Southern Sinner (North Carolina Highlands 3)

It all matches Lady Luck’s merchandise perfectly.

I smile. Milly was polite enough to Stevie last night, and I think she likes her. But I know Milly did all this for me, even though it’s technically Stevie’s tasting. It’s Milly’s love language, her way of showing she cares.

I appreciate the gesture more than she knows.

“Pretty day,” I say.

Stevie stops to look outside, curling her hands around her low back. “Pretty view.”

A panorama of the Great Smoky Mountains stretches out before us. It’s a radiant winter day, the sky crisp, the air cold. Mountains undulating in waves as far as the eye can see. The trees are bare, giving the landscape a bluish-purple tint.

Stevie turns her head and watches a staff member disappear down the steps that lead to the smoking patio. Then she looks at me, eyes serious.

“You had to have missed it while you were gone,” she says, voice low. “The mountains. Your family. Everything.”

I slip my hands into my pockets. Think about my answer for a minute. I could go with the old line, the one I gave everybody about how I loved the farm but needed a change of scenery. That I was in Maui or Madrid to recharge my batteries so I could return to Blue Mountain refreshed and ready to give my all.

It’s not a total lie. But it’s not the whole truth either.

Looking at Stevie looking at me, the idea of giving her that answer suddenly makes me feel tired. Bored, even. Like I’m finally fed up with my own bullshit.

“I think I missed how things used to be,” I say. “My family was never perfect. But growing up here, I was happy. I felt safe. But then my dad got sick . . .”

She returns my gaze steadily. I don’t think either of us expected me to give this answer to that question. But undeterred, Stevie waits for me to continue.

“He committed suicide.” I want to look down at my shoes but I don’t. “He played football too, and turns out he had a real bad case of CTE. Degenerative brain disease. Kinda shattered the little bubble we lived in up here, you know?”

Stevie’s expression softens. She slips her arm between mine and my torso and curls it upward from behind, trapping my shoulder in a hug.

She holds me like that. Doesn’t say a word. No empty platitudes. No awkward offers of sympathy. She just looks and listens and lets me know she’s there.

“Anyway, we lost Daddy—that was years ago. I was sixteen at the time. We didn’t fully understand back then how early CTE could start, so I threw myself into football. I had to stay busy, you know? I played in high school. College. Well, for a few years, anyway. Then the pros. When I finally retired, I threw myself into the resort. I was busy then. I knew I wasn’t happy, but I was helping my family, so I just . . . worked. Then Emma walks onto the farm, and I see her with Samuel—” I shake my head and look at my feet. “It hit me how lonely I was. I came home to set down roots. Get married and shit. But that wasn’t happening.”

She looks at me for a beat with this weird expression on her face. “You want the whole shebang, huh?”

“Shebang?”

“Wedding. White picket fence. Babies and maybe a dog too.”

“I’d love to have a dog, yeah.”

Her face falls. But then she blinks, drawing a quick breath through her nose, and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Takes a lot of energy, always running and moving and doing. So much effort to stay busy so you never have to stop and face the thing you don’t want to talk about.”

My gut contracts at the same time something in my chest swings open.

We shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. This is super personal territory we’re crossing into. I want to keep going, but Stevie doesn’t.

“Yup,” I say like an idiot. “Christ, I’m getting in the weeds here, aren’t I? I don’t mean to ruin the mood right before your tasting. We can talk about this later. Or not. But for now, how about we crack open a beer? Wake the palate or whatever.”

Stevie searches my face. She waits a beat. Then another. I can see the conflict working itself out behind her eyes.

I can feel myself hoping she’ll open up, whatever she’s debating she’ll share.

To my surprise, she does.

“Fake girlfriends don’t talk about these things with their fake boyfriends. But because you’re sharing your tale of woe, Hastings, I’ll share a little bit of mine. For years I ran myself ragged trying to stay busy so I didn’t have to face certain things.”

“Like?”

Stevie blows out a breath. “Like my shitty self-esteem. How I felt that I was unlovable in some essential way, so I believed I had to earn affection and respect. Work for it. Lord, did I work. I tried so hard to be everyone’s perfect everything. The perfect daughter. Perfect wife. Thing is, the harder I worked, the unhappier I got. I became resentful. And angry.”