Page 2 of Whiskey Chase
I spared a glance in my father’s direction. I didn’t get when people said it looked like the dead were just sleeping. To me, the second Jonah Bodine’s spirit left his body, there was nothing lifelike about it. I’d had that exact thought four days ago when I found him dead in the bed that he and my mama had shared for twenty-two miserable years.
Of all us Bodines, I was the closest to Daddy. We worked together. Or, rather, I had taken over the family business from him when he couldn’t keep himself sober enough to finish a job. I’d learned to drive at twelve. That summer, Mama had started sending me to work with Daddy to make sure he wasn’t drinking on the job. He was. And I learned to drive stick sitting on a stack of folded-up quilts.
And now he was gone. And I didn’t know how in the hell I felt about that.
“Bonfire still on tonight, Scar?” Gibson was looking at me like he knew I wasn’t entirely in the “ding dong the drunk is dead” camp.
“Yeah, it’s still on.”
My little cottage with its swatch of lakefront beach was the perfect place to ring in the weekends, and we did so with bonfires, floats, and impromptu concerts—Bootleg had its share of musical talent.
While tonight would be just another party to my brothers, it would be my own private send-off to the father I’d loved despite everything.
“So, Bowie,” I said, eyeing him up. He had our mama’s gray eyes like me and daddy’s dark, dark hair. “Was it just my imagination, or were you trying to inhale Cassidy Tucker? How many other neighbors did y’all sniff in the receiving line?”
He clenched his jaw, which only served to highlight the sharp Bodine cheekbones. “Shut up, Scarlett.”
I grinned, my first real smile of the day. “Only pickin’,” I promised.
Bowie had never admitted it, but the man was carrying a torch. As far as I knew, he’d never done a damn thing about it. Me, on the other hand, if there was a guy I liked? I let him know. Life was short, and orgasms were great.
2
Devlin
The house smelled like sugar cookies and dust. My grandmother had been in Europe for a few weeks, enjoying a spring holiday with her partner, Estelle. When they heard about the trouble I was in, the shambles my life was in, they offered up their comfortable lakefront home in some tiny no-one’s-ever-heard-of-it-town in West Virginia.
I’d never been here. Not with a life in Annapolis. Gran came to us for holidays and events. We were the busy ones, she’d insist, though we all knew the real reason. My mother—her daughter—would throw a passive-aggressive fit about venturing into the backwoods for any amount of time.
However, this backwoods was currently my only option. I’d fucked upandbeen fucked over. I was banished, temporarily. And now, I wanted to do nothing but sit here with my eyes closed and will away the past few months.
Including the moment when I broke Hayden Ralston’s nose.
Violence was never the answer as my father had so helpfully pointed out. But the dark pleasure I’d felt from the crunch of that asshole’s cartilage suggested otherwise. It was out of character for me, a man who’d been groomed for public approval from preschool.
I stared out into the night through the deck doors. I’d opened them in hopes of freshening the stale air inside, but all I’d done was invite the pounding music from next door into my solitude. Some upbeat country singer was infringing on my angst, and I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t come here to be subjected to what sounded like a spring break hoedown. I came here to wallow.
With a sigh, I shoved my way out of Gran’s plaid wingback and stalked to the door. The sliding screen door protested when I shoved it open. Another item to add to my fix-it list. If Gran and Estelle were nice enough to harbor a broken man, then I was nice enough to help patch up a few things that could be fixed. Myself included.
The smell of campfire bled onto the lot through the woods when I stepped out onto the deck. If one hard-partying redneck stepped the toe of a cowboy boot over the property line, I’d scare the shit out of him and his friends with a trespassing charge.
I followed sounds now foreign to my ears through the woods. Laughter, hoots of delight. Fun. Inclusion. Belonging. I didn’t know what any of those things felt like anymore. I was an outsider looking in, both from my old life and here at this rustic juncture. This limbo of before and after.
The path between the properties was well-worn, but by human or animal feet I wasn’t sure. When I broke through the woods, it was like crossing the border into another universe. Revelry. Couples slow-danced and laughed under the stars in the front yard. A dozen others crowded around the bonfire that snapped and crackled, sending up plumes of blue smoke into the night sky. The roll of the land was gradual down to the shimmering lake waters. The house—a cabin really—reminded me of a dollhouse. Tiny and pretty.
The music changed to a country anthem that even I’d heard before, and the crowd reacted as if they all just won the lottery. Someone cranked the volume even higher, and I remembered why I was there.
“Whose house is this?” I asked a gyrating couple on the impromptu dance floor.
“Scarlett’s,” the woman answered with a twang so thick I almost didn’t make out the word.
Of courseher name was Scarlett.
“She’s over yonder on the pick-up.” Twangy’s man-friend jerked his bearded chin in the direction of a red pick-up truck backed up to the fire. A cheering crowd surrounded its tailgate.
The couple went back to swaying back and forth, forehead to forehead. I stalked across the grass in the direction of the ruckus.Ruckus?It appeared that the backcountry was already rubbing off on me.
I weaved my way “yonder” through the crowd to the rear fender of the truck and stopped cold. She had her back to me, facing the crowd. She wore a short denim skirt, a plaid shirt that was knotted at the waist, and cowboy boots. The legs connecting the boots and skirt were leanly muscled. She had long brown hair that hung down her back in waves. She was tiny, but the curve of her hips was anything but subtle. She looked like every man’s girl-next-door fantasy, and I hadn’t even seen her face yet.
