Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(47)

“Which is?”

“My, uh—” I lifted my eyes to the ceiling as I recited the facts as I knew them. “Razor attacked Roscoe and then that bad cop shot into the diner, hitting Simone. But then she was able to shoot Razor before passing out. You came in, found him about to harm her, so you knocked him out and covered Roscoe and Simone with ice while you waited for the ambulance.”

“That’s a fair summary. But what the papers aren’t focusing so much on is that Darrell agreed to testify against Razor, but only if someone donated bone marrow to him.”

My spine straightened. “He did?”

“Yeah. At first, that was going to be Roscoe, and they think that’s why Razor went after him. Obviously, now Roscoe is much too sick to do anything but heal. So I offered to—” Billy’s mouth abruptly snapped shut, his eyes dropping. He gave his head a little shake and his eyebrows pulled together, giving me the sense he was thinking over weighty matters and parsing through what he wished to share.

“You know what?” he finally said, drawing in a deep breath. “The truth is, I’m doing it for revenge.” Billy chuckled lightly, like he found his own motivations bizarre. “That’s the answer. Revenge.”

What? “You’re saving Darrell’s life to get revenge? How does that work? You’re saving him to spite him?”

“No. I don’t care about that.” He waved away that possibility. “He’s not going to live much longer anyway. Doctors say he’ll be dead within the year, two tops, no matter what. I want to prolong his life long enough to put Razor in jail.”

“So . . . it’s revenge against Razor?”

He lifted his eyes and they tangled with mine. “And Darrell too. I like the fact that one of the last things he’ll do is betray the people who mattered so much to him during his life. I find that satisfying.”

“I can see that.” I studied the grim line of his mouth, the way his jaw ticked at his temple, and suddenly felt moved to say, “Thank you.”

Some of the intensity behind his gaze gave way to confusion. “For what?”

“For doing it, for making it so Darrell testifies. It helps me to know Razor will be in jail for the rest of his life.”

Billy’s stare flicked over me, sharpened. “You still having those nightmares?”

I stilled. Even my heart seemed to slow as we watched each other. It was an odd moment, having this conversation with him. He knew so much about me, my past, my hopes and fears. He even knew my dreams. And yet, he hated me. So why are you talking to him?

“I was always afraid,” I said slowly, not sure whether I should continue to speak or shut down. History told me this calm between us was a ticking time bomb; eventually one of us would explode.

However . . . I miss this. I missed talking to him. I missed hearing what he thought and what he wished. I missed his voice. I missed his laugh and subtle sweetness and wry humor. I missed him.

In the end—again, because I’m a glutton for punishment and Billy Winston—I decided there wasn’t any harm confirming something he probably already suspected. “I was always afraid that one day he’d come after me again. That he’d come and get me and take me back there. That’s why I asked Jethro to put those panic rooms in my house.”

This news seemed to make him restless. “Why did you come back to Green Valley? Why’d you come back at all?”

I studied him and his questions. “You mean to live? After Ben died?”

I was surprised by the question.

In all the months we’d spent together sneaking around, Billy had never asked and didn’t want to know. Back then, he only wanted to talk about the future, about my hopes and dreams, and his hopes and dreams, and current events, and my school, and what I thought about such and such. It was as though he wanted to pretend we were just two normal people with no baggage, with no concerns or obligations outside of each other.

That’s not to say he was completely ignorant of everything. Billy knew little details, like how I’d been living with Ben’s aunt and uncle in Nashville for several years, and why I’d never reached out to him while I was gone—I’d thought he and his high school girlfriend had gotten married. We also talked about my music and his job at the mill.

But the moment I told him how Ben had slept with me on my eighteenth birthday, all discussion of the past stopped. He couldn’t stand hearing anything else. Every time I brought up Ben or tried to explain, Billy would shut down and leave.

“Okay. Sure. Why’d you come back after Ben died? Or even before that? Why not stay gone? Stay safe?” He sounded interested rather than angry, which—again—surprised me.

Therefore, I told him the truth. “Well, after Ben died, I felt like I needed to be close to the McClures. They—they were so good to me, and they’d lost their only child, a son they considered a miracle. I wanted to be a help to them in their time of mourning, give them a focus, some hope.”

Billy’s brow drew together, his gaze softening, seeming to lose some of its earlier aloofness. “That was good of you.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it, my stomach thinking now was a good time to flutter. Doing my best to ignore that development, I added, “Before Ben died, when we came back for the engagement party but I was still living in Nashville for school, Ben told me it was safe.”