shower.

  But not today.

  I didn’t have poetry to give her. But I didn’t think she required words of my devotion. I suspected what she needed most was action.

  I parked adjacent to her car and walked to her door, not hesitating to let myself in. She was pacing back and forth in the small space of the living room. But she stopped when I entered, her gaze immediately coming to mine.

  Laika and Ivan, who had been sitting on the floor watching Shelly, jumped up at my arrival and swirled about my legs, offering excited licks and tail wags.

  Double skip of my heart and enthusiastic dogs notwithstanding, I rushed to her, pulled her into a tight embrace, and kissed her neck.

  Shelly melted against me, her arms around my torso were tight. “I am going to cry. I don’t want to, but it’s going to happen. It’s not because I’m sad. I’m not sad. I am overwhelmed.” Her voice cracked on the last word and I felt her face crumple against my chest.

  “You can cry all day if you need to.”

  “It should only be ten minutes, tops. Maybe fifteen.” She was already crying.

  Even so, I chuckled at her pragmatism. “Okay. Should I time you?”

  She leaned away, giving me her red-rimmed eyes. I watched as fat tears rolled down her cheeks, falling to her collarbone. My stomach plummeted with them. Sliding my hands to her jaw, I sought to wipe the tracks from her beautiful cheeks.

  “I’m defective—”

  “No—”

  “Yes, I am.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not saying this because I feel sorry for myself. I do not feel sorry for myself. The wiring in my brain is wrong, it is defective. Before I sought help from Dr. West, I had to accept that there was something wrong with me and stop making excuses for my behavior. A mental disorder is not like a physical one. My mind and I are not one and the same. I don’t trust myself all the time, but I am working on that. I’m working to rewire my brain.”

  The urge to tell her how wrong she was, about being defective, nearly strangled me.

  “I hate being afraid all the time. There is nothing of value about my fear. It’s irrational, it’s harmful—to me and the people I . . . the people in my life.” She sniffled, her fingers grabbing fistfuls of my shirt. “But you never looked at me like that, like I was defective. Nothing about me scared you. You never felt sorry for me. You took everything in your stride.”

  I said nothing. Clearly, she had words prepared and needed to get them out.

  “Last Friday you saw me at my worst,” she said, a note of accusation in her tone, her tears coming fast. “At my most vulnerable and exposed. I hate that you saw me like that. I also hate how the way you looked at me changed.”

  “How did it change? How did I look at you?”

  “Like I was broken.”

  No. “You aren’t broken.”

  She wasn’t broken, but her words made me want to break something. Her fear wasn’t beautiful. But her strength, her resolve, her brilliance and goodness were. She wouldn’t be who she was now without her struggles. Life had shaped her, her fear had formed her, and I wouldn’t have her any differently.

  “Checking on me, hovering, treating me like I’m weak, it makes me feel broken. It is humiliating.”

  “Shelly, I didn’t check on you because I thought of you as broken. I did it because I—I was concerned about you after you’d gone through a—an extremely difficult ordeal,” I rushed to explain, tripping over my words in my hurry, “Hell, I needed someone to check on me after your session last Friday.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something? I leaned on you, I asked you to help me. Why not lean on me in return?”

  My hands slid to her shoulders while hers were still fisted in my shirt. “Because I didn’t want . . .”

  Damn.

  She was right. Not about everything, but about Friday. She was right.

  “You can’t say it, but you know I’m right.” Her breathing was uneven. “You saw me as someone who wasn’t whole. Like a refrigerator that needs fixing, a problem to solve.”

  “Wait, wait. Last Friday, I did. You’re right. But you’re also wrong. I was trying to forget about my own troubles, about what happened with Christine St. Claire last Wednesday. I wanted to help, I wanted to take care of you, but I also used you to distract myself. I used what happened as a reason to ignore my own situation, and I am so very sorry.”

  “You are so very forgiven,” she said, the words barely above a tearful whisper.

  I needed to hold her, so I moved my hands to her arms, planning to bring her back to me. But she flattened her palms against my chest, preventing me from pulling her close.

  “For that. You are forgiven for that.”

  . . . There’s more.

  I stared at her, waiting for her to continue. Her gaze sharpened as she took several breaths, like she was working to calm herself.

  “Your biological mother,” she said, her voice no longer wobbly. “Her existence is something you need to work through. You need to ask me for help. You need to talk to me about it. I’m not going to be the project you use, the basket case you handle, so you can distract yourself from your own broken refrigerator. I’m working on my wiring issues. You need to work on yours, and you need to lean on me.”

  I nodded, sliding my teeth to the side. She was right, but the spot she poked was still raw.

  “I mean it, Beau. I can’t go through life focused solely on my own burdens. You leaning on me makes me stronger.”

  My pulse ticked up and with it my hope. She was talking li
ke things between us were forever, not just for now.

  “Okay.” I wanted to ask, to push, to know—what does this mean for us? In the long term?

  And I was still sorting out how to broach the subject when she demanded, “So?”

  “So?”

  Shelly pressed her lips together, wiping the back of her hand across her nose quickly, and held my gaze. “Start talking.”

  I huffed a laugh.

  Her arms came around my waist and she peered up at me. “I mean it.”

  “I don’t know where to start.” My chest tightened uncomfortably, reminding me of my worries.

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “Then tell me what’s on your mind right now, what are you worried about?”

  “Honestly?”

  She nodded, giving me a squeeze. “Yes.”

  “Fine. It might not make any sense, but for better or for worse, the number one thing on my mind right now isn’t Christine St. Claire, and it isn’t what to do about Duane. It’s whether or not you’re staying with me, or if you’re moving back to Chicago.”

  Shelly’s eyes widened, and she looked at me like I’d just spoken Greek. “What?”

  “You may not love me, but I love you—”

  “Beau—”

  “—and I need to know whether you’re staying or going. Whether we’re in this together, for the long haul, or if you’re planning to move back north, closer to your family. And if that’s the case, I want to go with you. I can’t think past losing you. I can’t focus on anything else. Where you are, that’s where I want to be.”

  “Oh Beau. I promise you, where you are is where I must be.” Her eyes misted over again, and when she spoke, her voice was shaky. “You are absolutely vital to me. I want to be just as vital to you. I want to take care of you, let me take care of you. You are my first thought in the morning, and my last thought before I go to sleep. And I promise—”

  I stopped her lips with mine, crushing her against me, needing to seal this moment, this promise, with something tangible. I took her promise. I would hold her to it. I was a priority, and I didn’t need any more words than that.

  Shelly lifted to her tiptoes, holding me just as tight as I was holding her, and my worry—the fears I’d been harboring about her leaving—they lessened, eased until I could finally draw a full breath.

  With reluctance, I dipped my chin, pressing our foreheads together and closed my eyes. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Wanting to stay with me.”

  “Always.” Her hands came to my face and she cupped my jaw, her tone tender. Gentle fingers threaded through my beard. I opened my eyes and met hers, so grateful for this woman. For her honesty and strength.

  Let me be the most loving.

  I understood better what those words meant. They were a litany, a prayer.

  Let her always need my love, as she does now, and let me always be capable of offering it this freely, unreservedly, and unconditionally.

  Shelly considered me for few seconds, then lifted her chin and kissed me once more softly, whispering, “You’ve seen me at my worst and you love me anyway. Give me the same chance. Show me who you are, and trust me to stay even if there are dark parts. But also, trust me to stay because of them.”

  * * *

  My story was a long one.

  I’d made it as far as my momma warning me to stay away from Christine St. Claire at club picnics, when Shelly pulled me into her room and we lay on the bed.

  I told her about my father—in detail—and about all the ways he’d hurt us, literally and figuratively. How he’d locked Duane in the shed for two days, just for sitting in our daddy’s chair. When I found him, he was inconsolable and didn’t let me out of his sight for weeks. We slept together for a year after that.

  “I can’t believe your mother didn’t leave him.”

  “She did, eventually. Granted, it took Darrell putting Billy in the hospital for her to do it.”

  “She should have left him earlier.” Shelly sounded angry.

  “I honestly don’t blame her. She was on her own after her momma died, with all us kids. When she married Darrell, pregnant at sixteen, she was cut off from folks in town for a long time, she was an outcast. We all were. And the club was something she both feared and needed. They ain’t good people, but they take care of their own. She needed a sitter, she got sick, her car broke down—someone would come. I’m not saying she was right, I’m not saying she was wrong. I’m just saying, I understand.”

  “I guess . . . that makes sense.”

  “The thing about Darrell is, he’s a master at getting people to think he’s a good guy. I hate him, I do. But I see what he is and I understand why she stayed. He’s basically all of us. Fun-loving as Jethro. Handsome as Billy. Smart as Cletus. Soulful—or the appearance of it—as Ashley. Reckless as Duane. All with the pretense of being as well-meaning as Roscoe.”

  “What about you?”

  “Charming as me.” I peered down at her, giving her a self-deprecating smile.

  “I haven’t met all your siblings, but he sounds lethal.”

  I pulled my bottom lip through my teeth. “He is.”

  Eventually, as the story continued, I had to divorce myself from the words, pretend we were discussing other people.

  Yet, as I told my tale, I realized something. The parts that hurt the worst weren’t the memories about what Darrell had done to me. What hurt most was recalling all the ways he’d hurt our momma, my sister, and my brothers.

  Every so often, I’d ask, “Are you sure you want to hear about this?”

  Shelly would nod and say, “Keep going.”

  I told her about what happened a year ago, how the Wraiths had wanted us to take over their chop shop. How Duane, Cletus, Jethro, and I had busted into the Iron Wraith’s club. How Razor had been about to mark up my twin and how Christine had done nothing to prevent it.

  But Claire McClure had stopped her father by surprising him with a gun. She’d been the reason we’d escaped untouched. And now she was my sister.

  “How well do you know her?”

  “Not well.” I rubbed my temples, they were sore. “She and Jethro are good friends, though. So she’s always been around, I guess. In fact, she’ll be at the wedding this Saturday.”

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  “Does this mean you’re coming to the wedding?”

  Her hand slid under the hem of my shirt. “Yes. I’ve decided I’ll come to the reception.”

  I squeezed her shoulders. “Good. Save me a dance.”

  “All my dances are yours.”

  I liked the way that sounded.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You should dance with Duane. He’s better at the faster stuff. I’m more of a slow dancer.”

  Her fingertips trailed back and forth over my stomach. “Are you going to tell Duane?”

  I shook my head, staring at the ceiling and gathering a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

  Shelly said nothing, just kept touching me. Despite the subject matter we were discussing, her strong, capable hands were turning me on—likely because I knew what they were capable of—so I caught her wrist and brought her knuckles to my lips.

  When she remained silent, I asked, “Aren’t you going to give me advice?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m here to listen and hold your tools.”

  I hoped that last bit was an innuendo.

  “Not that tool.”

  Damn.

  “What do you mean then? Hold my tools?”

  “Bounce ideas off me, go through scenarios. What’s the worst-case scenario if you tell Duane the truth?”

  “He’ll . . .”

  I had to think about that. Duane was quiet and steady, but I knew finding out Bethany wasn’t his birth mother would hit him hard.

  “What are you worried about?”

  “That he’ll t
ake it hard.”

  “Do you think he’ll recover from the news? Eventually?”

  “Yes. But my job is to protect him.”

  “Your job is to protect him from the truth?”

  “When the truth serves no purpose other than to cause misery, then, yes.”

  “How do you know it serves no purpose? If you tell him the truth, he gains a sister.”

  She had me there.

  “What’s the worst-case scenario if you don’t tell him?”

  “He’ll find out anyway and be pissed at me for not telling him the truth. He’ll run off with Jess and never speak to me again.” Even as I said the words, I realized my fears were extremely unlikely.

  “Wait a minute, why did Christine only tell you? Why not tell both of you?”

  “No idea, other than she wants something and thinks I’m the one who can get it.”

  Shelly was quiet, but I could almost hear her thinking.

  Abruptly, she asked, “Isn’t Jess’s father a police officer?”

  “He’s the sheriff.”

  “Maybe she didn’t tell Duane because she doesn’t want the sheriff to know?”

  “About what? About Duane and me being hers?”

  “No. You said she wants something from you. Maybe she only told you, and not Duane, because she doesn’t want the sheriff to know what that thing is.”

  “Huh.”

  Shelly’s theory had merit.

  We were both quiet for a long time after that. So long, Ivan and Laika showed up and whined at the edge of the bed.

  “They need to go out.” Shelly lifted herself from my chest, her voice gravelly. “And I need to go to the bathroom.”

  I glanced out the window. The sun had gone down hours ago. Our usual blanket of stars was somewhat diminished by the full moon.

  How should we like it were stars to burn

  With a passion for us we could not return?

  “What was that?”

  I blinked at Shelly’s question. She was standing at her side of the bed, pulling on a sweater.

  “Pardon?”

  “What did you just say? About stars?”

  “Oh,” I shook my head, “I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud.”