The Bourbon Thief, Page 20

  guests.”

  “I wouldn’t call them bad, but...well...Tamara did have to kill one of them. Then again, I probably would have, too.”

  20

  Levi told her to leave him alone, so Tamara left him alone.

  It was surprisingly easy to do even in such close quarters. While the house might be small—only two little bedrooms, one little office, one little living room, one little kitchen and one tiny bathroom—the island itself was big enough to get lost on for days. Their second day on the island, Tamara had walked the dirt road from the cottage to the island’s ocean side and seen a sandy white beach simmering in the South Carolina sunlight. As soon as her feet touched the sand, she knew she’d found her daddy’s beach, the one he’d walked on and brought home with him after every business trip. Daddy’s beach was now her beach and every single day she came out here to swim and sunbathe and sleep under the big blue-and-white-striped umbrella she’d found in the little shed behind the house and kept tied to an oak tree every night so that it would be waiting for her every morning after breakfast.

  Levi did not come with her to the beach. He stayed home, worked on the house. He did good work, but she didn’t tell him that. She told him as little as possible. For three weeks she’d let him be and he’d returned the favor. She’d always wondered how her mother and father had managed to stay married even though they rarely talked, didn’t sleep together and didn’t like each other.

  Well...now Tamara knew, didn’t she?

  Tamara turned over onto her back, trying to dry out completely from her last dip into the ocean. Boats never came within five hundred yards of the island, so she had no qualms about sunbathing in only her underwear. No one would see her, so what did it matter? And it felt good to lie topless in the warming sun as the cool waters evaporated off her body. Too good sometimes. So good it made her remember things she didn’t want to remember, like her one and only night in bed with Levi.

  She’d expected to enjoy it. She hadn’t expected it to get her so drunk on the memory of that night she’d never sober up again. Every time the memory of it came to her—bidden or unbidden—her head spun and the room spun and the world spun so she thought she might spin right off it. When the sun bore down on her with its strongest rays, she felt the weight of Levi’s body settling on hers. When the water lapped at her legs, she felt Levi’s tongue between her thighs kissing the parts of her she never knew were made for kissing. Sometimes when she slathered on the sunblock, she’d spend more time than she needed to rubbing it on her breasts, remembering Levi’s mouth on her nipples, sucking them and massaging them with his hot tongue. And sometimes she fell asleep in the shadow of her umbrella and dreamed of Levi inside her again, deep inside her, not only in her body, but in her blood. When she woke from these dreams, it was as if waking from a nightmare and yet all she wanted was to fall asleep and dream the dream again.

  Tamara heard the crack of a twig and sat up instantly. She grabbed her clothes and turned toward the sound.

  “Sorry,” Levi said, standing at the edge of the forest. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You didn’t,” she said, her heart hammering in her chest.

  She wanted to ask him what he wanted, but she’d promised to leave him alone. She left him alone by never speaking unless he spoke to her first, never asking him questions, never extending the conversation, letting it die instead.

  He walked across the beach to her. She saw he still had his boots on. She laid her clothes beside her on her towel again and rolled back into the sand.

  “I don’t know how I feel about you lying out topless on the beach,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s legal.”

  She said nothing.

  “Although I suppose nobody could see you unless they had a boat and binoculars.”

  Behind her sunglasses Tamara rolled her eyes.

  “I went into town today,” he continued. “I called Judge Headley’s office.”

  Tamara stayed silent.

  “He’s trying to move some court dates around, speed up the process a little. He says hello to you by the way.”

  “Hello to Judge Headley.” No matter how often she told herself the judge was her father, she still couldn’t think of any man in that role but Daddy.

  “He wanted to know how you were doing, how you were feeling. You know, as you are pregnant and all.”

  Tamara sighed.

  “I told him you were fine as frog’s hair. I told him you were puking every hour on the hour. But considering how fat you’re getting, that was probably a good thing. I also told him you were gassy. Real gassy. Like we had to sleep in separate houses gassy. He gave me his condolences, said pregnancy was very hard on a woman, and I should be as nice to you as I could.”

  Tamara dug her fingers deep into the sand, clawing at it.

  “Thank you for calling Judge Headley and checking on the will.”

  “Right,” he said. “I picked up the mail, too. Apparently your mother sent Judge Headley a letter to us and his secretary forwarded it our way. You want to read it or should I?”

  Tamara held up her hand and Levi put the envelope in it. Tamara rolled up and looked at it. It was her mother’s handwriting, addressed to Levi Shelby and Tamara Maddox.

  Tamara stood up and walked across the sand to the edge of the ocean. She ripped the letter in half and then in quarters and then dropped them into the water.

  “What did you do that for?” Levi asked.

  “Do you care what my mother has to say to us?” Tamara asked.

  “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  She returned to her umbrella, pointedly ignoring Levi’s gaze from behind her sunglasses as he watched her every movement. He didn’t need to know she was looking at him looking at her.

  “Something else came in the mail today,” he said as soon as she’d settled back down on her big pink towel.

  “You’re in my sun,” she said.

  “The sun is setting.”

  “You’re in my shade, then.”

  Levi moved a foot to the right.

  “You don’t want to know what else we got in the mail today?” he asked.

  “Not really, but you can tell me if it makes you happy.”

  “I’ll tell you. But first you can tell me something. On a scale of one to ten, how much do you hate me?” he asked.

  “The scale only goes to ten?”

  “Good Lord, why on earth did I think marrying a teenager was a good idea?” Levi asked to the sky.

  “I didn’t think you believed in God.”

  “I don’t, but I’m starting to see the appeal. Something to be said for having someone to hash it out with when one’s high-strung overwrought born-again spoiled-rotten child bride gets her dander up for no good reason.”

  “My dander is not up.”

  “You have been giving me the silent treatment for three solid weeks.”

  “I talk to you whenever you want me to. I’m talking right now.”

  “Yeah, I ask you what you want for breakfast and you tell me you already ate. I ask you if you want to go check out Beaufort or Charleston and you say, ‘Whatever you want.’ When I tell the judge you’re so gassy you’re blowing holes in the walls, you thank me for checking in with the judge.”

  “You did tell me to leave you alone. You can’t complain when I do what you told me to do.”

  “Goddammit, Tamara, you are driving me crazy.”

  Tamara stood up and grabbed up her sundress, shook out the sand and shimmied into it.

  “You were born crazy,” Tamara said as she yanked her dress into place. “I’m just driving you home.”

  She closed the beach umbrella, picked it up and started walking away.

  “A doctor’s bill,” Levi said. “That’s what came in the mail. A ten-dollar bill from Dr. Jefferson Goode for ‘Mrs. Shelby’s pelvic exam and birth control pills.’”

  “I’ll pay the bill tomorrow,” she said, still walking.

 
; Levi jogged across the beach to her.

  “You weren’t planning on telling me you went on the pill?”

  “No.”

  “And might I ask why not?”

  “You told me to—”

  “Leave you alone, yes, I did. I shouldn’t have.”

  “Well, you did. So I did. I keep the pills right by the horse statue in my room, which you’d know if you ever came into my bedroom, but since you don’t—” she paused and pushed her sunglasses back up on her head to meet him eye-to-eye “—you don’t.”

  “I see how it is,” he said. They stood at the edge of the beach where it met the edge of the forest with nothing between the two but a line of tall beach grass that itched her legs.

  “How is it?”

  “You’re punishing me because I hurt your feelings.”

  “I’m not doing anything except what you told me to do. And if it’s a punishment, maybe the fault is with your orders and not my actions. Did you ever think of that?”

  “I thought of that.”

  “So what do you want to do, then?”

  “I want to make love to you. That’s what I want to do.”

  Tamara only shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

  She tried to step away from him, but Levi stopped her with a hand on her arm. He didn’t just stop her; he stopped her and pulled her back to him, taking the beach umbrella from her hands and tossing it on the ground. He kissed her hard then, hard enough to penetrate the wall of indifference she’d erected around herself the past three weeks. She’d needed that wall to do what she’d done. But it was done now, more or less. The date was set, the offer made and accepted. Just waiting on the paperwork for signing. Did she need the wall now? Did she want it? Yes and yes. But did she want Levi more?

  Yes.

  Levi had her by the hips and held her flush against him as he kissed her. Tamara had left her arms hanging limp at her sides, but now she lifted them and wrapped them around his shoulders. She opened her mouth to his and he slipped his tongue inside. Their hands roved frantically over each other’s bodies. She grasped the back of his strong neck to steady herself while he pulled one strap of her sundress down and took her breast in his hand. He pinched the nipple as he kissed her, rolled it and pinched it again. She gasped from the pleasure and pushed her hips into his, needing him there, right between her legs. He bent his head and took her breast into his mouth, sucking on her nipple as his fingers slid into her panties.

  Tamara wrapped both arms around his head, dug her fingers into his hair to hold him to her breast. Levi pushed a finger inside her and she gasped.

  “Take me home,” she whispered when what she wanted to say was Take me here.

  Levi pulled away, but only to drag her toward the truck. He opened the passenger door for her and got in behind the wheel. As he drove, all Tamara could think was good thing this island had no speed limit or Levi would be arrested for breaking the hell out of it.

  They reached the house in what she imagined was record time if anyone kept those sorts of records. Levi didn’t simply open her door; he nearly tore it off the hinges. He lifted her out of the truck and into his arms again.

  “I can’t wait,” he said and started pushing her panties down her legs as he shoved her back against the side of the truck.

  “Stop,” she said, yanking her hips away from him. “Stop now.”

  “What?” he demanded, panting between parted lips.

  She nodded at the house, where every light was on and someone moved behind the sheer white kitchen curtains.

  “Someone’s here,” she said.

  “Who the hell—”

  “Momma.”

  21

  “No,” Levi said, embarrassed by the sudden rush of fear that one name inspired. He had no doubt in his mind Virginia Maddox wanted him dead for marrying her daughter. “Here?”

  “Who else would it be?” she whispered.

  “The judge swears she doesn’t know where we are.”

  Levi started to walk around the house, but Tamara clung to his hand and wouldn’t let him go.

  “I’ll go check,” he said. “You stay.”

  “Be careful,” she said, finally releasing his hand.

  Quietly he picked his way over twigs and gravel as he walked around the house to the back door. He saw no vehicles parked anywhere. Whoever it was had apparently walked or been dropped off. Who? Why? Tamara had told him the island itself was about six miles across, several hundred acres of forest and swamp. A squatter could easily live on the island for months without either of them knowing, which was why every single day that Tamara left for the beach, Levi waited twenty minutes before walking down there to check on her without her knowing. He’d just started feeling safe and comfortable in this house on this island. Now, who the hell had broken into their home?

  Levi carefully stepped up to the back door and peered in through the curtains. There was a man standing in the kitchen by the stove. Levi nearly laughed out loud in his relief. The man in the kitchen was black. Levi had nothing to be afraid of.

  Levi opened the door.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “There he is,” the man at the stove said. “’Bout time you came home. I thought I’d have to drink this all myself. Hope you don’t mind I let myself in. Didn’t mean to act like I own the place. Although I do.”

  It took Levi a few seconds to translate the man’s words into words Levi understood. He spoke with the accent of the Sea Islands. “This” was “dis” and “the” was “dah” and the words rolled around the man’s mouth thick as taffy.

  “Bowen Berry,” the man said. He held out his hand for Levi to shake. “And you the brother who’s not a brother who’s a brother who’s not a brother, am I right?”

  It took Levi another second to figure out what Bowen meant by that.

  “Yeah, I’m Nash’s half brother who is and isn’t a brother, I guess. Good to meet you.”

  The man laughed deeply at his own joke. They shook hands, and in the midst of the handshake Levi made the connection between the man in front of him and the man Tamara had said was the foreman at the cooperage...and the man in the photograph Levi had found in Nash Maddox’s office. Levi’s realization that he had seen this very man naked on the beach was unsettling to say the least. Bowen clearly sensed Levi’s discomfort.

  “You gonna let go of my hand or you asking me to marry you?”

  “Sorry,” Levi said, releasing Bowen’s hand. “I was trying to figure out where I’d seen you before. I better let Tamara know it’s you. She thinks her mother came here to murder us. You want to stay for a beer?”

  “I got something better than that brewing up already.” Bowen nodded toward the pot on the stove.

  “Tea? At night?” Levi asked.

  “This ain’t your regular tea.” Bowen took the pot off the boil. From a battered old cooler, he pulled out a bag of ice and a plastic pitcher. He poured the ice into the pitcher and poured the tea over the ice. Then he took an amber bottle out of his toolbox.

  “What’s that?” Levi asked.

  “Bourbon.”

  “You’re putting bourbon in iced tea?”

  “Putting bourbon in sweet tea, man. That’s my Truth Serum. You gonna love it.”

  “Sweet tea and bourbon? Damn, I think I love it already,” Levi said.

  Bowen grinned and slapped Levi on the back.

  “Go get your missus. I’ll pour the drinks.”

  “Nothing spiked for her. She’s too young.”