The Bourbon Thief

  sorts of places she didn’t expect. She felt it in her stomach, down deep. She felt it inside her pelvis and all along her thighs. She felt it in her breasts, which were pressed against his chest. A layer of shirt and bra separated her body from his and yet her nipples were hard and wanted touching and sucking. She was almost out of her mind enough to ask him to do it.

  Tamara reached up and ran her hand through his hair. He might not like that, but she wanted to touch his hair, had wanted to touch it since she first saw it two years ago when she and her mother moved into the big house at Arden. Now that his mouth was occupied kissing her, she had the chance to do anything she wanted to do without hearing a protest song about it. She ran her fingers through his hair, loving its soft, thick texture. There was so much more of him she wanted to touch, too. She stroked his cheek, his strong neck, his shoulders. She’d give anything to get his clothes off and touch every part of him that touched her.

  Tamara knew about sex from school, about things she’d heard from girls who’d gone all the way and had lived to tell the tale. But no one had ever told her what to do in this situation, when she felt an erection outside her clothes and wanted it inside her body. She didn’t want to be a virgin anymore, and she wanted him to be the one to have it for what it was worth. To have her.

  “Please do it, Levi...” she said into his ear.

  “Only because it’s your birthday.” Levi cupped her breast and squeezed it and that was it—it was happening. Not even a stampede of the four horsemen could stop them now. He pushed the bra cup down, baring her nipple. He pinched it and she died. He lowered his mouth and licked it and she died again. Then he covered her breast with his hot mouth and sucked it and she died and was born again.

  “What in God’s name do you two think you’re doing?”

  Levi let Tamara down to the floor so fast her knees nearly gave out under her. The horse anklet she’d draped over her wrist fell to the ground and into the hay. She yanked her coat tight around her chest and looked at Levi, but he wasn’t looking back at her. He stared straight ahead.

  There were three people in the universe and all its dimensions whom Tamara Maddox was afraid of. God and the Devil were two of the three and even God and the Devil ranked a distant second behind the one woman who could scare even Tamara Belle Maddox—she who got what she wanted when she wanted it because she wanted it—and that was the woman standing in the stables staring black ice at both her and Levi.

  “Nothing, Momma.”

  5

  “Nothing? That was not nothing.”

  Her mother’s voice hit her like a bucket of cold water. Levi let her go and turned and stood in front of her, giving her a chance to straighten her clothes.

  “We were just kissing, Momma,” Tamara said, moving to Levi’s side. “It’s my birthday.”

  “Mrs. Maddox, I swear it was a quick little birthday kiss,” Levi said. “Nothing more.”

  “You are dead, boy,” her mother said. Her mother had never been fond of Granddaddy’s stable hand, but right now she wished him dead and buried, and she looked perfectly willing to do it herself.

  Levi’s chin rose and his jaw set.

  “What did you call me?” he asked.

  “You heard me, boy. And if you ever lay a hand on my daughter again, what I call you will be the least of your problems.” She grabbed Tamara by the arm and dragged her from the stables.

  “Momma, stop—”

  “Not a word,” she said. “You wait until I tell your granddaddy about this.”

  “What’s he gonna care?”

  Her mother had hellfire in her eyes and her face was set in granite. She looked as scared as she did angry.

  “He’ll care.”

  Her mother marched her from the stables, up the path and through the back door of the big house. She was so angry her hair vibrated like jelly, and considering the amount of White Rain she put in that blond aura every morning, any movement was a bad sign.

  Well, this was perfect, wasn’t it? Couldn’t Tamara have one single day without her mother blowing up at her about something pointless? Yesterday she’d blown her top over Tamara saying “shit” at the dinner table. And Friday when she’d come home from her school in Louisville for Christmas break, Tamara had gotten screamed at for hauling nothing but dirty clothes back with her. Why her mother cared, Tamara didn’t know. Not like Momma did any of the laundry. Cora, the housekeeper, did all the work. Her mother didn’t work. Her mother never worked. Her mother might not know how to spell work if they were playing Scrabble and the only tiles she had were a W, an O, an R and a K. She’d probably say crow started with a K.

  Inside the kitchen Tamara kicked off her muddy boots while her mother watched her. Tamara did her level best to ignore her, a feat she’d nearly perfected in the past three years since Daddy died and “angry” had become her mother’s default expression, her go-to response to anything. In the beginning Tamara had taken each little slight, each cold reply, each insult, like a brick to her face. But after a few months Tamara had put those bricks to good use and built a wall—high, deep and wide—between her and her mother until she had a fortress of her own and her mother seemed like nothing so much as a villager throwing pebbles at the queen’s castle. Of course, even when her father had been alive, her mother hadn’t been much of a treat to live with. She and Daddy had whispered jokes to each other about her mother when she got in those moods. Daddy liked to say the Devil owed him a debt and Momma was how Satan paid him back.

  Once Tamara’s boots were off, her mother grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down the hallway. Arden was a massive home, a hundred-year-old Georgian-revival brick box. Every room a different color like the White House. Following her mother, Tamara passed her pink princess bedroom and the blue billiard room and the green dining room all the way to the red room on the right—her granddaddy’s study. Upstairs her granddaddy had his office and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out the difference between an office and a study except one had a desk and the other one didn’t.

  Inside his study her grandfather sat on a red-and-gold armchair, holding a tumbler of bourbon—probably a bourbon sour from the looks of it—in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

  “I need to discuss something with you,” her mother said.

  “You always do, Virginia,” Granddaddy said, turning a page in the newspaper without looking up.

  “Granddaddy, Momma—” Tamara began, but her mother cut her off.

  “You get to your room right now, and don’t you dare step foot out of it until I tell you.”

  “What’s going on here?” Now Granddaddy was paying attention. He laid the newspaper on his lap in a neat heap of pages. In the overcast afternoon light he didn’t look much more than fifty years old, although he was well over sixty. He had a full head of hair and a face that reminded people of Lee Majors. Women called him the Six-Million-Dollar Man behind his back because they said that was probably how much money he kept in his wallet. Even sitting in his chair he looked big and strong and in control—the opposite of her twig-thin angry little mother.

  “I caught your stable boy kissing my daughter,” her mother said.

  “Levi? Kissing Tamara?”

  “I asked him to, since it’s my birthday,” Tamara said quickly. “That’s all. Nothing else happened.”

  “And this is worth my time?” Her grandfather addressed the question to her mother, not her.

  “It was more than a kiss. That boy was all over her.”

  “It was just a kiss,” Tamara said, yelling the words, overenunciating them like her mother was both slow and partially deaf.

  “It was Levi Shelby, are you hearing me?” Her mother outyelled her. “Levi Shelby. I told you and told you not to have that boy around here. I told you and you didn’t listen and you still aren’t listening and you’re gonna pay a big price for not listening to me someday.”

  Her granddaddy took a big old inhale and let out a big old exhale.

/>   “I’m listening to you, Virginia.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” Tamara said. “There’s nothing either of you have to do about it. It’s my birthday. I asked Levi to kiss me. That’s all that happened.”

  “Go to your room right this second,” her mother ordered.

  “But—”

  “Go on, baby,” Granddaddy said, waving his newspaper like he was shooing a dog from the room.

  “Go.” Her mother pointed a long white finger tipped in a long red fingernail at the door. Tamara left. She shut the door behind her and trudged down the hall, but slowly, slow enough she could hear them still talking. Her mother said, “This is all your fault,” which was a classic Momma thing to say. How was Levi kissing her or her kissing Levi her grandfather’s fault?

  Tamara went into her bedroom and sat on the bed, waiting and trying not to cry. She’d been given the only downstairs bedroom when they’d moved in and as a “treat” to her they’d had it painted pink, since that was a color sure to please a girl. It didn’t please her. It was Pepto-Bismol pink and it caused her more stomachaches than it cured.

  Finally her bedroom door swung open and slammed shut. Her mother stood before her, hands on hips. Tamara stared at the floor.

  “So...how long has this been going on?” she asked.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Answer me,” her mother said.

  “Nothing’s going on. I told you, I asked Levi to kiss me because it’s my birthday. He did. That’s all.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “Well, his lips touched me.”

  “Did he touch you under your clothes?”

  “No, Momma.” Tamara groaned and rolled her eyes. “We kissed. That’s all. I’m sixteen. Am I not allowed to kiss boys?”

  “You aren’t allowed to do anything. Nothing. Nothing without my permission or your granddaddy’s.”

  “Fine. Get Granddaddy in here. We’ll ask him if I’m allowed to kiss a boy on my birthday.”

  “You can ask him about Levi Shelby, but you’re not gonna like his answer.”

  Her mother stood with her arms crossed, her high-heeled brown leather boot tapping on the hardwood floor. Once, Virginia Maddox had been a real beauty. Tamara had seen the pictures. But she wore too much makeup and dyed her Farrah Fawcett hair until it was dry and cracking. Most days she looked well-put-together, but on days like this Tamara could see the seams showing.

  “Tamara, I’m going to tell you something you’re not going to like to hear, but you better hear it.”

  “What?”

  “You have one role to play in this family,” she said. “Only one. Your uncle Eric is dead. And your daddy, Nash, is dead. You are the only Maddox left after your grandfather’s gone. I know you think this makes you special. And I know you think this means you can get away with murder if you feel like it. But it doesn’t. It means the opposite. It means you don’t get to do anything and everything you want to do. It means you have to fill your role because there’s no one else to do the job you need to do. And you better believe if you don’t shape up and grow up and do what your grandfather tells you to do, you will end up with nothing. I will not let you screw this up, not after all I’ve put up with.”

  “I’m only sixteen. What am I supposed to do?”

  “You know. You’ve always known.”

  Tamara sighed. “I know. I have to get married. I have to have babies.” She knew this. She had known this for years now. Two years ago she wanted to get a Dorothy Hamill haircut and her mother had told her no way—girls who wanted husbands did not have short hair. “I have to keep Red Thread alive, blah blah blah.”

  “Yes, you do. And you have no choice in the matter.”

  “I don’t have a choice in any matter. You don’t give me a choice. Granddaddy doesn’t give me a choice. I might as well be in prison for all the choices I have.”

  “You want a choice?”

  “I’d love a choice,” Tamara said.

  “Fine. Here’s your choice. You can pick between Kermit or Levi. How’s that for a choice?”

  “What do you mean pick between them?”

  “I mean, I’m going to fire Levi or I’m going to sell Kermit to the glue factory. So what’s it going to be?”

  “You can’t do that. You can’t make me fire Levi or kill my horse. You can’t...” Tamara’s voice broke on the words.

  “Oh, I can. I can and I will and not even your granddaddy will try to stop me. And you know what? It’s for your own good and you don’t even know it.”

  “It’s not for my own good. It’s for your own good.”

  “Pick, princess. You wanted a choice. I’m giving you a choice.”

  “I’m not going to choose between Levi and Kermit. I will not.” Tamara stood up and crossed her arms over her chest. “I absolutely will not do that.”

  “Both, then. Levi gets fired and I sell Kermit. Hell, maybe I’ll take your granddaddy’s revolver out of his desk and put that damn horse down right now.”

  “Momma—” Tamara choked on her tears. She took a step forward, arms out, beseeching her mother to relent.

  “Oh, don’t even try that baby-girl routine on me,” her mother said, shaking her head so hard her dangling gold-and-diamond earrings clinked like tiny bells. “You won’t talk me out of this. You don’t even know what you’re getting into with Levi. So decide and decide right now. You got three seconds to tell me—Kermit or Levi. One...”

  “But Daddy gave me Kermit.”

  “Your daddy gave himself a bullet in the brain, so your daddy don’t get a say in this. Two...”

  “Momma, no. Please don’t make me.”

  “Kermit or Levi. Tell me now.”

  “You,” Tamara said. “You go take Granddaddy’s revolver and you put yourself down, and me and Kermit and Levi will ride off into the sunset, you nasty old bitch.”

  Her mother slapped her. Hard. So hard Tamara gasped and nearly fell on her side.

  “Momma...” Tamara choked out a sob. She pressed her hand to her cheek and felt the heat of pain and shame.

  “One of these days, Tamara, I swear...you’re going to get what you want and it’ll be the last thing you want.”

  Her mother turned and left, slamming the door behind her hard enough the pictures rattled in the frames. Tamara panted on the bed, her cheek stinging, her whole body burning with rage. And where was her mother going?

  “Kermit...”

  Tamara ripped her bedroom door open and tore down the hall after her mother. She knew her mother was going to shoot her horse. She knew it. The carpet scalded her naked feet as she raced toward the front door. It was too late; her mother was already out of the house. But she wasn’t heading to the stables, but to her Cadillac parked in the U-bend of the driveway. The car door slammed. The headlights flickered on and Tamara watched as the car—seemingly driverless behind the steamed-up windows—wended its way toward the main road.

  Kermit wasn’t who Momma was after. Levi. Momma was going after Levi. What would she do? Go to the police and report him for molesting Tamara? Go to his home and fire him to his face? What was happening? Where was she going?

  “Momma...come back,” Tamara whispered under her breath. If Tamara apologized, she could talk her mother out of it. If she swore to be good, if she swore she’d never go out to the stables again alone with Levi there...

  “You’re letting the heat out, baby girl.”

  Tamara turned around and saw her grandfather standing in the doorway of his study looking at her.

  “Momma left. Do you know where she went?”

  “I asked her to give us some time alone to talk. I think you two have had enough of each other for the day.”

  “She said I had to pick between Levi keeping his job and Kermit. She said she’d shoot my horse. She can’t do that, can she?”

  “You try to stop her.”

  “She can’t fire Levi. Not for kissing me.
Kissing isn’t a crime.” Burning tears, hot as steaming tea, ran down her face.

  He walked over to her, so big and so strong, and wrapped her in his arms, his warm Granddaddy arms. He held her as she cried against his chest, not holding back, letting the tears flow and flow. Maybe her tears could touch his heart. Maybe her despair would convince him of just how evil her mother was acting. If her grandfather put his foot down with her mother, he could save Kermit and Levi. If... On and on she cried, on and on until she was half-sick from it and coughed.

  “Enough of that now. Enough.” He stroked her back and her hair.

  “I’m sorry.”