Beauty and the Mustache (38 page)

“
Shoot.”

“
What’s going on with you
and Drew?”

I held my brother’s gaze
for a beat, then inhaled slowly, closed my eyes, and let the back
of my head hit the headrest.

“
Jethro…I honestly don’t
know.”

“
But something is going
on…more than just friends?”

I shrugged, still not
looking at him. “What did he say? I mean on Saturday after I stood
on the porch and told Darrell that Drew was my man. What did Drew
say to you all downstairs while I was in my room?”

Jethro cleared his throat
before he spoke. “He just said that he didn’t have sisterly
feelings for you, but that he’d been trying to help you deal over
the last month or so, trying to give you a sympathetic ear,
comfort. He wanted to be what you needed.”

I nodded and swallowed; my mouth tasted like
salt and disappointment.

Jethro continued. “He also
said that he didn’t have any expectations because he knows you
belong in Chicago. He was real insistent that he wasn’t trying to
keep you in Tennessee. He said he wanted you to be happy. He said
he wanted all of us to be happy.”

“
And you all didn’t press
him for more information?” I peered at Jethro, but his eyes were
glued to the winding mountain road.

“
We did, but Beau backed
him up. He told us to stop badgering Drew and just ask you
directly.”

“
Hmm….” I watched the road
ahead as a quick series of switchbacks had me holding on to the
door. The trees were changing color, and some would argue that the
old mountains were at their most resplendent in the fall. They were
every shade of vibrant orange, yellow, and red. A few stubborn
greens remained.

I briefly wondered if Drew
had written any poetry about it, the beauty of the leaves changing.
I felt confident that he’d do justice to the phenomenon.

“
So…Ash? Are you okay with
Drew? I trust him not to take advantage, but I’d like to hear it
from you.”

I sighed. “Yes, I’m okay
with Drew. He’s not…he’s not taking advantage.” If anyone was
taking advantage, it was me.

“
Are you two going to keep
talking after you leave?”

I didn’t answer
immediately because I hadn’t talked to Drew about it. As much as I
wanted to keep in touch with him, I also didn’t want anything about
our interactions to change. The thought of keeping in touch filled
me with dread, because that meant talking on the phone or via
email, not in person. It would be utter torment; we wouldn’t be
able to kiss and touch and tease and argue.

It would be like watching
the leaves change or listening to the rain in the Smoky Mountains
via web cam. Sure, it’s pretty, but it’s a hollow experience. It
only makes you sad because you’re not there to live it. I wanted to
live Drew.

“
I don’t know,” I finally
said. “I haven’t decided.”

It was Jethro’s turn to
say, “Hmm….”

We drove several more miles in silence, he
with his thoughts, me with mine.

Then he blurted, “Today is
Tuesday!” He might as well have screamed “Fire!”

I gasped and grabbed my
chest, startled by the volume of his declaration. “Bejeezus,
Jethro! You scared the tar out of me. What’s the matter with
you?”

He shifted in his seat and said quietly, “I
just forgot that today is Tuesday.”

“
Well you don’t have to
shout about it. You’re not going to make Tuesday any more of a
Tuesday by hollering about it.”

He nodded, staring out the
windshield, but I noticed he wore a suggestion of a smile. It was
his
I’ve got a secret
smile.

I stared at him, trying to
reach into his mind and read the reason behind his badly hidden
grin. Obviously, it didn’t work.

“
What are you hiding,
Jethro Whitman Winston?”

We pulled into Drew’s
short, gravel drive, Jethro still smiling. “No reason. I just like
Tuesdays.”

He put his truck in park then jumped out,
light on his feet, and opened my door for me. Now I knew something
was amiss.

“
What is wrong with you?”
I said this as he reached for my hand and pulled me out of my
seat.

“
Nothing is wrong.” He
kicked the door shut with his foot and gripped me by the shoulders,
pushing me toward the porch.

“
I am capable of walking
in a straight line, you know. I’m not drunk.”

“
Not yet,” he
mumbled.

“
What did
you—?”

Just then, the screen door
opened and Janie, my dear friend and member of my knitting group,
stumbled out of Drew’s house.

Upon seeing us, her face
brightened with a ginormous grin and she shouted over her shoulder,
“She’s here!”

I stared at her and
literally took a step back, quite frankly dumbfounded by the image
of Janie standing on Drew’s porch dressed in sensible gray pants, a
red long-sleeved fitted knit shirt, and four inch crimson
stilettos. Even though she was naturally Amazonian height, she
enjoyed walking around on girly stilts.

Jethro’s steps slowed as
he caught sight of her, and I heard him say under his breath,
“Butter my biscuits, now that’s a woman.”

I ignored him because
everyone—male and female—reacted this way when faced with Janie for
the first time. Janie was boobs and butt paired with a tiny waist
and long legs. But my dear friend was completely oblivious to the
effect her physique had on men; rather, she assumed men stared at
her dumbfounded because she had a tendency to spout trivial
information at random.

I still couldn’t believe
my eyes that she was there, in the flesh; a towering, red-haired
sight for sore eyes.

She rushed forward and
hugged me, her cheek pressed to mine. “We just arrived. This place
is amazing! The view is spectacular,” she gushed, and I knew it was
only the beginning of a typical Janie observation. She stepped
back, releasing me, and gazed around at the autumn color, which was
at its peak. “Now that the chlorophyll is receding, the glucose is
trapped, thus turning the leaves different colors. The ultraviolet
light and diminishing temperatures are, of course, to blame. Kind
of like how people become paler in the winter, it’s important to
get enough vitamin D.”

She turned to Jethro,
whose mouth was agape. “Hi, I’m Janie. You’re Jethro, the oldest.
Did you finish your hat? Can I see your yarn?”

***

“
I
couldn’t find
my way back up here if
my entire yarn stash were at risk. How many turns did we take?
Fifty? One hundred?” Elizabeth said this from her seat by the
hearth.

Drew had started a fire
because the weather had turned rainy and cold rather abruptly. As
well, the temperature at the top of the mountains was always a good
five to ten degrees cooler than it was in the valley.

“
More like fourteen,” Drew
answered, handing both Marie and Elizabeth a glass of
wine.

I followed him with my
eyes, looking up from my knitting just long enough to watch his
easy stride and lissome movements as he crossed to the fireplace
and added another log. He was grace in motion, and he’d arranged
for my friends to surprise me by coming to Tennessee.

I had no idea they wanted
to come for the funeral. During the Skype conversations since
Momma’s passing, they hadn’t said a word about it, and I hadn’t
asked. They all had their own lives and troubles.

But Drew had stepped in
and contacted Sandra. Sandra contacted Janie. Janie asked her
husband Quinn for the use of his private plane so that everyone
could fly down together.

The men were in the kitchen and spilling out
on the back porch, drinking beer and talking about who knows what,
while the ladies were in the library knitting.

The house handled an
impressive amount of people with ease. All my brothers were
present, plus Drew and me. All the knitting group was accounted
for, which meant six ladies and Nico. Plus, Fiona, Janie, and
Sandra had also brought along their spouses.

Greg—Fiona’s husband—was
currently in the kitchen making everyone laugh. He was a petroleum
engineer and was gone most of the year for work; I was truly
touched that he and Fiona had opted to come down, especially when
their time together was so fleeting and precious.

“
This place probably
doesn’t even show up on aerial photos,” Fiona said thoughtfully.
Her chair was next to the wall of windows, and she was gazing into
the red, yellow, and orange wilderness. “It would make a great safe
house.”

“
Everyone is going to know
where you live now.” Sandra pointed this out to Drew, and he gave
her a smirk over his shoulder. She continued, “I’m going to take
pictures and post it on Google Earth. You’ll have people knocking
on your door trying to sell you cookies by next week. You can thank
me later.”

“
I’ll
thank you now for
not
doing that.”

“
Come on, Charlie,” Sandra
implored, and she narrowed her eyes at him for effect. “Don’t you
like cookies?”

“
The name is Drew, and I
like cookies just fine.”

A burst of laughter from
the kitchen invaded our cozy respite, and I noticed Fiona shaking
her head as her husband Greg’s voice rose above the
others.

“…
I didn’t care if it had
bullet holes—the car was free. Are you telling me you’d turn down a
free car just because it had bullet holes?”

Quinn’s tone was
incredulous when he responded, “Please don’t tell me you drive your
kids around in that car.”

“
Uh, yeah. Of course I
do.” Greg responded like Quinn had asked a ridiculous question,
“That’s their inheritance, Quinn. I’m leaving my kids that holey
car and my collection of antifungal cream when I die. No need to be
jealous, but feel free to take notes.”

Kat chuckled as their
voices faded; she turned to Fiona and said, “Greg is the funniest
guy I’ve ever met. He should talk to Nico about becoming a
comedian.”

Fiona snorted. “Um, no. I
can’t imagine what would come out of his mouth in front of an
audience.”

I saw that Drew cracked a
smile, one that he was trying to hide.

I narrowed my eyes at him.
“What? Why are you smiling?”

“
Because your friend Kat
is right, and so is Fiona. No offense, Fiona, but your husband
isn’t right in the head. The stuff he says is hilarious, but it
might not be ready for prime time.”

Fiona nodded once to Drew.
“Exactly. That’s exactly right. Drew is a smart man.”

Drew stood, glancing
around at us as he said, “If anyone needs anything, feel free to
help yourself. There’s more food in the kitchen…” his gaze swung to
Marie, “…and wine.”

“
What?” Her eyes widened
and she looked from side to side. “Why are you looking at
me?”

He didn’t say anything,
just gave her a good-natured suspicious glare. Before he left, he
held my eyes and gifted me a small smile, then left the room to
join the men on the porch. We heard a wave of chatter as the glass
door off the kitchen opened then closed with his
departure.

And that’s when
everyone—but me—stopped knitting and shifted forward in their seats
and leveled me with expectant stares.

Sensing their eyes, I sunk
lower into the couch and said, “The fire is nice, isn’t it? So
cozy….”

“
Cut the poo, Ashley.
What’s going on with you and the mountain man? When did this
happen? How did this happen? Tell us everything. Leave out nothing.
We want details! Also, I love that he wears suspenders. He totally
pulls it off. I’m now buying Alex suspenders.” Sandra always did
have a lovely way of cutting to the chase.

Marie raised her hand. “I
second the motion about suspenders.”

“
Third,” Elizabeth
said.

“
So passed,” Sandra
announced.

I huffed hair from my
forehead and set my knitting down, closing my eyes. “I have no
idea. All I know is…he’s been awesome. He’s
like…he’s…gah.”

“
He’s ‘gah’? Uh oh.” Fiona
said this, and I could hear the tempered amusement in her
voice.

“
No.” I
opened just one eye, meeting her gaze. “No, there is
no
uh oh.
There can’t be an
uh
oh
.”

“
Why,
pray tell, can’t there be an
uh
oh
?” Marie lifted her eyebrows, her eyes
narrowed.

“
Because
he doesn’t…because I don’t….” I opened my other eye and struggled
to put into words all the reasons Drew and I had no future; I
settled on, “Because we just can’t…we just can’t
uh oh
.”

“
Why not?” Kat pressed.
“He clearly cares about you, and you care about him, and your
family seems to like him—not that it should make a difference what
your family thinks—so why not go for it? I mean, no one is perfect.
And if you have feelings for him, you should act on them instead of
pushing them aside and waiting too long. If you wait too long it’ll
be too late, and he’ll start dating someone else, like a business
analyst on the seventeenth floor.” At the end of her little tirade,
it was clear that Kat was talking to herself.