Out of the Blues (2 page)

Chapter Three

In which Kilby finds he isn’t in Tennessee anymore.

I followed the directions Hunter had given me over the phone. I don’t own a GPS and never would if I could help it. The trip down from Nashville hadn’t been eventful. Except for the excitement about a hundred miles back that is, when the dick in the Dodge had almost run me off the road. Sure I was pissed when I pulled off the interstate but hell, I had been as much at fault as the other guy.

Not because I was drifting and about to fall asleep but because I had zoned out. I do that sometimes now; let my mind go blank when too many memories wanted to hijack my calm. I’m working on it. The calm part at least.

The guy had damned near shit himself when I confronted him at the Starbucks. He looked so young and completely exhausted, with great hair and the prettiest hazel eyes I had ever seen on a man.

I caught myself staring when, what had he said his name was? Mace? Mace seemed right. When Mace had walked off. I thought about following him to the head for all of about twenty seconds. The barista calling my name had ended that fantasy.

And now I was on some back highway looking for a place called… I checked the directions again, and there it was…the sign I was looking for with a large magnolia flower pointing the way to Magnolia Landing Inn.

The road up to the inn wasn’t long, just long enough to wind through some pretty fall colors. The house was huge with three stories and a couple of wings. It had huge columns and looked like something straight out of a civil war movie. Two huge magnolia trees flanked the circular drive that led under a portico. There was a doorman…in livery. Well, damn. I knew Hunter was marrying into money, I hadn’t expected it would be this fancy or I’d have tried to clean up a little better than a pair of faded jeans and my cleanest pair of work boots. At least my t-shirt was new.

The doorman opened my door before I could shut the engine off. Hunter was out of the… hotel, I assumed by the Inn thing, and greeted me like the long-lost step-brother I was.

“You’re here,” Hunter practically screamed in my ear as he dragged me out of the truck and enveloped me in a hug. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“I said I’d be here. I never break a promise.” I hugged him back then pushed him away. I held onto his elbows so he wouldn’t get too far. “You look good, Hunter. You look happy.”

The last time I’d seen Hunter was at my stepfather’s funeral. That was while I was still enlisted. I’d barely made it back in time for the funeral and Hunter was a complete mess. We’d lost my mother right before I went off to boot camp and Hunter was still in high school. Hunter’s dad had been the glue that had held us all together for years after that. He’d brought Hunter to see me when I could get leave. We’d stayed a family through it all but the last few years had been rough.

“I am happy. Harper is special. I’ve never met anyone like her in my life and she loves me.” Hunter beamed at me and then his face became even more beatific, if that was even possible. “Speak of the she-devil.”

I followed my brother’s gaze to the woman coming down the steps to the car. She ran, in high heels. I had to respect a woman who could run in high heels. She was tall, really tall for a woman, and with heels on she’d be taller than Hunter. She was blonde with twinkling hazel eyes that reminded me of the pretty man I’d left back at Starbucks but that was the only masculine thing about her, well, not masculine, eyes were eyes. She just had eyes the same color and shape as someone I’d just met…and lusted over…after that she was all girl and completely Hunter’s type.

Her smile was bright as she held out her hand. “You must be the famous Kilby I’ve heard everything about.” She took my hand and shook it like a man, her grip firm. Her hands were big, almost as big as mine but also feminine. And I had to look up to meet her eyes which made her damned tall for anyone.

“Depends on if it was good or bad?” I didn’t mean to flirt. She was just too cute…and safe. She wasn’t going to hit on me and I wasn’t going to cause tension between her and Hunter. She’d know that if Hunter had actually told her everything about me.

“Oh, well, a little bit of both.” She laughed, the sound was infectious and I found myself laughing along as she held my hand. Her gaze traveled my entire body and for a moment, I worried that she was judging my apparent lack of money. “Hunter was not exactly truthful on how fucking hot you really are. Other than that—” she let the tease die off with a wink and then she squealed and dropped my hand at the sound of an engine behind us.

I watched as the black Charger drove up behind my truck. I suppressed a groan. I should have known. The pretty man from Starbucks had barely stepped out of the car when Hunter’s fiancée flung herself into his arms. She could jump in heels, too. Damn, Hunter needed to hang on to that one, but she’d wrapped herself shamelessly around the pretty man and was covering his face with kisses.

“And that would be Mason, Harper’s twin,” Hunter whispered into my ear just as the twin met my gaze. He looked quickly away and forced his sister to stand on her own. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I got the impression it had been a long time since Mason had been home.

“So, looks like we’re all here now,” Hunter said when I didn’t respond. “You and Mace were the only uncertains, Mace because he was stranded in Denver last night. And…oh fuck, I don’t know if we have two rooms left.”

Before I had time to process that piece of news in regards to how it might affect me, an imperious voice called out to the newcomer…the other newcomer. “Mason Foxworth, you look like something the cat dragged in.” I looked over my shoulder to see an older version of the bride standing on the veranda, blonde like her daughter with brown eyes and the bearing of a queen. She was smiling and looked to be on the verge of tears.

“Considering I feel like something the cat puked up, I take that as a compliment,” Mace quipped back, his voice was deeper than I remembered from the two sentences he’d spoken to me a couple of hours back and he was taller than even the bride in her spiked heels, which meant he would be taller than me and didn’t that just make my dick stand up and take serious notice. He was completely not my type in any way shape or form except I had a thing about men taller than me and Mason Foxworth…was still too damned young for me no matter how you sliced it.

“He’s straight, too.” The words were whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t have to. I can tell you’re trying not to ogle him. You’re failing, by the way. How long has it been?” He was my brother; closest thing I had to a brother anyway, and the only person I told my deepest secrets to. I’d forgotten that he knew.

“Four years.” I didn’t talk about it. It happened not long after Hunter’s dad died. I lost the man I thought I could have a future with. I didn’t like to think about it, or how I left the Marines one step ahead of a dishonorable discharge for being gay and in a relationship with an officer.

“You need to meet someone Kilby. You need to get off the farm and meet someone or you’re going to—”

Harper dragged her brother over, cutting off what Hunter was about to say. I plastered on a smile and pretended that my heart wasn’t beating like a fucking time bomb. “Mason, this is my fiancé, Hunter. And his best man, Kilby.” Harper linked her arm in Hunter’s just as the queen of the world joined them. “And Kilby, our mother Arden…what is it today, Mother? Monroe, Foxworth, Gillette, Young…well anyway, pick one.”

Arden Monroe was their mother. Which meant their father was Doug Foxworth. “Holy fuck,” I said before I got my tongue under control. “You’re Arden Monroe.”

“I was once upon a time.” The mother took my hand and patted it. I forgot about the beautiful son as I focused on the father coming down the stairs. “Ah, the father of the bride. I suspect you’d know his name, wouldn’t you dear?” I didn’t know if I was being messed with but yeah, I grew up watching Doug Foxworth dominate the NFL. And maybe crushing a bit when I was twelve and just figuring out that I wasn’t quite like the other boys on my football team.

“I would, big fan. I even got to go to watch him play once. I was probably sixteen at the time.”

“Ah, the dark ages.” Doug Foxworth joined us in the drive and the doorman finally gave up waiting for my bag and closed my door. “Nice to finally meet you, Kilby, Hunter has told us all about you.”

“Well, not all,” Hunter said rolling his eyes, but I knew what he meant and was grateful.

“Hello, father,” the pretty boy who looked nothing like his father except for his eyes said, and that’s when the tension level in Georgia went nuclear.

“Mason, good that you could finally make it.” The father of the bride merely nodded to his son and I watched all of the light fade from the son’s pretty hazel eyes. “Well, now that we’re all here, let’s get you boys unpacked so we can get on with lunch.”

I reached into the back of my truck and dragged out my seabag and slung it over my shoulder. I didn’t have much for the four days I would be staying, a couple of pairs of my better jeans and a few shirts, a couple of them heavier in case the weather this far south turned as cold as it was up in Nashville when I left early this morning. My leather jacket was in the truck. I’d leave it there for now.

I stopped when Hunter took my bag and put it on the seat. I started to complain, but the rest of the family was already on the steps. “There’s staff for that. Come on, let’s get some lunch and then I’ll show you around the Inn.”

Hunter took my keys from the cab while he was inside and I followed him up the steps and into the lobby just in time to hear… “It looks like Scarlet O’Hara threw up in here.”

“Tell us how you really feel, Mason, dear,” the mother replied and I realized that I was completely out of my fucking comfort zone with four days to get through and if that guy was straight then I was the Queen of New York City.

Chapter Four

When Kilby longs for a nice quiet war.

“So, tell us a little about yourself, Kilby?” I looked up from my plate of pan-fried catfish that Harper assured me was from their very own lake. And the coleslaw, potato salad, and hush puppies were from her great-grandmother Foxworth’s recipe file. I was starving, but when Doug Foxworth called me by name I felt like that twelve-year-old boy with a crush, giggly and excited. Or maybe just put on the spot.

The son looked at me from his seat beside Arden Monroe, or was it Young now. I was so confused as to the family dynamics. I was also confused as to why Mason Foxworth rolled his eyes in my direction. I’d heard him with his mother and sister before we were seated by the hotel restaurant staff. He was outspoken and opinionated yet seemingly good-natured, except when his father was around, then he became quiet, almost unnaturally so.

“Not much to tell. Hunter is my stepbrother, as you know. My mother and his father married when we were young. I spent eight years in the Marines. I’ve run my family farm for the last four, since I left the Marines. Not much else changes.” I really didn’t like talking about myself. I didn’t like discussing my military career which would bring up questions of why I left after eight years.

“Which would make you, what? About thirty or so?” Arden asked, and if I didn’t know better I’d swear her eyes twinkled as she sipped her glass of white wine. She had the grilled bass not the fried catfish. I have no idea why I noticed these things.

“Mother, there is no hitting on my future brother-in-law at the dinner table,” Harper said in a scandalized voice, but she laughed so maybe it was all just par for the course.

“I wasn’t, I was simply adding up his years trying to put together a history of our taciturn Mr. Kilby…” She paused and arched an eyebrow at me. “I’m assuming you and Hunter don’t share a last name.”

So much for knowing everything about me. “No, ma’am, it’s Adams. Kilbourne Adams, I was given my mother’s maiden name.”

“Much like Mason,” she said, smiling. “It’s an old southern tradition, darling,” she patted her son on the hand. “Kilby and Mace are suitable nicknames considering.”

“I have no idea why I’ve been brought into this. I don’t recall ever lamenting my given name,” Mace or Mason said, his voice gone shrill as he too tried to hide behind his glass. Unlike his mother there was no sparkle in his eyes.

“No, just your last name,” Doug said, his square jaw becoming even more square as his eyes raked his son with something that didn’t quite resemble displeasure .

“And there it is,” Mason replied, setting his glass down along with his napkin. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve been traveling for the better part of the last twenty-four hours and am not in the mood to air familial dirty laundry in front of…” he swept his hand casually to where I sat beside Hunter and I filled in the word I’d heard to describe me more than once: outsider.

I didn’t take offense, because, seriously, I was an outsider and he was right, plus he really did look exhausted, but the older Foxworth man did take offense. “That’s uncalled for, Mason.”

“No more uncalled for than starting old family business not ten minutes after I get back, and then we all wonder why I don’t come home more often.”

“Because you are ashamed of your family and where you come from.”

“I am not ashamed of my family, nor am I ashamed of where I come from. I would never have left in the first place if certain people in this family hadn’t made it their life’s mission to let me know how ashamed they are that I didn’t follow in his footsteps, as if only real men play football, and shoot anything that moves, and beds starlets for shits and giggles. So whatever, Doug, excuse me for living. I’ll be in my room.”

Mason stood up and for a brief moment his gaze locked with mine. I had to catch my breath at the sizzle of anger that I saw there. He didn’t wait for his father to reply. He walked away, leaving a pall over the table.

Beside me, Hunter busied himself with his meal. Harper sat across from him, glaring at her father who, like Hunter, also dined as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Maybe it wasn’t out of the ordinary. Mason certainly seemed to imply that much at least.

“Daddy, you know I love you,” Harper said, her voice filled with so much saccharine that my teeth ached. She’d been the last person I expected to applaud the asinine behavior of the man. My hero-worship was dwindling quickly. And these were the people my brother was marrying into? Made me wonder who my brother had become if this was his reaction to that kind of… “but you’re an asshole.”

Well, okay then. I sliced into my boneless fish fillet and dipped it in tartar sauce and sat back to watch the show.

Harper wasn’t finished and she didn’t let her father talk over her. “He’s right. Not ten damned minutes and you’re making passive aggressive remarks. I had to beg him to come to my wedding, my twin, whom I love more than any person in this room.” She glanced at my brother and winced. “Sorry, honey.”

“Not a problem,” Hunter said, tucking into his fish as well. I might have heard him chuckle under his breath.

“As I was saying. Daddy, you’re an asshole. Grow up and leave Mace alone. Or…” she got really quiet for a long moment as she caught her breath before racing on. “Or…I’ll ask you to leave.”

“Harper.” Her mother gasped out her name.

“No, Arden, It’s fine. Harper is right. I apologize,” Doug said, laying his napkin on his plate. “Seems I’ve lost my appetite. If you’ll excuse me.”

We sat silently while the elder Foxworth left the room through an opposite door than his son. The restaurant staff seemed confused as they bustled around the table, taking the abandoned plates and refilling wine and in my case, sweet tea. I had lost my appetite as well, but I had no idea where to go and well, my jackass brother was laughing or crying. I couldn’t tell which.

“I hope you’re happy young lady,” Arden Monroe practically growled at her daughter.

“Obviously not, considering the only thing I’ve ever dreamed of for my wedding day is to have my whole damned dysfunctional family under one roof and not sniping at each other. May as well have eloped and said fuck it all,” Harper lashed out at her mother.

“Harper.”

“Mother.” Neither woman would back down.

“Hey, Kilbourne, how about I show you around the hotel, and the lake. I bet you’d love to see the lake?” Hunter finally stopped laughing and came up for air just about the time I was wishing for a nice quiet day back in Iraq.

“I think that would be…nice…if it’s okay?”

“Don’t ask, just run,” Hunter whispered and we left our plates before the two women could launch the first assault.

I waited until we were outside on the back veranda to finally ask what I’d been thinking since I drove up. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Hunter?”

My step-brother was nothing like me. He wasn’t quiet, he wasn’t reserved and he wasn’t the type to just sit back and watch people go at each other’s throats. I didn’t give a shit. I’d lived the first half of my childhood in worse than what was going on inside and I chose to not engage when it wasn’t my business. This was his wedding. It was his business.

He walked down the brick path past the manicured gardens toward the crystalline shoreline I could see shimmering in the distance. His shoulders were hunched against the chill, or maybe from my question. I didn’t know.

“Harper is great,” he said when I finally caught up with him. “Her parents are nice people.”

“I didn’t get that impression, but okay, I’ll let you run with that.” I didn’t hunch against the breeze, but Hunter seemed to wrap around himself.

“As I was saying, they’re nice people, separately. I mean, I dearly love Arden. She’s great. And Doug…well, he reminds me of you actually, sometimes.”

“On those rare occasions I’ve chosen to emasculate my only son. I can see that.”

“Not his only son, Doug has kids with another woman. They’ll be here for the wedding. I haven’t met the kids yet, Harper says they’re still kids, but no, that’s not what I meant. I’ve never met Mason before either, but I’ve known there are…problems, I guess…between Mason and Doug. Probably because Doug really never had much interest in him when he was a kid and Arden’s third husband more or less raised him.”

“Not because the guy comes off as flaming gay or anything?” Maybe I was seeing it all wrong. Maybe I was imposing my own erroneous observations on the situation. Or maybe I didn’t like the idea that maybe, just maybe, Doug was a bigoted asshole that kept his son in the closet.

“He’s just like Harper. They’re both—from what I’ve been able to glean over the last couple of years—headstrong, independent, filthy rich, people who have daddy issues. Him more so than her. But Doug is, well, he’s exactly that, too. The apples didn’t fall far from either tree, so to speak, and that pisses him off that he can’t control Mason. Harper really did have to beg him to come once he found out Doug would be here. She’s not trying to force them on each other. She really does just want her family, and her family is Mason first, her mother second, and then her half-siblings. I’ve never been sure where Doug fits in. I don’t know, Kilby, it’s not how we grew up, but we didn’t have money either so what the hell do I know.”

We walked the path through the trees that led to the lake. There was a boat landing not that far down the shore, but there were no boats about. “This is a nice place.”

“That’s not what you really want to ask, so just ask it, so we have it all out there.” He sat down on a concrete bench and leaned over the table. I sat across from him.

He looked older than I remembered. Last time I saw him he’d been in his early twenties. His dad had just died of a heart attack. It was a tough time for all of us. He was twenty-seven now.

“Five years ago I would have. It’s not my place to ask now. Not after…” I shrugged. He could have come to me, but really I never invited him. After I came home, I just wanted to get back to work. I inherited the farm from my mother’s side of the family. Everything Hunter had known had been that farm and it was mine. Maybe I felt guilty about that, or maybe I was just as much of an asshole as Doug Foxworth.

“Interstate runs both ways, Kilby.” He shrugged back at me. “We’re good as far as I’m concerned. I think we were both in a bad place when you came home. I was angry at the world and I’d only lost my father. You lost a parent, a lover, and a career. I’ve tried to give you room.”

I sat across from him and stared out at the lake. “Maybe I didn’t need the room. Maybe I needed someone to kick my ass and make me stop feeling sorry for myself.”

I heard him laugh and turned to see him smiling at me. “Hey, don’t look at me, bro, I couldn’t kick your ass before you went off and joined the Marines. I was not going to even look funny in your direction when you came home. You were scary as fucking hell when I saw you the last time.”

“I take that as a compliment.” I leaned on the table and breathed in the scents. “I think.”

“You should. You were massive, still are massive. And the full sleeve tattoos…I really like those. Harper won’t let me get a tattoo.”

And that brought me back to my original concern. “Are you happy?” I watched his smile fade and reached for his hand. “No, I mean it, I just want to know that you’re happy and this is what you want to do with your life? Wife and this place? Is this what you want?”

He twisted his palm into mine. “Yeah, Kilby, this is what I want. Harper, she’s different. I mean, I didn’t know for a couple of years that she had money or came from famous parents. She worked with me up in Atlanta at the hotel, equal partners, learning the business…we have the same interests. She’s not just a pretty face. We just fit, you know.”

“And the money?” I asked the one question I shouldn’t have.

He sighed and closed his eyes. “We’re fifty-fifty in this place. We worked hard to get the loans. Yes, loans. We bought this the way normal people buy property. Together, based on paychecks and business experience. We both have the experience, we both have business degrees, and we both have leisure services backgrounds. And before you ask, yes, I signed a prenup…but so did she. If we split without children, we split what we bought together. We walk with what we had before.”

He was defensive and I felt guilty for putting him on the spot. “Children? Oh god, tell me this isn’t a shotgun wedding?” I tried to sound like I was kidding. I
was
kidding.

“No. Oh, fuck no. We’re not ready for that.” Hunter laughed, the tension was broken now. “But you’d make an awesome uncle.” He paused and looked back up the path to the house as the mood turned serious again. “She wants to figure out her childhood you know, and she wants to make sure her brother is okay. It’s strange that her brother figures into whether or not we have kids.”

“I’d worry more about the father. He seems a bit of a…”

Hunter bent my finger backward and growled. “I seem to remember a certain someone who plastered my future father-in-law’s face all over our bedroom. I’m thinking there was more than a bit of hero-worship on your part.”

I think I turned bright red and Hunter laughed even louder. “I told her you are gay, Kilby, a long time ago. That’s how the discussion about Mace came up. She thought all of her life that Mace was, but too afraid to come out because of their father and…well, they had three stepfathers and half the time they were raised by nannies so family is important to Harper because she feels that she never had a family, just Mace and a revolving door of people who didn’t give a shit about them, including their parents. So that’s where we are on kids. I don’t remember my mother and there was your dad always threatening in the background…so…we’ll get there one day.”