Chapter 6: The Barrel House

Hayes took his hand out of my hair, slowly.

Boone walked over with the lead rope hanging from his fist.

"Is she in there?"

"Yes," I said. "No thanks to you."

He looked through the slats at Clover, and his whole face changed.

"I didn't know," he said. "I swear to God, Lainey. Dot called me at one-thirty."

"You never know anything," I said.

"That's not fair."

"You didn't know Kaylee had Mama's pearls out of the jewelry box. You didn't know she was in my room with Mama's dress."

He didn't answer.

"You didn't know your fiancée signed Clover over to a man who buys by the pound."

"I'll handle Kaylee."

"You don't handle anything, Boone," I said. "You stand there and let it happen."

His hand tightened on the rope until his knuckles went white.

He looked at Hayes, then at me, then at the place on the trailer where Hayes had pressed me up against it.

"That's how it is, then," he said.

"That's how it is," Hayes said.

Boone walked back to his truck and drove away with the empty trailer rattling behind him.

Hayes and I didn't talk until we were on the highway.

Then I said, "That was against the rules."

He kept his eyes on the road, but the corner of his mouth went up.

"Rule one said never when nobody's watching," he said. "Nobody was watching, Lainey. I checked."

"Boone was watching."

"Not when it started."

I looked out the window so he wouldn't see my face.

On Saturday night, Ransdell's held its fall party in the old barrel house.

The barrel house was a seven-story warehouse of black-stained wood on the hill below the distillery.

Inside, barrels were stacked on racks all the way up into the dark.

The whole building smelled like caramel and charred oak.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Sold My Mother's Farm, So I Got Engaged to His Best Friend from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.