Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

It’s like the air’s been sucked out of my lungs.

Toward the end, I focused only on the bad parts and completely missed the good.

This is a whole side of my father I didn’t know existed at that point in his life. Sick as a dog, the man still went to end a feud stretching back hundreds of years.

He must’ve gone down to the distillery during one of his more lucid moments.

I know, deep down I know, he did what he did with intention.

He took a risk and did good.

He was capable of doing good things. Maybe if he’d had the right meds, the right therapists, and the right course of treatment, he could’ve kept doing good things.

Some kind of emotional whiplash is happening inside me right now. I need to talk to Mama. Do some soul searching, as she and Milly suggested.

Wow.

Wow.

Just…wow.

I’m struck by the novel thought that maybe I need to be more like Daddy, not less.

I need to be kind.

I’m blinking back tears. Suddenly, my hands are shaking for an entirely different reason. My stomach feels hollow.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, what did I do?

“Pop didn’t take it,” Nate continues. “His hand. He regrets that now. But he did let John Riley walk out of the distillery unharmed. There hasn’t been a flare-up between the Beauregards and the Kingsleys since.”

My immediate impulse is to fight this. I’ve been so dedicated to a sad ending—I’ve done so much damage in the name of keeping everyone safe from the monster I’m sure I’ll become—that I don’t know where I’d begin to put things back to rights.

It’s terrifying.

“Well,” I say. “We have things like education now. And police.”

“Of course. I’m not saying your daddy single-handedly ended the fight. But he did a brave thing, a kind thing, and that counts for a lot in my book.”

I don’t know what to say.

What to do.

So I just stand there. Let the impulse to be angry and defensive sit side by side with the permission I give myself to process what I’m being told.

I’m patient with myself.

It’s patience I learned from therapy, honed and encouraged by Bel.

“I don’t mean to lay all this on your lap. But it’s something Pop literally just shared with me as we’ve been talking through our issues. The way I’ve behaved toward y’all—this tension between our families—it’s been kinda set in stone for ages, you know? I saw the way your Daddy treated mine and assumed all y’all were like that. But now I’m seeing things differently. And I agree the whole thing is fucking ridiculous. I have nothing but respect for what you’ve done here on the mountain. Especially after your daddy passed. I knew he was sick, but I had no idea the extent of what went down with him. I thought he was an arrogant ass, and I thought you were, too. I’m sorry. Was I jealous of y’alls’ money? The way you were handed everything on a silver platter? How much your daddy clearly loved y’all? Sure. Yeah. But that doesn’t excuse how I’ve behaved. How my family’s behaved. I apologize. Y’all have worked hard here, Beau, and I’ve never really understood just how difficult that was until now. I know your dad gave us all hell at the end there. Still, say what you want about John Riley, but he was a good man deep down, and he only had your family’s best interests at heart. Which is more than I can say about my pop, that’s for sure.”

I breathe, and the weight that’s been on my chest, that’s become so second nature I’d forgotten it was there, feels a lot less heavy all of a sudden.

I feel dizzy with lightness.

“I’m proud to say I’ve tried very hard not to become the kind of man my father was. But sometimes, he still slips in. I got his pride. His hard-headedness. I’m working on it, but…yeah. I’m sorry.”

I take a deep breath and roll back my shoulders, then look Nate Kingsley in the eye.

“I hope you’ll forgive me for treating you like shit,” I say. “You didn’t have to tell me at all. But you did. And that takes guts. Thank you.”

I hold out my hand.

Nate looks down at it. He looks up at me as he takes it.

He’s got a firm handshake. Sometimes I forget Nate’s not the smart-mouthed runt I knew growing up. He runs the South’s preeminent craft whiskey distillery; he’s obviously a smart guy and a savvy businessman. He’s got the handshake to back it up.

“So, about me dating Milly—”

“You’re really not letting this go, are you?”

His face falls.

Be kind.

“Milly’s a grown woman,” I say slowly. “She can decide if you’re good enough for her or not. I don’t need to kick your ass because as I’m sure you know, she’ll do it for me.”