Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(27)

The Siennas were quiet, seemingly requiring several seconds to process this landfill of information. Or maybe my words had been so garbled she thought I was having a seizure. Or maybe I was dreaming all this and I was still back at home in Nashville, asleep.

But then I sensed and sorta saw her gather a deep breath before saying, “Please tell me you’re in therapy.”

“Yes.”

“Thank God.”





“Claire?”

I blinked around the table, shaking myself, discovering several sets of eyes on me. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The chicken.” Jethro motioned to the vicinity of my arm and I glanced down, the platter of chicken at my elbow.

“Uncle Duane wants you to please pass the chicken, Miss Claire,” little Benjamin said, stitching everything together for me.

“Oh, yes, sorry.” I grabbed the platter and lifted, setting it in Jethro’s outstretched hands. “Here you go.”

He frowned-smiled, this was the face Jethro made when he was concerned, and passed the chicken down the table to Duane. My attention shifted to Jess and Duane; they were both giving me soft looks. I doubted Sienna had told Jethro, Duane, or Jess about my drunken confession session. Yet clearly, my introspective mood had been noticed.

At the far end of the table, Jess’s parents and Maya paid me no mind, concentrating on Andrew—Sienna and Jet’s second son, who was sitting on Maya’s lap—and Liam, who Janet James held in her arms.

Sensing someone’s lingering attention, I glanced at Sienna. She pointed her warm, compassionate smile at me, and so I dropped my eyes to my plate, sinking a smidge lower in my seat.

Drunk on a hill in Tuscany, I’d spilled my guts to my shero (she + hero) last night. I was pretty sure I remembered her saying something about me spouting brainwashed BS. Or maybe I’d said that? Thank goodness I hadn’t told her the man I’d cheated with was none other than Billy Winston. That would’ve made dinner—when he was finally able to come downstairs—super awkward.

I hadn’t talked to her since the confession session. It’s not that I’d been lazing about, avoiding her. More like I’d been incredibly busy cooking and holding my nephew and avoiding her.

Most folks considered me an especially easygoing person, and this was true. I had trouble taking myself too seriously. When you believe your own opinion is suspect, there’s not much point in putting a lot of time or energy into it. As such, after leaving Billy’s room yesterday morning and having a good cry in the wine cellar, I told myself to get over it.

I’d made my house of guilt, I’d built it, if I didn’t like the termites and rats and crumbling foundation, then that was what therapy was for. I was working on dismantling my house of guilt and that’s all I could do.

But yesterday, my options were staying in the wine cellar and weeping or baking something yummy, like cookies. Baking cookies would contribute to the happiness and well-being of everyone in the household, whereas I was fairly certain no one wanted to taste my tears.

Thus, I’d baked. I’d cooked. I’d basted and marinated and frosted a cake and, today, I’d spatchcocked three chickens.

“This chicken is so good, Miss Claire, it doesn’t even need ketchup,” Benjamin said, and I lifted my eyes just in time to catch his flash of a smile. He had his daddy’s smile, that was for sure.

“Glad you like it, sweetheart,” I said.

“You sure are a good cook, almost as good as Mom,” he continued, shoving a bite into his mouth that would’ve been too big for me. But he chewed like a champ, eventually swallowing before saying, “Too bad you don’t live with us.”

Sienna chuckled and I gave her my eyes; we shared a quick, amused look.

“I had similar thoughts before your father and I got married, mijo. Between you and me, I almost married Claire instead.”

“Really?” Benjamin seemed to seriously consider this, weigh the pros and cons, his big brown eyes moving between us.

“Did you now?” Jethro asked, sending his wife a twinkly grin. “Now here, I had no idea you had a taste for clams.”

Someone down at the far end of the table choked on something, drawing all eyes. It was Sheriff James having trouble with his water.

Jethro glanced at the Sheriff, explaining, “Claire has a great clam recipe.”

“Sure,” the older man rasped.

Sienna ignored the commotion, saying to her husband while winking at me, “I usually don’t like clams, just hot ginger clams like Claire’s.”

Despite my meditative, melancholy mood, I felt my lips tug to the side.

“You’ll have to give me that recipe,” Jess chimed in, brushing her blonde bangs to one side, her face and tone as straight as a line. “I do love the taste of ginger.”

Now Mrs. James coughed, but I wasn’t looking at her, I was sharing a wide-eyed stare with Duane.

His seemed to say: She keeps doing this to me in front of her folks.

So I tried to communicate: You know what she was like before you married her.

To which he said: I know, but I feel bad for the Sheriff and Mrs. James.

To which I responded: Don’t. They gained you as a son.

At that sentiment, Duane’s mouth curved into one of his rarely bestowed small smiles and it warmed my heart, easing some of the rawness.