Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(66)
Twisting my lips, I lifted my chin, doing my utmost not to succumb to the threatening crush of mortification as I glanced at Cletus. His eyes were twinkling, the fiend.
I’ll need to thank him later.
“Not a word,” Billy ordered, placing the basket on the ground, and then taking the blanket from me and laying it on top.
With that, he unhurriedly pulled me from the kitchen, past the downcast eyes and tightly pressed lips of his family to the back hall. As soon as my foot hit the third step, I heard the kitchen erupt in chatter, happy noises, conversations that had me both covering my face and laughing.
“They’re nuts. Completely crazy.” He laughed lightly, sending me an apologetic look.
“It’s just funny.” I wiped at my eyes. “And actually kinda sweet. They really love you.”
“They really love irritating me.”
“Are you irritated?”
“No,” he confessed, fighting a grin. “But don’t tell them that.”
We’d made a plan on the walk back to the house. Both of us would clean ourselves up in our own respective spaces, and then we’d leave for the rest of the day. We could take a train to Florence, or borrow one of the rental cars and drive to the town of Siena or Lucca, or maybe go have pizza in Pisa. I wanted to take one of those goofy pictures where it looked like he was holding up the leaning tower. He smiled at the suggestion, saying nothing, but the look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know.
That is, he thought I was as ridiculous as I was cute.
Part of me would’ve preferred getting dirty all over again while cleaning up together. But another part of me—the part that had been shy about my scars and embarrassed about seeing him naked—felt relief. I didn’t want him to see my scars again, not yet. I didn’t want to talk about them yet. I wanted to leave the past behind us for a while and keep our eyes on the future.
Now that he’d told me what was in his head and heart, I was able to view his actions last week through this new lens. For example, his lack of touching looked more like restraint, not disinterest. But I still didn’t understand his persistent silence.
Was Billy Winston just a remarkably quiet person now? And if so, how did I feel about that? I missed his voice, his sharing of thoughts. He had such a beautiful mind, a clever way of thinking about issues and approaching problems. I hoped he wouldn’t withhold it from me.
Anxious to see him, I showered and dressed in record time—like, ten minutes—and then, on my quick walk to his room, my stomach growled. Hungry, and fairly certain he hadn’t eaten either, I pressed my ear to his door. Hearing the faint sound of his shower still running, I decided to jot down to the kitchen and whip us up a charcuterie board.
Charcuterie is one of those words I never attempted to say out loud in front of people. I know what it is, what it looks like, how to make it, but I always ended up fudging one of the syllables between my brain and my mouth.
“Char-cue-ter-ree,” I whispered to myself several times as I descended the stairs, but then frowned at the sound. “Shar-cut-ter-ree?” I tried.
Darn. See? Best to just call it an appetizer or a snack.
It didn’t occur to me until I was already on the basement level that Billy’s siblings and their families might still be milling about, congratulating themselves. Feeling a little weird about seeing everyone after the spectacle of our entrance, I tiptoed toward the kitchen, my courage bolstered when I heard just a faint murmur of voices. Seeing two or three folks wouldn’t be so bad.
I peeked around the doorframe. Cletus and Duane were standing nearby with most of Duane facing me, a severe scowl marring his expression.
“I’ll make sure he does,” Cletus was promising, his tone reasonable but firm, like he was trying to talk Duane off a ledge of some sort. “I know you’re tired, sleep deprived. Infants are a form of torture not covered by the Geneva convention. Just, settle down. He’s probably already told her. Did you see how happy they looked?”
I felt a goofy grin take over my features at that, and was just about to step into the kitchen when Duane’s salty voice said, “What if he hasn’t told her and Claire still doesn’t know?”
My whole body stilled and I eavesdropped before I could comprehend the fact that I was eavesdropping.
“Then, like I said, I’ll make sure, before she leaves for that music festival or for Rome, Billy tells her the truth.”
Duane seemed to grow more agitated. “You know I love Billy, you know I do. I want to see him happy same as everyone. But Scarlet has no one. If he hasn’t told her yet—”
“Duane. It’s not like it’s bad news, he’s done nothing to hurt her. Everything he did, he did to protect her. He saved her.”
“Lying to someone for decades is hurtful. Believe me, I speak from personal experience. I understand why momma—why Bethany—never told me and Beau the truth about Christine being our biological mother, but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt.”
Cletus shifted on his feet, like Duane’s words affected him, and his voice gentled. “I may not have the ability to know exactly what you’re feeling, but my empathy works just fine. Trust me, Billy will tell her about what he did when she left. You have my word.”
“The whole truth.” Duane sliced his hand through the air. “Everything, from how they killed your dog in trade for that Carla girl to how they almost killed Billy in trade for Claire.”