by J. R. Ward
Samuel T. looked down at the grass. "Actually, ah, Amelia, would you mind giving your mother and me a moment?"
"Sure thing. I wanted to say hi to Uncle Max anyway."
After the girl went off, Gin racked her brain trying to think of what loose ends they had between them. The annulment was done. The paperwork concerning the ring, check. The arrangements for the movie...
"So Amelia asked about you and me last evening," Samuel T. murmured.
Gin snapped her head up. "Oh? What did you tell her? And I won't be mad if it's the truth. I have given up my pride and don't miss it. I'm also getting used to apologizing for things."
"I told her you were the only woman I've ever been in love with."
Gin's heart started to pound. "You...did?"
"Yes." His eyes locked on Gin's. "I think it's important to be truthful with her. And that is the truth."
"But...I don't understand."
Samuel T. crossed his arms over his chest. Then he shook his head slowly. "No buts. That's it. You're the only woman I've ever been in love with, and let's face it--and since you brought up pride, I will admit that I'm not proud of this--I've been through enough females to know there's never going to be anyone else for me."
Surely Gin couldn't be hearing this right. "I'm sorry--I...but what about Amelia?"
"What about her. She has a mother...and a father. And I know this is a shocking concept in these modern days, but in some families, moms and dads and kids live together. For extended periods of time. Like, months. Years. Decades..." There was a pause. "Until death do they part."
Gin started to shake so badly that she had to put her hands up to her face to stop her teeth from chattering. "What are you saying, Samuel T.? And please, I know I don't deserve this, but please do not be cruel. I can't take it anymore."
Samuel T. straightened off his Jaguar. "I think you and I need to put the past aside. We need to just leave it back in the days of our youth, relegate it to memory, close that door. And starting today, we're fresh. We're new. We're clean and we're in love and we're going to be together, no games, no lies, no bitterness. We start fresh, right here, right now."
As he pointed to the ground, Gin could feel the tears on her cheeks.
"So what do you say, Gin? You ready to be a grown-up with me? Because I'm ready to be one with you."
At that, he held his hand out to her.
And what do you know, she didn't need any time to think about it.
Given that her voice was gone, all she could do was nod--so she nodded as hard and fast as she could. "I love you," she croaked as she put her palm in his. "I love you so much...."
Abruptly, they were hugging each other.
Laying her head on Samuel T.'s shoulder, feeling him stroke her back and whisper in her ear, she looked across the grass.
Amelia was over by that Harley.
And smiling as she stared at her parents.
As Edward got out of Sutton's Mercedes, he looked up at the groundskeeping building. The structure was at least two stories high, but from the little he recalled of it, it was a huge open space, not a multi-floor'd kind of thing.
"I'll wait right here," Sutton said tensely. "Unless you'd like me to leave you to it?"
"No, it's too far for me to walk to Easterly from here."
"Okay, I love you."
"I love you, too."
And the truth was, he needed to draw some strength from her.
Closing the door, he straightened his black suit and the knot of his tie. And when he walked forward, he hated how noticeable his limp was--but there was no changing that.
Entering the cavernous space, he smelled sweet gas and oil and felt a dense heat, the result of the metal walls and ceiling being uninsulated under the sun's pounding rays. There was at least one air conditioner humming, however, in the back office.
As he went along, he passed by precise lineups of mowers, backhoes, Bobcats, plows. And everything else in the place was likewise where it needed to be: whether it was gas cans or bags of grass seed, blowers or rakes, wheelbarrows or four-wheelers, someone had made sure all was accessible, in good working condition, and properly accessorized.
The office for the head groundskeeper was glassed in, but the panes were so old and dusty, they were at best merely translucent. Someone was in there, however, the outline of a man moving around.
Edward stopped at the closed door. Clearing his throat, he raised a set of knuckles and knocked.
"Yup," came the curt response.
And then the chipped door was opened.
As Gary McAdams looked out, the man froze--a sudden fear widening his eyes.
In that moment, the questions that Edward came to ask were all answered. And yet he felt compelled to say, "Do you know who I am?"
The older man stumbled back and seemed to find the seat of his chair by luck rather than intention. It was a long while before he answered, and when he did, it was just one syllable.
The only one that mattered, though.
"Yessir," Gary said in his thick Southern accent.
Edward sagged and closed his eyes.
"I know that's got t' be a disappointment t' ya," Gary said quietly.
"No," Edward countered as he forced his lids to open. "It's a relief. I've always wished for a father I could be proud of."
With a recoil, Gary seemed confused. "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, I'm a groundskeeper."
Edward shook his head. "You're a good man, that's what I'm talking about."
The groundsman took that cap off, and as Edward studied the man's face, he could see echoes of his own features, and those eyes...yup, it was in the eyes. They had the exact same blue eyes.
"I kept m' distance, you know," Gary said. " 'Cuz your momma, she's a real lady. She shunt be havin' nothin' to do with the likes of me. But you know, I love her. I always have, and I always will. And just so yer aware, I never ask her for nothing. She gives what love she can to me when she can, and that's more'n enough for me."
"Do you mind if I sit down? My legs don't work very well anymore."
As Gary made like he was going to get up, Edward motioned the man to stay put while he himself took a load off on a trunk. And then they just stared at each other.
"Are you gonna fire me?"
Now Edward was the one jerking back. "God, no. Why would I?"
"Good. I love m' job and I don't want to leave her. I mean, here."
Thinking back to what Lane had told him, Edward smiled a little. "I'm glad you love my mother. She deserves it. She's had a very hard life inside that big beautiful house."
"I know. I was there for it all."
Edward fumbled for his phone and sent out a quick text. "I'd like you to meet someone who's very special to me."
"Your girl? You got yersself a girl, then?"
"Yes, I have."
The sound of Sutton's high heels echoed through the garage, even over the din of the air conditioner, and then she was leaning around into the open doorway.
Both he and Gary rose to their feet, as was proper when a lady was present.
"Sutton, this is my father, Gary McAdams."
Taking his cap off, Gary looked back and forth between the pair of them. " 'Scuse me, ma'am, m' hands are dirty."
Sutton smiled and went right in for the hug. "That's okay, I'll greet you this way."
The poor man nearly fell over in a faint. And then Sutton was pulling up a chair to the cluttered old 1950s desk and smiling like she wasn't in Armani and pearls, having just come from a funeral.
"I'm so happy to meet you," she said warmly. "I know Edward was nervous coming here, but I really think this is all going to work out fine. You two just need a moment to get used to the idea."
As Edward looked over at her, he had never loved her more. And then, as he regarded his father's shy expression, he knew that the truth that had finally come out was so much better than the luxurious, ugly lie they had all lived with for so long.
"Yes," Edward echoe
d. "I know this is all going to be well."
As the reception for Miss Aurora continued well into dinnertime, Lane took a moment to go out onto the terrace, using the French doors off the front parlor that his mother favored as a nocturnal exit.
The sounds of talk and laughter, and the scents of food and wine, followed him out, keeping him company as he went across to the drop-off down the mountain. Stretching out before him, the view of downtown Charlemont's skyscrapers and the Big Five Bridge was set off perfectly by the frame of Easterly's verdant woods and the lazy Ohio's inefficient path to its falls.
Staring out at it all, Lane tried to imagine the first of his ancestors who had stood here on this majestic rise and thought, Here, I shall build here. I shall live here with my family and hope to prosper.
As he considered the history of his family, he knew there had been so many blessings that had come to him and his own. Many curses, too. There had been joy and sadness, change and upheaval, births and deaths. And he had never thought about this before, but there had always been in him the erroneous belief that the past had evolved to this preordained present with a plan known to those who had lived it.
He had assumed that all the people who had come before him had somehow known that their choices and decisions, their graft and their focus, would inevitably lead to this grand house, and this grand life of his own.
Bullshit, he thought now as he turned his back on the view and looked up at Easterly.
There was no way that the others in his bloodline hadn't faced similar challenges as he himself had just been through. History was only set because it was reflected upon. When it was being made? You had no clue what the hell you were doing, or where you were going to end up.
You were building a legacy with your forehead pressed right up against its face, hammering and nailing without any perspective, wondering what exactly you were constructing. Would it be strong enough? Would it weather the storms and the earthquakes? Was it big enough for the people who came next? Would they shepherd it...or burn it down?
Looking through the windows into the parlor, he smiled.
Max and Tanesha were sitting together on the sofa, their bodies turned to each other, their faces open and curious and excited. Edward and Sutton were over at the punch bowl, talking to Jeff, looking like they were all in agreement over some kind of deeply discussed issue. Amelia was with Gin and Samuel T., the three of them clustered around the girl's phone, pointing at something.
And all around his family there was a crowd of people, sharing stories about Miss Aurora, laughing, crying, talking.
Lizzie came around the terrace. "Hey, there you are!"
"Just out here to enjoy the view. How's the food holding up?"
"We ran out. So three of Miss Aurora's nieces are in there bashing things together. We should have known this many people were going to show up."
He thought about his father's visiting hours. When none of the high-society folks had bothered to come.
"Would you like me to make a food run?" he asked.
"Nope, we've got it."
"Then come here, because I want to kiss you for a while."
"A while, huh."
As she sauntered over, he sat down on the porch wall and settled her on his lap. She fit perfectly and he put his hand on her stomach.
"I wouldn't change a thing," Lane murmured as he watched the people inside.
"You know what, neither would I."
"Other than Miss Aurora being here."
Lizzie stroked his hair back. "I'd like to think she still is."
"Me, too."
At that, Lane lifted his eyes to the sky--and started to smile as someone on the property began to play the banjo. Strains of old-fashioned bluegrass music got his foot tapping, and he held on to his love, and felt the sun on his shoulders.
With a flush of gratitude, he thought about his unborn child...and hoped that he or she would grow up and love Kentucky and making bourbon as much as he did.
"You know something," he murmured.
"What's that?"
"God is good." Lane gave his woman a squeeze. "And if this isn't heaven...I don't know what is."
Dedicated with love to:
Dominique Boel Freese
and
Mindy Wiseman,
a.k.a. Greta and Lizzie
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thank you so much to all the readers who make it possible for me to do what I love for a living. I am also so grateful to so many: Steve Axelrod and Kara Welsh on the publishing side, and then all the folks on Team Waud. None of this would be possible without you! Further, I owe a great debt to the many people in the bourbon industry here who were so helpful and generous with their time, knowledge, and talents. I have learned so much about this proud tradition and its history--and that is but a drop in the bucket compared to the master distillers and bourbon makers I was privileged to speak with as I wrote this series. Finally, thank you to my husband, my mother, and the rest of my dearest family, both those of birth and by adoption, and all my friends. And my WriterAssistant, Naamah!
BY J. R. WARD
THE BOURBON KINGS
The Bourbon Kings The Angels' Share Devil's Cut
THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD SERIES
Dark Lover Lover Eternal Lover Awakened Lover Revealed Lover Unbound Lover Enshrined The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider's Guide Lover Avenged Lover Mine Lover Unleashed Lover Reborn Lover at Last The King The Shadows The Beast The Chosen
BLACK DAGGER LEGACY
Blood Kiss Blood Vow
NOVELS OF THE FALLEN ANGELS
Covet
Crave
Envy
Rapture Possession Immortal
About the Author
J. R. WARD is the author of more than thirty previous novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling series, the Black Dagger Brotherhood. She is also the author of the Black Dagger Legacy series and the Bourbon Kings series. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the South with her family.
JRWard.com
Facebook.com/ jrwardbooks
Twitter: @JRWard1
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