The Bourbon Thief(30)

“You only said ‘ain’t’ because you know that word bugs me.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Levi said, grinning. She didn’t grin back. “Come on. Either put up or shut up. I don’t have all day.”

“I’m trying here, Levi. Give me a second.”

“Second’s up.”

He kicked his horse gently in the side and Ashley obeyed the command, turning them away from her. Yeah, he was being an asshole. He knew it. But he didn’t like being around Tamara anymore. Too many memories. Too many temptations. He’d never told anyone the truth of that day when Virginia Maddox had fired him. She’d humiliated him like he’d never known he could be humiliated. She’d told him if he got within a mile of her daughter, she would call the police, tell them she’d seen him trying to rape Tamara in the stables. He’d go to jail for the rest of his life because “no way any judge would believe the word of the son of a colored cleaning lady over Virginia Maddox.” Oh, he had wanted payback then and the way he wanted to have it was by fucking Tamara, getting her pregnant and then standing there by her side and telling her mother what they had done. Then he’d leave Tamara and laugh his way into the sunset. But those were mad thoughts, the sort he never allowed himself except in the deepest hours of night when he woke up hot and alone with nothing but fantasies of sex and revenge in bed with him. And here she was, right next to him, as beautiful as he remembered, as tempting as he remembered, as dangerous as he remembered.

“It’s yours,” Tamara said.

“What is?” Levi asked, not looking back at her lest he be turned to a pillar of salt, which was what his uncle called a man who thought only with his cock.

“Red Thread is yours. Or it ought to be.”

“I was a damn good groom, but I highly doubt your grandfather saw fit to leave me his entire company in his will.”

“He didn’t. But he should’ve.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you are George Maddox’s only living son.”





10

Levi didn’t know if he should laugh in Tamara’s face or slap her until she came to her senses. She looked clear-eyed to him, so he went with laughing.

“That’s cute. Nice joke, Rotten.”

Tamara didn’t laugh. Tamara didn’t smile.

“It’s not a joke. Granddaddy is your father. See?”

She dug a piece of paper out of her back pocket and held it out to him.

He looked at the paper in her outstretched hand before finally reaching out and taking it from her.

“What the hell is this?” he said, scanning the note. The ink was purple and obviously some sort of Xerox copy of a handwritten letter.

“My father’s suicide note. Except he wasn’t my father. A man named Daniel Headley, Judge Daniel Headley, is my father. And according to this note, Granddaddy was your father.”

Levi’s eyes could barely focus on the words. His heart pounded like horse hooves on dry turf kicking up an ugly cloud of dust.

It is not easy for me to die knowing what I know about Levi Shelby. I know you’ve had your affairs, but I never dreamed you’d stoop so low to seduce a cleaning lady who couldn’t tell you no any more than the rest of us could...

But considering he is the only son you have left...

...the only son...

“This is bullshit.” Levi crumpled up the paper and tossed it at Tamara. She caught it against her chest.

“I know it hurts. It hurt me to know Daddy wasn’t my father... But it’s not bullshit. It’s true.”

“It’s not true. My mother would not—”

“Your mother was twenty-five when she worked for Granddaddy, and he was thirty. He was handsome then, and if you look anything like your mother, she was beautiful.”

“She wouldn’t sleep with a...” Levi looked up into the trees, silenced the scream rising in his throat.

“Wouldn’t sleep with a white man? A rich white man who she worked for? Why not? You and me, we almost—”

“That’s completely different,” Levi said, but he couldn’t think of why except Tamara was beautiful and George Maddox was nothing but a smug old rich bastard. Levi grew up knowing he’d been born out of wedlock. He’d been taunted for it at school, and even though he hated Jay Shelby, the man his mother had married when Levi was six, at least he finally had a father’s name they could put down on school forms. “She would have told me.”

“Did you tell your mother about all the girls you slept with?”

“She would have told me.”

“Did she tell you? Who did she say your father was?”

Levi didn’t answer because he had no answer. His mother had never told him a name. Levi had asked, but he’d never asked her. Instead, he’d asked his aunt Gloria, who said she didn’t know and that Levi shouldn’t worry about it. He had a mother and an aunt and an uncle who loved him and that was more family than a lot of people had. But he hadn’t missed the look of fear in Gloria’s eyes when he’d asked the question.

But no...

“No fucking way,” Levi said. “My mother would have told me if my father were the richest son of a bitch in Kentucky. Your grandfather lied to your father and your father believed him.”