Moonshine Hollow

Chapter Nineteen

The next morning Rose woke late and was embarrassed to go downstairs and face the boys. She was appalled by her behavior the night before. She had been so weak. She did not want to think of herself as a damsel in need of saving, but that seemed to be all she was lately.

She stayed in her room as long as possible and finally went down to the kitchen, praying the boys had already left for the day. She froze on the stairs when she saw Arthur and Forrest sitting around the table and Peter serving pancakes.

Self consciously she moved to her seat and poured herself coffee without meeting anyone's eyes. Peter set a plate of way too many pancakes in front of her. She set about the business of eating them, just waiting for them to leave.

"Arthur," Forrest said, he slid the notebook over to him. "What is this?"

Arthur glanced at the books and chuckled to himself. "Oh yeah, an opportunity presented itself when I was in Chattanooga couple weeks back; an extremely lucrative opportunity."

Rose hid her sigh of relief in her coffee, she could have kissed Forrest for drawing attention from her. She glanced up as that thought flitted through her brain and she looked back down and blushed fiercely as she remembered begging him to stay with her last night.

"And the consequences of this lucrative opportunity?" Peter paused, still holding the frying pan in hand.

Arthur snorted shoveling a huge fork full of pancakes in his mouth. "None."

Peter shook his head in disbelief. "You're an idiot." And he marched back into the kitchen.

Forrest pulled the notebook back in front of him and snapped it closed.

Arthur looked confused. "Forrest-" he said, trying to get Forrest to see his perspective.

Forrest shoved his chair back. He leaned forward into Arthur's space. "If you want to behave like an idiot, that's your business. This isn't a game and when you do something like this, it effects all of us." He drew a circle in the air with his finger to encompass the whole room. "And every single action has consequences. If you don't start to get control of yourself and think things through you are going to get one of us killed."

Forrest stalked out of the room. Arthur let out a dramatic sigh and turned to Rose. He gave her an impish smile. "Do you want to go to town?" He asked. "I need to get out of here for a while."

Rose nodded feeling like a sudden weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "That is exactly what I need." She said with a light laugh. "Let me go grab my hand bag."

She and Arthur rode to town in silence, and at first she thought it was because he was embarrassed by what had happened at the breakfast table. But after a while she wasn't so certain that was it anymore. "Arthur," she said, staring hard out the side window. "Are you mad at me?"

Arthur glanced at her, shock registering on his face for a moment before he covered it with one of his easy grins. "I'm not mad at you Rose."

"I know I've been causing you guys trouble-" she started to say but Arthur immediately interrupted.

"No Rose, no. I'm not mad at you at all. I'm mad at myself, because they are right. And I'm mad at Forrest because...he's Forrest and he just brings that out in people." He tried to smile at her but it was a brittle thing. His eyes were tight and tense.

"About the books thing?" She asked in a small voice. She tried not to notice anything about their other business, instead keeping her focus on the store.

"That's part of it, and other...brother stuff."

"I don't want to cause trouble with you all," she said staring at her hands.