It was barely sunrise when I woke up with my dick still in my hand, in that same chair I got to watch her from. She was sprawled out on her bed, looking like a fucking fantasy. It took everything I had not to get into bed with her, but she had boundaries the night before, and I wasn’t going to push them. I decided to take a beat, go back to the B&B, and have a shower. I have no plans of leaving Rumor, but the stakes keep rising. Between the family who hired me, the homicide detective who’s conveniently staying at the same bed-and-breakfast as me, and now knowing that the dead guy in the bar, Stan Billings, was law enforcement, I need to navigate this carefully. Then there’s the connection that my dad had to this place that seems to have been far more than just too-frequent cleanups.
I’ve been sitting out here, on the porch, making assumptions and plans for most of the morning. That is, before I decided to pull out my phone and make a call. And while the asshole on the other end of the line grated on me sometimes, I still appreciated the quietness of where I am. I always thought I’d end up in a city, owning a gallery. I’d keep my beachside spot in Oregon, but my plans were more conducive to city living. Now that I’m here, I realize I would hate that.
“Rhodes, this is a simple request. You owe me, not the other way around. I have no plans on making any pieces for your installation or collection. I’m merely asking if you have the tanzanite and emerald from the last auction in Antwerp.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Julian, I outbid you specifically because I didn’t want you to have them. Why would I sell them? The whole point is to make sure you can’t do anything with those stones unless it’s for me.”
“You’re in the diamond capital of the world and you dropped more money on other stones that weren’t diamonds, just to outbid me,” I say, putting him on speaker so I can swipe to my texts.
“Fine. Favor for a favor,” he says, trying to negotiate.
“You already owe me. That’s not how payment works. I’ve got something going on here, and I want those stones.”
“I don’t get what I want, you don’t get what you want. Seems fair in my book,” he says as car horns ring out in the background behind him.
“Such a dick,” I breathe out with a laugh.
“Foxx tells me you’re in my neck of the woods,” he says, shifting topic. Rhodes is exceptional at sniffing out details and twisting them to suit whatever’s keeping him entertained. “I’m going to head up to him. Maybe you can convince me over something expensive in his bourbon vault.”
I stretch out my legs, crossing my boots at the ankle, and look out at the overgrown field at the front of The Rackhouse B&B. While Tommy could do with some landscaping, the long grass and wildflowers give this place an untouched feel. My friend on the other line would be anxious at the thought of a spot like this one.
“I’m in a small town about an hour or so south of where you are. Thinking about sticking around here, opening up a workspace, see if it’ll be the change I’ve been needing.”
“Who is she?” he asks almost rhetorically, and then mumbles, “Better yet, how long?”
“None of your business,” I clip back. “And fuck off.” Humor lingers in my response.
Letting out a long sigh first, he says, “You know what? Let’s plan on that drink up in Fiasco when you get bored, and I’ll consider what it is I want for the stones.”
“The cleaning business is wrapped, Rhodes, so your payment comes in cash or other jewelry.”
He lets out a defeated grunt. “You’re a man of many talents, Julian. I’m sure we can figure something out.”
But before I can respond, he hangs up on me just as Tommy comes through the front porch door. “Your last name is Colton, right?”
“It is,” I answer as I watch him walk down the stairs and toward the big barn about a hundred feet from here.
“Any chance you’re related to a Sam Colton?” he asks.
My stomach bottoms out at hearing my father’s name. I clear my throat as I nod. “My dad’s name is,” I correct, “wasSam.”
He stops walking and nods with a tight-lipped smile. “Had a feeling.” Tilting his head toward the large barn, he says, “C’mon, got something you might want to see.”
For a man who’s supposed to be nameless and faceless on these jobs, there are quite a few people in this town who knew him. I walk along the cement walkway lined with river rock on each side, connecting the barn to the driveway. The barn’s exterior is white, just like the main house. And whiskey barrels flank the sliding main door. When I follow Tommy inside, it’s sectioned off into workspaces instead of stalls for animals.
Most of it is Tommy’s tools and equipment—a variety of carpentry and things I recognize as part of the distilling process. Some larger pieces of furniture that are in the middle of being fixed or refinished are spread out, but farther down, there are canvases and paints, drop cloths and brushes. The massive fans above move slowly but whirl cooler air around the space, negating the fact that it’s still hot as hell in the late afternoon.
“I didn’t put it together until Jo started moving things out of her workspace.” He glances up at the stacks of canvases. “She made such a big deal about you being an artist at dinner the other night, but I didn’t connect it at first.” Rummaging through a junk drawer, he pulls out a pouch filled with keys. He moves past me after finding what he was looking for and back toward the counter that lines the entirety of the wall. “I have a feelingsome of this might belong to him,” he says as he unlocks a black-and-silver tool cabinet.
I stop mid-step and swallow roughly.That can’t be right.Between hearing about my father at Moonie’s and now this? I’ve got more questions than I know what to do with. It feels like I’m unearthing an entire life he had that I never knew existed.
When he opens the bottom drawer, there’s a few large items—jeweler’s saws, a small tank of oxygen, and a lathe.
I sniff out a clipped laugh, not expecting to see any of that. For anyone just looking through, they might see randomness or junk, but the lathe would typically be used for watchmaking—a hobby my father said he was never good at but tried anyway. I tilt my head below the bench and see a propane tank. If it’s combined with the oxygen, they'll power torches and control the high temperatures for shaping metals.
Tommy pulls open the drawers above, and they’re stacked with files and hammers. Pliers are meticulously lined in the top drawer, but it’s when he opens the lid that I know exactly who all of this belongs to.
“Stayed here when he came into town,” Tommy says with a thoughtful expression. “He kept to himself, mostly, but I liked him. Salt of the earth kind of guy.” Tommy claps his hand on my shoulder as he walks away. “Take what you’d like from here, use it, whatever you’d like to do. I’m sure he’d want you to have everything.”
