Beard in Mind (Winston Brothers #4)
Penny Reid
Dedication
For my family.
1
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”
― Isaac Asimov
*Beau*
People—all people—are blinded by their own expectations.
I know this.
Folks with the highest degree of entitlement and inflated sense of self are the easiest to con, the easiest to exploit. My daddy didn’t teach me much worth knowing, but he did teach me that. And yet, despite knowing this, I adopt the mantle of a blind man from time to time.
Take today, for example.
Sure, I could’ve blamed my horse’s ass assumptions on being tired. I’d been driving three hours, up and out at the crack of dawn. I hadn’t slept much the previous night, though I didn’t regret the cause of my sleeplessness. But lack of sleep wasn’t the reason for my stupidity. My own foolish expectations were at root.
“I owe you one.”
I heard the clink of glasses from the other side of the call, which told me Hank was at the Pink Pony, cleaning up from the night prior.
“You owe me shit.” I lifted my eyebrows and rubbed one eye to cure my drowsiness. Maybe I shouldn’t have been driving and talking over the speaker of my cell phone, but I knew these roads well enough. I could’ve probably navigated them blindfolded.
“No, I do.” The glass clinking ceased and his tone adopted a solemn note. “You know I wouldn’t trust anyone but you, and I really owe you one.”
Hank Weller, my best friend since elementary school and owner of the local strip club, had always been overly conscientious about owing favors. And I’d just done him a favor. He’d wanted a 1956 XK140 matching numbers Jaguar in Nashville. I’d picked it up and transported his new ride back to Green Valley.
It hadn’t been a big deal to me. He was my best friend outside of my twin brother, it gave me an excuse to see a lady I’d been hankering to see, and I liked doing good things for good people. No biggie.
“Let me catch all the big fish on Wednesday and we’ll call it even.” I said this around a silent yawn, my eyes watering.
“I’ll do more than that. As a small token of my appreciation, I left something for you to find when you get to the shop.”
That had me sitting up straight.
“What did you do?”
“You’ll see.”
I heard the grin in his voice. The man never could hide a grin, even when we were kids and even when his telltale grin made for a heap of trouble.
“Is it something that’s going to piss off Cletus?”
Cletus was my older brother, part-owner in the Winston Brothers Auto Shop, and the third in our family of seven kids. Technically, I was number five. The way my momma told it, I’d arrived with a smile on my face just a few seconds prior to my identical twin, Duane. He made his grumpy presence known with an irritated wail.
Usually, I wouldn’t mind Hank pissing off Cletus. Usually, I wouldn’t mind anyone—anyone other than me—pissing off Cletus. My brother was at his most entertaining when pissed off. But I didn’t want him pissed off this morning. Not until after I had a nap and maybe something to eat. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember the last time I ate . . .
“It shouldn’t piss off Cletus, not directly.”
Not directly.
What the hell did that mean?
A rustling sounded on the other end, like he’d switched the phone from his hand to his shoulder and it scraped against his jaw. “But, listen, you’ll know when you see her.”
“Her?” I almost choked. “Oh no, not again.”
“Enjoy.” I could tell he was grinning wider now, the devil.
“What did you do?” Possibilities ran through my overactive imagination, along with hope and not a small amount of worry.
Maybe he’d figured out my secret, maybe he’d somehow arranged for Darlene to come home. But she hadn’t said anything last night and she’d been fast asleep when I left.
Nah. There was no way she could beat me home.
And Hank didn’t know about Darlene. At least, I didn’t think he knew. I was fairly certain he didn’t know. 82% certain.
No, the her was not Darlene.
“Bye,” was all he said before clicking off.
“Crap.” I hit the steering wheel with my palms, grinding my teeth as my mind jumped to the obvious conclusion.
The last thing I wanted as an expression of gratitude was another one of Hank’s strippers waiting for me at the shop.
Of course, a stripper is preferable to him trying to give you a boat again.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked most of them just fine. But I was trying to leave those days and acquaintances behind me. I’d been working real hard trying to prove myself to Darlene, show her I could be the kind of man she wanted me to be, the kind of man she could be with long-term.
It’s not that I was worried she’d find out from someone else that Hank had sent a stripper to the shop. I would know. Which meant I would have to tell her about it. And hell, that was not going to be a pleasant conversation.
Less than a mile from the auto shop and I was now sitting on a mountain of trepidation. Darlene already didn’t like the fact that Hank and I were buddies. Nor did she like me being friendly with his employees.
But Hank was a good friend. Admittedly, a good friend often driven to excess. He’d tried to give me a yacht once, but I nipped that nonsense in the bud and refused to sign the paperwork. Two years ago, he’d given me a Rolex watch worth more than everything else I owned put together. I never wore the thing. Gold was an excellent electrical conductor and it made me nervous.
However, try as I might, I couldn’t get him to stop sending gifts. This would be the fifth time he’d hired a her to welcome me home. Three years ago had been the first. I’d come back from a trip to Ashville to find four strippers, dressed only in bikinis, washing all the cars in the shop’s lot. Being twenty-one and unattached, I hadn’t at all minded his thoughtful gesture. At the time, that is.
Presently, however, the air in my lungs felt like lead.
I pulled the truck and car carrier into the Winston Brothers Auto Shop parking lot, scanning the premises for a sign of Hank’s gift of appreciation. I didn’t spot anything out of sorts. We had a few new cars in the lot, the most notable a 1958 Plymouth Fury. It didn’t belong to anyone in the Valley or Maryville as far as I knew. I made a mental note to ask Duane about it and then climbed down from the truck, closing the door behind me as quietly as possible.