Page 23 of Whiskey Chase
“Nice place,” he ventured as he looked into the night through the deck doors in the living room.
“It’s my grandmother’s. She’s traveling.”
“And you’re the house-sitter?” He dropped his duffle bag on the floor.
“I’m the grandson going through a rough patch who needed a place to stay.”
Jonah nodded, no judgment in his gaze. “Looks like you picked a good place to ride out the rough.”
“You ever been here before?” I asked.
Jonah shook his head and returned to the kitchen, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “No. Never had a reason to when Jonah was alive.”
“Bad guy?” I asked. Scarlett had yet to talk much about her father, but I could tell her memories of him were softer, warmer, than Jonah’s.
“He was no hero to me,” Jonah admitted.
Since we were here, I opened the fridge and pulled two beers out of the six-pack Estelle had thoughtfully left for me. I slid one across the counter to him.
He twisted the top and crossed the kitchen to study a picture on Gran’s bulletin board. “This your grandmother?” he asked.
It was Gran and Estelle wrapped in a cheerful embrace at the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado.
“My grandmother and her lesbian life partner.” He’d seemed touchy on the subject of his mother, and I was the same when it came to Gran. I dared him to say something about West Virginia and a bi-racial lesbian couple.
“Cool,” he said, returning to the island where he slid onto one of the flower padded barstools.
“So, what are you hoping to get out of this visit?” I asked him.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Honestly? I have no idea. The Jonah Bodine I knew had no interest in me and vice versa. His kids? My siblings?” He sounded like he was rolling the word around in his mouth, trying it out. “That’s a different story.”
“Family,” I murmured.
“Drink to that,” Jonah agreed, raising his bottle. We drank in silence for a few minutes.
“So, Scarlett?” Jonah finally said, letting the question hang in the air.
“What about her?” I could feel my hackles rising.
“I noticed you’re pretty protective of her,” he grinned, looking pointedly at my white knuckled grip on the neck of my beer.
I relaxed my hands and slouched against the counter. “She’s something,” I said. “Unlike any woman I’ve ever met before.”
“Are you… together?” Jonah asked.
I thought about the kiss in the water. Her soul-stealing mouth moving against mine and how I’d been seconds away from doing something really stupid. She made me feel… alive. Intensely alive.
“She just lives next door,” I said carefully.
“Hmm,” Jonah said, not believing me.
“Does your mother know you’re here?” I asked, the lawyer in me waking from his long hibernation. Redirect, go on the offensive, keep them off-balance.
“She does not,” he said staring intently at the label on his bottle. “Yet.”
* * *
We madethe morning trek to Scarlett’s little cottage and knocked on her front door. It was even more like a dollhouse up close, I realized. Her postage stamp screened-in porch housed one porch swing and a small round table with two chairs. Her front door was painted navy blue.
