“Right here?” I tease.
“Right here,” she demands, and now I’m more concerned about the temperature than exposure.
“It’s cold out here, honey,” I warn, struggling with the hunger in her eyes and the mischievous grin she’s giving me. She’s daring me to deny her. Dammit, doesn’t she already know I can’t deny her a thing?
“Then warm me, Jedd.” The heavy heat in her voice breaks my resolve, and the next thing I know, Beverly and I are joined on the ground, in a pile of winter clothing, and I believe Naomi was incorrect.
Beverly’s been the greatest present given to me. She’s my angel, and I do believe in them.
Oh, how I do believe.
I don’t want to part from Beverly even though I release her as soon as we enter the house. She needs a shower to warm up, and I need a second to collect my thoughts. I go to my official room on the second floor, but sometime during the night, I find myself sneaking through the dark, wandering into her room, and sitting on the floor. My head rests against the wall behind me as I watch her like a stalker. Asking her to let me sleep with her seems childish in some ways. What am I afraid of that I can’t sleep alone? I’ve never been one to shy away from the dark or worry about made up monsters under the bed, but I feel haunted lately, and it has to do with something Vernon mentioned.
I saw Howard Townsen in Knoxville.
My first response was shock. After all these years, would Howard be so recognizable? Would he really look the same? While some people hardly age, others look considerably different as they approach their fifties, and Howard would be close. I look different. From the scrawny kid to a buff soldier and then a leaner rodeo rider, my body has transformed over the years. Even through suffering the loss of my arm, I’ve remained broad in shoulder and thick in legs. But Howard?
My second concern is Vernon knows what he shouldn’t know. He knows I’ve slept with Beverly. After the mishap of their kiss, he’d told Beverly about spotting Howard in the area. Is this Vernon’s gut reaction? Is this an attack of guilt, of suspicion, of jealousy by telling me he’s seen Howard? While Vernon and I go way back, there’s been a lapse in friendship. He doesn’t necessarily owe me anything, but rather I owe him, after asking him to look out for Boone, who doesn’t show any further signs of returning to the old house.
He’s out there. I know he is, but where?
As for Vernon, well, I’m holding my breath he’s wrong about Howard because if Howard returns, if he finds that newspaper notice and shows up, everything is going to implode, like white light and fissured sparks, and the result will be dismemberment of another body part—my heart. While my first visit to the Townsen property had one intention, my intentions have so greatly changed, and I’m not ready to give up either purpose.
“Jedd?” Beverly’s deep, sleepy voice rouses me from my thoughts, and I lift my head to face her, feeling guilty for being caught in the dark, sitting in her room, just to be close to her. “Jedd, you okay?”
I’m not okay, I think as I watch her press upward, angling on one arm while the bedcovers slip down her body to expose another satiny nightgown. I once expected Beverly to be the type to wear something tight at the throat and down to her ankles, covering her arms with a ruffle around the cuffs, but she’s a vision in the silky material, cut over her breasts and exposing her thin sternum. She’s watching me watch her, and then she shifts, flipping back the blankets. I think she’s going to slip from the bed and join me on the floor, but instead, she scoots back, allowing space on the mattress. She softly pats the vacant spot, and I press off the floor, a sailor responding to the siren call.
I stand and remove my shirt and pants. My socks and boots are upstairs in my room. Climbing into the space she’s offered, I shift to my side to pull her face to my chest.
“You okay?” she questions again, her lips brushing over my chest, my heart racing underneath, and I settle into her.
“Never been better,” I tell her, which is true on a million levels and also a deep lie. “Merry Christmas, honey.”
“Merry Christmas, Jedd.”
A pattern develops for the remainder of December, throughout January, and into late February.
I leave Beverly’s bed before daylight, not wanting Hannah to discover me there. Although she’s a grown woman, I still don’t want to scar her. It’s uncomfortable to consider your parent doing it, so I hike my tired body up the stairs and dress for another day of animal care. Their needs don’t stop because it’s a holiday or a snowy night.
Secretly, I’m counting down the days of Beverly’s six-month public announcement of her intent to divorce. She’s checked in with Ram Caesar, her attorney, who assures her there’s been no response to the advertisement. I hold my breath each time she mentions Julius & Caesar, surprised my sister has kept our secret.
“I’m not under obligation to tell her you’re a family member,” she snips as I finally join her for dinner one night in Knoxville in the last days of February. The restaurant is rather nice, though a bit dark and too intimate for my taste. The place reminds me I haven’t taken Beverly on a proper date, but she hasn’t complained. She loves our midnight horse rides, and we’ve had a picnic in the greenhouse where her face lights in animation over the flowers she’s growing. We even made Valentine’s Day special right in her bathtub by scrubbing each other with one of her bath bars. I smile with the memory.
Janice was in the larger city for a case, and I’ve driven up here to pick up Tower Hudson, a friend from the military rodeo, at the airport. He’s a quiet man, with lots in his head, and he could use a place like my stable. I also need help with that back field I promised Beverly I’d plow. The land she acquired through the Crawford scandal. It would have been best to burn the land to rejuvenate the soil, but that was something I couldn’t get to in autumn. With spring fast approaching, we can turn the soil next week and plant by the end of April. I have another surprise in mind for Beverly.
My thoughts return quickly to my sister. “I appreciate you not mentioning our connection,” I tell her. It isn’t that I don’t want to explain everything to Beverly; it’s just that the well of untold tales is getting deeper the farther I fall into her, and the truth holds me back because I’m afraid she’ll set me free when she learns it.
“You’re still playing with fire, aren’t you?” Janice questions, eyes narrowing behind her dark-rimmed glasses. Her pinched expression reminds me of Momma when she knew we’d done wrong.
“A whole forest ablaze,” I admit, letting my head fall.
“Jeddy,” she whines, reminding me of when we were kids. “What are you doing?”
“I’m falling in love.” I sigh, shaking my head as my fingers circle the lip of my beer mug.
“With the land?” Janice gives me a sympathetic exhale. She knows how much I wanted to stay on the farm, raise my own horses, and invest in the future.
“With her,” I mumble, and the tension between us builds as steep as a mountain.
“What are you doing?” she hisses. “You’ve nothing to gain from this, Jedd.” The warning in her voice is clear, and I know she’s right. Beverly is the new end goal, but once she learns who I am, the game might be over.