The Bourbon Kings #1 (43 page)

Power of attorney.

So even though his mother’s name was the only one on the deed, and she no doubt had no knowledge of the agreement, and wasn’t going to see a penny of the money, everything was nice and legal.

Damn it.

When the door on his side of the truck opened, he cursed and shot a glare at Lane—

Except his brother wasn’t the one who’d done the duty with the handle.

No, Lane was standing off to the side, under a magnolia tree.

Miss Aurora had lost weight, Edward thought numbly. Her face was the same, but far leaner than he remembered. Then again, that was true for the both of them.

He couldn’t meet those eyes of hers.

Just couldn’t.

He did look at her hands, though, her beautiful dark hands, which trembled as they reached for his face.

Closing his lids, his heart thundered as the contact was made. And he prepared himself for her to make some comment about how horrible he looked—or even say something in a tone of voice that told him exactly how mortified she was at what he had become.

She even took off the baseball cap.

He waited, bracing himself—

“Jesus has brought you home,” she said hoarsely as she cradled his face, and kissed him on the cheek. “Precious boy, He has returned you to us.”

Edward couldn’t breathe.

Precious boy … that was what she had always called him when he was little. Precious boy. Lane was her favorite, always had been, and Max she had tolerated because she’d had to, but Miss Aurora had called him, Edward, precious.

Because she was old-school and the firstborn-son thing did matter to her.

“I prayed for you,” she whispered. “I prayed for Him to bring you home to us. And my miracle has come finally.”

He wanted to say something strong. He wanted to push her way because it was just too much. He wanted …

Next thing he knew, he had leaned in to her and she had wrapped her arms around him.

Much later, when everything had changed and he was living a life he couldn’t have imagined on any level, he would come to recognize … that this moment, with his head in Miss Aurora’s hands, with her heart under
his ear, with her familiar voice soothing him and his brother watching from a discreet distance, was when he began to truly heal: For a brief instant, a split second, a single breath, his pilot light flicked on. The spark didn’t last long—the flare died when she finally stepped back a little.

But the ignition did, in fact, occur. And that changed everything.

“I prayed every night for you,” she said, brushing his shoulder. “I prayed and I asked for you to be saved.”

“I don’t believe in God, Miss Aurora.”

“Neither does your brother. But like I tell him, He loves you anyway.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Because what else could he say to that?

“Thank you.” She touched his head, his jaw. “I know you don’t want to see me—”

He took her hand. “No, it’s not that.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

The idea that she felt she was somehow a second-class citizen made him feel like he’d been shot in the chest. “I don’t … want to see anyone. I’m not who I once was.”

She tilted his face up. “Look at me, boy.”

He had to force himself to meet her dark stare. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You are perfect in God’s eyes. Do you understand me? And you are perfect in mine as well—no matter what you look like.”

“Miss Aurora … it’s not just my body that’s changed.”

“That is in your hands, boy. You can choose to sink or swim based on what happened. Are you going to drown? Pretty stupid now that you’re back on dry land.”

If anyone else had said that bullshit to him, he would have rolled his eyes and never thought about the statement again. But he knew her background. He knew more than even Lane knew about what her life had been like before she had started to work at Easterly.

She was a survivor.

And she was inviting him to join the club.

So this was why he hadn’t wanted to see her,
he thought. He hadn’t wanted this confrontation, this challenge that was clearly being offered to him.

“What if I can’t get there,” he found himself asking her in a voice that broke.

“You will.” She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “You’re going to have an angel watching over you.”

“I don’t believe in them, either.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Easing back, she stared at him for a long while, but not in a way that suggested she was taking note of how much older and thinner he looked.

“Are you okay?” he asked abruptly. “I heard you went to the—”

“I’m perfectly fine. Don’t you worry about me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“About what?” Before he could reply, she cut him off with her more typical, strident voice. “You don’t be sorry for taking care of yourself. I’ll always be with you, even when I’m not.”

She didn’t say good-bye. She just brushed his face one more time and then turned away. And it was funny. The image of her walking over to Lane and the pair of them talking together under the heavy dark green leaves of the magnolia tree was something that was going to also stick, as it turned out.

Just not for the reasons he thought.

T
he rain that was not forecasted started just after five p.m. As Lizzie folded up the last of the tables under the tent, she smelled the change in the air and looked out to the ivy on the brick wall of the garden. Sure enough, the trefoil leaves were dancing, their faces shining up to the grey sky.

“It isn’t supposed to rain,” she muttered to no one in particular.

“You know what they say about the weather around here,” one of the waiters retorted.

Yeah, yeah, she knew.

Where was Lane? she wondered. She hadn’t heard anything from him since she’d seen him by that truck, and that had been six hours ago.

Mr. Harris came up to her. “You’ll tell them that it’s all to go into the staging area?”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s where the rentals always go afterward—and before you ask, yes, silverware and glassware, too.”

As the man lingered next to her, she was tempted to tell him to grab hold of the table and help her hump it across the event deck. But it was pretty clear he wasn’t a hands-dirty sort of fellow.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, frowning.

“The police have arrived again. They are trying to be respectful of our event¸ but they wish to interview me anew.”

Lizzie lowered her voice. “Do you want me to take care of things out here?”

“I’m afraid they’re not going to let this be.”

“I’ll make sure it’s done right.”

The butler cleared his throat. And then, God love him, he gave her a bit of a bow. “It would be most appreciated. Thank you—I shan’t be long.”

She nodded and watched him go. Then she got back to work.

Jerking the table off the deck, she strode across the now-cavernous interior and proceeded out into the open air where a sprinkling of that rain dusted her head and shoulders. The staging tent was way off by the opposite side of the house, and Greta’s German accent emanated from it as twin streams of servers, one filing in with party debris, the other emerging with empty hands, moved with speed.

Lizzie waited along with the rest of them, inching her way closer and closer to the drop-off.

The larger of the two tents would be taken down in about twenty minutes—and the sweep-up crew was already working the floor, picking up crumpled napkins, errant forks, glasses.

Rich people were no different from any other herd of animals, capable of leaving a trail of detritus behind them after they abandoned a feeding station.

“Last table,” she said as she once again went under cover.

“Good.” Greta pointed to a stack. “It goes there,
ja
?”

“Yup.” Lizzie jerked the weight up to waist level and slid the length on top of the pile. “Mr. Harris has to take care of some business, so I’ll be manning clean up.”

“We have all in order.” Greta motioned for two young men with six crates of glasses apiece to the other corner. “Over there. Make sure under cover,
ja
?”

“I’m going to check in with the kitchen.”

“We’ll be finished out here in an hour.”

“Right on schedule.”

“Always.”

And Greta was right. At six o’clock on the dot, they were finished, the big tent down, the house and gardens cleared out of anything rented, the backyard reset sure as if it had had its Ctrl+Alt+Del hit. As usual, the effort had been tremendous: As the staff filed off, most of them were heading downtown to drink off the aches, pains, and OMGs of the day, but not Lizzie—or her partner. Home. They were both going home—where she would wait for Lane, and Greta would get treated to a meal cooked by her husband.

As the two of them walked down to the staff parking area together, they didn’t say a word, and at their cars, they shared a quick hug.

“Another in the can,” Lizzie said as they pulled apart.

“Now we get ready for the Little V.E. birthday party.”

Or Gin’s wedding reception,
Lizzie thought.

At least it wasn’t going to be Lane’s wedding anniversary.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she said.

“Sunday? No.” Greta laughed. “Not a soul will be stirring, not a martini nor a mouse.”

“Right, right, right. Sorry, my brain is fried. See you Monday.”

“You all right to drive home?”

“Yup.”

After a wave, Lizzie got in her Yaris and then joined the lineup of cars and trucks proceeding out the staff lane.

As she took a left on River Road, what had started as sprinkles turned into an actual rain, and the deluge made her think of the race—shoot, she’d missed it. Reaching for the radio, she turned the thing on and futzed with the dial to find the local station. By the time she found the recap, she was out of spaghetti junction and heading over the Ohio.

But she didn’t follow the reporting and not just because she didn’t follow the sport.

Frowning, she leaned into her steering wheel. “Dear God …”

Up ahead, the horizon was filled with tremendous black clouds, the
rolling thunderheads looming high in the sky. Worse? There was a green tinge to it all—and even to her untrained, naked eye, the stuff appeared to be rotating.

She checked over her shoulder. Behind her, there was nothing much going on weather-wise. There was even a stretch of blue sky.

Shoving her hand into her purse, she took out her phone and dialed Easterly. When that clipped English voice answered, she said, “Weather’s coming. You’re going to need—”

“Miss King?” the butler said.

“Look, you need to batten down the pool area and the pots—”

“But there is no ‘weather,’ as you called it, due. In fact, the weathermen have made it clear that a spot of rain is all we shall have this evening.”

As a flash of lightning licked its way across the underside of that cloud front, she thought, well, at least she’d gotten along with the man for almost an hour. “Screw the Weather Channel. I’m telling you what I’m looking at right now—there is a storm bigger than downtown Charlemont heading across the river, and Easterly’s hill is the first thing it’s going to run into.”

Crap, had she remembered to shut her windows at her farm?

“I was unaware of your skills as a meteorologist,” Mr. Harris said dryly.

You are a dick, sir.
“Fine, but then you can explain the following after it goes through: One, why the awning by the pool blew off. Two, why the four porch pots on the west side of the terrace have fallen over and need to be replanted. Three, where the lawn furniture ended up—because unless you make sure it’s in the pool house, it’s going to drag through the flower beds. Which brings me to number four—namely when the ivy, tea roses, and hydrangea will be fixed. Oh, and then you can follow all that up with writing the family a seven-thousand-dollar check to cover the new plant material that will be required.”

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock—

“What was the second … issue?” he said.

Tallyho, big guy.

Lizzie ran through the whole protocol, which was the result of her and Greta having worked with Gary McAdams for years storm-proofing the grounds in the spring and the fall. The thing was, it didn’t take an EF5 dropping directly in Easterly’s backyard to create a mess. Some of the generic storms were more than capable of doing a lot of damage if they had straightline winds.

It was one of the things she’d had to learn fast when she’d moved down to Charlemont—

As if on cue, she drove into a blistering wall of rain that hit the windshield so hard it sounded like a team of tap dancers rocking out to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Cranking up her wipers, she took her foot off the accelerator because the Yaris was capable of hydroplaning on the highway with even the slightest amount of water under its tiny tires.

“You got it?” she said. “Because I need to hang up and drive through this.”

“Yes, yes of course … oh, my God,” the man whispered.

“So you see the storm?”
Have fun with that,
she thought. “Better get moving.”

“Indeed. Quite.”