Pretty Jane (The Browning Series Book 3)

by Dorothy Barrett

  “PJ?”

  “Oh, hey, Beau. Glad ya could make it.” She barely turned her head as she spoke, her voice unsteady and suspiciously fast. “But we’re all good here, and I gotta be getting home now, and I should probably stop at the gas station on the way and fill her up ‘cause Johnny’s ride is looking a little low, and what the hell! Why won’t this piece of shit open?”

  Beau approached the girl cautiously. PJ was wound so tight he could practically feel her anxiety nearing the breaking point. “Is it locked?”

  She stopped yanking and blew a wisp of hair out of her face. Then she reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt, and Beau could hear the rattle of keys. They snagged on the fabric of her top as she pulled them out and fell into the grass by her boots. PJ stared at them for a long second. Then she crumbled, her eyes squeezing shut as the first sob racked her body. Beau was done with being cautious. He wrapped his arms around her, she turned into him, and he held on tight.

  Beau wasn’t sure how long they stood there. He wasn’t even all that much aware of what was going on around them besides the noise. He just knew that PJ was warm, and soft, and sad, and hurting. And her shirt smelled like beer and pot, but her hair smelled like sea salt and limes. He also knew that she was embarrassed because she’d buried her face in his shoulder, so he couldn’t see her tears. But he could feel them. He could feel them soaking through his polo. He could feel them seeping into his soul. And he really wanted to hurt the bastard who’d made her cry.

  So when her sobs died down to sniffles, and she stiffened in his arms, Beau gave PJ some space and turned to the small cluster of people who’d formed a protective huddle around them. There was Watson of course. He and Eli were flanking Lily. Then there was his cousin’s friend, Penny, who was standing with a guy who was nearly as big as Watson, but not quite as scary-looking. All of them wore somber expressions. This was making Beau even more inclined to hurt somebody.

  “What happened?” he asked finally, trying to keep some measure of control as he scanned the faces around him.

  No one said anything for several seconds, but then Lily shifted awkwardly in the grass. Eli put a hand on her back to steady her. Beau went on immediate red alert as she stiffened.

  “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? What the hell happened in—”

  “I’m fine, Beau.” Lily reached down to yank off her shoes. “I just can’t stand on grass in these things, but seriously, I’m fine. Wade didn’t hurt me.”

  Beau didn’t miss the emphasis, and now he was fucking livid. His gaze shot to Eli’s immediately. “Where is he?”

  “Upstairs. First door on the right. He’ll be the dude crawling around on the floor.”

  Beau turned back to PJ. She’d bent to retrieve her keys. “Prudence?”

  “Yeah?” She lifted back up, her voice a bit steadier even though she was avoiding his gaze.

  “Can you do me a favor?”

  She shrugged as she thumbed through the keyring.

  “I’m really going to need you to wait in the car this time.”

  PJ sighed, then looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m really not worth going to jail over, ya know.”

  “You’re worth a lot more than you think,” he said quietly.

  “He only kissed me.” She was back to staring at her feet.

  “Did you want him to?”

  She grimaced and shook her head.

  “Then I need to have a conversation with him about that.” Beau took the keys and shuffled PJ towards the passenger seat. “And I’m really going to need you to wait in the car. I’ll be back in a few minutes to drive you home.”

  “Ugh. Fine. Whatever.”

  After PJ was settled in the car, Beau turned back to their friends. “Eli, I want you to take Lily home—”

  “Damn it, Beau. I don’t need an escort. I’m twenty, not—”

  “I know!” Beau said sharply, not in the least bit interested in another one of his cousin’s tirades. “But right now, you are a twenty-year-old pain in my ass. So can you please just go home?”

  “I got this. Go handle your business.” Eli settled a hand about Lily’s arm. She jerked away, shooting him a dark look as he ushered her towards his truck.

  They strode away bickering.

  Beau sighed and turned to Penny, who was still standing quietly beside her boyfriend. “Can you two keep an eye on her for a few minutes?”

  “Of course,” she said, her gaze flashing to PJ who sat motionless in the truck.

  Beau nodded, then turned back to the Colonel’s bodyguard. They shared another look before striding back to the house. Watson didn’t bother ringing the doorbell this time.

  ***

  They found him exactly where Eli said he was. Only the idiot wasn’t crawling around on the floor, he was hobbling over to the corner of the room where a big copper end table was littered with empty shot glasses, knocked over pill bottles, and half-eaten slices of pizza. Wade turned when he heard Beau close the door, his ashen face growing even paler when he saw the hulk of a man behind him.

  “Aw, come on,” he whined. “I already said sorry to that bitch—”

  Beau popped him in the face, just one clean clock to the jaw and Wade went down, collapsing in a pathetic heap near the table. “You don’t sound very apologetic to me.”

  “Shit, Browning. What the hell! Why do you even care about that chick?” Wade spat out a stream of blood as he rolled to his hands and knees with a pained laugh. “Bruister’s a whore, man. Slept with half the JV team at Finkerton her freshman year right before she was bounced ou-oOWRG—”

  Wade let out a strangled yelp as Watson hauled him up in a headlock, slammed him down in an ugly cow-patterned chair, then let go just in time for Beau’s fist to crash into his nose.

  “Fuck!” Wade hollered as the blood started pouring.

  Then he was crying.

  Beau didn’t care. He was furious. He was so damn mad he was shaking. And Watson was now giving him another look. This one said something along the lines of, “Careful, mate. You’ve got a kid.”

  Beau knew he was right. He had Max to think of. Max, and his family, and friends, and… PJ. He needed to control himself. He needed to think. He needed to not murder the shit stain bleeding all over the ugly cattle furniture.

  Beau took a seat in the chair opposite him and stared moodily at the shot glasses on the table. He didn’t like seeing them. They were a vivid reminder of his own shitty behavior in high school and college. He’d been pretty reckless at times, but had he been as bad as the guy crying in front of him? Had he called girls bitches and whores for the same kind of behavior he and his brothers had regularly engaged in at that age? Had he stolen kisses he had no right to? Beau’s jaw clenched as he stared hard at all those little glasses lined up on the table, because no, he sure as hell had not.

  But he had slept with a girl who was rip-roaring drunk after a night of dancing and booze. And yeah, maybe he and Janelle had both been utterly smashed, but did that make it okay? Did that make it consensual? It didn’t feel like it. It felt like he’d taken advantage of a friend. And the kicker was, as much as this filled him with shame, Beau also couldn’t regret what had happened, or at least what came as a result of that night. Because what came from that night was Max.

  And he did have Max to think of. Right now. So he wasn’t going to murder the shit stain. But they were going to have a conversation. A very one-sided conversation because Beau was done letting the asshole run his filthy mouth.

  Wade blew out a chunk of bloody snot in a dirty napkin and reached for one of the pill bottles. Beau snatched it up before he could get to it.

  “Goddamn, man, come on—”

  “Stop talking,” Beau barked before reading the label on the bottle and peering inside. There were several Oxycodone tablets left. Beau lifted his gaze back to the sniveling boy in front of him. “I’m gonna go ahead and let you have these in a minute, and then I’ll leave you alone to knock back as many as you like. I
don’t give a shit. But before I do, you’re going to listen to what I have to say, and you’re not going to interrupt. Because if you do, Watson will break something else.”

  Watson smiled at Wade.

  Wade didn’t smile back, just bobbed his head in a quick little nod.

  Beau held up his fist, ticking off demands with steel in his voice as he raised each finger. “You’re not going to bother Lily or PJ anymore. You’re not going to talk about them at school to your dumbass friends, you’re not going to run them off the road in your boy’s douchey car, and you’re sure as hell not going to put your hands on them ever again. You’re not going to harass my cousin, or my friend, or any woman in any way ever again. Are you understanding me right now, Wade?

  Wade bobbed his head again.

  Beau handed him another napkin. “Great. So here’s the deal. If you’re ever tempted to do any of the things I just mentioned, I want you to remember this.” Beau pointed to the hulk of a man looming over the petrified teenager. “This guy is ex-military. He’s killed people, Wade. He has killed people. Slowly. He’s broken so many bones and inflicted so much pain that this kind of shit is useless.” Beau rattled the bottle of pills. “Just Tic Tacs in a jar,” he said with a dark chuckle before leaning in closer. “And me? Well, I may not be that kind of sinner, but I ain’t no fucking saint. I’m a Browning. That means I have a whole family of very wealthy, very powerful people at my back. And we protect our own, so do not test me, Hollis.”

  “I w-wont.”

  Beau stared Wade down for several long seconds before tossing him the little plastic bottle.

  Watson knelt down beside his chair.

  Wade jerked at his sudden proximity, but the big guy didn’t lay a finger on him. Watson didn’t have to. All he had to do was smile at the terrified teenager holding the painkillers, and the message was loud and clear. Just Tic Tacs in a jar.

  ***

  Beau pulled into PJ’s apartment complex shortly after midnight. They hadn’t spoken much on the road. PJ had appeared absorbed by her phone for much of the way, and even when he’d stopped at a Shell station, she’d barely looked at him, just mumbled something about wanting to pay him back for the gas when he’d returned from the convenience store. He’d waved this off, handing her a bag of ice for her head as well as a sack full of snacks for her grumbling stomach. They’d driven the rest of the way home in silence, save for the steady crunching of chips.

  “Thanks for the food,” she said, crumpling up an empty Doritos bag and tossing it back into the sack. “I sort of missed dinner.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and made a move for the door, but paused, her gaze flickering back to him. “And thanks for… ya know, back there. The, uhm, hugging business. And for the ride.”

  PJ’s hair was spilling about her face now. She’d pulled the braid loose as soon as they’d left the Latimoores’, sweeping her thick wavy locks about her like a shield. Beau reached out, finding a silky strand to tuck behind her ear. She stiffened slightly, but let him. He wanted to touch her. To cup her face in his hands and tell her that the hugging business wasn’t ever something she needed to thank him for, but she was already turning away, unlocking the door, wanting to escape. Then she stopped once more, scrunching up her nose this time as she tilted her head.

  “Wait. How are you getting home?”

  “Watson tailed us in my car.”

  “Whoa. That guy’s good. I didn’t even notice him,” she said with a little smile.

  “Well, he does this kind of thing for a living,” Beau said ruefully, “and you were pretty focused on your phone. Another one of your books?”

  PJ shrugged as she tapped her fingernail on the door handle. “Nah. I don’t feel like reading that crap right now.”

  Beau didn’t like the way her smile slipped. He didn’t like that she was trashing her books when she so obviously enjoyed them. But most of all he didn’t like that she didn’t want him to see her face, to touch it. Wade had done more than steal a kiss tonight. He’d stolen her confidence. And with what the shit stain had been saying right before Beau’s fist crashed into his nose, Beau was sensing Wade’s harassment had started long before PJ’s exit from the academy.

  “I need you to level with me on something,” Beau said quietly.

  The tapping on the handle sped up, as though PJ knew what he was after, the kind of secrets he wanted to dig up. She wasn’t wrong. He wanted to know everything. But right now, he could tell she was exhausted and in no mood to resurrect the past, so Beau settled on finding out just one little thing. Just one little thing he’d been wondering about for a while. He smiled, side-eying her as he lifted his chin. “What’s the P stand for?”

  The tapping stopped, and PJ let out a funny little gasp. “Really? That’s what you’re asking me now?”

  “Yep.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, well it’s kind of one of those if I tell you, I might have to kill you kind of deals.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  PJ snorted and scrunched up her nose again as she mumbled something that sounded a little bit like “issunky.”

  “Come again? I didn’t quite catch that.” Beau leaned in closer as she squirmed.

  “It’s Punky.”

  Beau could only stare at her as the word bounced around in his brain. “Your name is Punky?”

  “Yep.”

  “Punky Jane Bruister.” He was smiling now.

  “Shut up,” she chirped with a tiny grin of her own.

  His shoulders started to shake as he bit his lip.

  PJ sighed. “Flippin’ Francine and her obsession with ’80s family comedies. I swear she still has the little doll with the freckles, and the pig tails, and the mismatched Chucks.”

  Beau was full on rolling at this point. PJ socked him in the arm. “Do not make me have to kill you.”

  “Okay, okay. I won’t say anything,” Beau said between gasps. “My lips are sealed. I swear.”

  “They better be, Beau Browning. Hellooo! Days of Our Lives much?” She hummed the opening bars to a popular daytime soap opera.

  Beau handed her Johnny’s keys and snagged the bag of ice from the cup holder. “My mom still watches that one.”

  They exited the truck with noticeably sunnier moods than they’d entered it, and after walking PJ to her door, Beau lingered for a moment, watching as her gaze fluttered down to the funky floral welcome mat illuminated by her porch light. “Hey,” he said quietly, “keep that chin up, Punky.”

  She was silent for a couple beats, and though she didn’t exactly lift her chin, she did smile again, and that was something. “Ya know, I think I prefer Prudence if it’s all the same to you.”

  Beau reached behind her to cradle the bag of ice over the bump on the back of her head. Her hand came up to cover his own. The warmth of it had him slipping his fingers free with reluctance.

  “Goodnight, Beau,” she whispered.

  “Goodnight, Pru,” he said with a smile.

  Chapter 20

  PJ called in sick for her next couple shifts at the clinic. She’d felt shitty about doing it, like she was somehow taking advantage of the super cool lady who’d taken a super big risk extending a job offer to a head case high school dropout such as herself. She’d felt even shittier when Ms. Patrice had clucked with sympathy over the phone, telling her how sorry she was to hear that PJ was feeling poorly, and how it was probably some bug she’d picked up at the center on Friday because the kids at Journeys were suddenly dropping like flies, and how Brecken had been tasked with sterilizing all the toys and therapy equipment to try and prevent the spread of the disease. This, of course, had made PJ feel the absolute shittiest because she should have been there helping him… because she wasn’t actually sick. At least not physically anyways.

  But she was in a funk, and Francine was beginning to notice. PJ could tell because her mother’s ADD symptoms increased dramatically when she was worried about her. Currently, Francine was striding back in from the parki
ng lot outside their apartment for the third consecutive time. She had her Wednesday morning step-aerobics class starting in twenty minutes.

  “Forgot my Fitbit,” she said, dashing for her bedroom.

  “Whatever,” PJ mumbled from the couch, where she was curled up watching an old episode of The Brady Bunch. This wasn’t exactly the best choice of programming to be consuming while in a funk, but Dinah had yakked up a hairball on the TV remote, and now the damn thing wasn’t working, and PJ didn’t feel much like getting up to change the channel.

  Francine sailed back into the living room, shoving her fitness watch in her bag and brandishing a pair of yoga pants that looked remarkably similar to the ones she already had on. “Hey, do you think I should go with the black Lululemons or switch to the dark charcoal?”

  “Black,” PJ said without shifting her gaze from the beautiful golden-haired girl on the screen. Flipping Marcia Brady. The chick probably had never had a zit in her life.

  “Oh, this is the one where Marcia gets braces, and she feels all self-conscious when Alan backs out of taking her to the dance.” Francine tossed the extra pants on the coffee table and smiled nostalgically as she lingered near the TV.

  “Cry me a river.”

  Francine dropped her duffel bag on the floor, jabbed the power button on the TV, and crossed her arms under her sports bra. “That’s it, Miss Cranky-pants! You are in a funk, and it’s stressing me out.”

  “Sorry,” PJ said moodily.

  “What gives?” Francine sat down on the coffee table in front of her.

  “Nothing. I’m just PMSing, that’s all.”

  Her mother cocked her head in disbelief. “I just got my period, and you’re always two weeks after me. Try again.”

  PJ picked at the tassels on the thick chenille throw wrapped around her shoulders. “You’re gonna be late for step.”

  Francine waved her hand dismissively. “Gloria can cover for me. She owes me one. Start talking. Does this have anything to do with whatever you were doing with Johnny’s ride Saturday night?” The blanket slipped from PJ’s fingers, her gaze jerking to her mother, who was watching her with a measured look. “Sweetie, the truck was at a quarter tank by the time we got back from those outlets, so of course, Johnny was gonna notice the extra gas. He sent me a text after he got home Sunday morning, asking if I’d gone out in the middle of the night to fill up his tank.” Francine snorted. “As if I’d ever do something like that. You know I sleep like a log. Especially after se—”