Page 21 of Bourbon and Secrets

Trying to shake it off, I take the stairs two at a time and head right into the bathroom. With blurry eyes, I turn on theshower, whip off my clothes, and bat away a tear that falls unwantedly. When I step into the low-pressure spray, I let the hot water seep in and drown out his words—you’re not the kind of person I want anywhere near them.Jesus, what did I expect? I blackmailed him, and he told me to never come back.

Jolting me from my spiraling, Maggie pounds on the bathroom door, shouting, “Don’t use all the hot water!”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and suck in a deep, grounding breath. What the hell was I thinking coming back here?

Chapter 8

Lincoln

Society will tellme it’s too early for bourbon, but I’m about to shove two middle fingers enthusiastically in the air and spin on my boots in a 360-degreefuck youto the universe. Not a singlefuckingthing about today is going my way.

“Dad, this isn’t the way to school,” Lily states warily from the back seat, her head turning as we drive by Hooch’s and toward the distillery.

“Well, you two wanted to kick off the week by breaking the law, so I figure there’s only one person who would be able to talk some sense into you.”

Pulling onto the long gravel road, I already see Julep waiting patiently for our arrival. Grant must have told her the girls were coming. That dog considers Lark and Lily part of her pack.

“We didn’t break the law,” Lily claps back.

“It’s the law that you go to school, and the two of you were planning not to do that today...So”—I shrug my shoulders—“now you can take it up with Uncle Grant.”

That quiets her quickly. Grant might be a retired cop, but he can still pull out the intimidating follow-the-rules speech when needed. He still does it to me.

Skipping school is something my brothers and I did all the time as kids. We’d get on the bus, and as soon as the bus opened its doors, we’d find a way to distract the teacher on bus duty and huff it to the edge of the woods that line the school’s property. When our parents were still alive, we’d usually stop at our grandfather’s house first. He would always leave a few Ale-8s in the cooler behind his shed and a key for the distillery hanging on a hook.

“I like her,” Lark says, knocking the memory from me. I glance back in the rearview mirror. “Her name is pretty.”

“Who?” I ask without registering what she’s talking about.

“Faye. It’s pretty,” Lily says, picking at her newly polished nails.

“You just got those done, don’t pick.” I clear my throat. “And you can’t just like someone because of their name.”

“Why not?” Lily rushes out, at the same time as Lark interrupts, “Plus, I like how she talks to us.”

“What?” I laugh out.

Lily carries on like her sister hadn’t interjected, “She was really pretty too.”

“Pretty...” I say on an exhale. “There are more words I could think of to describe that?—”

Lark cuts in, “Her nails looked like daggers.”

“Probably uses them as weapons, too,” I mutter under my breath. I glance in the rearview at Lark, who’s staring at her nails. Fucking hell, I feel like I should reevaluate the way I’ve been parenting if my girls are so easily won over by a pretty woman. “You can’t like a person just because you like how they look.”

As soon as I say it, I know what’s going to follow. Lark squints at me in a way that screams,you’re an idiot. Then she scrolls through her device that’s currently only being used as her source of music. “She had on a cool Queen t-shirt. It said ‘Killer Queen.’”

“Fitting,” I mumble.

“She has a matching beauty mark.” Lily points to the right apple of her cheek. “It’s like we’re soulmates.”

Jesus Christ.

“Plenty of people have beauty marks on their face, Lily.”

I slow the Jeep as Julep runs next to us. Lark rolls down her back window so she can greet Julep. “Julep, you get to hang out with two more of your favorite people today.”

Lark leans back in and looks at me through the rearview. “Dad, she seemed nice.”

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