The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings #2) - J. R. Ward Page 0,91

Staff, on the other hand, were regimented.

Then again …

“Screw that.”

She was not making this effort because she was an employee, but because the man she loved was having a really shitty day and it was killing her to watch it happen and she needed to improve some kind of situation, even if it was just the set-up for an event that had never happened.

Heading through the back rooms, she went out the library’s French doors and paused. This was the terrace that faced the river and the big drop down to River Road, and all of the old-fashioned wrought-iron furniture and glass-topped tables had been moved to the periphery to accommodate all the people who had not come.

The bartender who had been stationed out there had left his post, and she went over and lifted the bar’s linen skirting. Underneath, empty crates for the stemware and boxes for the bourbon and wine were lined up neatly, and she dragged a couple of them out.

It was right when she was about to get packing, literally, when she noticed the person sitting still and quiet right by one of the windows, their focus into the house, not at the view.

“Gary?”

As she spoke, the head groundskeeper jumped up so fast, the metal chair he’d been in squeaked across the flagstone.

“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry.” She laughed. “I think everyone’s on edge today.”

Gary was in a fresh pair of overalls and his workboots had been hosed off, no dirt or debris on them. His old beat-up Momma’s Mustard, Pickles & BBQ baseball cap was in his hand, and he quickly shoved it back on his head.

“You don’t have to leave,” she said as she began transferring rocks glasses into a crate upside down.

“I wasn’t gonna come. Just when I seen …”

“No cars, right. When you saw no one was coming.”

“Rich people got a weird sense of priority.”

“Amen to that.”

“Well, back to work. Lest you be needin’ anything?”

“No, I’m just giving myself something to do. And if you help me, I might finish faster.”

“So it’s like that, huh.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

He grunted and went off the far lip of the terrace, taking the path that led down around the base of the stone bulwark that kept the mansion’s house lot from falling off its lofty perch.

Later, much later, Lizzie would wonder why she felt compelled to step out from behind the bar and walk across to where the man had been sitting and staring so intently. But for some reason, the urge was undeniable. Then again, Gary was rarely still, and he’d been looking curiously deflated.

Leaning into the old glass … she saw Lane’s mother perched, as beautiful as a queen, on that silk sofa.

THIRTY

Lane got to his feet and walked forward to his brother Maxwell. He wanted to hug the guy, but he had no idea what kind of reception he was going to get.

Max’s pale gray eyes narrowed. “Hey, brother.”

Still taller and broader than he or Edward, but now even more so. And there was a beard covering the lower half of that face. Jeans were so well washed they hung like a breeze, and the jacket had been made of leather at some point, but most of the hide had been worn off. The hand that extended was callused and the fingernails had dirt or oil underneath them. A tattoo emerged from the cuff on the back of the wrist.

The formal gesture of greeting was a throwback, Lane supposed, to the way they had grown up.

“Welcome back,” Lane heard himself say as they shook.

His eyes couldn’t stop roaming as he tried to divine from physical clues where his brother had been and what he had been doing these past few years. Car mechanic? Garbageman? Road crew? Something involving physical labor for sure, given how big he was.

The physical contact between their palms lasted only a moment and then Max stepped back and looked to their mother.

She was smiling in that vacant way of hers, her eyes softly focused. “And who might you be?”

Even though she’d just seemed to recognize the man?

“Ah, it’s Maxwell, Mother,” Lane said before he could stop himself. “This is Maxwell.”

As he put his hand on that heavy shoulder, like he was a QVC host highlighting a toaster for sale, Little V.E. blinked a couple of times. “But of course. However are you, Maxwell? Are you here for long?”

Now, she didn’t seem to recognize that Maxwell was her son—and not only because he had gone lumber-sexual with the facial hair, but