Pretty Jane (The Browning Series Book 3)

by Dorothy Barrett

  “Not for a very long time.”

  “Alright.” PJ turned her face away from the light. It seemed determined to follow her. When she blinked again, Ivy Espinoza, Counselor OS, was all up in her face.

  “I also wanted to tell you that you’re gonna be just fine, Punky Jane.” She leaned in, warm lips sending tingles up PJ’s spine as they whispered over her forehead. “Now, wake up.”

  ***

  The next time PJ opened her eyes, she saw stars. Real ones. They winked at her through the branches of Beau’s sycamore tree. It was funny how she’d come to think of it as his tree. Even funnier how he was the first person she thought of after waking up from a near-death experience… and the only person she really wanted to share it with.

  If her man required full disclosure as a rule, she was about to lay it on him big time. Maybe he’d run for the hills, but that was fine. PJ had wheels now. She could catch him.

  PJ snorted.

  Brecken’s face popped up over hers.

  PJ startled. “What the hell?”

  “Oh, thank God. You’re alright,” he said, rocking back on his heels as he knelt beside her with his phone. “I was about to call an ambulance.”

  “What? No. I’m fine.” PJ reached for her head, wincing at the throbbing at the back of her skull. “Wait. What happened again?”

  Mike’s faced popped up over hers. “Isss my fault, PJ. I’m sssorry. Couldn’t breathe.”

  “Yeah, okay. Please don’t breathe on me now.” PJ grimaced. The guy smelled like a beer factory.

  “’Kay. Sorry.” Mike backed off.

  “You cracked your head on the knot on the tree,” Brecken said.

  “How long was I out?”

  “About thirty seconds.”

  “Really, it felt significantly longer.”

  “I’m calling the ambulance.”

  PJ shook her head, a wave of nausea hitting her at the movement. “No. Just help me up. I can make it to the hospital on my own.”

  “No way,” Brecken said. “I’ll take you.”

  “I can drive,” Mike slurred, moving to stand with them.

  “Hell, damn no.” Brecken jabbed a finger at him. “You will sit your ass back down. You’ve done enough. I’m taking your keys and calling you an Uber.” Brecken was nearly growling as he thumbed an app on the phone in his hand. “And I swear to God, Mike, if you don’t stay here and wait for it, we’re done, man. I mean it. I’m so over your shit right now.”

  Mike sat his ass back down, his bleary-eyed gazed falling to the ground.

  PJ held on to Brecken’s arm as he walked her to the Chevy. “I’m sorry,” he told her quietly.

  “Me too.” As they settled back into her car, PJ studied the patch of purple under Brecken’s left eye. “That shiner isn't from your training, is it? Mike hit you, didn’t he?”

  Brecken sighed. “He’s been really stressed lately. His father passed away a few weeks ago from liver disease. It was the day before Mike’s twenty-first birthday.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. The guy was an asshole. Used to knock Mike around when he was a kid. Needless to say, when Mike came out a couple years ago, his dad wasn’t exactly supportive. I think Mike was hoping his father would finally come around before his liver gave out, and be some kind of… I don’t know… decent human being. But he didn’t.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yep.” Brecken glanced back at the man sitting on the curb. Mike’s head was bowed, his hands clasped behind a dark buzz-cut.

  When PJ had known him around the skate park, he’d worn his hair long on the top and faded on the sides, and he’d always seemed to be smiling and joking around. Now, she wondered if his funny guy schtick had just been a mask to cover up the pain of having a shitty father and confusion over his sexuality. PJ had used him that day at Jo Jo’s, but maybe he’d been using her too. Fuck, they’d both been a mess. PJ sighed wearily.

  “I, um… I knew Mike before he came out.”

  Brecken’s gazed shifted back to her, his palm settling over the gear shift. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” PJ said awkwardly. “Like… I knew knew him.”

  “Uh-huh.” Brecken considered this as he tapped on the wheel. “Sooooo… if we both slept with the same guy, does that make us enemies or besties? I’m not sure.”

  PJ snorted, then winced again, another wave of pain radiating up through her skull. “Oh God, please don’t make me laugh right now.”

  Brecken grinned. “Come on, BFF, let’s go get your head examined.”

  Chapter 50

  After failing a bunch of tests in the doctor’s office, PJ was sent away with a prescription for painkillers and a laundry list of mentally taxing activities to avoid while recovering from a concussion. Reading smutty novels, binging on video games, and texting her boyfriend were all on the list. PJ figured she might survive without the first two for a few days, but the last was so not happening.

  She needed to text Beau now. Hell no, she needed to call him. She needed to tell him how sorry she was they’d fought and how much she loved him, and ask him if he wouldn’t mind coming to pick her up from the hospital because driving, apparently, was also on the list. But as soon as PJ shuffled back into the crowded emergency room lobby, she realized she didn’t need to.

  Beau was already there.

  She spotted him immediately, even over the noise and bustle of the place. He stood by a large potted plant with spiky red blooms, looking handsome as hell in his slacks and polo shirt. He seemed calm enough, but PJ could still make out the subtle lines of stress bracketing his mouth as he listened to whatever Brecken was telling him.

  PJ was a little surprised to see her coworker had hung out. She’d had to wait a solid half-hour before the nurse had called her to a room, and then nearly another before the physician had shown up, and then another for the exam to be completed and for the doc to rule her concussed. And now PJ was exhausted, and she just wanted to sink her tired, concussed head down on her boyfriend’s shoulder.

  Beau seemed to sense this because suddenly he turned her way, his gaze zoning in on her in a heartbeat. Brecken noticed her too, a sheepish grin forming as he tagged her man on the shoulder before sauntering over to PJ and abandoning Beau with the giant plant.

  “Glad to see you alive,” Brecken said.

  PJ grabbed at the back of her head as he drew near. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Her coworker hesitated a couple feet from her.

  PJ bit her lip.

  Brecken’s sharp blue eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  PJ snorted.

  “Haa!” Brecken said. “Funny, Jane Doe. But I’d advise you not to open with that one with the hot guy over there. He’s been pretty tense ever since he showed up.”

  “But how did he know I was hurt? I never called—”

  “Your phone was ringing off the hook in your backpack.” Brecken glanced back at the bank of chairs near the plant. PJ had been so out of it by the time the nurse had called on her that she’d forgotten her bag under her chair in the lobby.

  “I answered it,” Brecken said with a shrug. “Told your man what went down at the clinic. Then I told him to get his ass down here, ’cause I had a feeling you were gonna be needing an escort home, and as awesome as I am, I figured you really needed your favorite cat memer right now.”

  PJ almost cried as she put her arms around him. “You are awesome, you know that?”

  “Yeah,” he whispered, hugging her back gently before pulling away. “I’m gonna take off now. I need to go check on my dog memer.”

  “You two gonna be okay?”

  Brecken sighed. “I don’t know. If he’s at his place sleeping it off right now, maybe. But if he’s at a bar…” Brecken’s gaze fell to the floor. “I love Mike, but I’m just not willing to let my life become some sad TV movie while he takes his man pain out on me.”

  “I get it. Some people are ready to get help. Some people aren’t.” PJ
smiled tentatively. “But if you think Mike’s willing, I might know an AA group in the area my dad used to go to.”

  “Thanks, P.” Brecken rubbed at his left eye.

  PJ frowned at the lingering bruise. “But you tell that fucker, no more shiners, or I might have to choke him out again.”

  Brecken shook his head before glancing back at Beau, who was watching them from across the room. “Yeah, see, that’s another thing you might not want to say to the hot guy standing by the bromeliad.”

  PJ’s breath caught as her gaze locked with the hot guy in question. “You’re probably right.”

  Brecken’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “That’ll be my ride. Catch you kids later.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Brecken took off. PJ didn’t watch him go; her focus was now entirely on the man by the plant.

  She took a couple steps forward.

  He took a couple steps more.

  In seconds, they were in the middle of the room, standing an arm’s reach apart.

  “Hi,” PJ said.

  “Hi,” he answered back.

  “I got a concussion.”

  “I figured as much after what Brecken told me.” Once again, Beau was scanning her, his gaze taking in everything. “I wish you hadn’t jumped that guy. A concussion is bad enough, but you could have gotten hurt even worse.”

  “I know.” PJ sniffed. “I really did try not to, but Mike was going after Brecken, and it’s hard for me to just walk away when someone’s hurting my friend. I just… it’s not something I can do because—”

  “I know, Pru.” Beau stepped even closer. “I know.”

  PJ swallowed hard. “I will try to be better. I’ll try not to lose my shit over things. I’ll try not to lie, and keep shit from you, and act like a hormonal bitch.” PJ’s eyes pooled; her lips started to tremble. “But I’m gonna fuck up, Beau. I’m not perfect. I never will be.”

  He smiled, his hand coming up to curve about her face. “I’m not interested in perfection.” Then he tugged her into his arms, and she laid her cheek on his shoulder, and the pain in her head was fading fast.

  They stood that way for a while, the world around them disappearing as it often did whenever they entered each other’s orbit. Some of the patients waiting in the lobby were staring. PJ didn’t care. The only person on her radar was the man holding her like he never wanted to let her go. And that was just fine with her because the feeling was entirely mutual.

  Chapter 51

  Beau never wanted to let her go. PJ was soft, warm, and very much alive in his arms. When her coworker had answered her cell phone an hour ago, Beau had heard the words “hospital” and “head injury,” and he’d spent several agonizing minutes racing from her apartment, where he’d been waiting for PJ to get home from work, to the hospital, where he was terrified she might be in some kind of trauma-related coma… or worse.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him now. “I’m sorry about lying to you—”

  “Don’t.” Beau pulled away reluctantly, needing to look her in the eyes as he said this. “You don’t need to say that again. You already did. I’m the one who needs to apologize. When I thought you might be pregnant, I overreacted. I was rattled because—”

  “I know,” PJ said, repeating his earlier words with an empathetic smile. “I know.”

  Beau nodded, his throat constricting.

  People were watching them now. An elderly man sat in the bank of chairs nearest them, the aged brown skin about his face partially concealed by a medical mask. His wife sat next to him with a pair of knitting needles that were suspended in action as she blinked at them. And there was a woman with a smartphone in her hand and gauze wrapped around her ankle. She, too, appeared to have lost interest in whatever she was doing to pass the time as she watched them with the curiosity of a reporter sensing a juicy story.

  Beau almost laughed as he remembered what his cousin had told him yesterday about doing this in public. He looked around, spying even more unfamiliar faces turning to stare. Jesus. It didn’t get much more public than this. The tongues were sure to be wagging by morning. Hell, Smartphone Lady would probably have the next several minutes of his life uploaded to social media long before then.

  Screw it. He’d give them something to talk about. He’d give them something real. Beau swallowed back a rush of nerves, tuning everyone else out as he turned his attention back to the only person in the room that mattered. “I know you know,” he told PJ thickly. “But what you don’t know, because I didn’t tell you that night, was that if you had been pregnant… I would have been okay with it.”

  “Really?” PJ said, her voice suspiciously high.

  Beau took hold of her hand. “Not gonnna lie. I would have been scared at first, but if you’d have given me a chance to wrap my head around it, I’d like to think I would have felt the same way I do right now.”

  “Which is?” PJ was gnawing the lipstick from her bottom lip as she stared at him hopefully.

  Beau smiled as he squeezed the palm in his hand. “I think we’d make bad-ass little babies, Pru.”

  She giggled. “Damn straight.”

  “When you’re ready for it.”

  “And you.”

  “Agreed.”

  PJ pulled her hand from his, her fingers already balling up. They fist-bumped to a chorus of “Aws” from the crowd, then PJ giggled again, a flush rising in her cheeks.

  “Just out of curiosity,” she asked, “what would you have done once you wrapped your head around it? Our hypothetical, bad-ass, little baby, that is.”

  “I would have proposed.”

  PJ swallowed, her gaze falling to the floor, the room around them growing unnaturally still.

  Beau tipped her chin and found her eyes. “Yes. I would have asked you to marry me… but not for the reasons you’re thinking. I wouldn’t have asked you out of some sense of obligation. I wouldn’t have asked you because of an unplanned pregnancy.” Beau shook his head, laughter bubbling up out of him. “God, Pru, the best things that ever happened to me were having Max and falling for you, and I didn’t plan on either one.” Beau swept his thumb over her lip, then swooped in to press a quick kiss to the trembling curve of it. “I would have asked you because I love you. And I am never gonna feel any different.”

  PJ’s entire face was trembling now, and when she managed to speak her voice came out on a squeak. “Oh.”

  There were more “Aws” from the crowd, and even a few sniffles as PJ struggled for composure. Needles handed Smartphone Lady a tissue, and Beau couldn’t tell for sure, but he suspected Mask Guy needed one too because he was sniffling the loudest.

  “Well, shit,” PJ said finally, “I guess I’m kinda sorry you didn’t actually knock me up then. That proposal thing sounded pretty damn awesome.”

  Chuckles rang out, and Beau couldn’t help laughing right along with them.

  “Ask her!” someone yelled from the nurses’ station.

  PJ buried her face in her hands.

  Beau pulled them away gently. He really needed to look her in the eyes when he said this. He also needed to get down on one knee, or at least, that’s what his bossy cousin had insisted, and Lily had read enough romance novels to be something of an expert.

  Beau glanced down at the tiles beneath his shoes, wondering how many crazy strains of bacteria were crawling around the floor of an emergency room.

  PJ snorted. “Don’t do it, Browning. I won’t be able to help you in a few days when you come down with the plague. I’m concussed, damn it.”

  Beau’s hand slipped into the front pocket of his pants, feeling for the little jeweler’s bag he’d tucked there earlier. He had planned to do this at her apartment. There was a bouquet sitting in the backseat of his car, right now: a little bunch of wildflowers he’d picked from that meadow at the church. There was also an envelope sitting next to the flowers, and in that envelope there were tickets to San Diego because he kind of owed PJ a trip. All of these things had been
forgotten, however, in Beau’s rush to get inside the hospital. All of them… except for the really cool bling he’d bought her last night. That he still had in his pocket.

  Beau glanced down at the tiles again. Then he looked back up into those fathomless black-brown eyes, and slowly sank to his left knee because, fuck it, some of the best things in life really were unplanned.

  “This could be awesome,” he said, tugging the velvet bag from his pocket, “if you say yes.” Beau pulled the ring from the bag, then took her hand in his own.

  PJ’s eyes widened as they landed on nearly three carats worth of really cool bling. “H-holy diamond, that’s a big rock.”

  “If you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit, we can take it back.”

  “No,” she said absently, seemingly mesmerized by the play of light coming off the radiant marquise-cut stone and the channels of diamonds flanking it.

  Beau’s fingers shook as he grasped the platinum band, and she continued to stare at it in shocked silence. “Uhm,” he whispered hesitantly, “is that a no to this particular ring, or a no to marriage as a whole?”

  “No! I mean, yes!” She inhaled sharply, her free hand shifting up to the back of her head. “Hell, I have no idea what I’m saying right now. I’m concussed, damn it. I don’t even know if this is real.” PJ’s fingers tightened about his, her words tumbling out in a great rush. “A couple hours ago, I got knocked out by a tree, and then I had a near-death experience, and I’m pretty sure I saw the face of God, and let me tell you, all those rumors about God being a woman? Well, I think they might be true, and I think she kinda looks like Jennifer Lopez.”

  Of all the things, Beau had expected PJ might say while he was down on one knee, this definitely hadn’t been one of them. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to be concerned for her. “Wow… well… do you think She would want you to say yes?”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” PJ whisper-hissed. “I think I might be a little crazy!”