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relatives. “And I’m still sorry—for Hank’s death and for whatever drove you outside.”
    “My cousins were beginning to tell stories of going to the Orange County Speedway and what a grand time they all had, especially after my dad got really drunk and his insults got both creative and unintelligible.” Trey could picture the scene, including his father throwing beer cans until he was tossed out.
    “I imagine what seems like a funny story among cousins is less funny to his children.” She hadn’t moved her hand from his shoulder, so he could feel her step closer to him in the movement of the joints in her fingers. Even in the dark, through his shirt, her fingers felt sturdy. Solid. Stable. He wanted her to press up against him so he could feel her strong, purposeful body up against his. To be able to go home with her and draw patterns in her freckles as he forgot himself in her body.
    But she was his tenant and he was at his father’s funeral, so his thoughts would remain thoughts only.
    “You say that like there could be something funny about the belligerent drunk.” Unexpected sexual frustration made the words come out with more anger than he’d meant.
    “When I knew him, he was only belligerent.”
    The bald honesty of her statement forced a laugh out of him. “And yet you still have some affection in your voice.”
    Her fingers tensed on his shoulder. “I won’t force it on you.”
    “Why?”
    “Why won’t I force it on you?”
    He turned to face her and her fingers slipped off his jacket. He wished she had kept them there. “Why the affection?”
    She shrugged. “For five years we shared the farm, and worked together some. He wasn’t a very good farmer, but Hank liked to have a cup of coffee with me in the mornings and hear what I was doing to the land. He even came to the farmers’ market occasionally. It’s hard not feel some measure of affection.”
    “I lived with him for eighteen years and I managed.” Even in the dark, he could tell he’d startled her again. And again, he had the inkling that he’d said something he shouldn’t have, yet knowing the words that would come out of his mouth next would make him sound like a petulant child didn’t stop him. “Despite what you and every person in that room want to think, my father should have been tossed into an unmarked grave with a bucket full of lime and forgotten about.” Max’s mouth fell open, but Trey wasn’t going to back down. “And if I was in control of this funeral instead of Aunt Lois and Kelly, that’s exactly what would happen.”
    Trey turned on the hard heels of his dress shoes and stomped back to the viewing, away from one person who had pleasant memories of his father and toward a crowd of them. He would shake hands, accept hugs and look sad as was required, but there would at least be one person who would know the truth of how he felt. And somehow, it was important that the one person was Max.

CHAPTER FOUR
    T HE FUNERAL WAS just as awful as Trey had imagined it would be, although in ways he didn’t have the creativity to have foreseen. First, there was the knowledge that he’d had a near temper tantrum at the viewing and the bland look Max gave him wasn’t enough to pretend it hadn’t happened. Second, the church was packed, and not just with family members. The mayors of Oxford and Roxboro were both there, along with one Durham County commissioner, proving that you could be a drunk and an asshole and still have dignitaries at your funeral so long as you were from an established family. The mayor of Roxboro was perfectly polite, but the mayor of Oxford was determined to talk with Trey about upcoming legislation and its effects on small towns. Trey had been prepared to talk with family members he had no interest in and express sorrow he didn’t feel to people whose names he couldn’t remember, but feigning interest in a rider on a farm bill had not been on his agenda.
    The preacher droned on and on about