was not what he needed. He only wanted to be inside her for a moment longer. Tamara must have felt the same because she leaned back against him, and when he wrapped his arms around her waist, she placed her hands over his hands. If he got lost inside her, he wouldn’t worry about finding his way back out again.
“You saved me,” Levi said between slow heated kisses. Everything was slow and sultry in the airless room that smelled of sex and the sweat of terror.
“I don’t have anyone but you. Not anymore. And you were always nice to me.”
“I was mean to you.”
“Even when you were mean to me, you were nice to me. You gave Kermit extra carrots and you kept his mane and tail trimmed. Remember the day I fell off and sprained my ankle? You rode out to find me and brought me back on your saddle. I felt like a little princess and you were my knight. You told me dirty jokes to keep me from thinking about how much my ankle hurt.”
Levi’s heart broke for her. Poor little rich girl, he might have teased her once. But not tonight. Instead, Levi ran a bath and they both got in the tub. Levi washed her long hair and she soaped up his chest and shoulders. They didn’t talk about the snake, about her picking it up with her bare hands, didn’t talk about Bowen or Bride Island or her mother beating her. They didn’t talk about anything at all. They didn’t have to, and words wouldn’t have made it any better or any worse.
Once they were clean and calm, they went up to bed, careful of their steps. Tonight he’d leave the lantern on the floor and the wick lit to scare off any other intruder animals. Tomorrow and every day after, they’d make sure to keep the screen doors closed even at night. They lay down in the soft glow of the firelight and Levi made love to her again and it was the first time it felt like that instead of the fucking they’d done before. Afterward, she nestled in close, her head on his chest and her arm and leg draped over his body.
All was peaceful, all was right. He kissed the top of Tamara’s head, told her she was a good wife, which made her grin with her eyes closed.
As Levi fell asleep, he felt such peace he forgot to ask Tamara why she’d packed a gun with her and where she’d learned to shoot like that.
23
“Fire it up.”
“Seems like a damn shame to go to all this trouble just to set it on fire,” Levi said, staring down into the bottom of the barrel.
“You have to char the fucking thing,” Bowen said. Levi was used to the musical island accent by now, so when Bowen said, “dah fuckin’ ting,” Levi heard “the fucking thing” like he was supposed to. “That’s the fucking point.”
“Well, if you say so, boss,” Levi said with a grin. He pushed the barrel over the firepot and dropped in a match. The tinder lit easy and flames rose to the very top. The charring was light, lighter than most whiskeys, just enough to open the wood up and wake up the tannins and sugars in the grain so the bourbon would absorb the flavors. Levi had to admit it was fun turning the pristine white oak solid black. And there was enough teenage boy left in his thirty-year-old soul to enjoy playing with fire.
For the past month he’d been Bowen’s apprentice at the cooperage. He’d told Bowen not to tell the other men there that Levi owned Bride Island, that he owned the trees they were using. It wasn’t so much he wanted them treating him like the boss, but it was a little unmanly to admit he’d inherited the whole place by doing nothing more than marrying the boss man’s daughter. They were good guys, rough and taciturn, and Levi smiled at the thought of them finding Red Thread’s soon-to-be new owner was a seventeen-year-old girl. He hoped he was around when they heard that news.
Building barrels was elemental work. The oak trees grew in earth and wind and the boards were aged in the open air until they were thoroughly cured. And when cured, the barrels were charred with fire and sealed up watertight. It took woodworking skills, metalsmith skills, brute strength and precision finesse to make one perfect bourbon barrel, and Bowen was