The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,139

to throw cards with me, son?”

“Not at all.” Lane narrowed his eyes. “Actually, I have something else you might be interested in playing for.”

• • •

Thanks to the thunderstorms that were bubbling up over the flat stretches of the Plains states and drifting over Indiana and Kentucky, the heat of the afternoon was mercifully sapped.

And that meant Edward was enjoying the work he was doing out at the Red & Black.

No broom on the end of a stick, though. Not this time.

As rain began to fall once again from the purple and gray sky, and lightning made more shows of strength, he lowered the hammer in his hand and wiped his brow with his free arm. It had been … years … since he’d tended fences, and he already knew, going by the aches in his shoulders, that he was going to pay for this folly for days afterward. But as he looked down the five-rail, brown-painted track that cut through this pasture, and as he counted the number of nails he’d added and loose boards he’d secured, a flush of simple pride went through him.

Yes, he’d been at it for only an hour and he was about ready to quit. And indeed, a real man would have been working the fields for eight or ten at a clip.

But it was a start.

Right before the ending.

As he limped back to the Red & Black pick-up with his bag of supplies, he thought about the vodka he’d brought with him but had left in the cab.

He was going to need just a little more. But not much.

Getting behind the wheel, he shut himself in and took out his flask. One sip. Two sips. Then he washed it down with Gatorade like it was medicine. If he had another two days, given the way the DTs were easing, he was probably going to be fine. He wasn’t sure things were going to hold until then, however.

Starting the engine, he began the trek back to the cottage, bumping along the cropped bluegrass, catching the attention of a hawk that was up in one of the shade trees by the water trough, flushing a couple of sparrows from a nest on a low-hanging branch.

Edward was careful to memorize everything about the gentle rolling land … and the way the fences cut man-made lines into the fragrant green expanse … and how the looming majesty of the red and gray slate-roofed barns made him think of his grandfather. As sweat rolled down between his shoulder blades, he still didn’t put the air-conditioning on in the cab. Anyone who had ever done physical labor knew that once hot, stay hot. Short-term relief in your truck was just going to make your body temperature problems worse when you had to get back out into the heat.

Plus, it felt good to perspire.

As he came up to Barn B, he parked the pick-up in the rear and got out with the sack of nails and his hammer. Both seemed to have gained about fifty pounds of weight since he’d started. Hell, since he’d put ’em in the cab for the ride home.

Entering through the rear bay, he heard voices, a man’s and a woman’s, and he paused.

Shelby and Joey were standing in front of Neb’s stall side by side. Shelby was talking about the stallion, clearly—likely about how they were going to handle the newest wave of bad weather with him. And Joey was agreeing with whatever she was saying, probably about how it had been a good idea to put the hood back on Neb’s head and keep it there.

Smart move. Exactly what Edward had been of a mind to do as well.

Joey said something. She said something back.

Shelby looked at Joey. Looked away.

Joey looked at Shelby. Looked away.

Leaning against the barn’s sturdy beams, Edward put the sack down, crossed his arms over his chest … and smiled.

Only to abruptly straighten.

While he was watching the two of them … there was a figure all the way down at the open bays of the front end of the barn.

Watching him.

“Wait. What did you say?”

Back in Easterly’s game room, John Lenghe had turned around from the Rembrandt, and going by the expression on the man’s face, Lane probably could have dropped a smoke bomb in the center of the pool table and the guy wouldn’t have noticed.

Lane nodded at his grandmother’s painting. “Let’s play for that.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why? Because it’s worth at least forty-five million dollars and that’s too