Beard Necessities (Winston Brothers, #7)(95)

Kiera Cass, Happily Ever After





“Don’t freak out.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Cletus, somewhat surprised to find him hovering in the doorway to my room.

“Oh. You’re speaking to me again?” Checking my phone, I saw I had two hours until my next call. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Karl, the incompetent campaign liaison, had found something new to panic over and wanted to talk.

Standing from my chair, I crossed my arms and leaned back against the desk. “I already apologized to Jenn.”

Ever since I returned to the villa from Venice yesterday, Cletus had been pointedly avoiding me. I suspected this was for a few reasons. One, Scarlet wasn’t with me. Two, we’d left the restaurant in Venice without eating the dessert Jenn had prepared. Of the two, my brother probably considered the latter a bigger sin.

He was more fanatical about his wife’s desserts than he was about his own homemade boar sausage. To put this into perspective, I once turned down a second helping of sausage and a priest appeared at our door the next day, ready to conduct an exorcism on the demon that had obviously taken possession of my soul.

“When was I not speaking to you?” Hands shoved in his pockets, he slowly descended the two stairs into my room. “I’ve just been busy is all.”

“Right.” Studying my brother, I took note of how his attention seemed to be pointed everywhere but me, a telltale sign he was feeling uneasy.

“This is a nice room.” He dragged a finger along the top of my dresser. He inspected his finger. “You should dust.”

“You’ve been in this room before. What’s on your mind, Cletus?” I’d spent most of yesterday before returning to the villa wandering around Florence, taking in the sights on my own and thinking through things. I especially thought about that moment right after we’d made love in Venice when Scarlet had said she’d be my wife.

Which was why, when I found myself at the Ponte Vecchio, a block of jewelry stores bridging the Arno, I bought us rings. At the very least, even if she turned me down, Scarlet would learn that I never bluff.

Clearing his throat, Cletus returned his hand to his pocket and rocked back and forth on his feet, sneaking a quick peek at me. “So, I may have done something—or agreed to something—that has me fixating, as it were.”

“Fixating as in frustrated? Or fixating as in anxious?”

“Anxious.” He frowned, looking anxious. “I don’t regret it, and I trust in time you’ll see it was the right decision for all involved, but—uh . . .”

I waited for him to continue. Cletus’s propensity to fixate wasn’t always a reason to worry. Sometimes he fixated on blueberries. Sometimes he fixated on the alarming lack of small spoons in the kitchen at the big house. On the other hand, sometimes he fixated on plotting the downfall of criminal organizations.

Basically, his fixating could be anything.

When he didn’t continue speaking but continued to visibly struggle, I straightened from the desk and crossed to him, setting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey. It’s okay. Tell me how I can help.”

“It’s Scarlet.”

I tensed, a spear of worry making my heart stutter.

She’d disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving me a note about attending a giant music festival in Tennessee, but also leaving me confused. I wanted to be a support to her. I would never hold her back. So though I wasn’t upset she’d left to chase her dreams, I was disappointed. I wished she’d asked me to go, I’d follow her anywhere. However, her promise to meet in Rome at the end of the week had helped soothe some of the sting.

But now, examining my brother’s anxious profile, worry ballooned. “What about Scarlet?”

“She did it to help.”

I held still, asking quietly, “What? What did she do?”

Cletus closed his eyes. “She’s going to tell you when you see her next, she promised me.”

“Then you can tell me now and save her the trouble.”

“Okay,” he agreed immediately, like he’d been waiting for me to make this very suggestion. He opened his eyes and held mine. “Somehow, Scarlet ascertained that Razor had accused you of assault with his own knife while he was unconscious at the diner. So she decided to fly back to Nashville, visit him in prison, and see if she could get him to admit he was lying. And therefore, make an official statement to the FBI and clear your name.”

“She WHAT?!” My hand dropped.

My brother winced at my shouted question, his shoulders bunching. “She decided to fly back to Nashville, visit—”

“I heard you the first time, Cletus!” I spun from my brother, stabbing my fingers through my hair. I knew my brother well enough to know what he really meant was, Scarlet flew to Nashville to visit Razor so she could lie to the FBI.

My brain was on fire. My heart had left my body. I paced back and forth, feeling caged, feeling helpless. I hated feeling helpless. I couldn’t—I couldn’t— “And you knew? You knew she was going to do this? What was she thinking? And what the hell were you thinking? Letting her go see that man? Do you have any idea what he did to her? The kind of hell he put her through?”

“That’s why I’m fixating.”

“Damn right, you should be fixating!”