by Zoe Dawson
It was long past time for me to have her and get her out of my system, and that would be the end of my infatuation with Verity.
Yeah. That’s right. I had a hard-on for Holy Mary Verity.
The things I wanted to do with Verity…to Verity…yeah, I was going straight to hell.
But it would be fucking worth it.
#
Verity
“Why did you make us come here?” Billy Joe groused.
“What? Is Outlaws not good enough for you, Billy Joe?”
He glanced towards the bar, where Boone was tending. I could feel his presence every time he shifted, spoke, moved.
I felt his eyes on me, too.
I saw a woman wobble over to the bar and walk right behind it and wrap her arms around Boone’s neck. A frisson of heat exploded low in my gut.
She tried to kiss him and he was acting all sweet and Southern. Calling her darlin’ and trying to remove her hands from around his neck. “I can’t imagine what happened to your daddy and momma.”
“Huh?” I said, returning my gaze back to Billy Joe. His eyes narrowed, his lips tightened.
“Your momma and daddy…”
“Oh, they’re working at the hospital tonight. You didn’t know that?”
“No, how would I know? Your daddy told me to ask you to dinner. I thought he said he would be here.”
Either Billy Joe was lying to me or my daddy was setting me up. Either way it was unsettling. I picked at my excellent Cajun chicken pasta. I didn’t really have much of an appetite because I couldn’t stop thinking about my run-in with Boone in the rectory kitchen. How he just didn’t seem like the bastard I’d believed him to be. Helping me with my flat tire, then the groceries, warning me about Billy Joe, and the way he was with that little boy. That got to me the most.
I knew what happened that night, but could I be wrong? Do people change that much?
“Verity!”
I jerked my head up. Billy Joe was looking at me like he was waiting for an answer.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said I’m glad that your parents aren’t here. I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?”
He looked at me like I was being deliberately difficult, and maybe I was.
“Well, us, actually.”
I frowned and sat back. “Billy Joe, there is no us. I thought I made that clear.”
“There could be. I like you, Verity and I think we’ll be a good team.”
“You like me? Team?” That was the most insultingly lukewarm proposal I’d ever received. Obviously Billy Joe Freeman was happy to go along with my daddy’s plans. Well, I wasn’t.
“You know, taking over the parish. You could do the books.”
I slammed down my fork and glared at him. The rush of anger was welcome. It distracted me, focused my attention on something where I could affect the outcome—an argument. “My daddy put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“What do you mean?”
“This whole dinner thing. He wants us to be together.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. He has given me his blessing. I figure we could go out for a while, then get engaged.”
My stomach churned and I snatched a quick, hard breath. “Oh, my God. You have this all worked out. Why do you even need my input?”
“Well, we’d be partners.”
I gave him a long, tough stare. That’s it. I was done. I pushed my chair back and walked out on Billy Joe. The gall of my daddy to set us up like this. I belatedly remembered that Billy Joe drove us here, and I had no other way to get home.
“No, darlin’. You need to get yourself home and to bed.” At the sound of Boone’s voice I looked to my left.
“Oh come on, Boone. Come with me.”
The woman from the bar was climbing all over him. “Ah, no. You won’t remember a thing. I don’t take advantage of impaired ladies.”
My heart stopped in my chest as I stared at him. He was fighting off the woman’s advances very gently, keeping that smile on his face and wrestling her into a cab. He reached back and pulled out a bill and handed it to the cabbie.
Everything went into a turmoil inside me. My brain, my stomach, my nerves.
The guilt was like a vise, tightening and tightening until it threatened to crush me. I couldn’t change the past, but had I been wrong about it all this time?
When Billy Joe came up behind me, it suddenly was all too much. I took off at a run and headed out of town, but Billy Joe caught up to me easily with his car. He stopped the vehicle and came around the front, illuminated in the headlights for a second, and I wanted to run again.
“What’s wrong with being partners?” He said, catching up to me. His voice was tight, the kind of tight that said I had better change my mind, right quick. Nothing on this earth could compel me to marry this man. I would rather die.
I heard a truck come to a halt behind us. I didn’t care.
I laughed bitterly and turned to face him. “Partners? I don’t want to be a partner. I want out-of-control, can’t-live-without-you, consuming, joyous, think-about-you-all-the-time love, Billy Joe! I will never have that with you. Not after a million weeks or a thousand years. We aren’t compatible. I don’t want to be a preacher’s wife. It was bad enough being a preacher’s daughter. I’m not going to waste my life sitting in a church and doing the books! I have other plans.”
“Verity. Why are you acting like this? Is this about Boone Outlaw?”
“No. Surprisingly, Billy Joe I have my own opinions and what I want for my life.” I started walking away, but he followed me and grabbed my arm. I glared at his hand, then him. No way was I talking to him about Boone. “Billy Joe, I’m not a violent person, but if you don’t let me go and get out of my way, I will show you a few tricks I learned in New York City”
His fingers tightened on my arm and his eyes went scary and hard. “I see the way you look at him. You couldn’t even concentrate at dinner. Boone Outlaw isn’t for you.”
“Why because he’s an Outlaw and I’m the preacher’s daughter?”
“Yes. I’m here with God’s warning about trusting or consorting with devils. It’s about saving souls.”
“Don’t go all pious on me, Billy Joe. If I remember correctly it was you trying to get into my pants in high school.”
Billy Joe flushed red. His mouth tightened. “You were made for me, Verity. I know it. There’s no shame in giving yourself to the man you were intended for. It’s not that spawn of Satan, Boone Outlaw.”
I just stood there for a moment, my jaw clenched so tight it was starting to hurt. Boone was right. Nothing would ever change in this narrow-minded town. My mind was in a jumbled, mixed up, completely chaotic mess when it came to Boone. I’d thought I knew who he was and today he’d just blown everything I believed about him to bits. Made me second guess everything, and that touched off a sick, Oh, God had I been wrong? feeling that I hadn’t fully worked through.
“Stop spouting that over-the-top nonsense, Billy Joe. I will be the person to decide who I want in my life. Not God, not my daddy, and certainly not you!”
I went to step around Billy Joe, but he wouldn’t let go. He jerked me toward the car, wrenching my shoulder. I grabbed his wrist and tried to pry his hand off me. “Let go of me!”
“Get your fucking hands off her.”
Suddenly, I was free and Boone Outlaw stood between me and Billy Joe. He’d shoved him, and Billy Joe slammed into the side of his car. I groaned. It must have been Boone’s truck that pulled up behind us. How much had he heard?
“This is none of your business, devil.”
“People keep telling me that, yet I heard you mention my name. So, seems to me this is my business after all.”
He glanced at me and I shivered at the way the moonlight made his eyes look so vivid. He looked even tougher now than he had in the rectory kitchen when he was crowding me against the countertop. The June heat, even now after the sun had gone down
, was oppressive and made his hair curl at the nape of his neck and around his ear. His skin looked so silky there.
“No, it’s not.”
Boone narrowed his eyes and stepped up to Billy Joe, the subtle lines of threat in his body made me quiver, made my insides go a little gooey. “I’m making it my business, Freeman. Why don’t you get in your car and get the fuck outta here?”
“There’s a lady present.”
He glanced at me and smirked. And I remembered how I had slapped him the last time he’d smiled at me like that. “A little rough language won’t damage who Verity is,” he said. “She knows how to handle herself.”
“Like you know who she is? She’s not any of your concern, Outlaw.”
Boone took a breath and got right in Billy Joe’s face. “Maybe she’d be more interested in getting in the car with you if you had treated her with respect and hadn’t been a douche.”
“You wouldn’t know about respect, Outlaw.”
Boone laughed, and it was deep and rich and did funny things to my middle.
“Yeah, I have no respect for anyone who thinks they can bully someone into doing what they want. So, I’m a jackass, right? I’m not the one grabbing girls by the arm and forcing them into my vehicle. Time for you to skedaddle, huckleberry.”
Billy Joe closed his eyes and shook his head, as if he were in profound emotional pain. “Verity,” he murmured. “You are walking a dark path,” he said with a dramatic sigh.
“Go, Billy Joe. We really don’t have anything to talk about.”
He gazed back at Boone. “This isn’t done.”
He got in his car and drove away.
“Boone? Is everything okay?”
My insides froze at the sound of a female voice. I turned to look towards Boone’s truck. Marcy somebody or other. I couldn’t remember her last name. Boone was with someone? That knowledge burned in my chest and traveled down to my stomach. Of course, why wouldn’t he be? And, I couldn’t…didn’t give a damn. He could spend all the time he wanted with her. I turned on my heel and marched away.
Boone was the one who grabbed my arm this time.
“Verity, where are you going?”
“Home.” I needed time to think about all this…turmoil, and being touched by Boone Outlaw did not help. He was the source of my distress, my unease, and so much of the pain that was a year old. I needed to assimilate it all.
“You’re not walking.”
I rounded on him and shook my arm free. “I have two perfectly functional feet and legs here, so it looks like I am going to do exactly that, Mr. High and Mighty.”
“Boone?”
“Geezus,” he said, looking completely exasperated at having to deal with two females. “Marcy get back in the truck. Everything is fine.”
“Okay,” she said, shooting me a snotty, I-saw-him-first look.
Without taking my eyes off her, I said, “Don’t let me hold you up from your hot date.”
“What?” At the sound of the interest and surprise in his voice, I pulled my eyes from Marcy and dropped my head. He stepped closer to me when I didn’t answer. My nerves jangled when he tipped up my chin. “What is that? Are you actually sneering at me because I’m with someone? Last time I checked, she wasn’t slapping my face.”
“I bet she wasn’t.” I’m sure Marcy had things on her mind that had to do with other parts of Boone’s anatomy.
“Do you still want me to turn the other cheek, Verity?”
Remorse hollowed my gut and I jerked my chin out of his grasp. “Go, Boone. Get back to your date. You don’t need to worry about me.” This was making me even more convinced that I needed to reassess what I thought about Boone. If he was acting like this over a small fight with Billy Joe, I was confused as to why he had ducked me when I was trying to find him. Maybe there was more to that story, too.
He took my arm again. “Verity, get in my goddamned truck.” He said it low and through clenched teeth.
“And if I don’t? Are you going to drag me there like a douche?”
For a minute, he stared at me, then he burst out laughing, and the sound of it set off little fireworks in my blood. All I wanted to do was get away from him. I had to think.
“You got yourself some sassy mouth while you were away, Miss Verity Fairchild.” The smile disappeared from his face as I just simply went around him.
“Verity, I’m not joking. You’re not walking.”
I ignored him. I didn’t need Boone Outlaw to dictate… I squealed as I was literally swiped right off my feet and flopped up over Boone’s shoulder.
“You have a lot of nerve, Boone Outlaw!!”
He didn’t answer me, and when I wiggled, he slapped me on the butt.
I was so surprised it made me freeze in shock.
He carried me like I was nothing but a tiny burden. When he reached the truck, he dumped me inside, right next to his hot date, Marcy what’s-her-name.
Chapter Three
Boone
For a little gal, Verity was one tough little peach pit. Here I thought sugar wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and she was flinging out the attitude like grub at a church picnic. She folded her arms and didn’t say a word, just fumed over there against the door, but I didn’t care. I was not leaving her alone to walk home this time of night with Billy Joe Freeman lurking around just waiting for her.
Fucking Billy Joe Freeman. He’s lucky I didn’t dislocate his damn jaw for putting his hands on Verity.
“Hi,” Marcy said. “Weren’t you the valedictorian in school?”
Verity turned to look at her with a glare that made Marcy glare right back.
“I wasn’t the valedictorian,” she bit out like Marcy was the village idiot. “Aubree Walker was. I was the salutatorian.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She looked at me. “You came in second.”
I was about to say something about Verity being really smart, but she really didn’t need my support.
“That’s right. I did. And, where were you placed?” She tilted her head, her sarcasm thick in the cab.
Marcy’s mouth tightened and I wanted to laugh, but I thought better of it. Those stormy, pretty brown eyes of Verity’s made me want to rile her up just a tad more. That sugarpie was a turn-on when she had a mad going.
As far as I was concerned it was game on with Verity. The preacher’s daughter and I were going to have words.
Marcy shifted, slipped her arm around the back of my shoulders and moved closer to me. It took everything I had not to howl out loud. What a situation. One pissed-off little spitfire, and one who only wanted to get into my jeans.
I felt a little smug that Verity didn’t like that I was with Marcy. Too bad.
I drove into the churchyard and Verity was out of the truck in a flash, stalking towards the house. I had to run a little to catch up to her.
She rounded on me. “Boone Outlaw, I don’t need you to walk me to my door. I don’t need you for anything!”
When she moved, I followed behind her until she hit the porch. I stood there while she fumbled with the keys for, like, five minutes. Finally, I strode up to the door, took the keys from her trembling hands, and unlocked it for her. She stood there stoic and stiff. And all I could think was that I desperately wanted to touch her. I even raised my hand, but controlled myself at the last minute.
She lifted her head to look at me. Her eyes had lost that anger and looked…bruised. She bit her bottom lip as her gaze locked to mine. Everything inside me just jumbled. Her look told me that she was feeling something powerful, and once again I felt as if I was the epicenter of that woe. That caused more than simple turmoil in me, and because I had no idea how to deal with this overload, I went and said something flippant. “Apparently, you needed me for something, darlin’.”
I regretted the words and my cavalier tone as soon as they were out of my mouth, but I couldn’t get them back.
Her eyes hardened and she snatched the keys out of my hand. “Why couldn’t you just
have minded your own business? Don’t keep Marcy what’s-her-name waiting on my account.”
“Why the fuck can’t you be honest? Geezus!” I said.
Marcy blew my horn and I glared towards the truck.
“You want honesty, Boone? How about this for honesty? I would have been better off if I had never laid eyes on you. Never gone to that graduation party. It was a mistake!”
Her words cut me and hurt. “What does that have to do with me?!”
“You slipped Ecstasy into my drink!”
I actually stepped back as if her words were blows. The news hit me with the force of a baseball bat, leaving me incredulous, a little dizzy, a little sick. My jaw slack, my hands clenched into fists, I leaned in and growled. “What? No I didn’t.”
“It had to have been you. You were the only one close to me and you were distracting me all night.”
“What? What did you just say?”
“Nothing.”
“It sure is something.” I clenched my fists my gut on fire.” I can’t believe I’m hearing this! I would never do that! I would never take away someone’s choice. First, I know what it’s like not to have choices. Secondly, Verity, I don’t need to slip a girl anything to get her to sleep with me!”
The horn sounded again as if to punctuate my statement. I stalked to the edge of the porch and slashed my hand across my throat.
“It had to be you,” she said in a small, broken voice.
I turned around. “It wasn’t me.” I said through clenched teeth. “I can’t prove it, and you don’t really know me well enough to take my word for it, but you better be looking at someone close to you. Because you’re wrong about me. Dead wrong.”
She must have heard the raw emotion in my voice, because her expression softened. “I can’t be wrong.”
My heart pounded so hard I thought it might explode out of my chest. It was beyond belief that she could ever think I would do something like that. I thought she was different, and here she was, just the same as everyone else. That’s when the anger tightened inside me. “Why would I deny it? It’s been a year. If I was the person you think I am, why wouldn’t I want to brag about it? Besides, nothing happened between us. So, if it was my intent to have my wicked Outlaw way with the virgin preacher’s daughter, I think I would have been a little more aggressive with my evil plan to get into your pants.”