Secrets We Whisper in the Moonlight (Decisions in Durham Book 2) Read online

  secrets we whisper in the moonlight

  RACHEL HIGGINSON

  contents

  Follow Rachel

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Coming Next

  Acknowledgments

  Acknowledgments

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Teaser

  1

  2

  Copyright@ Rachel Higginson 2022

  This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: you are not allowed to give, copy, scan, distribute or sell this book to anyone else.

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  Any people or places are strictly fictional and not based on anything else, fictional or non-fictional.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Editing by Marion Making Manuscripts

  Line Editing by Editing4Indies

  Proofreading by The Proof is in the Reading

  Cover Design by Zach Higginson

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  To Brittany, for your kind and generous

  Belief in me. And for your friendship,

  Which I treasure.

  And to SJ, for giving me Tomorrow Sarah.

  Little did you know, Too-Much-Wine Sarah

  Would inspire a whole book.

  one

  I needed a manicure. And probably a pedicure if the way my socks caught against my heels was any indication of their state. I also needed to get back to the gym. It had been a long holiday season filled with parties and drinking and family, which led to emotional baking and more drinking, which somehow led to more eating, more drinking . . . And now that we were in the middle of January, I needed to get back into some semblance of a fitness routine.

  I also needed a lobotomy.

  Or maybe Charlie needed a lobotomy.

  Maybe Ada and I could give him one together? Maybe we would be forced to give it to him if he didn’t stop talking.

  “And that’s why I’m going off sugar,” Charlie said with a long-suffering sigh. “I think it’s . . .” He gestured toward his hair, which was longer than normal and more unwieldy. No Shave November had turned into a religion for him. He hadn’t had a haircut since October, and he looked one part adorable caveman, two parts terrifying Sasquatch. The sides of his head, which were usually shaved closely to the skin, had grown, and his hair was sticking straight out. And the top of his head, where he usually applied product in an effort to tame his unwieldy locks, was left to its own devices. “It’s messing with my brain waves.”

  Ada looked up from where she was meticulously picking out the gunk that had built up under the bar pads and shot him a squinty glare. “Your brain waves?”

  He managed to keep a straight face. Or, Lord help us, he actually believed what he was saying. “Have you ever noticed I have trouble concentrating? Or like . . . focusing on one thing at a time?”

  Ada’s mouth dropped open slightly, but no sound came out. All sarcasm with a heavy dose of cynicism, she was a hard nut to crack. And even if you were one of the few allowed in her inner sanctum of trust, she still didn’t open up. Like ever.

  She was like the most beautiful locked box on earth. A little shorter than I was, incredibly petite, and toned. She had not fallen off the workout wagon. She treated her Muay Thai classes like therapy, and her cut biceps and six-pack reflected this. Although you might not be able to immediately tell she was a badass by her delicate facial features. She tried to make up for how pretty she was with a pixie cut that she’d dyed peacock blue three months ago . . . but honestly, she looked more model-like and less of a killer than ever.

  Still, as hard as it was to get her to share her feelings or thoughts or . . . anything but her very strong opinions, it was even harder to silence her completely. But Charlie had somehow managed to leave her speechless. There was no offhand remark. No cutting comeback. For Charlie to have said something that produced only a glassy-eyed stare of confusion was a real and true accomplishment.

  I was less willing to hold my tongue. Because how could we have not noticed that he struggled to stay focused? Unfocused was his typical setting. “I’ve noticed,” I said. “We’ve all noticed.”

  Charlie snapped aggressively in my direction. “Exactly.”

  “And you think it’s because you eat refined sugars?” Ada asked slowly. Either she was surprised by his sudden self-awareness or as shocked at his seemingly researched hypothesis as I was. In short, this wasn’t a typical Charlie conversation. He’d managed to catch us both by surprise when he suddenly looked up from the stacks of glasses he was inventorying and launched into a three-point speech about New Year’s resolutions and life choices.

  All we were missing was a poorly edited PowerPoint.

  “I’m just saying it could be,” he said, a little cowed by her snarky tone. “I feel like it’s worth a shot at least.”

  “Okay, wait,” I said, finally finding a way to ask questions without insulting him. “You’re going to cut out all refined sugars and see if it helps you focus better?”

  “Essentially, yes. Like a cleanse,” he said happily.

  “For how long?” Ada demanded.

  His head wobbled back and forth while his cheeks puffed out with a big breath. Then suddenly, the breath whooshed out of him, and his entire body seemed to deflate. “At least six months,” he answered somberly. “But maybe forever. I mean, if it works, why would I ever go back?”

  Ada leaned forward, resting her elbow on the now gleaming bar and her chin in her hand. “If this works, I will personally make sure you never have refined sugars again.”

  Charlie narrowed his green eyes on her. “What are you saying?”

  Sensing a fight, I tried to redirect them. “You know beer is made with sugar.”

  He cleared his throat and tried to recover his unassuming nature, which wasn’t as real as he wanted it to be. “Well, I mean, I haven’t done a ton of research into what I can and cannot eat yet . . . but I assumed as much.”

  “Are you really going to give up beer, Charlie?” My tone sounded harsher than I meant it to. I was just surprised. Charlie loved beer. And not just the light stuff. He wanted milk stouts and cloudy IPAs. He was obsessed with all sours and hard-to-find unicorn beers. He went on ro
ad trips by himself for certain releases. Once, he even flew to California and camped outside all night for a special release, only to have to buy it for triple the price secondhand.

  He shrugged like it was no big deal. Which was such a typical Charlie response that my brain pulsed with an instant headache. “You underestimate me, sis. Besides, they make gluten-free beer. I’ll still be able to drink it. I’ll just have to step away from some of it.”

  I knew for a fact they weren’t making special flavors of gluten-free beer that tasted like Bananas Foster or s’mores over a campfire. But he was right. I was majorly underestimating him. And that wasn’t fair.

  Even if Ada and I knew how doomed to fail he was, we didn’t have to make him feel like shit about it. At the very least, we could save our “I told you so’s” for when he inevitably gave up on this crazy idea and went back to his regular life of expensive but good beer, forgetting what he was doing while he was in the middle of doing it, and being as unreliable as we knew—and loved him for it anyway—him to be.

  Ada seemed to have twin thoughts. “It sounds hard, Charlie. But I think it’s cool you’re willing to try.”

  “You got this, Charlie,” I echoed. “And if you need me to store all your good beer so it won’t be a temptation, I can. And I probably won’t drink more than . . . half of it.”

  He grinned at my offer. “How about this, Eliza? We can swap whiskey for beer? You give me all your good whiskey because I can actually drink it. And I’ll give you all my beer. We’ll call it an even trade.”

  It was my turn to narrow my eyes into slits. “First of all, dollar for dollar, that is a terrible trade. My whiskey collection is worth at least four times what all your beer cost.” That was true not only because my bottles of whiskey way outpriced his cans and crowlers of beer, but because he barely had a collection. It was hard to build a vault when you drank it almost as soon as you got it. “Second of all, hell no. Never. You won’t even get it after I’m dead. I’m going to be buried with it. In a giant mausoleum. Like an Egyptian goddess with all her jewels.”

  Ada snorted. “You’re insane.”

  Charlie turned to face her. “She’s dead serious.”

  The front door opened, letting in a cold gust of January air. It was well before opening, but it wasn’t a customer. Jonah Mason walked in with a bottle in his hands and a smile on his lips.

  “Who’s dead serious?” he asked, wasting no time jumping into our conversation. Which was so Jonah.

  A flush of embarrassment heated my cheeks. It was so stupid and so out of place. I’d known Jonah my entire life, and he was well acquainted with my whiskey obsession. Still, it took everything in me not to throw my hand over Charlie’s mouth the second he started filling Jonah in.

  “Eliza with her million-dollar whiskey collection.”

  “It’s not worth a million dollars,” I added sternly. Everyone who knew me and took home similar salaries from our thriving but small bar knew that.

  “Not yet,” Ada teased with a wink.

  Her comment made me smile and forget the temporary insanity I always experienced whenever Jonah walked into the room. In my defense, he was unfairly handsome with dark, longish hair that had just enough body to make it curl in spots. And he constantly and very annoyingly pushed it behind his ears in this bashful way that made most women’s knees weak. Like he knew he had great hair but was also embarrassed by just how great his hair was. See? Obnoxious.

  The humble arrogance was somehow endearing and adorable all at once. And no matter how annoyed I seemed to get with him, I was also always equally bewitched.

  And then there was his face. His freaking face. His nose was slightly curved from where my eldest brother, Will, had slammed his elbow into it and broken it during a middle school pickup basketball game. And a scar through his left eyebrow from when Charlie had chucked a throwing star at him in high school. A joke gone very wrong. And then there was that crooked incisor he’d never gotten fixed because his mom had never been able to afford dental care. He hid it behind close-lipped smiles and his tongue in a sort of nervous tic. But it was all just a part of his charm. The crooked tooth was the furthest thing from an imperfection. If anything, it only highlighted just how perfect the rest of his face was. And then there were his eyes. A murky blue-gray that was sometimes more gray-blue, sometimes all steely gray, and sometimes nothing but blue-blue. The kind of blue that hinted at thunderstorms and bad weather. A blue sky obscured by hazy fog. They were as mercurial as he could be, a constantly changing temperature that kept me mesmerized and guessing at what he was thinking.

  And then there was his style. Currently, it was thirty-eight degrees outside, and he was wearing a long-sleeved brewery T-shirt, gray skater shorts, and leather flip-flops. He was a grown man who still hated to have his toes covered by shoes. He claimed shoes made him claustrophobic.

  Irritating, right?

  Or completely charming . . . depending on my mood.

  He walked straight over to where I was sitting and thrust the bottle into my hands. “Brought you another one to add to your collection.”

  I looked at the label. I already had it. I’d gotten up stupid early this morning to be the first one at my fav hole-in-the-wall liquor store that was all of ten feet by ten feet. The ancient proprietor knew everything there was to know about alcohol and always got the best shipments. He was even willing to sell it to you if he liked you.

  We had gotten a couple bottles for the bar too, but I had wanted one just for me. Plus, I loved the hunt. And I didn’t mind paying retail when I knew I was supporting a worthy cause. The worthy cause being good, well-made whiskey.

  But Jonah was so proud of himself, and I couldn’t let him down. “Are you serious?” I gushed. If for no other reason than I could now save one bottle and drink the other without feeling remorse. “Where did you find it?”

  He waggled his eyebrows at me. “I have my ways.”

  I stomped down the urge to throw my arms around his neck and give him a kiss on the cheek. It would have been totally platonic, but we weren’t those kinds of friends. Close friends, yes. But friends with clear boundaries, thanks to my obnoxious brothers and their constant running commentary on my personal life. And professional life, for that matter. They felt completely comfortable sharing their opinions on anything ranging from my style preferences to my dating choices. While my outfit of the day only seemed to bother them when I wore something too fashion-forward for their taste, their disapproval of my type of men appeared to be all-encompassing. They tolerated my friendship with Jonah. I could only imagine what a spontaneous kiss on the cheek would do to them. Or Jonah. They’d probably all keel over dead.

  Adorable little sister, Eliza, was only okay as long as she was anything but feminine.

  “Thank you,” I told him sincerely. “I’m so excited to try this one. It’s gotten the best reviews.”

  “You mean JoeSchmo gave it a good review?” He couldn’t hide his scorn for my favorite local Instagram influencer. JoeSchmo always had access to the best whiskey and beer, for that matter, and had an impeccable palate. I almost always agreed with him to the very last detail. I’d come to rely on him for guidance on all things whiskey.

  I shrugged. “He said it’s the best batch Coopers’ Craft has ever produced.”

  He made a sound in the back of his throat.

  I dug my elbow into his side. “You really are the best. Thank you.”

  He rubbed his side but smiled anyway. “Hey, gotta keep my clients happy.”

  “Wait a second,” Charlie protested. “How come I never get any of these client gifts?”

  Jonah turned around and laughed. “That reminds me. I do actually have a six-pack for you. I got really lucky the other day. Beer and Spirits had it stashed in the wrong place, totally underpriced. But those superstore minimum-wage cashiers don’t know anything about anything, so I grabbed it. I’ll bring it by this weekend.”

  “He’s off beer,” Ada announced from a
cross the bar. “So he doesn’t want it.”

  I held back a smile while Charlie floundered for something to say as Jonah began asking questions. It was one of many, many tests Charlie would face given his occupation—if he was serious about his sugar detox. And if this was any indication of his self-control, it wouldn’t be long before this was a well-intentioned but quickly forgotten whim. Like so many other things Charlie had attempted.

  Not that I wanted Charlie to fail. I just couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to give up sugar completely. Least of all Charlie, the brother who literally indulged in every single temptation and desire. And if we were being honest—a sugar cleanse might help his focus, but it wouldn’t suddenly turn him into a rocket scientist. Or even a competent bartender.

  Will walked onto the main floor before Jonah could get a serious answer out of Charlie. “I didn’t know you were stopping by today,” my eldest brother said by way of greeting his best friend.

  Jonah shrugged. “I knew you were doing inventory today, so I thought I’d swing over and see if you needed anything before I put my orders in for the week.”

  I gave him a funny look. That was usually done via an email between the two of us. Sure, sometimes he happened to stop by the bar, and we’d talk things through. And sometimes, he’d stop by with a list of new stuff he wanted us to try. But if it was just a simple refill, I texted or emailed.