I stared down at the blank notepaper. A postcard wasn’t going to cut it this time. I’d kept her completely in the dark because I didn’t want to worry her but it was time. I tapped the pen on my chin. There was so much to tell her, I wasn’t sure where to start. Then Jem stretched and snuggled his head tighter in my lap and the words flowed.
Dear Aunt Carly,
I’ve met the most wonderful man. His name is Jem. But to tell you how fantastic he is, I have to start back sixteen years ago when I was seven . . . and Jem was eight.
Epilogue
Tashlyn
I pulled the tray out of the oven and waved my hand over the slightly burned cookies. I nearly dropped the entire tray as Jem’s hands wrapped around me from behind. He kissed the back of my neck as I put the cookies down on the counter. “Watching you bake Christmas cookies is making me horny as hell,” he growled against my ear.
I spun around in his arms, and he pulled me closer. “Your oven is temperamental. Half of the cookies burned.”
“Uh huh.” He kissed me. “Now let’s finish this baking session in the bedroom. And bring some of the icing along. I know just what to do with it.”
“We don’t have time. Finn and Everly will be here soon. And Dane is going to pick up Sage as his dinner guest.”
“The biter?”
I laughed. “He’s been seeing her regularly. She’s talking about moving in with him. I’m glad for him. Aren’t you?”
“Yep. So, about that quickie in the bedroom. I’ve been shoveling snow off the walk for an hour, and I’ve got quite an appetite.”
“There are cookies behind me,” I suggested.
“Cookies aren’t going to cut it.” He took hold of my hand and led me from the kitchen down the hallway. He stopped just short of the bedroom and pressed me between his body and the wall. “See, what you do to me. I can’t even make it to the bedroom.” He started unbuttoning my pants, but then took hold of my face and kissed me.
I gazed up at him. “You sure are good at those long, hard, getting down to business kisses.”
“Don’t like to waste time.” He smiled. “What the heck did I do right in my life to deserve you, Woodstock?”
“Hmm, let’s see. I think it was something you did sixteen years ago. Then it was just a matter of time until I found you again. Whatever you did in between doesn’t count.”
He lowered his mouth to mine again. “Uh, have I mentioned lately, darlin’, that I’m fucking nuts about you.”
“You have, but I never tire of hearing it.”
“Good, cuz I’m fucking nuts about you.” He pressed his mouth over mine.
Moonshine
by Tess Oliver
Prologue
Jackson
The Virginia Piedmont, May 1916
“Katy’s getting married next month. She and Robbie are moving to the District right after.” Ella’s plump lips softened with a sigh. “Jackson, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be somewhere else?”
“I’m right where I want to be.”
“You can’t mean you’re content here in Harper’s Cross?”
“Nope, I mean right here, in my favorite place, between your thighs.” I leaned down and kissed her nipple. It tightened against my mouth.
Her fingers curled in my hair. “Stop, Jackson,” she protested, all the while holding my mouth tighter against her. “I told you I’ve got to get home and hang the wash while there’s still sunshine to dry it.”
I sat back on my knees and straightened but not before pressing a kiss against the soft mound of brown curls between her legs. She squealed in response.
Ella sat up. Her lips were swollen pink from kissing, and her naked skin was like ivory cream. Ella was a confection from head to toe, and I loved her. She tossed me my pants, which she’d wadded up for a pillow. Nature wasn’t great at providing comforts, especially in the forested lowlands of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but on a late spring day, in front of a rushing waterfall and crystal colored river, and away from both of our families, there wasn’t any better place for an afternoon roll in the hay, or in our case, grass.
Harper Falls was equal distance from home for each of us. Ella and I lived on opposite sides of a finger of the mountain range, but that strip of pine covered granite hadn’t kept us from falling for each other.
I pulled on my pants and fished out the pack of Lucky Strikes from the pocket. I held up the smashed box. “My sweet, little bear cat, look what you did to my cigarettes.” I got up on my knees, rocked forward and kissed her lips. “Must have happened while you were screaming out my name.”
She blushed.
We were growing up in the middle of nowhere, where strangers were rare and civilization kept trying to sneak in, only the old folks kept brushing it back. Ella and I had found each other, and it made growing up in Harper’s Cross bearable.
Ella slipped her dress on over her head and combed her hair with her fingers. “You know, I was hanging around with Betty Young the other day, and she told me that I shouldn’t be sticking it out with you. She said waiting for a boy like Jackson Jarrett wasn’t worth giving up all my good years. She said that if you don’t give me a ring soon, I should end it.”
I took a drag on my cigarette. “All your good years? You’re seventeen years old, Ella. And Betty Young isn’t happy unless she’s got that long nose of hers in other people’s business.”
Her bottom lip jutted out, something Ella did when she was angry. “What’s the use of landing the finest boy in Harper’s Cross if he’s never going to walk me down the aisle?”
“So, I’m the finest, eh?” I scooted closer and dropped my arm around her. “Told you, El, I need to find my way first. I turn eighteen in three months. Then I’m going to start making some decisions about my life. I’m not going to live in your father’s house sharing a room with your little brother.”
She laughed. “Considering how Daddy feels about you, I don’t think he’d be offering it anyhow.”
“Right. So unless you want to pitch a tent out here along the river, I need to get on my feet first.”
Ella leaned her face back to let the thin ribbons of sunlight breaking through the canopy warm it. “Are you still poring over those old Sears and Roebuck house plan catalogs? Dreaming about becoming a fancy building designer isn’t realistic, Jackson.”
“Why not? It’s what I want to do. Ma says I need to think about going to college, like she did.”
Ella lowered her face and looked at me. “Wouldn’t that just be fine, you running off to New York or Boston for college and leaving me here all alone. Those east coast girls would have their claws in you before you even stepped off the train.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she pressed her fingers against it.
“And don’t go sing-songing about how I’m the only girl for you, Jackson. I know you better than any person breathing this side of the Appalachians. Even you don’t have the kind of willpower needed to say no to those sophisticated city girls.”
I decided we needed a new topic. This one never ended up in anything but her stomping off in a huff. “Do you remember our first kiss, Ella? It was right here along this same river bank.”
“Smooth conversation shift.” She leaned her head against my shoulder and took the cigarette from my fingers. “How could I forget? It was pitch dark. We were catching fireflies in Mama’s pickling jars. I was eleven and you were twelve, and before I knew what was happening, you pushed your tongue into my mouth.”
I reached up and rubbed my chin. “And you threw that tiny fist of yours right into my face. Came with a pretty good wallop too.”
She took a drag on the cigarette. I watched the thin stream of smoke curl up from her soft lips. “Then I took off running with the jar, dropped it and fell knee first on one of the broken shards
. Never seen so much blood. I figured it was God’s punishment for letting you kiss me.” She scooted the hem of her dress up and fingered the puckered scar on her knee. “You carried me all the way back to Daddy’s house.” She turned her face up to me. “That’s when I knew I loved you, Jackson. Ma was patching up my knee as fast as she could to keep the blood from dripping on her rug, but all I could think about was being in your arms.” She handed me back the cigarette. “But a girl has to think about her future,” she said curtly.
“Smooth conversation shift,” I said pointedly.
She shrugged. “Nate Bigelow asked me to go with him to a motion picture in Arlington next Saturday. I’m thinking about saying yes.”
“Nate Bigelow?” His name spurted out of my mouth as if I was spitting out chewing tobacco. “When did he grown such a big pair of balls, asking my girl out? Or maybe I should be asking you, what made him think he could ask? You been flirting with him, Ella?” I reached down and pushed her dress back up to the top of her thighs. “Because I’ll tell you right now that Nate Bigelow won’t know how to make you breathless like I can.” My hand found the warm moist spot between her legs that could make her purr like a damn kitten.
Ella’s eyes drifted shut and her head dropped back, exposing her smooth white neck. I pressed my mouth against it, and her throat thrummed with a soft mewling sound that made me hard again.
She snapped her head up. “I don’t have time, Jackson. My ma will whip me if I don’t get that wash hung.” Her blue eyes glittered at something behind me. “Are those wild geraniums growing at the top of the falls?”
I glanced back over my shoulder. An especially heavy winter snowpack had turned the normally mild waterfall into a roaring explosion of icy water. The resulting heavy froth stood out stark white against the layers of mossy rocks. The canopy of late spring oaks and poplars shrouded the top of the falls in near darkness, but a cluster of violet blooms huddled near the churning water. “Looks like geraniums.”
“They are the last ones of spring, which means they’ll bring good luck.” She hopped up out of my reach and brushed off her dress.
I leaned back on my hands, thoroughly disappointed. “Where are you going?”
She headed to the stairway of boulders that bordered the waterfall. “I’m just going to pick the geraniums.”
“Hell, Ella, thought you had to get back. We would have had time for another go.” My voice rose to compete with the clamor of the waterfall.
Shoes in hand, she stopped to shake her head at me. “Jackson Jarrett, is that all you ever think about?”
“Let’s see— I think about it in the morning when I get up and in the afternoon when I’m doing my chores and at night when I’m heading to bed. Come to think of it, I even think about it in my sleep. Guess that answers your question.”
She rolled her eyes, a gesture that was always exceptionally cute on Ella. She continued up the slippery rocks, moving with the grace of a girl who’d never shied away from climbing trees or hiking trails with us boys. It was one of the things I loved about her.
“At least when I’m thinking about it, you’re always a part of the daydream,” I called to her.
She laughed. Her foot slipped, but she caught herself.
“Ella, come back down. I’ll get your stupid flowers.”
“I can do it.”
As I reached for my shirt, Ella screamed. The faded peach fabric of her dress disappeared into the thick mist. She was gone.
“Ella!” I raced to the rocks. My bare feet couldn’t gain any traction on the slimy surface as I half-crawled over them. “Ella!” The sound of the water was deafening, but my own voice echoed back at me off the sides of the canyon. Sunlight was scarce, and the water at the base of the falls was black as slate. My heart slammed against my ribs, and every muscle in my body tensed in fear.
The falls would have taken her to the river below by now. I plowed back down the jagged granite slope and jumped into water that was swirling like black cream in a butter churn. The underlying edge of the current pushed me straight down to the rocky bottom. The force of the water held me prisoner beneath the surface. I shot out of the current and felt around for Ella. My hand smacked a submerged tree. The jolt of pain shot up to my shoulder. I surfaced long enough to suck in a long, shuddering breath. I glanced frantically around for Ella. There was no sign of her.
“Ella!” I dove back under, again and again, each time proving fruitless. It felt as if my chest and frozen limbs had filled with heavy sand, a black grit that made me want badly just to sink to the bottom of the river and stay there until I drowned. I kicked hard and floated to the surface, allowing my body to be dragged naturally by the current. It had to lead me to Ella. It fucking had to lead me to her. This couldn’t be happening. No way this was happening. But I couldn’t wake up. I couldn’t find my way out of the nightmare.
My body slammed against a submerged boulder. Just like the rocks that Ella had slipped from, its grainy surface had been worn smooth and polished like a gemstone, a slimy green gemstone. The current made staying afloat a chore. Cold, exhaustion and despair sent me beneath the surface involuntarily. Again, the urge came to let the stupid fucking river just take me, downstream past Palmer’s mill and my family’s homestead, away from the reality that I’d just lost my best friend and the girl I’d loved since I was twelve.
Oxygen was leaving my bloodstream, and splinters of light flickered in the darkness that was filling my head. Drowning with Ella, it was my only escape. Only forcing oneself to give up on breathing took more will than I had. It was a sliver of cowardice I would never forgive myself for. I pushed through the surface and sucked in a breath. My limbs had slowed even more. I felt like a heavy slab of stone coasting through the glacial water. And then, a flash of peach caught my eye.
I swam for the outcropping of rocks where the river took an abrupt turn right. And my life, my heartbeat, my reason for putting my feet on the cold floor in the morning was there, her dress hooked on the edge of a rock. Her frail arms and legs bobbed on the surface of the water. Her face was down. I swam to her, my throat thickening as I prepared myself for the horror that awaited me.
“Ella.” I grabbed her and pushed her onto her back, taking extra care to keep her head out of the water. But it lolled back on her neck. A thin, steady stream of bright red blood oozed from a gash on her head, a gash that looked almost as gruesome as the deep crease in her skull beneath it.
Her sodden dress weighed her lifeless body down as I swam to the bank. I pulled her up. Her cold, rubbery limbs bounced on me as I slipped on the marshy grass and fell hard on my back. Thorns and rocks ground into my bare skin. I sat up and yanked her into my lap.
I shook Ella and rubbed her face. I’d never seen death up close before, but I knew I was looking at it then. The body in my arms wasn’t the warm, giggling girl I’d just held beneath me, warm and sweet and willing. This was someone else, a stranger who had floated up, blue and lifeless, from the river. I hadn’t cried since our horse, Bessie, a plodding, soft-tempered plow horse had died. With the patience of a saint, the old mare would let my brothers and me sit on her back and ride her to town. And I loved that horse. I was only eight the day she dropped in the field and gave her last snort and I’d cried then. But I hadn’t done it since. Harper’s Cross wasn’t a place where a boy grew up whining about things. Tears and fussing could earn you a night in the shed with strap marks on your back. ‘Stay tough or life will eat you alive and spit you out’ were the words Ole Roy, my pa, always repeated when I got upset about things.
I pressed my head against Ella’s and my forehead smeared with the blood, Ella’s blood. I wasn’t holding some stranger who’d just floated up from the riverbed. It was Ella. My tears rolled down her white cheeks.
The numbness of shock had taken over my body and mind. All I could think was that I needed to get her
home. I moved fast, but it felt as if time had slowed around me. I lifted her into my arms. Her legs hung like a doll’s legs over one arm, and her head bounced on the other. Her eyelids opened slightly, exposing the still radiant blue of her irises. I pulled my gaze away. It wasn’t the teary eyed Ella with a cut knee and broken mason jar in my arms this time. It wasn’t the girl who I’d spent more hours with than anyone else in my life. It was the pale outer shell of the girl I loved. She felt like cold rubber in my arms, and I was close to retching.
Brambles and thorns from last year’s blackberry bushes stabbed my bare feet as I trudged through the forest. My legs were heavy, and I felt as lifeless as the girl I held. The few miles stretched on like an endless trek in an unfamiliar place. Even though I’d walked the same path many times, and most often with Ella, everything looked odd and out of place to me, as if I’d never been there before. Nothing was the same. The whole damn world was darker now.
My feet were covered with blood by the time I reached the dirt road leading to the house. The massive cedar tree that had been there long before Willie Cooper had built his home, the tree where Ella had climbed for refuge whenever her pa was on a drunken rampage, came into view. I’d sat in that tree with her many times just waiting for the old man to come after her, always secretly planning what I’d do to him if he laid one hand on her. And now I was carrying his dead child back to him, the monster who more than once had taken his fist to me for loving Ella.
Noises came from the house as I stepped past Willie’s hound dog gnawing on an old beef bone. Ella’s ma, Pearl, was a small woman, but her scream sent the ravens exploding from the trees. Katy, Ella’s sister, raced out shrieking behind her ma as if the devil himself had pushed her out the front door.
“She fell—” I said between breaths. “She fell from the rocks,” I cried. “She fell and I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t find her—” With Ella’s icy cold body still clutched in my arms, I dropped to my knees.