The Bourbon Thief(26)

“What if it had been a girl?”

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

“I think I hate George Maddox.”

“I think I agree with you,” Paris said.

“So Tamara’s father wasn’t Tamara’s father.”

“Nash Maddox was gay,” Paris said. She took another sip of her drink. “You didn’t get to be gay and out in Kentucky in the 1960s. You got married to a woman, you lived that lie and you took that secret to the grave with you. Nash did.”

“My son is gay,” McQueen said. “Told us last summer.”

“Do you love him any less?”

“No, of course not.”

“You gonna force him to marry a woman?”

“Never.”

“George Maddox did. He threatened to cut Nash off unless he got married. They had Virginia Darling standing by, the daughter of one of George’s business partners and best friends. They’d grown up together—Virginia, Nash, Eric and Daniel Headley. The parents considered it a given she’d marry one of the Maddox boys. Everyone expected it. Everyone wanted it. And so it came to pass. At age nineteen Virginia Darling found herself a couple months pregnant. No choice then. She had to get married. Nash had to get married, too, or his father would send him packing without a penny to his name. Nash lasted in the marriage as long as he could. He killed himself when Tamara was twelve years old.”

“I might have killed myself, too.”

“I don’t blame Nash at all. Tamara didn’t, either, once she knew the whole truth.”

“Was she okay after that night?”

“I wouldn’t use the word okay to describe her,” Paris said. “I would use the word determined. Soon as George Maddox was dead and buried, Virginia Maddox fired Levi. He was gone in a day. You have to remember back then if someone wasn’t in the phone book, there wasn’t much chance of finding him. No internet.”

“The Dark Ages.”

“Exactly. So it took Tamara a while to get her plan in gear. She played the grieving granddaughter well. She held herself together at the funeral, went back to school and got excellent grades, graduated at the top of her high school class a year and a half later. Mother and daughter barely spoke to each other after that night. And all that time Tamara was looking for Levi while her mother was looking for a buyer for Red Thread.”

“She wanted to sell the company?”

“Virginia Darling knew how to paint her nails, knew how to dress like a lady, knew how to keep a house. She didn’t know how to run a company. Nobody expected anything of her other than to get married and that’s all she’d done with her life. She didn’t want to run the company, and there were dozens of buyers at her door the day after George Maddox was in the ground. Tamara had to hurry up and find Levi.”

“I suppose Levi could have contested the will. Did she find him?”

“Virginia Maddox accepted a buyout offer on Red Thread from a rival bourbon maker. The next day Tamara finally found Levi. It was fate, it seems.”

“Fate. Sounds romantic.”

“You must not know anything about mythology, then, Mr. McQueen. In all the old myths, the Fates were the villains.”





9





1980


Her name was either Cheryl or Sherry—he could never remember which—so Levi compromised and called her Cher. Not that Cher/Cheryl/Sherry seemed to be paying a bit of attention to anything he said. Maybe she didn’t remember his name, either, since the only words coming out of her mouth at the moment were “God,” “Harder” and “Oh, baby.”

Levi had Cher on her back with a horse blanket between her and half a dozen hay bales. Whatever her name was, she was only a couple years older than him—thirty-two, he remembered her saying—but she’d certainly done better for herself in life than he had. The pants he’d pulled off her were Gloria Vanderbilt, her panties were fine silk and lace and were currently dangling off a well-turned ankle. The diamond engagement ring likely cost more than his truck, but in his unspoken opinion, his truck was a helluva lot more useful.

“Harder,” she said again, and Levi obliged her. It was hot in the loft, airless and stank of horse sweat and human sweat. The sooner he finished, the better. So he dug his boots into the hay trying to find traction and pounded into her until she stopped barking orders. The rubber he wore made it difficult to feel much of anything, but when she came, her fingernails made sure he knew it.

He wasn’t done yet, but she didn’t put up any objection while he took his turn. She lay there with her eyes closed, a pretty girl if not beautiful, and patiently took it until he came with as little fanfare as possible. Cher had been loud enough for the both of them.

When it was all done, he tossed the rubber while she pulled herself together.

“Best horseback riding lesson I’ve ever had.” She shoved her feet into her boots and Levi helped her onto her feet.

“I aim to please.”

“Same time next week?” she asked, strolling to the ladder that led down to the stalls.

“If your fiancé wants to keep paying for private lessons, I’ll keep giving them to you. Although one of these days he’s gonna want to go riding with you, and he might wonder why you don’t know a horse’s head from its ass.”