“I know what you’re thinking.” Cletus shook his head slowly.
“I guarantee, you don’t.” Billy’s response was gruff and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
“No. I do. And you’re wrong.”
Billy’s throat worked as he swallowed, his glare piercing and hot. “It’s none of your business, Cletus.”
“Well, you’re right about that. It’s none of my business. It’s your business. But you’re still wrong. You can’t win a woman with brute force, or wishing, or begging—not that you were planning on begging.”
Billy’s eyes flashed and he ground his teeth, the muscle at his jaw and temple jumping.
“You can’t wear her down.” Cletus softened his words, like he was softening a blow.
I realized with some surprise that our immediate tablemates had turned their attention away; Roscoe, Jessica, and Duane had their heads together, and I heard Duane mention Italy. Beau was studiously picking through his rib dinner. Everyone else was too far away to hear Cletus and Billy’s conversation. The restaurant noise from the first floor masked their exchange.
I took a page from Beau’s book and redirected my eyes to my plate.
“Then what do you suggest?” Billy sounded confrontational, his low voice laced with frustration. “What would you do?”
“Lay it all out. Tell her everything.”
Billy’s gaze focused on where Claire had disappeared. Then, unexpectedly, his eyes moved to me. I saw him in my peripheral vision and I felt his glare. I held very still.
“Would you, Cletus?” Billy asked, his attention drifted back to his brother. “Would you lay it all out? Tell her everything?”
Cletus was quiet a moment before saying, “When you’re certain, when it’s the heart and mind you’re after, then you lay it all out. But if it’s empty, just physical, then there’s nothing to say.”
CHAPTER 17
“Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.”
John Steinbeck
~Cletus~
“Okay, now that it’s just us three, I want to know.” Jessica turned in her seat and lifted her eyebrows at me. It was keen eyebrow lift, so I knew the next words out of her mouth were going to be a question. “What’s going on with Jennifer Sylvester and Billy? Or is she with Beau? Or what’s going on?”
I met Duane’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He was driving my new car back from Nashville. Jess sat next to him on the bench seat, and I was in the back being chauffeured. The others, including the lady in question, had already departed for Green Valley on Sienna’s plane.
Duane was—by far—the best driver in the family. I suspected he was the best driver in Tennessee. Whenever I needed a fast four-wheeled escape, he was my guy. Which meant when he left for Italy and other grand capering, I would be without a getaway driver.
A depressing thought.
Duane cleared his throat, shifted a bit in his seat, but said nothing. He quickly returned his attention to the road.
He was no help.
Or, perhaps he was also curious.
“Come on, Cletus.” Jessica reached over the seat and pushed my knee with her fingertips. “Am I going to have to guess? Don’t make me guess.”
“She’s not attached to either Billy or Beau.”
“Are you sure?” Jessica pushed. “Because Beau and she seemed mighty friendly.”
I moved my attention to the window at my side rather than allow Jessica to see my displeasure at this news. Truth was, I’d been preoccupied by thoughts of Jennifer for weeks.
I was . . . attracted to her.
Physically.
A lot.
Her image haunted both my day and night dreams. Most were of the dirty variety, because the woman’s body drove me to distraction. But some fantasies were just flashes of us being together, talking and touching. Always touching.
I’d been fixating on her since our last lesson. Matters weren’t helped by her unexpected delivery of the most delicious muffins ever conceived in the history of muffins.
“Beau is friendly with everybody.” I forced calm into my voice and schooled my expression before turning back to Jess.
“Then what was she doing here today? And the other day at the house?”
“She’s a family friend.”
The woman definitely had an effect on me. Her voodoo had me doing and saying things without premeditated forethought. We had conversations. We spoke of events and our lives. I was sharing things about myself without conducting a mental chess game or deliberating how to best leverage information she communicated for my benefit.
I wanted to be with her, spend time in her company for the sake of her company—a sentiment that was both novel and entirely unwelcome.
Jessica’s eyes narrowed on me. “Since when?”
“Our grandfathers were friendly. So, I suppose she’s been a family friend since Don Donner and Grandfather Oliver first met.”
Jess huffed impatiently and smacked my knee. “You’re being evasive, Cletus. And when you’re being evasive, it means you don’t want to talk about something. And when you don’t want to talk about something, it usually means that something is really interesting.”
I nodded somberly. “What a fascinating theory.”
Jessica eyeballed me for a stretch and I met her meddlesome glare with an easy one of my own.
But then Duane—the turncoat—said, “I think Cletus is helping Jennifer.”
“Duane.” I suffused my tone with warning and shook my head.
He refused to meet my eye in the mirror, instead subtlely smirking and adding, “Billy took her out a few weeks ago, a practice date or something. She’s never had a boyfriend, I don’t think. You’ve seen how her parents have her locked up like Rapunzel. My guess is Cletus is helping her figure shit out, so she can break out from under her parents’ crazy.”
I gaped at the back of my brother’s head. “Well hello, Garrison Gossip.”
He shrugged. “We’ll be in Italy next month, Cletus. Who are we going to tell? Besides, maybe Jess can help.”
“I want to help!” Jessica bounced in her seat, giving me a giant, pleading smile. “Oh please, let me help. I’ve always thought she was so cute and sweet. It’s a shame her momma dresses her like a banana. But she’s, what? Twenty-three now?”
“Twenty-two,” I corrected.
“Twenty-two is too long to live under the thumb of her parents. It’s about time she broke free. I could teach her so much. Please, Cletus? Please?” Jessica folded her fingers under her chin and flapped her eyelashes at me.
I frowned at Jessica and her unexpected offer. I didn’t like unexpected offers as a rule, but Jessica was good people. And she definitely had a backbone.
“I’m not saying yes,” I held up a cautionary finger between us, “but, if I did, what would you teach her first?”
Jessica’s eyes moved up and to the right, as though she was retrieving information stored in some secret woman-center of her brain.
Meanwhile, I was thinking on my hike with Jennifer down to the Yuchi stream. Telling her about my half-brother hadn’t been planned. It just . . . happened. Her father’s affair, his disregard for his marriage vows, reminded me of my own adulterous father.
The two men were a pair of assholes.
“Don’t freak out,” Jessica ordered, finally bringing her gaze back to mine.
“Why would I freak out?”
“Because, honestly, the first thing I would do is get that woman a vibrator.”
The car descended into a stunned silence. At least, I was stunned and I was pretty sure Duane was stunned. But then Duane barked a laugh. Jessica didn’t laugh. She smiled hopefully. I didn’t laugh. I was plagued with sudden and vivid images of Jennifer pleasuring herself.
This suggestion was almost as bad as Claire’s heartfelt appeal earlier in the evening—that Jennifer should seek love rather than experience—as well as the visuals that conversation conjured.
Dammit.
“Just hear me out.” Jess waved her hands between us, as though telling me to simmer down. “When I was a teenager and didn’t know what the hell I wanted, looking back I wish someone had given me a vibrator.”
“I would have given you more than that,” Duane mumbled.
“Oh good Lord,” I said on a breath, rolling my eyes.
Jess slid her attention to Duane, her grin growing sly, then brought it back to me. “I’m serious. Girls don’t know what’s up. My momma never talked to me about it, so I guarantee Diane Sylvester hasn’t said a word to Jennifer either. That girl was homeschooled, so she likely knows even less. And, her daddy checks the search history on her phone and laptop all the time. He used to brag about it to us teachers. I’m convinced that man is a sociopath. The Sylvesters make my parents look progressive.”
I didn’t find this news surprising. The main difference between my father and Kip Sylvester was that Darrell never pretended to be a pious saint. Jenn’s father, however, spread his holier-than-thou manure all over the place. My momma once told me—with the fire and ire—that Kip often misquoted the Bible to keep his kids under control.