Page 86 of Brewbies
“Does there have to be a point?” Darby asked.
“Everyone would think I’d lost my mind.”
“Why do they get to have an opinion about what you do with the rest of your time here on earth?” The question hung in the air between them, and Darby felt her heart begin to beat faster as a rush of adrenaline coursed through her veins. “You sacrificed your time so your husband could achieve his dream. Sacrificed your body for a child who’s now fully grown and amply capable of making his own decisions.”
Probably a terrible example, but Darby kept rolling anyway.
“You silently supported your husband even after he cheated on you, which, let’s be honest, is probably why he was able to hold on to his office until he passed. And he maintained his image even after that. I mean, yeah. What you did to Cady was pretty fucked up. But you never would have resorted to that if your cheat of a husband hadn’t gifted the building out from under you and left you to find out about it at the reading of the will. You ask me, this town doesn’t just owe you an apology, it owes you a pension.
“Sorry,” Darby said when she saw Caryn gaping at her, her cocktail hovering halfway to her mouth. “I get a little hot about this stuff.”
Looking at her second martini, Darby was shocked to find it more than three-quarters of the way gone.Oops.
Another one appeared before her.
“Oh,” she began. “I shouldn’t. I have to—”
“Don’t pretend on my account,” Caryn said. “I know WASP genetics when I see them.”
“Takes one to know one?” Darby asked.
Caryn raised her cocktail, and they clinked glasses. “Indeed.”
“How much does Ethan know?”
Caryn rolled her glass’s slim stem in her fingers. “Enough to resent me, but not enough hate his father.”
A lump formed in Darby’s throat, choking off her swallow of icy gin. “Hate him for what?”
Caryn’s chest deflated on a heavy sigh. “His father had big ideas but never the drive and discipline to see them through. His true love was gambling. So much so, he burned through a significant chunk of the Townsend fortunes. By the time he passed, I had no option but to sell off enough property to settle what was owed. If there had been any way to keep the land in the family—” Her eyes shone like sapphires as a scrim of tears glazed them.
How many fathers and sons went into the ground wearing the same name without knowing each other in the slightest?
“You should tell him.”
Shut up, Darby. This is not why you came.
Caryn’s perfectly stenciled brows shot toward her sleek hairline. “I couldn’t. He’s barely speaking to me as it is.”
“Oh, he’d pitch a fit, all right. Probably piss and moan a good deal about how betrayed he felt, how you had no right to withhold this information from him, blah blah blah, but let’s face it—if men didn’t want us to lie to them, they shouldn’t have made a world where we’re burned for our truths.”
The band finished the song, dropping the room into sudden silence. Caryn stared at her for several beats before remembering to clap. The bass player appeared somewhat crestfallen.
“I appreciate and even agree with your impassioned soliloquy,” she said, toying with the garnish in her drink. “But I suspect a motivational speech isn’t the purpose for your coming.”
“I wouldn’t insult you by pretending otherwise.” Darby sat up straighter on her plush bench. “It’s about Roy, actually.”
Caryn’s expression darkened. Not a good sign.
“Roy?” she repeated. “What on earth for?”
“Because he promised me some juicy gossip that’s meant to help me get this ridiculous petition thrown out, and getting you to talk to him was the price he named.”
What the hell was it about this goddamn town that had the unvarnished truth falling from Darby’s mouth left and right?
“If deep, dark secrets were what you were after, you ought to have come to me first.” Caryn slid a sly glance at Darby over the rim of her cocktail glass.
“Had I known that was an option, I probably would have,” Darby answered honestly. “You’re not exactly at the top of people’s lists in terms of approachability.”
