The Bourbon Kings #1 (51 page)

He was pretty sure she gasped.

Smiling up at her, he said, “Pretty, aren’t I. But believe it or not, I’m fully functional. Well, Viagra helps. Be a darling, would you, and bring me some alcohol—I think I’m detoxing and that’s why I’m shaking like this.”

“Do you …” She cleared her throat. “Do you n-n-need a doctor?”

“No, just some Jim Beam. Or Jack Daniel’s.”

As she simply stared at him, he pointed through the open door behind her. “I’m serious. What I need is alcohol. If you want to save me, get me some. Now.”

W
hen Shelby Landis backed out of that bathroom and shut the door, she fully intended to get Edward what he’d asked for.

After all, she had a lot of experience with alcoholics—and even though she didn’t approve of any of it, she’d brought her pops his booze a thousand times, and usually in the morning, too.

At least that was her plan. In reality, however, she couldn’t seem to move, to think … even to breathe.

She had not been prepared for the sight of that man in there, his dark head bowed as if he were ashamed of his too-thin, mangled body, his man’s pride as shredded and unhealed as his flesh. He had once been a great force; her father had told her the stories of his dominance in business, on the track, in society. Heck, she had heard about the Bradfords since she was young: Her father had refused to drink anything but their No. 15—and so had most of the horse people she knew.

Putting her hands to her face, she whispered, “What did you do to me, Pops?”

Why had he sent her here?

Why …

“Shelby?” came the demand from inside the bathroom.

God, it was just like her father: The way Edward said her name with that hint of desperation … it was exactly the way her Pops had when he’d needed the drink bad.

Closing her eyes, she cursed out her breath. Then felt guilty. “Forgive me, Lord. I know not what I say.”

Looking across the space, she found a lineup of full liquor bottles in front of one of the shelves of silver trophies, and the idea of delivering that poision to him made her want to be sick. But he would just come out here himself—and probably fall and hit his head on the way. And then where would they be? Plus, she knew the way things worked. That terrible
trembling wasn’t going to stop until the beast inside was fed what it needed, and his body looked so frail to begin with.

“Coming,” she called out. “What kind do y’all want?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Blindly heading for bottles, she picked up some gin and went back to the closed door of the bathroom. She didn’t bother to knock, just walked right in.

“Here.” She cranked the top off. “Drink from it.”

Except with the way his hands were trembling, there was no way he could handle the bottle himself without spilling it everywhere.

“Let me hold it for you,” she muttered.

There was a moment of hesitation from him, and then he lifted his mouth like a newborn foal who had been left by its mother.

He took two or three deep swallows. And another. “Now, that’s warm.”

Putting the gin by the side of the tub so he could reach it if he wanted, she took a full-sized bath towel and submerged it in the water behind him. When it was soaked and dripping, she draped it over the protruding ridge of his spine and the strips of his ribs. Then she went to work on his head with a washcloth, getting his hair wet, slicking it back.

Without him asking, she brought the gin bottle up again and he took from it, nursing from the open mouth.

Washing him with the soap and the shampoo reminded her of caring for an animal not long rescued. He was flinchy. Mistrusting.

Half dead.

“You need to eat,” she said in a voice that cracked.

I don’t have this in me, Lord. I can’t do this again.

She hadn’t managed to save that miscreant alcoholic father of hers. Losing two men in one lifetime seemed more than enough failure to go around.

“I’m going to make you breakfast after this, Edward.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yes,” she said roughly. “I know.”

“S
o are we doing this again?”

At the sound of the male voice, Lizzie stopped in the process of transferring yet another
Hedera helix
spine into a fresh pot. Closing her eyes, she took a breath and ordered her hands not to shake or drop anything.

She had been waiting for Lane to come and find her. It hadn’t taken long.

“Well?” he said. “Are we back at this thing where you hear something you don’t like and shut me out? Because if that’s the script we’re running here, and it sure as hell looks like we are, I guess I should just hop back on a plane to New York and call it quits now. So much more efficient and I don’t have to run up a phone bill leaving messages on your voice mail.”

Forcing her hands to keep going, she put the root system into the hole she’d dug in the pot and began to transfer fresh soil in to fill things up.

“Something I didn’t want to hear,” she repeated. “Yes, you could say that finding out your wife is pregnant—again—is a news flash I would
have preferred not to hear. Particularly because I learned about it right after I’d had sex with you myself. And then there was the happy news that you were being arrested for putting her in the hospital.”

When he didn’t say anything after that, she glanced over at him. He was standing just inside the greenhouse, by the workstation Greta would have been at had Lizzie not told the woman that she needed some time by herself.

“Do you honestly think I’m capable of something like that?” he asked in a low voice.

“It’s not up to me to decide anything of the sort.” She refocused on what she was doing and hated the words she spoke. “But the one thing I will say is that the best clue to future behavior is the way someone has conducted themselves in the past. And I can’t … I can’t do this with you anymore. Whether or not any of it is true isn’t the issue for me.”

After patting down the new soil, she reached for her watering can and tilted the thing over the ivy’s feet. In another three months, the plant would be ready to move outdoors to one of the beds, or to the base of a wall, or to a pot on the terrace. They had great luck with this variant on the estate, but it was only good planning to have backups.

Wiping her hands off on the front of her potting apron, she turned to face him. “I’m leaving. I gave my notice. So you don’t have to worry about going back to New York.”

She had no trouble meeting his eyes. Looking him in the face. Squaring off at him.

It was amazing how clear you could become with others when you knew where you stood yourself.

“You really think I could do that to a woman,” he repeated.

Of course I don’t,
she thought to herself. But she stayed silent because she knew that if she really wanted him to leave her alone, the insinuation would hurt his male pride and that, sadly, would work in her favor.

“Lizzie, answer the quesiton.”

“It’s not any of my business. It just isn’t.”

After a long moment, he nodded. “Okay. Fair enough.”

As he pivoted and went for the door, she had to admit she was a little
surprised. She’d expected some long, drawn-out thing from him. A torrent of persuasion she was going to have to deflect. Some kind of
I love you, Lizzie. I really do love you.

“I wish you well, Lizzie,” he said. “Take care.”

And that … was that.

The door eased shut of its own volition. And for a split second, she had an absolutely absurd impulse to go after him and yell in his face that he was a colossal fucking asshole to have seduced her like he had, that he was a reprobate, that he was exactly who she feared he was, a user of women, a lying, cheating elitist sadist who wouldn’t know—

Lizzie forcibly pulled herself back from the brink.

If that good-bye was anything to go by, whether she was in or out of his life didn’t seem to matter to him in the slightest.

Good to know,
she thought bitterly.
Good to know.

H
ere was the thing, Lane thought as he got behind the wheel of his 911. There were times in life when, as much as you wanted to fight for something, you just had to let it go.

You didn’t have to like the failure.

You didn’t have to feel really fucking great about the way things turned out.

And you certainly didn’t walk away from the shit scot-free, without being seriously damaged by the loss, crippled even.

But you needed to let that stuff go, because expending the energy wasn’t going to get you anywhere, and you might as well get on with getting used to the loss.

It was the one lesson his relationship with his father had taught him. Would he have loved having a male figure he could look up to, make proud, feel respected by? Hell, yeah. Would it have been awesome to not grow up in a house where the sound of loafers on marble flooring or the whiff of cigarette smoke didn’t make him run for cover? Duh. Could he have used some fatherly advice, especially at a time like this?

Yeah. He really could have.

That wasn’t the way things had worked out for him, however—and he had had to get used to it or go insane negotiating with a failure he was never going to be able to change or improve.

By the same token, if Lizzie King truly believed there was even a possibility, however slight, that he could have taken his hand to a woman like that? That he could have lied to her face about Chantal? That whatever baby the woman was carrying was actually his? Then there was no hope for the two of them. No matter what he said to her or how he tried to explain things … she didn’t really know him, and more to the point, she didn’t really trust him.

The fact that it was all bullshit? The fact that Chantal had cheated him, once again, of the woman he loved?

Tough breaks.

Whaaa-whaaaa-whaaaa.

Go ask Santa for a new father. Get the tooth fairy to bring you a new ex-wife.

Whatever.

Leaving Easterly in the dust, he hopped on the highway and doubled the speed limit on his way to the Charlemont International Airport—not because he was in a hurry or going to be late, but because, what the hell. The car could handle it—and at the moment, he actually was sober at the controls.

The entrance for private arrivals and departures was the first exit off the concourse that circled the enormous facility, and he shot onto a narrow lane that led to a separate terminal. Parking right in front of the double doors, he got out, leaving the engine on.

Jeff Stern was just walking into the luxurious space, and even though it had been mere days, it seemed like a century since Lane had played that poker game and become annoyed by that bimbo—and gotten to his feet to go answer his phone.

Unsurprisingly, his old roommate was dressed like the Wall Street man he was, with his structural glasses, and his dark suit, and his crisp white shirt. He even had a red power tie on.

“You could have worn shorts,” Lane said as they clapped hands.

“I’m coming from the office, asshole.”

That accent, at once foreign and familiar, was exactly what he needed to hear right now.

“God, you look like hell,” Jeff said as his luggage arrived on a cart. “Family life clearly doesn’t agree with you.”

“Not mine at any rate. Tell me, is your plane still here?”

“Not for long. It’s refueling. Why?” When Lane just looked out at the runways, his friend cursed. “No. No, no, no, you did
not
drag me down here south of the Mason-Dixon just to cry wolf and want to go back to Manhattan. Seriously, Lane.”

For a moment, Lane stood with one foot on each side of the divide: Stay, just to screw his father to the wall on multiple levels; leave, because he was sick and tired of the bullshit.

Guess he and Lizzie had something in common after all.

They both wanted away from him.

“Lane?”

“Let’s go,” he said, tipping the redcap and picking up his old roommate’s two leather suitcases. “When was the last time you were at Easterly?”

“Derby, a million years ago.”

“Nothing has changed.”

Outside, he popped the hood of the Porsche and put the luggage in; then he and Jeff were off, speeding around the airport, shooting out onto the highway.

“So, am I going to meet this woman of yours, Baldwine?”

“Probably not. She’s quitting.”

“Well, that de-escalated quickly. I’m very sorry.”

“Don’t pretend you haven’t seen the news.”

“Yeah, it’s everywhere. I think you are personally responsible for resurrecting the printed newspaper. Congratulations.”

Lane cursed and sped around a semi. “Not an award I was looking for, I assure you.”

“Wait, quitting? You mean she works for your family? Is this a Sabrina thing, old man?”

“Lizzie’s the head horticulturist at the estate. Or was.”

“Not just the gardener, huh. Makes sense. You hate stupid women.”

Lane glanced over. “No offense, but can we talk about something else? Like maybe how my family is losing all its money? I need to be cheered up.”

Jeff shook his head. “You, my friend, lead one hell of a life.”