Page 8 of Clayton (Bourbon & Blood #2)

Three

CLAYTON

I try to rein it in, but Annalee has me so wound up it’s all I can do to form coherent sentences.

It’s a damned awkward thing to be standing there with a raging erection, a half naked woman in front of you and your damn sister on the phone.

Pressing the button to accept the call, I bark into the phone, “What?”

From the other end of the line, Mia’s voice sounds strained. “I’m not coming to work tomorrow.”

She cock blocked me to play hooky from work. “Why the hell are you calling me about this?” I demand.

“Don’t fucking take that tone with me, Clayton,” she snaps back. “I’ve had a hell of a night and I’m sitting here with a gun in my hand.”

That got my attention. It cut through everything else, including the lust induced fog, and panic took over. I talk to her calmly, pleadingly, like I would a small child. “Mia, don’t do anything stupid?—”

“I’m more apt to be homicidal than suicidal, you jackass.”

I can’t stop the sigh of relief at her smart-ass response.

That’s the Mia I know. She gives more shit than she takes, always, except where our father is concerned.

I don’t understand the power he has over her.

It sure as hell isn’t love. She hates him more than I do, and that says a damned lot.

“Why do you have the gun?” I’m trying to focus on the important stuff, but my brain still isn’t fully functional.

Annalee’s eyes widen in shock and she gapes at me as the conversation goes off the deep end.

I reach out, grasping her hand, holding it in mine. It isn’t about the heat or the need of a few moments ago. It’s about the fact that my family, my whole goddamn life is spiraling out of control. I need the contact with her, and for now, she’s allowing it.

“Because I came home and thought someone had broken in. Turns out the new caregiver I hired for Mama was snooping through the house looking for old love letters.”

She’s losing me again, shifting gears too quickly. “I’m not following.”

“What’s going on?” Annalee asks in a whisper. I shake my head at her. I have no idea what the hell is going on…still.

Naturally, Mia picks up on the female voice in the background. “Who’s there with you?” she demands.

“I’m not at home,” I answer. I don’t want to discuss what almost happened with Annalee and myself with anyone other than her.

“Oh, you’re at home. Just not your home, although, since you’re still paying the mortgage on it, I guess that’s up for debate…I’m having the worst fucking night of my life and you’re screwing your soon-to-be ex-wife?”

“That is not what’s going on here,” I protest. It is, but I’m sure as hell not doing to discuss that with my sister.

I don’t know what’s going on with Mia. She sounds wild, a little crazed, and angrier than I’ve ever heard her.

“Mia, you’ve got to calm down.” Annalee, halfway through the process of putting her shirt back on, is making cutting motions across her throat and rolling her eyes at me.

I made the fatal error of telling a woman to calm down. It’s all a clusterfuck.

“No, I don’t! I’ve been calm. I’ve been quiet. I’ve done what the dutiful daughter ought to and I’ve spent ten years making up for something I didn’t even fucking do! I’m finding those letters, Clayton, and when I do, so help me God, I may kill him.”

The panic hits again, mostly because I think she means it. “Kill who, Mia? Baby, you’re worrying me?—”

“Samuel!” she replies sharply. “I can’t talk about this anymore. Not tonight. I won’t do anything stupid or reckless. I won’t shoot anyone unless they’re trying to break in. I promise.”

“I can be there in ten minutes,” I offer.

It might kill me to walk out of this house again, to walk away from Annalee and what almost happened just a moment ago, but I will.

Whatever is happening with Mia, she is clearly not herself right now.

Or maybe it’s like she said, and she finally is being herself. That might be scarier.

“No. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m just angry and hurt…and jealous. If you’re with Annalee, it’s where you ought to be. Stay there. I’ll be fine. Just don’t expect me in the office tomorrow. I’m going to be tearing this house apart from top to bottom.”

“I can help you,” I offer again. I mean it. I’d do anything for her or for Quentin.

“Yes, you can,” she says with certainty. “Whatever it is you’re working on, whatever you’re trying to do destroy him, keep going. Don’t stop until you have it. When this is all done, I want him left with nothing…promise me that.”

“Whatever it takes.” It’s not a promise I’m making lightly. Destroying Samuel has already cost me more than I was willing to give. I won’t stop. No matter what it takes.

“Now, go seduce your wife. Or let her seduce you. We like that sometimes.”

“That is really not what’s happening here and for the love of God, just don’t go there with me. I can’t take it. Quentin is bad enough,” I say to her. I don’t hear her laugh, which worries me, but when she answers, I can hear the smile in her voice. It’s enough.

“Good night, Clay. I love you.”

“Love you too, Mia-mine,” I reply. The nickname slips out, something our mother used to call her.

“You bastard. I thought I was done crying for the night.”

My own eyes are burning a little. But I don’t cry. I haven’t. Not in a long time and I’m not going to start now. But Mia is a different matter altogether. “Maybe you need to cry. You can’t bottle it up forever,” I tell her.

“I can try,” she protests lamely.

“It doesn’t work. Take it from someone who knows…call me. Anytime. I will come right there if you need me.”

“I know you will. Good night,” she whispers softly and the phone clicks.

I place my phone on the counter and look at Annalee who clearly has questions. “I still don’t know what’s going on.”

“Mia isn’t suicidal?” she asks, a line of worry forming between her brows .

“No.” I try to sound as certain and as reassuring as possible. “But she may need a lawyer if Samuel goes near her.”

“Are you going over there?” Annalee asks softly. I can tell that she thinks I should, and maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part, but I can also tell that part of her doesn’t want me to go.

“No.” I’m not totally confident in the decision, but it’s the best I’ve got. “I think I’ll do more good for Mia by working this from a different angle…I didn’t want to tip my hand, but I’m going to have to make Samuel give up control.”

Annalee frowns at me. “Control of what?”

I’ve never talked to her about my plans for Samuel.

I worry that I am saying too much, that when it all goes to hell, and it will, that she won’t have the distance needed to be safe.

But I need to say it to someone, and even after everything else, there’s no one I trust more.

“Everything—the house. Mama. The distillery…if we don’t get him out of our lives—that’s not an option.

He will be out of our lives. One way or another. ”

She doesn’t say anything for the longest time, just leaves me squirming under that measuring gaze. “ Don’t do anything stupid. Emma Grace needs you,” she finally states.

It’s a dangerous question to ask, but I have to know. “Just Emma Grace? Or do you still need me too, Annalee?”

“I needed you a year and a half ago,” she says softly. “I needed you twelve months ago…even six months ago, if you’d looked at me then the way you looked at me tonight, my answer would be different.”

“It’s not too late,” I reply, and I hate how desperate I sound.

“Isn’t it? We can’t do this, Clay. What just happened—this is confusing enough for Emma Grace without us acting like hormonal teenagers who can’t figure out if we’re broken up or not.”

“What is confusing to her exactly? The fact that you threw me out?” There are some things that I shouldn’t say to her.

I understand why she did it. I understand why I didn’t fight it.

But the loneliness of it, the fucking misery of being separated from her, from my daughter—that kind of misery makes you mean.

It makes you lash out and one hurt just builds on the other .

She squares her shoulders and levels an icy glare at me. “I asked you to move out, Clayton, but you left me a long time ago. You checked out. You didn’t look at me, didn’t talk to me, you sure as hell didn’t touch me…living with you was like living with a damn ghost.”

The accusation stings because I know it’s true.

It hadn’t been by choice, it hadn’t been because I didn’t want to tell her everything.

But struggling to keep the distillery afloat, to keep the mortgage paid and the roof over our heads, not to mention the possibility that things I’m doing could land me in prison—I’d wanted to spare her that.

“I never stopped loving you…not then and not now. What the hell else do you need from me?” I ask.

“The only thing I ever needed was you,” she replies. “But all I got was this cold, distant stranger.”

I take her hands. “I’m here now. I’m talking to you. I’m looking at you, and two minutes ago I had my hands on?—”

“I know where your hands were!” she interrupts and pulls her hands free. “But what happens the next time life gets hard, Clayton? What happens the next time the business is in trouble or work is too stressful? You’ll just shut me out again and we’ll be back where we started!”

“Annalee, I don’t want us to end this way.”

Annalee crosses her arms over her chest and leans her head back, a sigh of deep exasperation escaping her. “You think I wanted this? I didn’t, Clayton…I had a very different vision of where we’d be right now.”

“I don’t know how to fix this.”

ANNALEE