Read Online Beauty and the Mustache by Penny Reid - Free Book Online

still
recall wondering whether I should wait for him to get home or just
head out without saying goodbye. I waited until supper, when Billy
arrived and told me that Jethro was at the Dragon—one of three
biker bars near this part of the parkway—drinking with his buddies
and celebrating his criminal success.
    Disgusted, I’d left right
then.
    “ Well, Drew beat the shit
out of Jethro when he caught him trying to steal his 1971 Aermacchi
Harley-Davidson Turismo Veloce.”
    My mouth fell open, partly
because an image of Drew straddling a classic Harley flashed
through my mind and partly because the story was downright
shocking.
    I stared at Roscoe. “Did
Drew press charges?”
    “ Nah. He told Jethro that
he would pull some strings and get him a job as a park ranger if he
promised to stop with the illegal bullshit.”
    “ And he did?”
    “ Yep. Well, mostly. Jethro
never was in very deep with the Iron Order, so he was able to
extract himself pretty quickly.”
    The Iron Order was the
biker club that controlled Green Valley and the surrounding
counties. The Dragon Biker Bar was their hangout. At one point, I
remembered Momma being afraid that Jethro would become one of them,
but he never was much of a joiner.
    Roscoe paused for a minute
as he navigated a series of impressive switchbacks on the mountain
road. In order to reach Knoxville, we needed to go up one of the
mountains then down the other side.
    When the turns were behind
us, he picked up the story. “Jethro had to start at the bottom of
the ladder and work up to the job he has now. He got his GED then
went and got his AS degree, and finally, last year he got the job
as a ranger. Now he and Drew work together all the
time.”
    He then spent the next
several minutes waxing poetic about Drew and Jethro. From the way
Roscoe described it, they were preventing forest fires and
protecting the endangered animals, and working toward every other
kind of altruistic endeavor.
    I detected a hint of envy
in Roscoe’s voice. It seemed that Drew had a number-one fan, and
that fan was Roscoe Winston.
    “ That’s great,” I said in
all sincerity. “That’s really great.” It was great. It was super
great. And it probably meant the world to my mother. I couldn’t
believe she’d never said anything about it.
    “ Drew is…he’s the man.
He’s really quiet. I think it’s because he doesn’t want to show
other people up or make them feel like they’re less than him. Did
you know his father is a senator in Texas? He doesn’t talk about it
much, but he comes from money.”
    I thought about this
information for a bit, marinated in it. Drew didn’t seem all that
quiet to me. In fact, he seemed downright chatty. Rather than
contradict Roscoe’s assertion regarding Drew’s propensity toward
reticence, I decided to keep my observations to myself.
    “ Roscoe, our grandparents
had money too, but that doesn’t make one person better than
another.” Our grandfather on our mother’s side had been a
politician and a very wealthy man.
    “ I know, but Drew has made
all the difference. He helped Duane, Beauford, and Cletus with the
paperwork for their auto shop, and he even helped them buy the
place. He’s part owner, but he doesn’t see fit to
interfere.”
    “ Did you
say their auto shop? They own the shop?”
    Roscoe nodded and gave me
a big grin, his blue eyes flickering to mine then back to the road,
“Hell, yeah, it’s theirs: Winston Brothers Auto Shop. Momma helps
them with the books. It’s doing real good. They have a hook-up on
old, busted classic cars. They fix then then sell them in Nashville
for big bucks to people in the music biz.”
    This revelation was surprising, but also
freaking fantastic. I felt a surge of pride for the twins and my
sweet brother Cletus. Good for them.
    Annoyingly, I also felt a
good deal of gratitude toward Drew. I decided to push those
feelings to the side. If the shop was doing well, then Drew was
well compensated for his