McQueen moved his hand off the mouth of the glass so she could pour.
“Make it a double.”
26
Veritas
Tamara looked out the bedroom window and saw her husband lounging on the back deck, nose stuck in a book.
Unacceptable.
She could have forgiven him reading if it hadn’t been a Saturday afternoon and a beautiful one at that, and she could have forgiven him reading if he had his shirt on, but no. He wore nothing but his rattiest pair of jeans, sunglasses and that serious look on his face he got when he contemplated the mysteries of the universe. He ought to be contemplating the mysteries of her universe. Tamara pushed up the window and leaned out to tell him that.
“Stop reading and come to bed,” she hollered down at him.
“Be gone, wench,” Levi said, casually turning a page in his book. “Go and ply your harlot’s trade elsewhere. I’m trying to learn something down here. You had your rampant feminine lusts serviced twice last night, and until you muck out Rex’s stall like I told you to, you’re not getting them serviced again.”
“Are you reading Shakespeare?”
“I am, forsooth. How didst thou knowst?”
“Lucky guess.”
“I’m reading Antony and Cleopatra,” Levi said as he pushed his sunglasses up on his head and waved his book in her direction. “A man falls in love with a woman. It is, of course, a tragedy.”
“Shakespeare is boring. Read something better, like Jackie Collins.”
“I am learning from Shakespeare. And I’m learning more than how to marry money.”
“What do you learn from Shakespeare other than how to talk like a fancy idiot?”
“I’m learning a lot from Antony and Cleopatra. I learned I shouldn’t marry the emperor’s niece while I’m still sleeping with the Queen of Egypt. Also, I should avoid naval battles when I’m outgunned. Land battles, Tamara. Remember that. Listen to your oracles and stick to land battles.”
“Sounds sexy. Why don’t you come to bed and tell me more about it?”
“Did you clean Rex’s stall out in the past thirty seconds?”
“Well...no.”
“Then excuse me. I have a date with the Nile.”
“You’re the meanest man alive, Levi Shelby. You make my life difficult.”
“There’re American citizens still being held hostage in Iran, Tamara Shelby. Go tell them how difficult your life is. I don’t want to hear it.”
Tamara screamed.
Levi swiveled his head and looked up at her, eyebrow cocked to high heaven.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“I tell you what, you clean Rex’s stall today, and tonight...tonight I will take you upstairs to our bedroom and...”
“Yes?” Tamara asked with unabashed eagerness to hear what her reward would be.
“And I’ll play Connect Four with you. I get to be black, obviously.”
Levi shoved his sunglasses back down on his face, opened his book and returned to ignoring her and her rampant feminine lusts. If Shakespeare had been alive and in her house, she might have hit him over the head with a shovel. She blamed him for being more interesting than her body was. And she blamed Levi for being Levi, who would rather read than do what Tamara wanted him to do, which was “do Tamara.”
Once more she stuck her head out of the pink bedroom window.
“I have to tell you a secret,” Tamara called down.
“I already know all your secrets,” Levi said.
“You don’t know this one.”
“Is the secret that you’re sorry you’re so rotten and you drive me crazy and you promise you won’t interrupt me when I’m reading anymore? Is that your secret?”
“No.”
“Then keep it to yourself.”
Tamara huffed and slammed the window shut. Then she opened it again and peeked out. Damn that man. She shouldn’t let him work with Bowen anymore. Before they’d come to Bride Island, he’d had a nice body, lean and rangy, and she’d loved watching him mucking out stalls with no shirt on his back when he worked for her grandfather. After two months working the Bride Island cooperage, hauling logs, lifting barrels, cutting and sanding, and doing all sorts of hard heavy work, Levi’s shoulders had grown broader, his stomach flatter, and his biceps were everything a girl wanted her husband’s biceps to be. Even his hands were different, calloused all over especially on the fingertips, and when he touched her inside, magical things happened. She was about to give up and make some magic on her own when she was hit with inspiration.
Tamara ran downstairs, checking the floor for snakes as she crossed to the kitchen—it had become a habit—and ran out the back door across the sundeck Levi and Bowen had built last week.
“Finally she gets her ass in gear to clean,” Levi said as Tamara breezed past him, attempting to ignore him even if she did want to dive onto his half-naked body like Mark Spitz into a swimming pool.
“I’m not cleaning. I’m riding,” Tamara said as she skipped the steps and jumped off the low deck onto the ground and kept running.
Levi yelled something after her. She heard the words lazy and ass and ignored both of them. He had this crazy notion that just because he and Bowen had done the horse-stall building, she was under some obligation to do the horse-stall cleaning. Didn’t the horses of Chincoteague Island run free and wild? They didn’t need stalls. They didn’t need people changing their straw. Levi hadn’t been convinced by this argument, noting that Rex was a Tennessee Walker, not a Chincoteague pony, and if she wanted a Chincoteague pony, she could go catch one herself. He’d be standing by with the ambulance and the priest to perform last rites when her attempt to wrestle one of the wild beasts into a bridle inevitably failed. He’d miss her, Levi had said. They’d bury her on Bride Island, and he and Rex would visit her grave twice a year, on Easter and Christmas.
Well, Tamara told herself, she had only herself to blame for marrying the meanest man on earth.
But two could play that game. She might not be a Maddox by blood, but she had been raised by them, and if there was anything a Maddox knew how to do, it was how to be real damn mean.
Tamara took Rex by the bridle and guided him into his stall. It wasn’t much of a stall, not much more than a big fancy lean-to, but it kept him and his oats dry when the inevitable rainstorms hit and they hit about twice a week. She loved those storms, especially when they hit at night. The air turned electric and the little hairs on her arms stood up and her skin prickled, and when the thunder boomed, it would wake up Levi and what’s a man and his wife going to do in the middle of the night when a storm hits except each other?
No storm was happening right at the moment and yet Tamara’s skin tingled in a pleasant sort of way and she felt restive and twitchy, overly aware of her body and the lack of her husband on top of it and inside it. The warm summer breeze tickled her arms and her back and her belly, and the earth under her naked feet was soft and spongy, and it made her want to run fast and jump high and roll in the dirt like an animal. Was this how Rex felt before a storm? They weren’t expecting a storm today, so Tamara would have to make her own rain.
As Tamara saddled Rex, she discovered she was grinning ear to ear and so hard it made her face hurt. It was good to be happy again. She felt like herself again, her old self, before the flood. Except life was better after the flood, since Levi wasn’t just Granddaddy’s groom. He was her husband, her lover and the source of every good thing she had in her life. Which was why she couldn’t keep her hands off him and why she was determined to get his hands back on her as soon as possible.
Right this second.
Tamara tapped her heels into Rex’s sides and they moseyed out of the stall and up to the deck.
Levi didn’t look at her. Not once.
“Husband?” Tamara asked as she steered Rex past the deck. “Don’t you think it’s a nice day for a ride?”
“I’m sure it is if y
ou say it is.” Levi turned a page in his book. “It is also a nice day for a read.”
His eyes were hidden behind his dark aviator sunglasses, and a lock of hair fell over his forehead. His hair needed a trimming, but she hoped he hadn’t realized that yet. She liked it longer and shaggier. He’d warned her that thanks to his mother’s side of the family, his hair would sport Shirley Temple curls if he let it get too long. Tamara wanted to see that with her own eyes.
Tamara led Rex on a quick circuit of the house before traipsing past the deck again.
“I read a book once,” Tamara said, grateful for Rex’s smooth gait.
“Good for you, baby. Now go read another one.”
“I wasn’t finished with my story. I read a book once about a lady whose husband was mean and awful.”
“Was it called The Autobiography of Tamara Shelby?”
“It should have been. This lady was mad at her husband because he taxed the poor people of the city. Taxed them to death. She begged her husband to reduce the taxes and he was so mean he said he’d only do it if she rode naked through the town on horseback. I can’t remember her name, though. Can you?”
Levi slammed his book shut. “Rotten, I am trying to read—”
He took off his sunglasses and stared at her.
“Lady Godiva,” Tamara said, sitting up straight and stark naked on the back of her horse. “That’s it. Now I remember.”
“Tamara, you are naked.”
She smiled at him.
“Sun’s shining. Nice breeze. Good day for a naked ride.”
“I just polished that saddle yesterday.”
“I’m polishing it again,” she said and danced in the saddle. Rex snorted and she wasn’t sure if he was laughing or confused. Levi looked vaguely horrified, which was one of his standard expressions and one of her favorites.
“Get down off that horse and into the house right now and put some goddamn clothes on.”
“Why?” she asked, tapping Rex’s sides again and leading him in a merry circuit around the backyard. “No one’s around but you. And you don’t care if I’m naked, do you? You’ve seen it before. Doesn’t do a thing for you, does it?”
“Not a damn thing,” he said, staring at her breasts.
“And who’s gonna come by? Bowen? He doesn’t care about naked girls.”
“I don’t care if he cares. I care. The only three people who are allowed to see my wife naked are me, myself and I.”
“What about my doctor? Huh?”
“Doctors aren’t people. They’re doctors. Now get off your horse and get in the house and put on some clothes.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll drag you off your horse and turn you over my knee.”
“I’ll take what’s behind door number two, then.”
She didn’t actually think he’d do it. For all the times he’d threatened to turn her over his knee, he’d never once gone through with it. And yet she got a little nervous when Levi tossed his book down, marched over to her and dragged her off the saddle.
Despite all his manhandling, Tamara couldn’t stop laughing for some reason. Laughing and squirming as Levi carried her up to the deck and pushed her down into his lawn chair. Tamara flipped over and came up on her hands and knees.
“I’m ready,” she said.
“For what? Getting a sunburn on your ass?”
“You said you were going to spank me,” she said, kneeling and tossing her hair over her shoulder.
He started to put her on her back, her absolute favorite place to be, when they heard the telltale sounds of popping and crunching, which meant a big truck was driving on their gravel road.
“Goddammit. This is why we don’t run around naked. Go,” Levi said, sitting up on his knees to let Tamara out from under him. She raced in through the back door and into the bathroom, where she’d left yesterday’s clothes hanging. She threw on her jeans and her favorite rainbow-striped halter top, tied up her hair and splashed water on her flushed cheeks. When she looked respectable again, she came out to the front porch and found Bowen and Levi there.
“What’s going on?” Tamara asked, dropping into the porch swing.
“We got mail,” Levi said. “You did, anyway.”
Bowen handed her an envelope. “Came to the shop yesterday. Miss Tandy left it on my desk.”
“Judge Headley,” Tamara said. She and Levi looked at each other, one of them scared, the other excited.
“Well, go on. Let’s see what he has to say,” Levi said.
“Should I go?” Bowen asked.
“You can stay,” Levi said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the house. Tamara’s hands shook with both sets of eyes on her. It wasn’t a letter-size envelope, but a big envelope. She’d heard good things come in small packages, but she didn’t know if that applied to the US Mail. With her stomach in her throat, Tamara ripped open the seal. Something fell out into her lap.
“Keys,” she said, looking at Levi.
“Keys? To what?” Levi took the set of keys from her—there must have been half a dozen of them on one key ring.
Tamara took a folded note out of the envelope, flattened it on her thigh and read.
“‘Congratulations. You are now the proud owners of one distillery and one house named Arden and a whole lot of money. Come home and sign the papers. I’ll have the champagne waiting.’ Signed, Daniel Headley.”
At the bottom was a postscript Tamara didn’t read out loud.
Your mother dropped her objections and the probate court closed the case. But I would keep my eyes peeled for Virginia. Hell hath no fury, after all.
Tamara looked up at Levi. His face wore a mask of shock in comedic proportions. Mouth open, eyes wide, hands in his hair pulling on his face so hard he looked five years younger.
“Well, hot damn,” Bowen said. “Guess y’all will miss my barbecue next week. That’s all right. I’ll save the leftovers.”
“It happened,” Levi finally said. “I’d almost given up thinking about it. But it happened.”
“It happened,” Tamara said.
Levi held the keys in front of his face.
“Keys to a fortune,” Bowen said. “Must be nice. I’ll leave you two to celebrate in your own way. Just remember me in your will. I don’t ask for much. Just leave me the cooperage and any spare millions you got lying around.”
“You.” Levi pointed at Bowen. “You and I are drinking our guts out tonight. We are celebrating. And after that, we’re packing. We’ll go back tomorrow. Right?”
Tamara didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. She could only stare at the letter on her lap. One little piece of paper...it might blow away in a light breeze and never be seen again. She almost wished it would. This was what they’d been waiting for. This was why she and Levi had gotten married. This was why she’d done all that she’d done, so they could have this letter, which said Red Thread was hers, all hers, to do with what she pleased. It had happened—victory, triumph, the culmination of all her work and all her planning and all her hoping.
She looked at Levi.
“I don’t want to go back, Levi.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Ever.”
27
“What the hell do you mean you don’t want to go back?” Levi demanded after Bowen had left them to gather supplies for the celebration.
“I don’t know,” Tamara said. “I just... I don’t want to leave here. I’m afraid to.”
“Afraid of what?”