Beauty and the Mustache (48 page)

I opened my eyes as he
knelt over me, my hands reaching for the front of his pants,
reaching for him. The light was on in his room and—despite all the
really wonderful and necessary euphoria accompanying Drew’s
skillful fingers—my attention snagged on a photo above his
dresser.

“
Is that…?” I stared,
blinked, then frowned at the picture.

He kissed my jaw as I tried to focus,
unbuttoning my jeans, making me feel like heaven.

But the picture was so
surprising, I had to ask. “Drew, is that me?”

Drew stiffened; his hands
on my body stilled. Seconds passed while I stared at the picture
while Drew knelt motionless above me, his face again buried in my
neck.

I released a huff, pushing
him away so I could see his eyes, but also gripping his arms so he
couldn’t go too far.

“
Drew….” I made sure my
voice was soft and calm as our eyes met; he gazed at me with wary
watchfulness. “On your dresser, is that picture of me?”

He didn’t respond. But
after a beat, he tried to extract himself from my hold. I wouldn’t
let him go; my grip tightened. When he felt the force of my
fingers, his mouth tugged to the side.

“
Ash, I’m not leaving you.
I’m just getting the pictures.”

“
Pictures?”

“
Yeah.
Pictures.”

I released him and he gave
me a quick kiss before sauntering over to his dresser and grabbing
three picture frames. He returned, sat on the edge of the bed, and
patted the space next to him.

I scootched closer to him,
tucked my hair behind my ears, and peered at the pictures on his
lap. I was right. The first picture was of me. It was of me and
Momma in Hawaii. I’d taken her there three years ago on vacation.
We both looked happy and tan.

“
Bethany gave these to
me.”

“
When?”

“
When she figured out that
I was in love with you.”

My heart flip-flopped in
my chest and I looked at him. He was watching me, his features open
but hesitant. I didn’t like the hesitance, so I leaned forward and
kissed him, needing to remove the uncertainty from his
expression.

A thought occurred to me,
so I broke the kiss and rested my forehead against his, my hand on
his jaw and neck to keep him close. “Drew, that day I left, when I
knocked on your door and I heard the drawers open and shut, were
you hiding these?”

“
Yes.”

I
tsked
. “Oh, Drew….” I kissed him. “Is
this part of
the not wanting to hold me
back
thing?”

He threaded the fingers of
one hand through my hair and tugged until our eyes met. “Ashley, I
need you. I need you like lungs need air. But I need your
happiness, not your obligation.”

“
Well, this explains why
you like Nietzsche, bless your heart….”

Drew’s gaze immediately
turned into a glare, the hesitation giving way to reluctant
amusement. “Did you just
bless your
heart
me—again?”

“
Bless your sexy, sexy
Viking heart,” I said, my eyes moving back to the
pictures.

He rubbed his jaw, handing
me the frames. “If you’re going to insult me, then I’m going to go
get those letters.”

My body stiffened and a
jolt of anxiety shot down my spine, radiating outward to my nerve
endings. I’d already forgotten about the letters. I was about to
tell him to stop, and beg him to give them back to me. The thought
of watching Drew reading my words and declarations of love was
thrilling, but mostly terrifying.

And yet….

He was studying me, his
mouth twisted to the side, his eyes still narrowed.

I cleared my throat then
swallowed, inhaled slowly, and said, “Yeah. You should. You should
read them. You should know what’s in my heart, because if you think
having pictures of me on your dresser is going to freak me out,
then you are in for a big surprise. ’Cause those letters…those will
freak you out.”

Drew rolled his lips
between his teeth, fighting a smile. Abruptly he leaned forward and
kissed me, his mouth moving against mine, demanding entrance,
tasting me like I was cake with frosting and he’d decided to lick
first then take a bite.

Just as abruptly, to my infinite
frustration, he pulled away. Drew was halfway down the hall when I
realized that he really was going to get the letters. I braced
myself even as a small, nervous laugh passed my lips.

“
Fear don’t count if you
really want something….” I muttered under my breath, Momma’s words
again calming my thundering heart, and I glanced at the pictures on
my lap.

I set the one from Hawaii
to the side. The next picture was of me graduating from nursing
school. I was in my cap and gown, and I was holding my diploma.
Momma had been so proud, and I’d desperately wanted to make her
proud.

The last picture was of me
when I was eighteen, a few days before I’d left for college. I was
surrounded by all my brothers. We were standing at the edge of the
woods against a backdrop of spring flowers. The scene was
beautiful. We were laughing. I remembered the moment; I think Beau
had just done something crazy.

I stared at that one the
longest. I was surprised by what I saw. Eighteen-year-old Ashley
was a beautiful young woman, a smart girl, a girl with hopes and
dreams who maybe still believed in fairies and unicorns—not much,
just a very little bit. Yes, I looked like my father, but so what?
Looking like Darrell didn’t make me Darrell any more than Cletus’s
banjo playing made Cletus like Darrell.

It would be a shame if
Cletus didn’t love music. It would be a shame if Roscoe weren’t
charming. It would be a shame if Billy weren’t so smart.

This Ashley also loved her
brothers despite their torment, and I could see on their faces that
they loved her too.

When I thought about
myself at that age, all I remembered was wanting to leave, wanting
to escape, wanting to be different. But now I didn’t want to be
different. I wanted to be her. But I wanted to be more, just like a
building wants to be more than its foundation. Being more didn’t
mean I needed to abolish who I’d been.

And being with Drew
wouldn’t be a step back; it would be coming home.

***

“
Do you
want
another pancake?”

I tossed this question
over my shoulder without looking up from the skillet. I wasn’t used
to Drew’s fancy pots and pans or his fancy gas stove. Therefore, I
was watching the pancakes like I’d watch a hawk. I was a pancake
falconer.

“
No, thank you,” Drew
responded from someplace near my shoulder just before his hands
lifted the hem of my nightshirt. It was another of his T-shirts. At
some point, I would have to wash it.

Drew caressed a path from
my thighs to my hips to my lower back then stomach. His hands were
hot. I shivered, instinctively arching, pressing my bottom against
his front.

When I spoke next, I
sounded a little winded to my ears. “Shouldn’t we call the boys and
get your car back?”

Roscoe, it seemed, had
dropped Drew off just hours before I arrived. Drew’s truck was at
the Winston Bros. Auto Shop and, despite having been there for six
weeks, hadn’t yet received its tune up. Imagine that.

As well, my brothers
weren’t answering their phones when we called. Neither were any of
my friends. I had no idea whether they’d already left for Chicago,
but I guessed that they had. We were stuck. Cut off from the world.
We had no way of coming down the mountain. It was
glorious.

Drew’s fingers slipped
lower, dipping into the waist of my panties. I gasped. He didn’t
respond to my question. Instead, he reached around me with his
other hand and turned off the stove.

Drew melted my
butter.

He melted it standing,
sitting, crouching, leaning, reading, smiling, hugging, laughing,
frowning, writing, changing a light bulb, milking a cow—basically,
if it was a verb and he was doing it, my butter was
melting.

I rediscovered this fact
over the thirty-six hours after our big talk, while we were stuck
in his house on the top of the mountain, not that he milked any
cows. Yet.

I also rediscovered that
he was a man of his word. When he’d told me on the porch that he
wasn’t going to let me go, he’d meant those words quite literally.
I don’t think he’d gone five minutes without grabbing, fondling,
cuddling, kissing—basically, if it was a verb that involved
touching, he was doing it.

I was still holding the
spatula when, after several minutes of his clever attentions, I
lost my mind. I lost it standing in front of his combination range
and oven. Unthinkingly, as I came apart in his hands, I reached
behind my head to grab on to him and nearly fly-swatted his face
with the spatula. He deftly ducked my inadvertent attack, and I
felt his chest rumble with a laugh.

My head fell back against
his shoulder and I loitered in this position as I tried to
normalize my breathing. He removed his fingers from my panties and
rubbed his big palms from my thighs to my waist and back again in a
soothing, sensual ellipse.

“
You can do that anytime,”
I said on a faltering exhale, staring at his ceiling.

“
I will.” Drew paired this
evocative, growly declaration with an earlobe bite.

I’d never looked at his
ceiling before. It was covered in decorative copper tiles, at least
they looked like copper. In that post-orgasm mind-randomness, I
found myself fixating on the ceiling.

“
Drew, can I ask you a
weird question?”

He nodded, turned his lips
to my temple, and gave me a kiss.

“
How did you manage to buy
this house? Or, I guess, how did it come into your possession?
Aren’t all these places deeded such that you have to sell to the US
government?”

His hands ceased their
rhythmic assault and I felt him smile against my cheek. “This place
belonged to my mother. It’s been in her family for generations. My
sister lived here for a time, but it was pretty well neglected when
I took it off my father’s hands.”

I nodded, still looking at the ceiling. Many
of the tiles were beginning to oxidize from orange to turquoise;
the effect was stunning.

“
And it’s yours
now?”

He nodded. “Yes. It’s mine
now.”

I smiled. I liked that
this was his mother’s house and now he was living in it, that he’d
restored it. I took a deep breath, straightened from his shoulder,
and turned to face him.

I was about to tell him
about how much I liked the ceiling when I was interrupted by the
blaring of a horn being honked loud and long from the vicinity of
the driveway. We both stiffened, listening for additional sounds.
The horn honked again and we were spurred into action.

I jogged down the hall
looking for my pants and pulling them and my boots on in a rush.
Drew, sadly for me, shrugged into a long-sleeved shirt, but he
didn’t make any attempt to change out of his flannel pajama bottoms
or put on shoes. He then tossed me one of his sweaters. When it was
over my head, he looped his arm around my waist and pressed me
against him for a quick kiss.

“
I love you,” he
said.

“
I love you, too,” I
said.

We both smiled at the certainty in each
other and headed for the door.

The sight that greeted us
was unexpected but in no way unwelcome.

A parade of cars was
pulling into the short driveway. I recognized Drew’s truck, which
Beau had driven up the mountain. Roscoe, Sandra, and Alex were
stepping out of the passenger side, Alex from the front seat, and
Sandra from the back of the cab along with Roscoe.

Then came Jethro’s truck
loaded up with the rest of the Winston boys.

Then came a police cruiser.

Drew glanced at me and
wasn’t quite frowning. Rather, it was a glare of mild irritation
because we both guessed that Jackson James was driving the
cruiser.

The crowd unloaded
themselves and started toward the steps, chitchatting with each
other like today was Sunday and they’d just left church.

Jethro reached us first.
He was carrying what looked like a cake container and he wore a
shit-eating grin. “Well, hello, you two. My, aren’t you a sight for
sore eyes.”

“
Jethro.” Drew nodded at
my brother once. “What’s going on?”

“
It’s Christmas Eve. We
thought we’d bring the party up here. Also, Ashley forgot her
clothes at the house, so we brought those too.” Jethro patted Drew
on the shoulder and walked into the house like he’d been
invited.

Roscoe came in next. He
was carrying my suitcase and looking pleased as punch. “I’ll just
go put this in your bedroom. You know, the one you two
share.”

Beau and Duane followed,
their arms full of food, Beau shaking his head as he mounted the
steps. “I swear, Drew. You need to get rid of Jackson James; let
him know Ash is your woman. He didn’t say it when he pulled us over
for speeding on the way up, but I’m pretty sure he’s expecting to
share
sandwiches
with Ash here sometime soon.”