One good day turned to two. Three to four. A week.
Brett spent every second with his pappy, touring the ranch, going over the existing problems and exploring all the ways to solve them. Selling acreage was the answer. They both knew that, but it didn’t make the reality any easier or lessen the shine in the old man’s eyes.
Brett spent his days taking care of ranch business and his nights searching for the recipe. He even asked his pappy about it, but the old man only remembered as much as Karen—the recipe had been stuffed in the family Bible, which had been stored somewhere in the attic. As far as the safe, Pappy couldn’t remember what had happened to the contents. Not that Brett made a big deal about it. He didn’t want worry dragging his grandfather back down into confusion and so he kept Pappy busy with the day-to-day demands of the ranch.
Brett would handle the worry, just as he would find that recipe. Pappy’s good days sent a renewed determination through him and he moved faster that night, plowing through boxes so quickly that he almost missed the small Mason jar of gold liquid stashed inside one of them, half-buried beneath a stack of his grandmother’s antique quilts.
“You don’t think that’s actually Texas Thunder, do you?” Callie voiced the question that raced through his mind the moment he held up the glass container.
“If it is, that would make it over eighty years old.” He eyed the clear gold liquid. There wasn’t a speck of anything floating in the jar. No cloudy spots. Nothing. Just pure perfection.
“Liquor gets better with age, right?” Callie asked, as if reading his thoughts.
“I’m not so sure that applies to moonshine.” His family had been in the cattle business his entire life and while the patriarch of his family had been half of the duo involved in the best liquor to ever come out of the Lone Star state, Brett himself had zero experience with the stuff.
“It could be the real deal, or it could just be what’s left of someone’s stash.” Maybe Pappy’s. Maybe his own father’s. Berle had been a serious alcoholic and while he never would have bought the mediocre stuff that James had cooked up, he’d gone to great lengths to buy some decent shine, even going as far as driving across state lines, whenever the urge hit him.
“We have to find out.”
“We could call that Edwards guy. He might have some connections to help get some answers.”
“If he wants the stuff bad enough, I’m sure he’ll try.” She took the jar from him and stared at the liquid. “Can you believe it? This could really be it.”
“Does that mean you’re going to head home and start sending out resumes?” He wasn’t sure why he brought it up, or why it bothered him so much that she’d put her life on hold.
Maybe because he never had. The first chance he’d had, he’d left Rebel far, far behind.
“I’m not sending out anything until we know for sure what’s in that jar, and then only if it’s the real deal.” She set the jar to the side and went back to the large trunk she’d been digging through. “In the meantime, we need to keep looking.”
“There’s no better time than the present,” he said after a silent moment.
“For what?”
“The resumes. You keep waiting for a right time, but there isn’t one.”
“What does it matter to you? It’s my business.”
He shrugged. “Just thought I’d initiate a conversation. It beats this silence.”
“Silence is fine by me.” That’s what Callie told him, but after twenty minutes going through the chest of drawers, awareness zipping up and down her spine as Brett worked nearby, she was more than ready for a distraction.
“I can’t send out resumes yet.”
“Not until we get an exact ingredient list for the jar. I know.”
“It’s not that.” She thought of the stack of tear sheets sitting in her bedroom next to her laptop. All she had to do was shove them in an envelope and send them off.
“Then why not?”
“Because the closest I’ve been to a newspaper in the past ten years are the property listings that I handle for Les. I just started doing a few things for the local newspaper last year. I need more new stuff.”
“Why not just send the old stuff?”
“What if it’s not good enough? What if I’m not good enough?”
“What if you are?”
His question echoed in her head, prodding a truth she’d done her best to ignore. She’d made so many excuses—she was rusty, she was out of practice, she needed time to get back into the swing of things, but the real worry was that she would get a yes.
The realization hit her as she sat in front of the open trunk and pulled out several old black-and-white photographs of her patriarch Archibald Tucker and his archenemy Elijah Sawyer. Only they weren’t enemies way back then. They’d been business partners.
Friends.
Family.
And that was the real trouble of it all. As much as she wanted to get on with her life, her career, she wasn’t so sure if she was ready to leave her family.
Or if she would ever be ready.
“With all the bad blood,” she blurted, eager to change the subject, “it’s hard to believe they were once such good friends.” She held up the old black-and-white photo. The two men posed in front of an old Chevrolet, a shotgun in Archibald’s hand and a jug of moonshine dangling from Elijah’s beefy fingers.
“They were really close,” Brett said, letting her shift them onto a different topic. “That’s what Pappy always said. He told me that at one time, Archibald was his godfather. Then the shit hit the fan and that was it. The friendship was over.”
“What do you think did it? What could have been big enough to kill that kind of a friendship?”
He shook his head. “I wish I knew. Whatever it was, it was enough to divide an entire town. Say, would you look at this?” He pulled the sheet off a nearby table that held an old phonograph and a stack of ancient records. He dusted off the machine and reached for a record. A few cranks of the handle and Roy Acuff’s “Wabash Cannonball” carried from the speaker. “My pappy always loved that song. He used to crank up this old machine when I was a kid and dance around the kitchen with my grandma.”
“That sounds nice.”
He grinned and a faraway light touched his gaze. “I miss those days.”
“My parents used to do the Cotton Eyed Joe around the living room on Saturday night. We never had a lot of extra money, so they didn’t get to go out much. They would roll up the rug and dance the night away right there at home.” Callie fell into her own memories then, seeing her parents in her mind’s eye, feeling their giddiness as they twirled around the room.
They’d been so in love that the lack of money had never mattered. Nothing had been able to come between them. Not the stress of raising a family or James and his hateful ways. They’d stuck together through it all, and died together.
Oddly enough, the notion didn’t stir the same bitterness she’d felt so many times. There was something strangely comforting about sitting there with Brett so close, listening to the old song, feeling it deep down in her soul. The beat, the excitement, the nostalgia, the loss.
The song played down, ending in a rush of static and Brett picked up another record. A heartbeat later, “The Way You Look Tonight” crackled through the attic.
As if he sensed the melancholy of her thoughts and he wanted to distract her, he smiled and held out his hand. “Care to give it a try?”
“You want me to dance with you?” She glanced around. “Here?”
“Why not?”
Because … He was the wrong man and this was the wrong time and certainly the wrong place, but damned if it didn’t feel right when he took her hand and pulled her into his arms.
“If memory serves me, you used to like to dance.” He slid an arm around her waist. “You weren’t very good, but you did get an A for enthusiasm.”
“Thanks a lot.”
He grinned, a slow, sensuous tilt to his lips that made her tummy tremble and her heart stutter. “That was meant as a compliment.”
The past stirred and it was prom night all over again. Moonlight pushed through the large windows, creating a spill of shadows that moved as they moved. She closed her eyes and leaned into him and in her mind’s eye, she could see the swirl of colored lights around them. The steady beat of his heart kept tempo with hers. The scent of Old Spice, racing hormones, and spiked fruit punch teased her nostrils.
A dream.
That’s what it felt like. As if she were caught up in one of her dreams, reliving their first date, those few precious moments when they’d danced beneath the glitzy Time of Your Life sign and kissed beneath the splatter of neon strobes. She’d been crazy nervous, but then he’d held her, guided her around the dance floor, and she’d relaxed in his arms. He’d made her laugh. He’d made her feel pretty. And then his mouth had been on hers and she’d been swept away on a sea of emotion unlike anything she’d ever felt before.
Or since.
Yep, he was one of a kind. No man had ever measured up to him, and she had the sinking feeling that no man ever would.
Before she could stop herself, she slid her hands up the hard wall of his chest, around his neck. She pressed herself closer. His warm breath sent shivers over her earlobe, the slope of her neck. Large, purposeful hands splayed at the base of her spine. His thumb rubbed lazy circles just above the swell of her bottom.
“Do you know what you do to me, Callie?” His deep voice slid into her ears. “I want you so bad. I always have.”
The words, so raw and ragged, shattered the hazy pleasure of her memories and drew her back to reality—to the all-important fact that she was dancing chest to chest with the only man who’d ever broken her heart.
She tore herself away. Putting her back to him, she stared at the spill of moonlight on the windowsill. Just beyond, the rich pastureland stretched endlessly beneath a star-studded sky. In the far distance a few clouds rumbled and she knew the rain was finally coming in.
“What you’re feeling is natural.” He came up behind her, still a few feet away but close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off of him. “It’s chemistry. I want you and you want me. That’s all it is, Callie. All it needs to be.”
But there was more. Much more. She turned, her gaze going past him to the spot on the floor where she’d set her purse. “I—I really need to get home.”
He didn’t say a word. He just nodded and turned to take the record off the phonograph. Silence stretched across the distance between them as she snatched up her bag. “I can take the jar and call Mark,” she told him.
He nodded as she picked up the container of liquid gold.
She moved past him and true to his word, he didn’t reach out and try to stop her. Thankfully. Her control was tentative and she knew one touch would halt her in her tracks.
She walked down the attic steps to the second floor and then headed for the staircase. Down on the first floor, she heard the ancient voice of Pappy Sawyer as he sang along to an old Willie Nelson tune.
He sounded like the man she remembered so well, walking into the general store, whistling “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” his shiny alligator boots slapping the floor with each step. Her heart ached for Brett because she knew these good moments were so few and far between. Even so, he wasn’t giving up on the old man. He still believed that things would get better. That Pappy would get better. And stay better.
Just the way she still believed she could walk away from Rebel once the taxes were paid and her responsibilities fulfilled.
Could?
Of course she could. She would. It’s all she’d thought about back in high school, and in all the years since. The one thing that had kept her going through all the crap.
She was leaving, all right.
And so was Brett.
He’d made a life for himself elsewhere. As soon as he settled things here, he would take off again and leave her behind the way he’d done so long ago.
The truth followed her as she descended the front steps and headed for the old blue truck. Climbing behind the wheel, she sat the jar of moonshine on the seat next to her and keyed the engine. Her hand went to the gearshift and she paused.
What in heaven’s name was she doing?
Reality hit Callie as she sat in front of the house, the engine idling, her heart pounding. Her headlights sliced through the darkness and she caught sight of Brett standing on the front porch.
He stared at her for a long moment before glancing back at the house. As if debating whether to go back inside.
He didn’t.
Instead, he snatched up a rolled sleeping bag that sat on a nearby swing and headed for the side of the house. He disappeared around the corner and she knew he was headed for the solace of the creek. Leaving, the way he always did.
He didn’t want to go back inside the house, to face his problems, to climb into bed with the memories, the want.
He wanted her and she wanted him.
Want.
He was right. That’s all this was about. A physical attraction. The match had been struck way back when, and despite ten years, it was still burning, still feeding a fire that had yet to fizzle out.
It never would.
Instead, it would flame inside of her, feeding off the memories forever unless she turned those memories into reality while she had the chance.
She needed to touch him, taste him, satisfy the lust eating her up from the inside out. Maybe then she could get on with her life, with walking away from Rebel the way she was always meant to.
She could never move forward while her brain was stuck idling in the past.
She killed the lights and the engine, and silence closed in. She sat there for a few moments, listening to the beat of her own heart before she let go of the steering wheel and reached for the door.
Climbing from the seat, she slammed the truck door behind her, headed around the house, and went in search of Brett Sawyer.
It was time to lay the past to rest once and for all.