His eyes flared, a triumphant grin lighting up his entire face. “Ah, she did tell me if you said that, I could tell you.”
My eyes grew wider than fucking crop circles. “She left you with a fucking magic password?”
He nodded, pride growing like he’d actually won, and held up three fingers. “Three of them.”
“Christ.” I shook my head. “Where did she go? Dawn is our special time a’day, and this morning… Well, I’ve got somethin’ to ask her.”
A silly smile bubbled out of him before he pointed out the front door. “She’s just across the street. Came down here cryin’, and my wife loves a new face to chat with, so she brought her home to our house last night for homemade blueberry pie and sweet tea.”
I tilted my head, squinting across the road to the neighborhood of tiny houses he pointed to. “She’s been at your house this entire time?”
He nodded proudly.
“Fuck, well, all right then. Thanks for helping her, I guess.”
“You want to see her?” he asked.
“Uh…” I wasn’t really sure what sorta territory I was in now. “I would.”
He nodded. “My wife is probably already up. She starts her days early, likes to have hot cakes and fresh syrup waitin’ for me when I get off the night shift.”
“She sounds sweet.” I indulged him.
“She is.” He walked around the desk, gesturing me toward the door. “She wasn’t always, but me either. We hung in together, though. Grew up alongside one another. Did my best to hold her in the dark times, and there were a lot of them. Lost our first son to tuberculosis when he was just a baby.”
His admission rocked me, a wave of emotion pushing at my eyelids. “Sorry to hear that.”
“But life goes on. Best you can hope for is someone easy to talk to, to share the days with.” He patted me on the shoulder as he pushed open the door, pointing me across the street. “Little yellow house on the corner. Just walk on in, I’m sure she’s expectin’ ya.”
And in that moment, it felt like I’d overcome a mountain of shame to get here, thankful for the old man watchin’ out for my girl, honored he’d opened up even a little to me, a fucked-up roadie musician who couldn’t even be tall enough to stand for his woman when she needed him most.
I sucked in a cool breath of morning air, nodding at him once before walking off across the parking lot and to the little yellow house on the corner that held my future.
I was finally gonna be strong enough to stand up for it.
And finally, without the whiskey, a soothing tingle ran through my blood.
I was gonna get my whiskey girl.
TWENTY-FOUR
Fallon
“Do you think I have a single word to say to you, Fallon Gentry?” Augusta Belle stood in the doorway of the little yellow house on a corner in Jackson, Mississippi, hands on her hips and directing all that anger at me.
I sobered up real quick in that instant. “The fact that you didn’t take my truck and head home to leave me to fend for myself down here makes me think you might.”
Her little fist clutched at the door, polka-dot shorts and tank top doing nothing to intimidate me like she probably wanted. “Woulda taken off in a second, but that woulda been grand theft auto, and I just don’t have time for that.”
I swallowed the bark of laughter, knowing she’d lay into me real good if I mocked her now.
I pushed aside the urge to haul her into my arms and hug her so damn tight my chest ached, but I’d have to smooth this one over first.
And I had a helluva lot of smoothing to do.
“Old guy across the street said something ’bout hot cakes and sweet tea.” I stepped a tad closer, itching to run my fingers along the inside of her arm, feel her shiver underneath me, her lips quivering against mine.
It’d only been a few hours, and I missed her like it’d been the better part of a lifetime.
