rip off the Band-Aid and get it done fast as we can so we can come back here and start our life up again. Then we’ll have all the money we need. We can buy a house in Beaufort. We can turn the island into a park. Or maybe just keep it for ourselves. And Bowen will be real happy to make all wine barrels instead of bourbon barrels. He says they’re more fun because they’re harder to make and you get to talk on the phone to French people all the time. He swears there’s a vintner in France who’s in love with him and he’s ready to go there to find out.”
Tamara laughed and wrapped her arms around Levi’s waist.
“See?” Levi said. “I’ve got all the good ideas. Just don’t worry so much. Your mother can’t hurt us if we don’t let her.”
“I want to believe that.” She linked her hands at the small of his back and squeezed him close. She wanted to tell Levi how much she loved him and how much she needed him, but he knew all that, and telling him again wouldn’t make it any more real. But times like this she felt like they were born to be together, and if they couldn’t be together, she would die.
“Whatever comes our way now, we’ll find a way to carry it. We’re married. We’re family. We’re in this together. Right?”
Tamara slowly nodded. “Right.”
“Good. Of course I’m right. I’m always right.”
She pinched him. Hard.
“Now, that was uncalled-for,” Levi said.
“Oh, it was called for. So was this.” She pinched him again.
“You’re asking for it, Rotten. One of these days...”
“What? You gonna finally turn me over your knee one of these days?”
“No. I’m going to turn you over my knee today. Right now and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He hoisted her up over his shoulder, squealing and laughing, and carried her up to the bedroom. She called him every name in the book as he did it—monster and brute and animal and beast and the very devil incarnate—and he seemed to take them all as compliments. He yanked her jeans down to her ankles, threw her over his lap and slapped her ass so hard she screamed. It hurt so bad, laughing and screaming at the same time. Like being tickled times a thousand. Then he pushed her onto her back and finished what they’d started earlier that day before Bowen had so rudely interrupted them to tell them they were millionaires.
As they lay in bed afterward, half-naked and all tired, they made their decisions.
Levi was right. Running away to Charleston or anywhere else wouldn’t solve any problems. Whatever her mother threw at them, they could catch it. They wouldn’t let it stick. They wouldn’t let it hurt. They’d be smart and not let her anywhere near them. They’d get in and get out as fast as they could. They’d sign the papers and hire a good man to handle closing down Red Thread for good. And maybe while they were there, Tamara would finally work up the courage to tell Levi the whole truth.
Then, as he’d promised, they’d come home to Bride Island.
Tamara stretched out on top of Levi and wondered how he would take the news when she told him.
“You promise you won’t let anything get between us?” Tamara asked, tracing a heart on his chest over his heart. “No matter what happens?”
“Nothing’s gonna happen, Rotten. And yes, I promise. But, you know...just in case...”
“What?”
“Pack your gun.”
28
“Nobody Does It Better” cooed on the radio and Tamara turned up the dial, sat back and let the highway winds buffet her face.
“This song’s about me,” Levi said as he merged onto I-75 going north. “I told Carly not to write it, that what happened between us was just between us, and if she wrote a song about me, women would be knocking on my door the rest of my life. But would she listen? No, ma’am. She would not.”
“I hate to tell you this, but a man wrote this song,” Tamara said.
“Okay, so maybe it’s not about me.”
“It could be, though.” She turned her head and smiled at him. “Nobody does it better than you.”
“High praise from an ex-virgin.”
Tamara laughed. “Just because I don’t have anything to compare it to doesn’t mean I don’t know it’s the best.”
Levi grinned behind his sunglasses, white teeth showing.
“Don’t make me pull this truck over.”
“Next rest stop, forty-seven miles.” Tamara read the sign on the side of the road.
“Don’t