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I fiddled with the blower as we got on the road, jacking up the heat in an attempt to calm myself down. “You must’ve been cold in that costume. I should’ve gotten you some sweatpants for under the tights.”
“I’m okay. It’s way colder in Chicago.” He eased back in his seat, trying to get comfortable. “Besides, I’ve always run hot.”
Not helping.
“Why Charlton?” I asked to distract myself from a large, possessive sniffing of his sexy-as-fuck cologne. “I mean, why were you and your father named that?”
“Oh.” Charlie grinned. “After Charlton Heston, of course. You knew my grandfather, right? Ephron Nutter worshipped Charlton Heston as if the man were Moses himself.” He cleared his throat and affected an exaggerated (and semi-familiar) Southern accent. “The 1956 Ten Commandments movie was the best damn production of all time! ‘A city is built of brick, Pharoah. The strong make many, the starving make few. The dead make none.’ You remember that, boy, when you think to treat someone unkindly. ‘The dead make none.’” He shrugged and in his normal voice added, “I never really understood what it had to do with kindness, but whatever. It was enough to make him name my father after the man, along with Aunt Charli, Uncle Carl, and Uncle Hess. And then the name got passed down to me, plus a couple of cousins somewhere along the line. My grandfather had eight kids, so it’s hard to keep track of everyone.”
“You’re telling me half a generation of Nutters, plus more in your generation, got named after Charlton Heston because… Moses didn’t agree with killing slaves? That might be the most small-town Tennessee bullshit I’ve ever heard, and I’ve lived in the Thicket my whole life.”
The turkey lifted an eyebrow at me. “Are you implying that Grandaddy Nutter had a screw loose?”
It took me a second to notice the corner of his lip was curved up. “Maybe. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Charlie snorted. “Why do you think I wanted to get the hell out of here as soon as possible?” His almost-grin disappeared. “I worried I’d become… just another Nutter.”
“Hey, now. Your family are good people,” I defended automatically, and I meant it. Other than Charlie’s father, the Nutters had been part of the bedrock of the town for generations. They were one of those families always willing to lend a hand to help a neighbor in need. They were a little quirky, even by Thicket standards, but they were also dependable, honest, and hard-working.
“I know.” Charlie ran long fingers through his hair and turned away to look out the truck window, absorbed by his own thoughts. “At least when they’re not teasing me and poking their nose into my business until I lose my mind.”
“Pfft. That’s what family does, whether it’s the family you’re born into or the family you make for yourself along the way.”
As we turned onto my parents’ property and headed up the bumpy gravel drive toward the barn, I noticed a haphazard pile of paint cans in front of the door beneath a smattering of half-dried, splotchy green swatches that made the old wood look like a seasick giraffe.
I sighed. Alana had probably been too impatient to wait until Friday to pick a paint color, and I’d bet my whole business that none of the paintbrushes had been cleaned.
“Sometimes seems like it’s my family’s entire job to make me lose my mind,” I admitted. “And that’s without the stress of the holidays in the mix. But…” I hesitated. I’d never found it easy to express my deepest thoughts, and I grasped for the right words. “Even so, I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Loving folks means accepting them as they are, I figure—good and bad, annoying and wonderful—the same way you want them to accept you. They’re loud and interfering sometimes, and you might not enjoy every minute of their company, but they’re yours, and you’re theirs. Remembering that helps you take the bad with the good.” I scratched at my beard. “Or at least that’s how I think about it.”
Charlie looked at me and nodded seriously, like he’d been listening hard and thought I’d said something profound.
After everything else that day—the angry banter, the smirky looks, the improbably sexy turkey costume, the bewildered but genuine smile on his face while he chatted with random Thicketeers—that simple, serious nod felt like it might be my undoing. The uncomfortable feeling in my belly returned a thousandfold, and I wanted nothing more than to get away from Charlie before I did something unforgivably stupid… like pulling him close.
When I pulled up next to the side-by-side he’d driven over from Amos’s place, I found myself saying in a rare burst of charity, “You don’t need to stay. I’ll sand the floor. You’re…” I gestured to his grand be-featherment. “You’re all paid up.”
