The Beard Made Me Do It (The Dixie Warden Rejects Book 5) Read online

  How I’d never put their two names together, was beyond me. My only excuse at this point was that back then, I’d only ever heard Ellen pronounce her name. Tom-kann-of.

  When I’d started prospecting, Tommy had introduced himself as Tommy Tom, and that’d been that. I’d read the name, of course, on ledgers and such for the club, but I’d never put together the two names since what I remembered hearing, and what I was reading, sounded completely different in my head.

  Goddammit, I was so fucking stupid sometimes.

  “Do you want to play, Dad, or do you want to leave?”

  I turned to study my son.

  Fourteen years ago, Ellen had loved him. She’d been enamored with my little black-haired pain-in-the-ass, and I’d been enamored that she was enamored.

  Now, watching him all grown up, talking to her once again, it brought back memories that hurt too badly to dissect.

  “I’ll stay for an hour or so,” I told him. “But I have to be at work at six, and it’s already half past ten.” I gestured to a seat that was about as far across the room as it could get from Ellen. “I don’t want to hear any bitchin’ when we leave, either.”

  Linc gave me a droll look.

  “When do I ever complain when you need to go to work in the morning?”

  “Smart ass,” I grunted as I took the seat.

  I tried, really I tried, not to look across the room to see where Ellen sat, but I couldn’t help myself.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it, instead watching Ellen out of the corner of my eye as she fiddled with her own phone.

  Then cursed inwardly as I realized that I was watching her.

  Nothing good ever came out of that.

  At least, this time, Sean had someone with him. It wouldn’t make me feel absolutely terrible if I was caught watching her.

  Though, seeing the haunted look in her eyes when she caught me looking at her was enough to make me feel like I’d just taken a boot to the gut.

  But I’d done the right thing!

  She was successful—although not in the field I thought she’d be successful in—and was happy. I’d done the right thing!

  Maybe if I kept telling myself that, it would be true.

  I had to think that I’d done the right thing. Because, if I didn’t do the right thing, I just caused both of us needless heartache.

  I knew, on my end, that I’d done the right thing.

  At the age of eighteen, I’d still had a lot of growing up to do. I’d made a lot of mistakes. I’d almost fucked my life up royally.

  Thankfully, I’d climbed my way out of the hellhole that was my old hometown and started traveling wherever the oil field needed me.

  Ideally, the oil field wasn’t the best place for a family. I’d had that proven to me over and over again throughout the last fourteen years, as I tried to juggle being a single father and working.

  Sure, it would’ve been a hell of a lot easier with someone else to help, such as a certain brown-haired goddess, but I didn’t have an easy life. Neither did Linc.

  We were dirt poor for the first ten years of his life, and even now, I still didn’t have what I wanted. Until Linc was eight, we’d lived in a trashed out bumper pull RV that was seconds away from falling apart. Each time I hooked that bitch up to my truck, I feared that it’d collapse on the way to where we were going, leaving us homeless and me fucked in the ass since I’d had no back up plan.

  I worked my ass off. Went home. Blew off steam with my kid when he was there, and when he wasn’t, I enjoyed the peace and quiet. In a home that still wasn’t up to the standards that I knew Ellen had.

  My phone buzzed again, reminding me of the message I received and ignored earlier, and I pulled it out.

  My heart started to pound as I saw the number.

  It didn’t have a name attached to it. But I didn’t need the name. I knew the number by heart. Had for fourteen years now.

  I should.

  I’d been ignoring the calls from that number for a very long time.

  Though, at one point, I was weak and disconnected it, saying to myself that I wouldn’t keep reading those messages.

  But I felt it was my due.

  Felt that the least I could do was read those messages.

  I’d left her.

  I should have to read her sad words.

  But, over the years, as her anger at me dissipated, the messages came slower and slower, but they were still there.

  It was like hearing from an old friend.

  I knew that, no matter what, they’d be there when I needed them most. Time and distance didn’t matter.

  And this was the same thing.

  At least on her end.

  I never responded.

  I couldn’t.

  Just like I wouldn’t this time, even though her words tore a hole straight through my heart.

  I hate the new you. I miss the old you.

  I couldn’t help it then. I had to look up. Had to see her.

  Her face was blank. No longer was the phone she’d been playing on in her hand. Now it was on the table beside her as she looked down at her hands.

  And I blew out a breath.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” Linc shifted in his seat to stare at me.

  I shook my head.

  “That from your secret messenger who you still won’t tell me about?” he eyed my phone.

  I pressed the home button and got rid of the message screen, then closed it completely before shoving it back into my pocket.

  My son laughed, and I smacked him upside the head. “Get your cards, boy. And bring me mine, too.”

  My son got up and reached for the cards that Tommy was holding out to him. He didn’t notice the sad way that Ellen watched him. Nor did he see the way her eyes flicked to me, and back to him, as if comparing the two of us.

  I just looked at her, blank faced, and studied her right back.

  When she was seventeen, she’d been curvy.

  Now, at the age of thirty-one, she was much curvier. Her hips were round, and her breasts were a little larger. Her face wasn’t as angular as it once was, it was rounder, almost angelic.

  But that didn’t detract from her beauty at all.

  No, she was fucking stunning.

  So stunning that it took my breath away every time I looked at her.

  Even now, in a faded blue jean skirt and a solid black baby doll t-shirt, she was magnificent.

  “Here, Dad,” Linc said, interrupting my contemplation of Ellen’s clothes.

  I reached up and took the cards from him, smirking when I read the top card.

  “Would you rather smoke weed in front of a cop or be slapped in the face by an angry mother who doesn’t want you dating her daughter,” I murmured, shaking my head.

  That sounded too close to real life for me to read aloud.

  The next one wasn’t much better.

  Would you rather leave your significant other behind to live a full happy life without you, or would you rather stay together knowing that they’re going to die in five years and you’ll remain single for the rest of your life?

  I frowned.

  “Okay, this is how it works. The first person to go, which will be me, asks the person to his or her right a question. They have to answer one or the other. Then it’s their turn to ask the question. They choose a number out of this jar, and they ask the person that has that number the question. Simple enough, right?”

  Tommy Tom got nods and grunts of understanding from the men, who looked less than pleased to be playing this game, and giggling laughter from the women.

  I picked up my beer and took a healthy swallow, wondering if I could get out of this somehow.

  I couldn’t read these questions to anyone.

  Even worse, if I happened to pick Ellen, how the hell could I ask her something like what was on these cards without making her burst into tears?


  Tommy Tom turned to Ellen, who was on his right, and grinned manically.

  “Would you rather watch your mother using a vibrator, or never have an orgasm induced by a person of the opposite sex for the rest of your life?”

  Ellen made a gagging sound, and my lips twitched.

  Linc, of course, being the loud mouth that he was, said, “I’d rather watch my mother use a vibrator.”

  Ellen’s eyes turned to him.

  “You don’t even know your mother all that well, son,” I sat back in my seat.

  Linc shrugged.

  “So, obviously, that one doesn’t apply to me.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’d rather not have an orgasm induced by a man again,” she said softly.

  Her voice hit me like a ton of bricks right to the center of my chest.

  I snorted, as did the rest of the room.

  Who did she turn that glare onto, though?

  Me.

  My lips twitched at the pissed off look on her face, and she caught it, narrowing her eyes even further.

  Would it be bad to tell her she looked like she was sucking on a lemon?

  “All right, now you draw a number from the stack. And the person with that number is the one you ask the question.”

  Ellen did as Tommy Tom asked, and showed the number to the room as she said, “Four.”

  I glared at the stupid red four on my card, then tilted my head up to look at the woman that was about to ask me something.

  Great. I now had to politely converse with her without saying anything inappropriate or letting on that I knew her beyond meeting her here.

  “Oh, Dad! That’s you!” Linc said helpfully from my side.

  Ellen’s eyes tipped up as she stared at me with barely controlled glee.

  Then, she lifted the card up to her face, and promptly blushed from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair.

  “I can’t read this,” she hissed at her brother, turning on him with an accusing look.

  Tommy Tom grinned.

  “Yes you can. Just do it.”

  She licked her lips nervously, looked at me, and then cleared her throat.

  “Come on, read it!”

  That was Tally, who was laughing on the perch of her seat on the other side of Tommy.

  Ellen scratched her head.

  “Would you,” she cleared her throat again. “Would you rather…would you rather watch me have sex with someone or have sex with someone while I watched.”

  She read it so fast toward the end that I held up my hand and made a ‘repeat’ motion.

  She gritted her teeth and read it again.

  “Would you rather watch me have sex with someone or have sex with someone while I watched.”

  She about choked on the last two words, and it took everything I had in me not to laugh at the predicament that her brother had put her in.

  The only reason I was able to hold in the laughter was the look of terror in her eyes.

  She didn’t want to know the answer.

  I could read the truth in her eyes.

  She was scared of what I might say, and not because she cared that everyone would know that, at one point in time, we’d been an item. But because she didn’t want to know I’d be willing to do either one.

  Which was the truth.

  I wouldn’t. Not ever.

  It didn’t matter how upset I was, I wouldn’t do that to her.

  I wasn’t that type of man.

  “That one sucks. Read another,” I finally answered.

  Relief poured through her shoulders, but then Tommy Tom spoke, pouring fat into the fire.

  “You have to answer. Those’re the rules of the game.”

  I shrugged.

  “Then I won’t play,” I finally answered.

  Tally’s eyes widened.

  Linc snorted at my side.

  Ellen looked down at her hands.

  “Party-pooper. Ask him another one, Sis.”

  Thankful that she would have a reprieve, Ellen flipped to the next card and blanched even whiter.

  She flipped to the next card, and then grimaced.

  “Shit, I’m getting a phone call.”

  Ellen stood up and answered her phone, walking out of the room without a backwards glance, leaving the rest of us reeling.

  “I think you found a winning game,” Tally laughed. “Operation embarrass your sister is in full effect.”

  Tommy Tom grinned.

  “Shit, Dad,” Linc said. “I think I forgot my gear in the back of Atley’s truck.”

  I turned my annoyed glare on my kid.

  “I told you last week that if you ever did that again, the gear was staying.”

  Linc snorted.

  “Yeah, I also remember you saying that if I ever forgot my backpack or lunch you wouldn’t bring it to me. Yet, you’ve done that about eighteen thousand times over my school career.”

  I ruffled Linc’s hair.

  “Let’s go then,” I grunted, standing up.

  “Awww, not you, too!” Tommy Tom said. “You said an hour!”

  “That’s because this game is stupid,” Big Papa grunted. “We will never be in any of these situations, picking between which one of these crazy ass things we’d rather do. Like, when will I ever be given the opportunity to suck some woman’s tits in public? They’d run screaming, and I’d lose my job in a fuckin’ heartbeat.”

  Chuckling, I offered Tommy Tom my cards, as Linc followed suit.

  I stopped beside the chair where Ellen had placed her cards, the four slick pieces of hard paper falling to the floor in her haste to get out of the room, and I realized exactly why she wasn’t willing to read any of them.

  Would you rather have one day to do anything you wanted to do with me or have mediocre sex with a famous actress of your choosing?

  Would you rather lose your first love or live the rest of your life together but hating each other?

  Yeah, like I thought. Impossible to answer.

  Not because I didn’t know the answers, but because I didn’t want to voice the answers aloud and let everyone in the room in on exactly what I felt towards the woman.

  Chapter 6

  If you put me in a corner, I’m going to fuck my way out of it.

  -Jessie to Ellen

  Ellen

  Several weeks later

  I had only been back in the Mooresville area for less than a year. I’d dated Sean for part of that time, but it’d been the last five months since Jessie had come back into my life that had thrown my existence up in the air. Five months since he’d told me to stay away from him.

  Five months of wanting answers and getting none.

  I was on edge. I was cranky. And honestly, I just wanted out of here.

  So, I was leaving.

  I’d called the movers. I’d closed up my shop. A shop, I might add, that I didn’t even want to begin with. But hell, a woman had to make a living somehow, even if it was doing a job that she hated.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  That was my landlord.

  He was a fairly nice guy, but he expected way too much a month in rent for a little shop that wasn’t even in the main part of town.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I said, finishing off the check for the early lease termination fee.

  “Okay,” he said, holding out his hand for the check. “You have until the end of the month to get your belongings out of here, or I’ll be forced to sell them to recoup all of my money.”

  I refrained from saying that he wasn’t out any money, seeing as I was paying nearly a thousand dollars for the early termination of my lease, but instead I chose to stay silent.

  That was my go-to emotion lately.

  When I wanted to scream, I stayed silent.

  When I wanted to cry, hit something or complain, I stayed silent.

  Hell, even my own brother had noticed th
e change in my behavior.

  “Well, I’ll see you later, Ellen. I’m sorry to see you go.”

  I waved at him, then turned back to survey what was left of my shop.

  I needed to box up the bolts of fabric, but to do that, I had to go to Lowe’s to get a few more boxes.

  Sighing in frustration, I snatched my car keys from the counter, pocketed my debit card and license and shoved my purse underneath the counter. Then I walked outside, turned to lock the door and hurried quickly toward my car to avoid getting completely soaked to the bone.

  I stared at the old girl as I moved.

  I really needed a new car.

  One that started when I needed it to and wouldn’t break down when I least expected it.

  On that annoying thought, I got to my car, unlocked it, and got in.

  After pumping the gas pedal a few times, I put the key in the ignition and started it.

  Thank God the motor turned over and purred to life.

  It was iffy these days.

  Sometimes, if I held my mouth just right, it would turn over and surprise the ever-loving crap out of me. Like it had today.

  But others, like when I was coming out of Lowe’s with a buggy full of boxes, twenty minutes later, it didn’t.

  I stared at the car’s dials, noting the full gas tank, and the good battery.

  I tried it again.

  And got the same result: nothing.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” I said, tilting my forehead sideways to the cool glass of the window.

  There were two things I didn’t want to do. One was call my brother.

  And two was tell him why I was at Lowe’s buying boxes in the first place.

  If I couldn’t get my car started, then I’d have to tell him and deal with it when he got upset that I was leaving.

  But I couldn’t stay here anymore.

  Although I’d have to tell him eventually—probably about ten minutes before I headed out to my next destination—I didn’t want to do it now.

  Because he might try to stop me, and I really didn’t want him to stop me.

  I wanted out of this stupid little town with its bad memories. I wanted away from the man who made my heart hurt every time I saw him.

  I needed space.

  I needed something, anything, that would give me relief from all the pain here.

  A tap on my window startled me and I jumped as I turned my head to see a pair of denim jeans staring at me through the window.