Gin Fling: Bootleg Springs Book Five Read online

  His usual cheerless mood had taken a nose-dive in recent days. He hadn’t wanted to come on this outing and was scowling over Bowie’s other shoulder.

  “Can you go bigger?” he asked, rubbing a hand over his forehead like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  “Size definitely matters,” Jameson agreed, leaning his elbow on the glass. “You want one that could take an eye out.”

  “Yeah, but Cassidy isn’t gonna want to have to push some mammoth thing around in a wheelbarrow. Not with her line of work. You need to get her something she can have at work. Something that won’t hinder her from chasing down a drunken lawn mower driver or locking up Gram-Gram,” I pointed out.

  Devlin leaned in on my right. “I agree with Jonah. That one sticks out too much.”

  “You’re the expert here,” Bowie said to the woman in front of him. “Is it too big? Not big enough? Does it stick out too much?”

  The jeweler was staring at us with wide eyes. “Uh, what does your fiancée-to-be do again?”

  Bowie sang Cass’s praises as sheriff’s deputy, and the jeweler took in the new information. She nodded. “I’ve got some ideas. If y’all will sit tight, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “I can’t believe you’re finally buying a ring for Cassidy Tucker,” Jameson teased his brother.

  Gibson snorted. “I thought you two idiots wouldn’t make it down the aisle until you both were in your eighties.”

  I looked around the store, hands in the pockets of my shorts. We’d made the trip into Perrinville so Bowie wouldn’t get ratted out by any big-mouthed Bootleggers.

  Devlin was peering into the case at a bunch of the sparklier rings a few feet away. “Scarlett said not until she’s thirty,” I reminded him.

  “My plan is the second that woman turns thirty, I’m putting a ring on her finger,” Devlin said, still eyeing the diamonds in the case.

  “Couldn’t hurt to look at a couple,” Bowie told him.

  “Maybe they’ll give you a discount if you buy in bulk,” I offered.

  “You want in on this engagement action?” Devlin asked me.

  “No thanks. I’ll leave it you all.” After a year here, I was constantly battling the contagious “y’all.”

  “What’s your deal? You haven’t dated since you showed up here,” Gibson demanded, crossing his arms and turning his back on the case full of futures.

  I couldn’t say that Gibs got nicer to me the longer he knew me, but he did get more aggressively curious.

  I could have answered the question, but I’d learned a lot from the Bodines. “Could say the same about you,” I shot back.

  Bowie snickered. “Gibs doesn’t date. Once every couple of months, he picks a lucky lady up at one of his shows, bangs her until she makes noises about commitment, and then shows her the door.”

  “You don’t even do that,” Gibson pointed out, ignoring our brother’s criticism of his sex life.

  My face must have done something stupid because they all zeroed in on me.

  “You’re into guys?”

  “You’re married but secretly running from your shrewish wife?”

  “You’re monastic?”

  “Those jeans do highlight your ass,” I told Jameson, who snorted approvingly. “But none of those creative scenarios apply.”

  “What’s the deal then?” Bowie asked.

  This was not a discussion I wanted to have. Especially not with a man buying an engagement ring to seal his future. “I was seeing someone and thought it could be serious, and then it… ended.”

  “She dump you?”

  “You chickenshit out?”

  “She crawl out of bed in the dead of the night, steal your wallet, and leave town?”

  That last one was from Gibson, and we all gave him a good long look. He shrugged. “Not sayin’ it happened to me.”

  “It was oddly specific,” Devlin put in.

  “Can we get back to grilling Jonah?” Gibson asked.

  “Right,” Jameson said, warming to the game. “One brother at a time. Was she a mail order bride that took one look at your ugly face and ran screaming back to Russia?”

  “You’re all the worst. Literally terrible human beings,” I insisted.

  “I’ve got a few options that I think you might like,” the jeweler said, returning with a velvet cushion of sparkly rocks.

  “Hang on a sec,” Bowie told her. “We’re interrogating our brother. It’ll just be a minute.”

  “Take your time,” she said sweetly. She took her glasses off and started polishing them as if used to ring shoppers pausing to perform interrogations.

  “You might as well confess,” Devlin warned me. “They’ll just pull out the single lightbulb, bag over your head routine otherwise.” He sounded like he spoke from experience.

  But I didn’t like talking about Rene. It opened up too many feelings that would never have closure. “You guys don’t really want to hear about this,” I insisted.

  “Now we really do,” Gibson insisted. He took one of the chairs in front of the jewelry case and spun it around backward, planting himself on it to wait me out.

  “Her name was Rene,” I said reluctantly.

  “Did she dump you for your best friend because she was pregnant with his baby?” Jameson asked.

  “No. I mean, she did dump me, but she didn’t dump me for someone else.”

  “Ouch. That’s the worst. Was it the whole ‘I need to focus on myself’ speech?” Bowie asked.

  “No. She uh… we’d only been dating a short time when she found out—”

  “That she was actually a man in a woman’s body?” Gibson filled in. “That did happen to me once. We didn’t sleep together, in case you were wondering. Just had a few drinks.”

  “How is Tony?” Bowie asked.

  “Doin’ great. Lives in Boise. Fishes every weekend. Two kids. Still get a Christmas card every year.”

  “Back to Rene,” Devlin said, guiding us back to the topic I’d rather avoid.

  “Can we come back to Tony?” I asked.

  “Why’d she dump you?” Jameson asked.

  “We’d only been dating a couple of weeks, and she found out she was sick.”

  “Like a head cold or maybe herpes?” Bowie asked hopefully.

  I shook my head. “No. Like cancer.”

  “Shit,” Gibson said succinctly.

  “Said she didn’t want me to have to take on her illness,” I said, trying to shrug off the memory. “Said she’d feel better if she didn’t have to worry about me worrying about her.”

  “Man,” Jameson said.

  “You never tried to talk to her after?” Bowie asked.

  I wet my lips, hating this part of the story. “She, uh… she died. Five months to the day of our first date. We didn’t live together or anything. Didn’t even say I love you. But I really thought there was a future there, you know?”

  They all nodded somberly.

  The jeweler blew her nose noisily behind the counter. “I’m sorry for eavesdroppin’, y’all. But that is the saddest story.”

  “I just haven’t felt like getting to know anyone since. I’m waiting ’til I feel better about it,” I told them.

  There was more to it. My anger at her shutting me out. The helplessness at not being able to do a goddamn thing. The fact that the only thing I could do was respect her decision. The last time I saw her was for coffee right before her first last-ditch treatment. She’d held my hand and wished me “luck with everything” like I was little more than a stranger to her. The next time I’d laid eyes on her, she was in a church looking like she was asleep.

  Two weeks later, I’d seen Jonah Bodine’s obituary, and Bootleg Springs started to sound like a good idea.

  “Can we get back to buying rings?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

  Devlin gripped my shoulder. Jameson punched me in the arm. Bowie pulled me in for a one-armed hug before releasing me again.

  Gibson gave me a tight nod and some advi
ce. “You might not want to tell Scarlett any of that. She’ll get it in her head that you need a woman.”

  They all shuddered. “If she even gets a whiff of you being this sad, loveless puppy, she’ll be throwing every bachelorette in town at you,” Bowie agreed.

  “I’m not a sad, loveless puppy,” I argued.

  “Do you want to go grab a drink?” the jeweler asked me, her eyes glistening behind her glasses. “My place is just a couple blocks away, and I have a real nice box of wine.”

  “Uh, thanks. Maybe some other time?” I told her.

  Bowie took pity on me and changed the subject. “Jame, you want in on this action?” he asked, waving a hand toward the rings on the counter.

  Jameson shrugged. “Nah.”

  “You’re not thinking about proposing?” I asked, surprised. The way he looked at his girlfriend, Leah Mae, suggested otherwise.

  “Oh, I’m proposing. And I’m doin’ it better than these two rookies. I’ve been working with a goldsmith. She’s helping me custom design a ring. I’ll actually do some of the work.”

  “Well, fuck me,” Bowie complained. “Can we get some bigger diamonds here?”

  * * *

  Q. During a party, do you prefer to be in the center of the room or on the perimeter?

  Opal Bodine: Depends where the bar and snacks are.

  5

  Jonah

  “Hey, Mom,” I answered the call, steering my car into the town limits.

  “Well, if it isn’t my long-lost son finally answering his phone,” my mom teased through the car speakers. She hadn’t been exactly thrilled with my sudden desire to move across the country to meet my half-siblings. But her desire to support me won out. She’d accepted my move reluctantly, but I’d been here so long she was starting to make noises about me coming back.

  “I emailed you yesterday,” I said dryly.

  “A lot can happen in twenty-four hours. You could have met a girl. You could have finally given up trying to speak Southern and decided to move home. You could have saved an elderly grandmother from a purse snatcher.”

  “Zero of those things happened, Mom.”

  I came to a stop for Mona Lisa McNugget, who sashayed her way across Rum Runner Avenue. I lived in a town with its own free-range chicken. The novelty still hadn’t worn off.

  “What are you doing right now?” she asked.

  “Watching the town chicken cross the road.”

  She laughed. “I can’t decide if you’re pulling my leg with half the things you tell me or if Bootleg Springs is as crazy as it sounds.”

  I watched as Minnie Fae, dressed in a green sweatshirt embroidered with cross-eyed kittens, dashed after a stray cat as it skirted two parked cars.

  “Come back here, you fluffy feline,” she yelled, puffing past me.

  “I heard that,” Mom said. “And I don’t even want to know.”

  “A wise decision. What do you want to know?”

  “Your email said you moved again. Where to this time? A cardboard box with a hobo on the town square? Into a mansion with an eclectic millionaire who only speaks Pig Latin?”

  “Funny, Mom. I have my own place this time,” I told her. I didn’t tell her that I was living out of boxes. There was no point unpacking when I’d just be packing them back up for whatever reason.

  “No roommate?” she asked.

  “Just me, myself, and I. I can floss naked at the dining room table if I want to.”

  “Dental health is important,” she said mildly. “Send me pictures so I can be sure you’re not living in a locker in a bus station. Of the house. Not you flossing naked.”

  “Will do,” I promised. “What’s new with you?”

  She told me about the customers who came into the diner today and filled me in on the new yard decor her across-the-street neighbor Phyllis put up in honor of Flag Day.

  We spoke once a week either by phone call or video chat and by email more often. My mother was funny, smart, and, in my opinion, entirely too good for the life she’d been saddled with. My father, may he rest in peace as they say reflexively in Bootleg Springs, left college student Jenny Leland pregnant and partnerless. She’d given up her dreams of a degree in psychology and started waiting tables. She shopped garage sales and thrift stores, clipped coupons, and built a happy paycheck-to-paycheck existence for the two of us.

  She’d ended up waitressing at a diner where the owners treated her like family. I’d spent a good portion of my childhood tucked away in a booth or curled up in the closet-sized office. She was an assistant manager now but still took shifts to keep her regular customers happy. It was a respectable living. But I wanted more for her. She deserved more.

  And as soon as I landed wherever it was I was supposed to be, I’d see about getting that more for her.

  We hung up after she extracted another promise from me to send her a picture of my new place. I grinned to myself knowing how she’d fall for the Little Yellow House. Scarlett Bodine was quite the real estate mogul and shrewd negotiator. I’d had to check to make sure I still had my shirt by the time we were done arguing over the lease.

  The arguing had made me feel like family. And so had the invite for ring shopping, I realized as I turned onto the gravel lane that wound its way through the woods. Devlin and Bowie had picked out rings with diamonds big enough to compete with the idea of Jameson’s custom design. The jeweler had chipperly rung up the sales while Jameson showed off a sketch of Leah Mae’s ring. Gibson and I, finding common ground of being happily unattached, grunted and nodded our approval.

  Commitment wasn’t something I actively avoided. But looking at my lifestyle—a business with no home and a three-month lease on a rental I’d negotiated down from six—it did make a man think.

  Most of my half-brothers seemed hell-bent on planting roots. To marry, settle down. But I was still waiting for… something.

  The house came into view through the trees. It was a two-bedroom cottage with tiny rooms and big windows that invited the woods inside. On a breezy day, I could catch glimmers of the lake through the foliage. The best part was the lakeside trail that cut right through the property, making it convenient for my runs.

  I thought about hosting a post-run cookout here for the trail running group I’d organized. Decided it wasn’t a terrible idea. Some beer, a grill, good times, and good people.

  When I pulled around to the house, I realized I wasn’t alone. The front door was wide open, and there were two vehicles parked on the gravel circle by the porch. One of them was Scarlett’s pickup truck.

  I pulled in behind her and got out just as she skipped down the steps of the front porch. She waved cheerfully. “Hey, Jonah! Was wondering when you’d get back.”

  She pulled a box out of the bed of her truck, and I took it from her. “You moving in?” I asked.

  “Not me. Although if Devlin thinks he can bring one more pair of shoes into the house, I might give him the boot until construction’s done.” She winked, and I knew there was nothing but love behind her teasing. I had a feeling she’d be ecstatic over that diamond he’d pocketed today.

  She hadn’t answered the question I hadn’t asked directly.

  “So what are you doing?” I asked, picking a box from the truck and following her up the porch steps with it.

  “I’m helping your new roommate move in,” she said cheerfully.

  I missed a step and smashed my shin on the porch. “My what?” I winced.

  “Hey, Scarlett, do you want the security deposit now or—oh, hi, Jonah. Come on in.”

  Shelby Thompson—or, according to Cassidy Tucker, sneaky-ass reporter Shelby Thompson—was standing in my doorway, smiling at me, inviting me inside my own damn place. She was short and curvy and always smiling. She had thick brown hair with a heavy fringe of bangs that framed out her wide eyes. Green and brown that made me think of the forest floor. Creamy skin, thick lashes. She was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way.

  Until she smiled, and then
people tended to take notice of something that went deeper than pretty.

  Of course, none of that made up for the fact that she was one of the horde of journalists that had descended like a biblical plague on Bootleg Springs to get a piece of the Bodine family over the whole Callie Kendall case. She’d flirted with me, and I’d flirted back. It pissed me off that she thought she could get to the rest of my family through me. That I was the weak link somehow.

  It also pissed me off that she’d somehow wormed her way back into the town’s good graces, that we were all just supposed to forgive and forget.

  “Now that you’re both here, we can talk arrangements,” Scarlett said, leading the way inside.

  Shelby frowned. “Arrangements? I thought everything was settled.”

  “What are you two doing in my house?” I demanded, dumping the box on the porch.

  “Your house?” Shelby blinked and looked at Scarlett.

  Scarlett grinned her diabolical Southern girl master of manipulations smile. “This is such good news for you both,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her.

  I knew this was going to be bad.

  “Jonah, remember when you signed your lease you agreed that, if I needed, I could rent out the second bedroom?”

  I vaguely remembered something about that. But Scarlett had been pouring celebratory moonshine when she went over the documents, and things had gotten a little bit fuzzy. Fuzzy enough that Devlin had to drive me home.

  “I don’t recall,” I hedged.

  “I’ll email you a copy of the lease and highlight the pertinent section,” she promised. “In the meantime, say hey to your new roommate!”

  “Wait, a minute,” Shelby began. “He lives here?”

  “And now so do you,” Scarlett said, tossing her a key. “Isn’t that great?”

  She bobbled the key and seemed slow to lean down to pick it up. “You didn’t say Jonah lived here,” Shelby began.

  “I have a feelin’ you two are gonna get along like two pigs in a blanket.”