“I love you as the plant that never blooms, but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.”
― Pablo Neruda
~Cletus~
“You’re tense. You can’t do yoga if you’re tense.”
I broke form and frowned at my yoga partner. “Would you quit henpecking me?”
Sienna lifted an eyebrow. “Only if you stop crowing.”
My mouth twitched, but I caught my smile before it could spread. “Next you’re going to call me cocky.”
“I wasn’t. I was going to call you a chick magnet.”
I gave in to a laugh and shook my head at Jethro’s fiancée. She was good at puns, and I liked this about her. She always put me in a better mood.
Sienna flashed a smile and her trademark dimples made an appearance. “Did you enjoy that one?”
“It’s better than being called a motherclucker.”
Now she laughed, tossing her head back. “Oh, that’s funny. I’m using that for one of my movies.”
“Go right ahead. I ain’t using it for anything profitable.” Readjusting myself on my mat, I closed my eyes, breathed in and out—clearing my mind—and tried the pose again.
It was Monday morning, and happened to be Halloween, one week after my last and final lesson with Jennifer Sylvester.
I was . . . unhappy. And that’s all I have to say about that.
Sienna and I were outside on the back deck of the homestead, facing the national park where it backed up to our land. It was mid-morning, chilly but not too cold, and the sun was just peeking above the Smokies. Mist still clung to the wildflower field since our place was deep in the Valley; this time of year, the sun didn’t touch the house until after 9:30 AM.
Sienna and I had done yoga together a few times before she and Jethro had left to film her last movie in Washington State. Since she’d returned, we’d been meeting for yoga three mornings a week. I didn’t want her doing any positions that might hurt the baby, so I’d drafted a pregnancy-safe routine. She told me I was ridiculous and a hovering uncle, but she did them anyway.
“So,” Sienna interrupted the quiet, “about Jethro’s bachelor party . . .” She ended the sentence on a leading high note, as though I was expected to fill in the blank.
I shook my head, refusing to look at her. I knew what she was after.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And you can tell Jethro to stop asking his woman do his dirty work.”
“What if I’m curious?”
“I’ll share the pictures after the fact.”
I felt her eyeballs on me, considering. “Is it true you’ve hired a stripper?” I heard the smile in her voice. “Because I’m fairly certain Jessica has for mine. My sister Marta is going to be horrified.”
“Your sister is always horrified.”
Sienna released a surprised laugh. “You are tense.” I heard her switch poses. “And you’ve been grumpy.”
“I’m always grumpy.”
I was grumpy.
Duane and Jess hadn’t been upset when we didn’t show at Big Todd’s. But I’d been upset and still was upset.
I hadn’t seen Jennifer in a week. Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Whoever said that was a damn fool. Absence makes the heart suicidal. Take my heart for example. It hadn’t stopped hurling itself against my ribs—at odd times, day or night—for a week.
Clearly, my heart was a danger to itself and to me because Jennifer Sylvester and I were not suited, not at all.
If I’d pursued her, assuming she even desired my attentions, things would be complicated between us. I couldn’t abide complicated. Her parents would not approve, and I would not seek their approval. I wanted predictable, and she’d never ceased to surprise me. Together we would not be perfectly pragmatic. We would be impressively impractical.
Furthermore, the intensity of my attraction was distracting and I didn’t want a partner who distracted me. The last month had proved definitively that I couldn’t see clearly with thoughts of Jennifer Sylvester clouding my vision.
“No, you’re not always grumpy.” Sienna tugged on my beard. “You’d like to think you are, but you’re not. Is this because I didn’t make you my maid of honor?”
“Yes. I wanted that orange dress.”
“It’s not orange, it’s burnt umber.”
“It’s orange and your bridesmaids look like pumpkins.”
She laughed again. “Stop making me laugh. I can’t do yoga if I’m laughing.”
“We do not look like pumpkins,” a familiar and welcome voice behind us challenged.
I opened my eyes and turned. My sister Ashley was climbing the steps of the deck, a bakery box in her hands. I squinted to read the lettering on the side, confirming my suspicions. Donner Bakery. I grimaced.
“We’re not pumpkins. We’re stunning autumn gourds. Good morning, Sienna. How are you feeling?” Ashley crossed to Sienna and bent to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I brought you lemon custard cakes.”
“You’re a saint.” Sienna shot to her feet and accepted the box from Ash.
I followed the two women with my eyes as they moved to one of the picnic tables, opened the box, and began digging in.
“Hey!” I sat up. “What about yoga?”
“Yoga can wait.” Sienna waved me off. “I’ve been craving these since Jethro brought them home last week. It’s the only thing that tastes good right now. I want to hire Jennifer Sylvester to bake them for me every day.”
“You can ask her, she’s coming to the wedding. I’m sure she’d do it.” Ashley stuffed a bite in her mouth and her eyes rolled back into her head. “Ermergerd!”
“I know, right?” Sienna licked a bit of custard from her thumb and moaned.
“You invited Jennifer to the wedding?” I scratched my cheek, keeping my tone nonchalant to disguise the strength of my interest. I hadn’t expected Sienna to invite Jenn, especially after the way Kip Sylvester had acted a fool when first meeting Sienna. He’d made her sign twenty napkins at The Front Porch during Jethro and Sienna’s first date.
Sienna couldn’t answer because she was chewing. She looked to Ashley, her eyebrows raised in question.
“No, I don’t think Jennifer was invited. But Jackson was invited, both on account of being Jessica’s brother, and Jethro wanted to invite the sheriff. Jennifer is going with Jackson,” Ashley explained, her tone normal and calm, like this wasn’t gut-wrenching news.
Like this wasn’t the most loathsome, earth-shattering, abhorrent, and distressing news ever.
“What?” My sharp question was out in the wild before I caught it, propelled from my mouth by the angry beating in my chest. “What do you mean Jennifer is going with Jackson?”
Ashley tensed, her eyes widening. She moved them to Sienna, then back to me. “Uh, exactly that. Jackson is taking Jennifer to the wedding.”
Red tinted my vision, then black.
“How do you know this?” I demanded, standing and stalking to her.
Ashley took a step back, lifting her hands between us. “Calm down, Cletus.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Jackson told me at the bakery. He was there with Jennifer.” Ashley placed a hand on my shoulder then smoothed it down my arm, her eyes wide and concerned.
Her touch brought me back to myself, although my blood pressure was through the roof. The sound of it between my ears muffled the world beyond. I turned, pulling my fingers through my hair; they caught on the curls and tangles, and the pain was sobering.
I needed to calm down.
But I couldn’t.
Jennifer and Jackson . . . they fit. In fact, even her name began with a “J.”
But just the thought, just the thought of seeing them together.
His hands on her . . .
I couldn’t breathe.
“Cletus?” Ashley’s soft voice met my ears, the uncertainty in it shamed me.
I’d come too close to losing my temper. I hadn’t lost my temper in years. I did yoga. I meditated. I composed lists. I plotted and planned. But I never lost my temper.
“I have to go.” I marched to my mat and rolled it up, still seeing red.
“Hey, so, where are you going? Want company?” Sienna tried to sound natural and almost succeeded. She was a good actress.
I shook my head, unable to respond. I was still too angry and I was fixating. Images of Jackson and Jenn, together, him touching her bare skin, holding her waist, looking into her impossible eyes, kissing her . . . a repugnant collage of vile imagery flashed through my mind.
I hated this.
I swallowed, nauseous and dizzy.
I hated this.
I couldn’t stop fixating. The images wouldn’t stop.
I hated this.
I didn’t have control of myself.
And I hated it.
***
“I was wrong.”
Billy glanced up from his desk, his eyes were large with surprise.
I didn’t wait to be invited in. This was only the second time I’d been to his impressive office. The first time was the week after our momma died last year. I brought him soup and bread for lunch to make sure he wasn’t in danger of an emotional breakdown. He hadn’t been.
This time, I was here because of my own questionable emotional well-being.
Billy waited until I closed the door before asking me, “What were you wrong about?”
“Billy.” I blinked at him once, maintaining a frown of intense irritation. “Really?”
He lifted his eyebrows like he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Firstly, I’m never wrong. So it’s obvious what I’ve been wrong about.”
“I can think of at least a hundred things you’ve been wrong about. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
I shook my head at my brother, placing the food I’d brought for lunch on his conference table. “You disappoint me, brother. Teasing me at a time like this.”
The side of his mouth lifted with a commiserating smile. “Jennifer Sylvester.”
“Precisely.” I winced. Just hearing her name made breathing hard. “How could I let this happen?”
Billy’s smile deepened, though his eyes communicated pity for my situation. “You didn’t let it happen, Cletus. No one would let it happen, just like no person would knowingly surrender their sanity for the sake of getting laid.”
“That’s not what this is about. It’s not about getting laid.”
“I know,” he said, and he did know. His eyes and tone were sober with how intimately he knew.
“Although . . .” I dipped my head to the side as I considered how much of my sanity I would surrender for a lifetime of making love to Jennifer Sylvester. “Getting laid is definitely part of it.”
“Absolutely.” Billy’s eyes moved to some spot behind me and lost focus.
I got the sense Billy was fixating—insomuch as Billy fixated—and I didn’t want to interrupt. So I took advantage of his quiet, thoughtful pause to unpack the food on his well-appointed conference table.
When a full minute had passed, I interrupted his contemplative silence. “What kind of soup do you want? I have French onion and vegetable barley.”
“Vegetarian?” He made a face, standing from his big chair and crossing to the table.
“I also brought hamburgers.” I motioned to two closed food containers flanked by French fries.
“Much better.” He claimed a seat next to mine and reached for the burger. “Tell me what happened.”
“Eh . . .” I scratched my chin. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“It involves blackmail.”
His eyebrows jumped. “You blackmailed her?”
“No. She blackmailed me.”
His eyebrows jumped higher. “Come again?”
“She blackmailed me. Jennifer was blackmailing me. Just for a week though—or at least I thought she only had the video for a week—mostly, I helped her because I wanted to.”
“I don’t follow. You might as well start from the beginning.”
“Fine.” I unwrapped my burger and discarded the top bun. Top buns were superfluous. “She accidentally videotaped me taking evidence from the sheriff’s office.”
Billy choked on a bite and reached for his fountain drink. His eyes continued to bulge as he swallowed a large gulp, then asked with a raspy voice, “Who was it this time?”
“Pardon?”
“Who was it? Duane? Beau?” He hesitated, a flicker of intense concern flashing behind his eyes before he asked, “It wasn’t Jethro, was it?”
“No! No, nothing like that. It was evidence on . . . on—” I huffed, placing the burger back in the container. “I’m not going to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want to know.”
Billy’s narrowed stare moved over me, assessing; eventually, he nodded. “Fine. She videotaped you taking evidence and then she blackmailed you. To be honest, I wondered why you decided to help her. I knew it wasn’t out of the kindness of your heart, at least not at first.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t going to help her. I don’t fight other people’s battles anymore.”
He stiffened and a shadow of apprehension passed behind his eyes. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Cletus. You’re not responsible for the actions of our father.”
I looked beyond my brother to the window behind his desk. “He and his club brothers put you in the hospital when he found out you helped me.”
“I was older than you, and it wasn’t the first time he’d put me in the hospital, if you remember.”
“He broke your leg. You lost your football scholarship. Everyone in town might think you voluntarily turned it down, but that’s because no one knows the full story.”
“What happened is no one else’s business but ours. He broke your nose. And he killed your dog. You were only sixteen.”
A vivid flash of memory—a memory I’d stopped fixating on years ago—held my mind hostage. “I shouldn’t have tried to help her. Carla wasn’t family.”
“She was a friend.” He waved away my remorse impatiently. “Sometimes friends are family.”
“Carla wasn’t, though. She wasn’t that good of a friend and I’ve never required hindsight to figure that out.” I brought my eyes back to my brother, transposing my memory of his bloodied face over his clean features. “It was the unfairness I hated. I had no particular warmth for her. But her daddy, he was a monster.”
Carla’s father and our father were captains together in the Iron Wraiths. I didn’t add that our father was also a monster. I didn’t need to. Billy, maybe more than any of us, already knew.
“You helped her run away. That was good. You did a good thing.”
“And you paid for it.”
“Your only mistake was getting caught. Picking fights with bullies at school was one thing; calling out a captain of the Iron Wraiths is another. You should have kept your mouth shut.” Billy tried to keep his tone light, like we were talking about other people and their problems. His eyes were understanding, just like they’d been thirteen years ago.
My brother was a great man. He would achieve great things in his life, of that I had no doubt. His regard for us, for all of us, was humbling. I suspected sometimes that we didn’t deserve it.
“I’m so sorry, Billy.”
Billy stared at me for a stretch, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully, then he shrugged. “It’s in the past. As momma used to say, ‘Best to leave farts and the past behind you.’”
I chuckled at that. It was one of her more scandalous sayings.
“Tell me what happened with Jennifer.” Billy attempted to get us back on track. “You said she videotaped you, and then what happened?”
“I contacted Alex, in Chicago, and asked him to remove the video from her computer and phone.” I frowned, refocusing my thoughts outward. Sometimes it took me a bit to switch gears between the distant past and the present. “I thought he had, but re-reading his message, it looks like the video was never there.”
“What’d his message say?” Billy asked around a bite of food.
“He said, ‘I can confirm the video isn’t on the subject’s phone, computer, or saved to the cloud.’”
“So you thought he’d deleted it, but it turns out—”
“She didn’t save it on her computer, phone, or the cloud. She saved it on thumb drives.”
Billy’s smile was slow and small and appreciative, his eyes moving down and to the side, then he laughed. “She’s smart.”
“She is. But it turns out her father does random checks of her phone and computer—this is according to Jessica. I didn’t put the pieces together until last Monday.”
“What happened on Monday?” He picked up his hamburger.
“I kissed her.”
Billy paused mid-bite, removing the burger from his mouth. “Good.”
“No. That’s bad. She thinks I did it just to help her practice kissing, like you helped her practice dating.”
“Oh. Bad.”
“Yeah. And then she gave me the thumb drives and told me I was dead to her.”
“She said that?” Billy was mid-bite again, and had halted again to ask me his question.
“In so many words.” I pushed my food away. I wasn’t hungry.
“Cletus.”
“Billy.”
“Don’t embellish. What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Thanks for your help. I don’t need you anymore. Here is your video. Go away.’ More or less, that’s what she said.” Despite not being hungry, I munched on a French fry. The saltiness of the French fry distracted me from the ache in my chest.
“Hmm.” Billy finally took another bite of his burger, his eyes sliding to the left as he chewed things over. “Things could be worse.”
I picked up another fry, glanced at it, then set it back on the table. “They are worse. She’s going to Jethro’s wedding with Jackson James.”
Billy’s eyebrows jumped again. “That asshole?”
“I know,” I responded flatly, sliding my teeth to the side. “I should have given him leprosy back in September. It would’ve kept him occupied through Christmas.”
“Hmm.” Billy set his burger down, studying me and wiping his fingers with a napkin. “What are you going to do?”
“That’s why I’m here. I need you to tell me what to do.”
His eyes communicated wary disbelief. “You want me to tell you what to do?”
“Yep. Because my instinct is to go over to the bakery, toss her over my shoulder, and make her mine.”
Billy crossed his arms. “That’s a bad idea. I’ve tried that, it didn’t end well.”
“Exactly. Plus . . .” I breathed in, held the air within my lungs, and exhaled slowly, my eyes flickering to Billy, then to my burger with no top bun. “Plus there’s the small matter of her wanting to have a lot of children.”
I could feel Billy’s eyeballs on me. His eyeballs had always carried a very specific weight. Growing up, Jethro was a joker, our father a monster, and Billy was the one we looked up to. He was the one I never wanted to let down.
“Cletus—”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“Then we can skip it and you can admit you’re wrong.”
“I can’t admit I’m wrong about two things in the same day.” I brought my attention back to him, found him smirking at me. “It might bring about the apocalypse.”
“Then admit it tomorrow.”
I swallowed past the ballooning anxiety in my throat. I was never anxious, so it took me a minute to adjust to the sensation.
“You’ve seen my temper. You know what I’m like when I lose it. I blackout. I don’t remember. Do you honestly think I should have children?”
Billy’s smirk mellowed into a sad-looking smile. “We all have Darrell in us, Cletus. I look just like him, so does Ashley. You think I like what I see when I look in the mirror? I hate it. But I’m not cutting off my face because I share it with our father. Your decision to not have a family, because you’re afraid of losing your temper like he did when we were kids—it’s admirable, but it’s also stupid.”
“And if I—”
“No.” Billy brought his palm down on the table, hitting it with a forceful whack. “Stop making excuses for being a coward. You want Jennifer in your life?”
“Yes,” I responded with more than my voice, the answer shaking my very foundation, coming from deep within me, from the same place I’d buried the rage along with my passion.
“Then you reevaluate your priorities, including your fears. You be better and braver. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
“So what do I do?”
My brother studied me for a long moment, his brow pulled together as he stewed in my situation.
Finally, he sighed and suggested, “How about you lay it all out? Tell her everything.”
I blinked once, slowly, then glared at my brother. “I don’t like that advice. That’s seriously shitty advice.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me. “It’s your advice. It’s what you’ve been telling me to do with,” his eyes dropped and he took a breath before continuing, “with Scarlet.”
Billy stared unseeingly at his half-eaten hamburger. He hardly ever said her name: Scarlet. She’d been born Scarlet, and when they were together she was Scarlet. But when she’d returned to town at nineteen, engaged to Ben McClure, she had changed her name to Claire.
“It’s still shitty advice. I have no idea of knowing what’s in her head. What if she rejects me?” My words pulled a small smile from him. Even so, I added, “I hope you didn’t take it.”
He shook his head. “She’d have to agree to talk to me first.”
I examined my brother. “You and I might be sharing a boat.”
“Yeah, but your boat is newer.”
“This is true.” Frowning, I grabbed a cold French fry and made it bloody with ketchup. “The question is, how do I get out of this boat?”