Chapter 37: Trust and Interest
The silence in the living room expanded, filled only by the arrogant crackle of the fireplace. Damien remained by the piano, his silhouette a sharp cutout against the bright windows. The warmth from breakfast, from their tangled morning, evaporated.
“Talk,” Beth echoed his phone command, her voice cooler than she felt. She stayed seated at the dining table, her spine straight against the carved wood of her chair.A fortress. “What’s happened?”
He turned, and she saw the calculation in his eyes.The weighing of options—how much to shield, how much to reveal. This was the old dance, the one that ended with her screaming into a pillow, smothered by his protective lies.He walked back toward her, but didn’t sit. He braced his hands on the table, leaning into her space. The scent of him, coffee and clean cotton, clashed with the tension in his shoulders. “There’s a situation at the port,” he said, his voice low.“Not a war.A… disagreement. About a shipment that didn’t get the proper respect.”
“Meaning someone tried to skim from you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Meaning someone made a poor choice,” he corrected, a flicker of dark amusement in his gaze. “It’s contained.But it needs my presence.A signature. A look in someone’s eye.”
“For the weekend.” Her statement hung between them.“For the weekend,” he confirmed. He watched her, waiting for the freeze-out, the icy withdrawal that had been her weapon for years.She surprised them both.“Is it dangerous?” The question was direct, stripped of accusation.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He was so unused to her asking, to her not assuming the worst.“No.” The word was firm.“Not for me. This isn’t front-line work, Beth.It’s administration. Cleaning up the mess so the guys who actually got their hands dirty can get back to their families on Sunday.” He paused, searching her face. “I’ll be in a boardroom. Just a different kind.”
She held his gaze, looking for the tell, the microscopic flicker of a lie. She saw only the blunt, weary truth of a man tired of one particular fight—the one with her. This was the clarity she’d clawed for, the bare-bones honesty.It wasn’t pretty, but it was real.
A long, slow breath left her lungs. She stood up, the legs of her chair scraping softly on the polished floor. She closed the distance between them, stopping only when the wool of his trousers brushed her silk-clad legs. She reached up, her fingers settling on the lapels of his shirt, smoothing the non-existent wrinkles.“Okay,” she said.His eyes widened, just a fraction. “Okay?”
“Okay.Go.Sign your papers. Look in your man’s eye.” Her thumbs brushed the line of his collarbone.“But you come back Sunday. And you call me.Tonight.And tomorrow night.Not just texts. Your voice.”
He cupped her face, his touch almost reverent. “That’s all you want?”
“That’s everything I ever wanted,” she whispered, and pulled his mouth down to hers.
It was a different kind of kiss than the ones they’d shared upstairs.This was a seal, a promise. It held the salt of her fear and the heat of her acceptance. When she finally stepped back, his eyes were stormy, intense.“I’ll pack,” he said, his voice thick.
She nodded, releasing him. “I’ll be outside.”
An hour later, Beth stood on the wide veranda, watching the black SUV kick up a plume of dust on the long ranch road. The engine sound faded into the vast, humid silence of the Texas afternoon. She felt curiously light, empty of the old, corrosive dread.“He’s gone, then.”
Beth turned. Her sister Dove leaned against a porch column, a stalk of sweetgrass between her teeth. She wore faded jeans, work boots, and a tank top that showed off taut, sun-browned arms. Her eyes, the same sharp green as Beth’s, missed nothing.
“Until Sunday.”
“Hmm.” Dove pushed off the column.“Well, come on.Gators are hungry. Can’t have our best employees getting peckish.”
Beth followed her down the steps and across the sprawling yard toward the low, sturdy buildings behind the main house. This was the real Montgomery Ranch, the one the glossy magazines never saw.They entered a spotlessly clean concrete structure that smelled of raw meat and antiseptic. A massive industrial freezer hummed in the corner.
Dove flung it open, revealing rows of precise, vacuum-sealed packages.Not cuts for a high-end restaurant. Thick, dark, primal slabs.She hauled out a heavy, blood-dark tub.
“Grab a bucket,” she said, nodding to a stack of heavy-duty plastic pails.
They loaded the tub into the back of a battered golf cart, the ranch’s true workhorse, and Dove drove them down a winding dirt path, away from the manicured grounds.The air grew heavier, smelling of swamp water and hot earth. They stopped at the edge of a large, murky pond, shaded by ancient cypress trees draped in ghostly Spanish moss.The water was still, oily-looking.Dove cut the engine. The quiet was immense, broken only by insects and the distant cry of a hawk.
“Alright, babies!” Dove called out, slapping the side of the cart. “Supper!”
For a moment, nothing.Then, the water stirred. A ripple, then a V-shaped wake, then another.Log-like shapes emerged, gliding toward the bank with a terrifying, effortless grace. Five of them. American alligators, each over ten feet long, their hides like sculpted, living armor.Beth hefted a steak from the tub. With a practiced swing, she sent it sailing through the air.It landed with a wet slap. A gator lunged, jaws snapping shut with a sound like a heavy book slamming.The meat vanished.
They worked in comfortable silence, tossing the rich cuts to the waiting reptiles. This was the Montgomery family’s other balance sheet: not assets and liabilities, but favors and obligations.The ‘gators were disposal. Efficient, quiet, and utterly loyal.Their keepers were the same.
As Beth leaned over for another piece, the neck of her blouse gaped slightly.
Dove’s eyes locked onto the mottled purple bruise peeking above the silk. She didn’t say anything for a full minute, just kept throwing meat. Finally, as the last steak disappeared into the murky water, she spoke.“So, you and the Italian.”
It wasn’t a question. Beth straightened, brushing her hands on her now-ruined trousers.She met her sister’s gaze. “Me and the Italian.”
“You back together, or just back in bed?”
Beth considered lying, but Dove had always been her truth serum.“Both. I think.”
Dove wiped her hands on her jeans and hopped back into the driver’s seat. “You think, or you know?”
Beth climbed in beside her.As they bumped back toward the main house, the wind catching their hair, she answered. “I know we’re back together.I know I let him in. Again.” She looked out at the rolling, family-owned hills. “That doesn’t mean he’s done paying for the first time he left.”
A slow grin spread across Dove’s face. It was fierce and full of sisterly pride.“Alright. So he’s still got to grovel.”
“Extensively.”
“Good.” Dove nodded, satisfied. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t losing your edge, city girl. A man like that, he needs to remember the scale.” She shot Beth a sidelong glance.“You happy, though? In the moments between the groveling?”
Beth watched the grand, ridiculous house come back into view, a palace built on secrets and strength. She thought of his weight pinning her to the mattress that morning, the helpless laughter in her throat.The clarity in his voice over the breakfast table.The promise of his return.
A genuine, unguarded smile touched her lips.“Yeah, Dove. In the moments between, I am.”
Dove reached over and squeezed her knee, a brief, hard gesture of understanding. “Then I’m happy too.Now, let’s get cleaned up. You smell like a butcher shop, and I’ve got a call with a senator in an hour about his bothersome son-in-law.”
The cart rolled on, leaving the dark water and its ancient occupants behind, carrying the two women back to the intricate, dual worlds they commanded.One ahead, one behind the veil. And for the first time in years, Beth felt fully present in both.