Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(18)

I rubbed my eye with a fist. “If I could, don’t you think I would’ve by now?”

“Maybe if you got laid, you’d chill out. Being celibate all of your adult life is unhealthy.”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Okay, think of it this way: Which is worse? Scarlet being addicted to her guilt or you—Billy Winston—being addicted to your bitterness?”

“You think I’m addicted to resenting her?”

“I know so. If you wanted Scarlet more than your anger, you would’ve told her what you did for her when she left at fourteen.”

This was an old, tired argument. We’d had this same conversation several times, usually after we’d drunk too much scotch and she cried about Curtis Hickson, aka Catfish, Iron Wraiths captain and criminal. The woman looked like that actress Gabrielle Union and was a financial genius. I still didn’t understand why someone like Daniella Payton—brilliant in every conceivable way, good and charismatic and gorgeous—had a weakness for an asshole like him.

“No, Dani—”

“Yes! You could’ve closed the distance between the two of you a long, long time ago by just telling Scarlet the truth. If she knew you took her punishment, you almost died, you lost your chance to play ball in college, you—”

“If she knew,” I spoke through gritted teeth, “then she’d feel obligated to me, like she did with Ben. She doesn’t need more guilt, more people making demands, and I don’t want her to choose me out of a sense of duty. That’s no choice at all. He ruined her. He wrecked her spirit.”

Dani made a sound of impatience and I reckoned she’d just rolled her eyes. “She is not ruined, she’s fabulous. Have you heard her latest album? I don’t even like country music and her voice gives me chills.”

I ignored the question and the content of her statement, focusing on the real issue. “I’d rather never have Scarlet at all than be with her like that. I don’t want her to repay a debt, I don’t want her guilt. I just want her.”

“Then use this opportunity! She’s there, in Italy, right now, with you. Let go of being angry, stop hating her, and just love the woman, Billy. Just. Love. Her.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” Another stab of pain in the center of my chest pushed the words from my mouth.

“Fine. Let’s talk about the bone marrow transplant.”

“I don’t want to talk about that either.”

Dani chuckled. “Fine. Whatever. There’s lots of things you don’t ever want to talk about. So, let me say this one thing. On behalf of my entire family, thank you. Thank you for being there that night to help my sister. Thank you for donating the bone marrow. You’re doing the right thing.”

I stopped myself from hanging up on her. I definitely didn’t want her gratitude for donating my marrow to Darrell. I hadn’t done it for her, or her family, or even my family. I’d done it for revenge.

Dani kept on talking. “All those people that Razor killed, they and their families are going to get justice. He’s going to jail for the rest of his life, or he’s going to get the death penalty—one or the other—and that’s because of you. Your father would’ve died if not for you. Yeah, Razor would’ve been charged in the attempted murder of your brother and my sister—a federal officer—but that’s not, I mean, he could’ve been paroled in twenty years.”

“Maybe he would’ve died in prison,” I said quietly, “before he was paroled, now that he can’t use his hands.”

“Hmm. Maybe. But think about all those families who wouldn’t have gotten justice.”

Shrugging, I glanced out the window. “I guess that’s true.”

We passed the next few seconds in silence, each with our own thoughts. I watched a wasp tap itself against the sliding glass door of my room, looking for a way in. Of their own accord, my eyes focused beyond the wasp to the landscape beyond. If I’d been in a mood or mind to notice such things, I would’ve said the view was beautiful. Green hills, the chaos of forest patched intermittently with tidy vineyards, gray stone red-roofed villas, and—every so often—a white church steeple pointing to a cloudless blue heaven.

The Smokies were yellow and green, hot in the summer; blue and brown, cold in the winter; every shade of the rainbow during spring and fall. But my old mountains were never this dreamy combination of orange and purple and warmth. I’d been right. The light here was different.

I heard Dani’s chair creak again, bringing me back to the room. I heard her breathe out, and then breathe in like she was preparing to say something. Clearly, she was teetering on uncharacteristic indecision. I sensed it through the phone and the thousands of miles between us.

So, curious, I asked, “You have something to say?”

“I do, actually.” Once more, her chair creaked. I heard papers shuffle, or something like it. “I have to talk to you about something other than just checking on you. But, I don’t know how to put this.”

“What?”

She eventually said, “I got a visit from the FBI—oh man, it was awkward. They showed up at my office on Wall Street unannounced, a gang of them in cheap black suits and white shirts and badges. They said FBI so many times. So many, like I was going to forget in the ten seconds they last said it. Anyway, um, it was about you.”