Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(9)

“What if he did? Would you do as I ask and be nice to him then? If he’s dying, will you actually give him the time of day? Is that what it’s going to take?”

“Stop being a bully and answer the damn question.”

“No, woman. He doesn’t have the cancer.”

I breathed out on a whoosh.

But then Cletus, his voice low and unmistakably angry, added, “Billy donated his bone marrow to Darrell.”

The room tilted again, and my mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe my ears, and so I screeched, “He what?!”

“Shh! Don’t yell, you’ll wake baby Liam.”

Closing my eyes briefly, I attempted to gather my thoughts and feelings and temper, speaking slowly and carefully so as not to raise my voice. “You’re telling me your brother donated bone marrow to Darrell Winston?”

“Billy saved Darrell’s life.”

I choked on disbelief and confusion, my fingers coming to my forehead again, this time I suspected to keep my brains from falling out of my head. What the hell? What. The. Hell.

Why would Billy do that? What would’ve possessed him? Billy hated Darrell. Hated him. Why would he do that to himself. WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON?!

“It’s a long story, Claire,” Cletus said, giving me the sense he recognized the noises of squeaking nonsense tumbling from my mouth for what they were: complete lack of coherence.

Though, the fact that he’d finally called me Claire did not escape my notice.

“Cletus—”

“I solemnly promise, the very moment Jenn and I arrive, I shall divulge the unabridged version of events, start to finish. Hell, I’ll even tell you all the stuff Billy should’ve told you years ago but didn’t ’cause he was too busy vying for the world championship title of Most Honorable Martyr—which, given his most recent ridiculous act of selflessness, he’s earned in perpetuity, forever and ever, amen. I realize that’s a disappointment since you were also hoping for the title.”

My mouth snapped shut and I frowned. “What does that—”

“But right now? Right this minute? I am asking you, my dearest, oldest friend, to traverse the tenuous Tuscan terrain. Embrace your quest! And get thee to where them I-talians sell the foodstuffs and the wines and the whatnot. I need you, the pied piper of preparing meals, to make my brother the biggest plate of fettuccine alfredo ever seen in all the land. Put bacon in it, and chicken, and shrimp, and some greens, carrots, broccoli, peas. Put love into it too. Feed him. Feed his body and feed his soul. Make sure he eats, gets sunshine, give him a hug or two or a hundred, tell him his eyes are pretty. I am begging you.”

Cletus’s dramatics notwithstanding, I would most definitely make all his favorite dishes, no problem. But cooking wasn’t really what Cletus was asking me to do.

“Can you do that?” he pressed. “Will you do this? Here, I’ll even say please. Please, Scarlet. Please. Please.”

I crossed my free arm over my aching heart. What Cletus wanted—which was a miraculous reconciliation between his brother and me—was impossible for so many reasons. If anything happened between us, and that was a gigantic if, it was going to take time, a lot of time. In the past, we’d brought out the worst in each other. I’d never do anything to lead him on, not when I was still so uncertain of my own feelings about a possible reconciliation.

However, Billy was sick. Given how worried Jethro, Sienna, and Duane seemed to be, I suspected it was more than just needing to recover physically from a bone marrow donation. I could help, so I would help. But I wasn’t giving the man hugs or telling him his eyes were pretty just because Cletus demanded it, no matter how much I craved being in Billy’s arms or how truly magnificent his eyes were.

I decided to offer a compromise. “I will tr—”

“Great. Thanks. Bye,” Cletus said.

And then he hung up.





Chapter Two





*Claire





"If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita





“What do I smell? Cinnamon buns?”

Turning over my shoulder, I gave my brother an affectionate smile. I wasn’t so lost in my own nervousness that the bags under Duane’s eyes escaped my notice. Holding his sleeping infant son in the crook of his arm, he rubbed one eye, fought a yawn, and claimed a seat around the huge, oblong table in the middle of the kitchen. The piece of furniture was seriously gigantic, but every table in this house was. It fit fourteen chairs comfortably and you could add up to another six in a pinch.

“Yes. Those are cinnamon buns. I also made dinner rolls with the dough. Those’ll be coming out soon.”

“Parker House rolls, right? Like Momma made?”

“That’s right. And I got chicken soup on the stove. Do you want a bun? With some butter?” I moved from stove to oven to counter, and then back to the stove, an undercurrent of frantic energy in every step.

I felt frantic, maybe I looked frantic, but thankfully I didn’t sound frantic.

Wiping my hands on the towel sticking out of my jeans pocket, I returned to where I’d set the buns. No muffin tins could be found in this huge villa, so I’d baked the buns smooshed together in several round cake pans. To my consternation, the cinnamon bun in the center of each cake pan hadn’t risen, emerging from the oven sad and flat and half-baked.