The lilacs were in bloom.
Austin could smell their cool fragrance as he came down the brick steps of the house in Frederick. He’d spent the afternoon with Ernest—or maybe Ernest had spent the afternoon with him. Sometimes Austin wasn’t sure who was supposed to be comforting whom during these long, terrible three weeks since Harrison’s death. Either way, leaving Martyn, North, & Compeau had given Austin time to spend with his little brother—time they both needed.
It had also given him a chance to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up. Not a journalist. He had toyed with the idea briefly, but Bella was the one who’d reminded him that he already had a career that he loved and was very good at and that trying to live your life for someone else was an exercise in futility. Especially when that someone else was no longer around.
Parked in the square brick courtyard was a silver Honda Accord with mud-splashed tires and fender. There was something familiar about the vehicle, although it wasn’t until Austin registered the lean, sun-browned man leaning against it that he realized what.
His heart, in hibernation these past weeks, stirred, and Austin walked quickly down the remaining steps, suddenly aware of the scent of flowers and the feel of sunlight on his face.
“Hey. Hi.”
“Hello.” Jeff, in jeans and a dark green shirt, straightened as Austin came to meet him.
“This is a surprise. Were you just going to wait out in the driveway all afternoon?” Austin asked, puzzled.
“I didn’t want to intrude,” Jeff said, “but I needed to see you.”
“How did you find me?”
“I’m a PI, remember?”
“Right.” Austin smiled uncertainly. Jeff seemed so grave and polite. They were standing close enough to hug, but Jeff made no move to hug him. Hell, they weren’t even shaking hands. Maybe he was only there to tell Austin he was required to testify at an inquest or something like that. Not knowing what to say, he settled on the truth. “It’s really good to see you.” It was. Like seeing the sun come out after a month of rain.
He didn’t ask—he was afraid to hear the answer—why are you here? But maybe the question was on his face.
“You didn’t come back,” Jeff said abruptly. “To Madison. You never came back. Not to finish the appraisal. Not for anything. It’s been three weeks, and I haven’t heard a word from you.”
Three weeks. It felt both much longer and much shorter than that. Austin had thought about Jeff a lot during that time—nearly as much as he had avoided thinking about Jeff. Because while thinking about Jeff was comforting in some respects, it was equally painful. He just couldn’t see Jeff disappointing all those generations of dead Bradys. And emotionally, Austin was at a place where he couldn’t have handled knowing for sure that it was over.
“I left the wine shop. I ended up resigning.”
If anything, Jeff’s face went sterner. “Yeah, that’s what the woman they sent to replace you said. She said you decided to write a book instead.”
Austin gave a disbelieving laugh. “Not exactly. That friend of mine who’s publishing Cormac’s stories suggested that collecting some of the wine blogs I’ve done over the years would make an entertaining book.”
“Congratulations.”
He wasn’t imagining it; Jeff seemed different. Older. Serious—almost subdued.
“How are they? The Cashels?”
“Fine. Enjoying spending all that money they don’t have yet.”
The silence that followed Jeff’s sardonic comment felt final.
Austin broke it awkwardly. “I’ve been meaning to phone you. I just…”
“Yeah?” Jeff’s smile was crooked.
It hadn’t occurred to Austin that Jeff might be hurt by his lack of communication. In fact, in his darkest moments, he had figured Jeff would probably be relieved to be let off the hook.
“I…was waiting till I knew what to tell you.”
Jeff said levelly, “I thought maybe that would be something we’d figure out together.”
Austin’s lips parted, but he really had no answer to that.
Jeff looked around. “Is there someplace we can talk?”
Austin also looked around vaguely. The gazebo? He didn’t want to bring Jeff into the house if Jeff was only here to officially tell him good-bye. There were enough painful memories in that house without adding that one. Which reminded him.
“How did the appraisal turn out? Were the Lee bottles ever found?”
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Right. Of course. “Let’s try the gazebo,” Austin said.
“Wait,” Jeff said suddenly. “I brought you something.” He dived back in the car and carefully lifted out a brown-wrapped package. He handed it to Austin, who took it automatically. A bottle of wine. Well, not the most imaginative gift he’d ever received, but then again, maybe it was a vintage bottle from the Cashels’ cellar. Or a bottle of champagne. Maybe they were going to have something to celebrate?
“What’s this for?”
“I guess you’d better open it and find out.”
“Is it from you?”
“It’s from me. From me to you. Personal delivery.”
Austin felt a smile starting.
As they walked to the gazebo, Jeff asked, “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. I never thanked you for—”
“Yeah.” Jeff sounded dry. “I’d be just as happy if you forgot most of that morning.”
Oh.
“How’s the boy genius doing?” Jeff asked into his silence.
“Better than me. He’s just dealing with grief. It’s painful, but it’s uncomplicated.”
To his surprise, Jeff slung an arm about his shoulders and gave him a hard, affectionate hug. “He loved you, Austin.”
“I know. But I disappointed him too. I don’t think we ever really got a chance to know each other. Really know each other. And I always thought we would. That one day…”
When Jeff didn’t reply, Austin said, “The hardest part is not having any warning, you know? Not having a chance to say good-bye. The last time I spoke to him, we were arguing.”
Jeff had an odd expression. He said, “I only knew your daddy like most people did, through the things he wrote and the things he said on television, but there is nothing about you that could have disappointed that man. You’re honest and kind and conscientious and intelligent. You’re a good man.”
It was Austin’s turn to color. “Thanks.”
Jeff added teasingly, “And sexy as hell.”
Austin laughed, looked away over the lawn. “Thanks again. Especially for that last one, although somehow I don’t think that mattered a lot to my dad.”
They walked up into the large open-air gazebo that looked over the roses and hedges. Austin leaned against the white railing. “Do I open this now?”
Jeff nodded curtly. “Sure. I thought if nothing else, you’d want to know how it all turned out.”
Austin could feel Jeff’s sudden tension, and it affected his own nerves. He tore off the wrapping. He gazed in amazement at the dark, dusty bottle with the date 1822 etched in white above the letters R-E-L. The words Blandy Madeira were printed at the base of each bottle.
“Wait a minute…” He stared bewilderedly at Jeff.
“They were buried beneath the cherry trees at Ballineen.”
“Oh my God. But…they can’t be the real thing.”
“You’re right. They’re not.”
“They’re not?” Although Austin had just said so, he lifted the bottle, scrutinizing it closely in the dappled sunlight. “How do you know?”
“Because none of the vintage wines Dominic Williams sold Dermot were the real thing.”
“According to whom?”
“According to Henrietta Williams, his wife and partner in crime.”
“Wine fraud?” Austin stared down at the dark bottle, the mysterious liquid sloshing inside it. It was a letdown, no doubt about it, but definitely less of a letdown because Jeff had taken the time and trouble to break the news himself. “Crap. So what’s in here?”
“Hundred-year-old Madeira. The booze is real enough. It just didn’t belong to Robert E. Lee. The bottle was doctored to make it look like it came from Lee’s cellar.”
“So all that vintage wine is counterfeit?”
“Anything supplied by Dom Williams is counterfeit.”
Austin stared, perplexed. “You seem awfully pleased about it.”
“I wouldn’t say pleased, but I’m certainly glad that the Martyn, North, & Compeau representative who vouched for all that vintage wine being the real deal was some woman named Theresa Bloch and not you.”
At last Austin said faintly, “Theresa authenticated the cellar—the entire cellar?” Appraised and authenticated in the space of a few weeks? What had been the rush? Had she been in such a hurry to establish her position following Austin’s departure?
Jeff was nodding. “I thought you’d enjoy that.”
“I don’t know about enjoy. There but for the grace of God, if you know what I mean.”
“Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing these last few weeks. Working with the sheriffs to uncover Dom’s partner in his counterfeiting scheme. It turned out to be Henry all along. We cracked the case the day before yesterday.” He added, “Or I’d have been here sooner.”
Austin found it hard to look away from that bright green gaze. When Jeff looked at him that way, he couldn’t help thinking maybe everything was going to be okay. “Who killed Williams? His wife?”
“Bingo. She claims it was an accident, but it’s hard to accidentally hit someone over the head with a bottle of Madeira.”
“She used—” Austin stared at the bottle in his hand.
Jeff gave an abrupt laugh. “Different bottle. She broke the one she used. It turns out Faulkner cleared it up.”
“Hold on,” Austin said. “I’m getting confused. Henrietta killed her husband. Why? And why did she hire you to find him in that case?”
“Henry hired me to throw suspicion off herself once Dom’s death was discovered. As for why she killed him, well, I have a suspicion that had to do with jealousy over Carson, but Henry’s not talking on that point. She claims it was an accident, but everyone knows she had a terrible temper and was jealous as hell. What she does admit is that when she and Dom heard there was going to be an appraisal of the Cashels’ cellar by such a noted expert, they panicked and went to the house, trying to recover the Lee bottles as the most likely counterfeit to fail close inspection. At some point they quarreled, and Henry whacked her husband over the head. Then she panicked and fled.”
“And Faulkner covered for her?”
“Faulkner covered for Tyrone, who he believed had killed Dom.”
“I’m lost. Where does Tyrone fit in?”
“It would be nice to ask him one of these days, but he split the afternoon he was helping y’all with the appraisal and hasn’t been seen since. From what we can get out of Faulkner, it sounds like Tyrone had either figured out the wine fraud or was hoping to lift a couple of vintage bottles to sell. We think he must have seen Henrietta conk Dom, because Faulkner saw him bury the remaining Lee bottles beneath the cherry trees. I guess Tyrone was planning to dig them up again once things cooled down, but when it looked like he might end up taking the rap for murder, he skipped.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“You can believe it,” Jeff said. “It’s taken us three weeks to put together the evidence to charge Henrietta.”
Austin stared down at the bottle.
“And that’s why you’re here? To tell me how it all worked out?”
“I’m here,” Jeff said, “because you never came back, and I’m not about to let this…this relationship go without a fight.”
Relationship, not affair. That sounded great, but what did it really mean? Had anything really changed between them?
Austin turned the bottle over absently, thinking.
Jeff said suddenly, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because he had trouble talking about his feelings, he didn’t care.”
“Who?”
“Your daddy.”
“He made his living talking about his feelings.”
“About big political issues. It’s not the same thing. You’re good at putting your thoughts and your feelings into words. Not everyone is.” Was Jeff still talking about Harrison, or was he talking about himself?
Austin was still thinking it over, warning himself not to assume, when Jeff said calmly, “When my daddy found out I was gay, he shot himself.”
Austin nearly dropped the bottle of Madeira. “What?”
Jeff smiled faintly—presumably at Austin’s patent horror and not his own remembrance. “I’m not saying he didn’t have some other…issues. He’d tried to kill himself once before. He battled with depression a lot of his life. That’s another thing we don’t have in the South. Southern gentlemen do not get depressed.”
Reading Austin’s expression, Jeff said, “I’m not trying to blame my dear old daddy for all my hang-ups. The truth is, I was happy enough with the way things were until you came along. I’d given up all those dreams and ideals I’d had in college, and I was doing fine. I thought. Then you showed up.”
It was impossible to read his profile.
Jeff expelled a long breath and said, “You were right. About all of it. Mostly, I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling—didn’t believe it could be true—and I guess a part of me thought that if I could make you acknowledge… Hell. I don’t know what I wanted. I was safe before you came along.”
“And now?”
“And now I realize that being safe isn’t the same as being happy. And that it’s hard to be happy without love. And if I let fear keep me from loving someone like you…” Jeff’s voice strengthened. “Which is funny, because I never thought I was one for settling down. I’ve hardly known you any time at all, but this last month I’ve missed you like I’ve never missed anyone in my life. I knew when you didn’t call after the second week that you probably weren’t going to, and I could go back to the way things were and nobody would be any the wiser. You know what? It didn’t feel safe. It felt lonely. I miss you all the time.” Jeff’s voice sounded strained. “I don’t know why you didn’t give up in the first five minutes, Austin, but since you didn’t, I’m going to ask you to give me another chance. This time I won’t let you down.”
Austin’s heart jumped. He said very carefully, “What exactly are you saying? What are you asking?”
“I’m saying that together we can work this out.” Jeff’s smile was wry, but the depth of feeling in his eyes was something Austin had all but given up on ever seeing. “I don’t know how we’ll do that, but I know I want to try. And I hope you still do too. I don’t know if that means me moving here or you moving there or us finding someplace midway. I don’t know. I just know…I can’t lose you now.”
Austin looked down at the bottle he was holding. “Is this evidence in a court case?”
“Yeah, well, this piece of evidence was conveniently lost. I thought you might want to drown your sorrows or…”
“Or?”
“Toast to a new beginning.”
Austin nodded gravely. “Kind of a BYOB proposal?”
“Yep.” Jeff’s gaze never wavered.
Austin held up the bottle. “How do we get it open?”
Jeff pulled out a Swiss Army Knife with a corkscrew. He opened the bottle and handed it to Austin. “It might be vinegar, you know. It might be… What do you call it? Corked. I probably wouldn’t know the difference, but you will.”
Austin grinned. “If it’s vinegar, we’ll have a really terrific salad.”
“If you say so. Just don’t…send it back.”
Austin took the bottle, swirled it gently to release the rich, earthy bouquet: nutty and sweet in the spring afternoon. He took the first sip and handed the bottle to Jeff, leaning forward, smiling into his eyes. “Naw. I know my wines. This is an excellent vintage.”