Finally Again

  Finally Again

  A Hope Parish Novella

  By Zoe Dawson

  Published by Blue Moon Creative, LLC

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright by Karen Alarie. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your preferred vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Author Note

  I make every effort to research thoroughly all subject matter, but I’m not infallible. If you find anything in my novels that I have incorrect, please feel free to let me know.

  ISBN: 978-0-9909075-3-4

  Find Zoe Dawson on the web!

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  Cover Design by Zoe Dawson

  Acknowledgments

  I'd like to thank beta readers Sue Stewart, Leisha O’Connor, and Gail Demaree. Thank you, also, to Faith Freewoman for her excellent advice and editing skills and to my proofreader, Judy Witvoet DeVries.

  Dedication

  To true grit, uncompromising principles, and raw courage.

  Chapter One

  Evie

  I stretched one last time, bending myself until my muscles got the full impact of the yoga move. I then sat cross-legged and breathed deeply, centering myself. My mama would laugh at me right now. Me and my sister, Heloise, had grown up in a household of pretty practical parents. My mama would have frowned and said, “Yoga, sounds like something you eat.”

  I grew up over on Bayou Vermillion, where every day had been an adventure. Because I needed to switch from Cajun French to learning English in the school system, I had worked hard to overcome my accent. It thickened when I visited my family, but it was best for me and my boys—well, they were men now—but for us to maintain a low profile in Suttontowne. Not that my sons had ever paid any heed to the need for a low profile.

  Time to shower and get ready for the day. After breakfast, I grabbed up my watering can, filled it, and carried it toward my porch.

  When I opened the front door, I jerked back. Braxton was standing there with…River Pearl Sutton. I almost dropped my watering can. I was well aware of my son’s reputation in this town when it came to women. I didn’t approve of it, but trying to control a headstrong, handsome man like my son wasn’t easy. All my boys had minds of their own.

  Brax surged forward to help me, but water sloshed out, splashing his jeans and sneakers. To say I was nonplussed was an understatement. It had come to my attention through Boone that Braxton had been quite rude to River Pearl most of the summer, so finding them on my front porch was a surprise. This was the girl for my son. I knew it, and his brothers knew it. Why were they here to visit me…together?

  As he took the watering can from me, I pressed my hand to my heart. “Braxton,” I said. “You surprised me.” My gaze shifted to River Pearl. Had they come to tell me something monumental like she was pregnant? I wasn’t sure I could handle that kind of news, not to mention the way the Suttons, namely James Sutton, would take it if one of my sons got his daughter pregnant. The thought of the scandal made me clutch the doorjamb for balance.

  “River Pearl,” I greeted her, a bit out of breath.

  She was quite a beautiful girl, and it was no surprise that she had a secure career in modeling. I noticed a bruise on her nose while I studied her face, her pretty blue eyes straightforward and bold in return. One thing I knew about her…she stood up for herself and was more than a match for Braxton.

  “Hello, Mrs. Outlaw.”

  I couldn’t quite form words, my voice locked against the thought of a fresh new scandal that would give the people in this town another excuse to revile us.

  “We need to talk to you, Ma.”

  “Oh, God. What is it?” I said unable to keep the scared out of my voice.

  “I’m not pregnant,” River Pearl said hurriedly. My thoughts must have been showing on my face.

  “Oh, thank God. I love being a grandma, but I need a breather between, and marriage first would be even better.”

  Braxton blanched and shuffled his feet, looking a bit stricken.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I adore my grandson Duel, and Verity. We are so blessed.” And we were. Boone was very happy, but the scandal surrounding him and Verity was still fresh in people’s minds.

  I was so proud of Boone for stepping up and doing what was right. I knew Brody would have been proud, too. My husband might be gone, but not a day went by that I didn’t think about him and wonder what had happened. I knew in my heart something had to have happened to him. He would never have left us voluntarily.

  I shook myself back to the present. “Well, come on in out of the heat.”

  I led the way into my lovely living room. Booker had made sure I was involved in designing this house he bought for me, and the big picture window with a breathtaking view of the bayou was one of its best features.

  “Go ahead and have a seat,” I told them. “I’ll get us some iced tea.”

  River Pearl settled on the couch and Braxton sprawled in a chair. He was too quiet and intense. Well, more than usual. I got anxious all over again about why he was here with River.

  In the kitchen I took out a tray with a fleur-de-lys design, an old picture frame I had repurposed, and loaded it with three glasses and a pitcher of iced tea I took out of the fridge.

  When I entered the room with our tea, I paused when I saw River Pearl holding a picture of my beloved husband, Brody. The table where she stood was full of the memories of my life before Brody disappeared, and afterward, when it was filled with my boys.

  The photos were a chronology of how my boys had grown from those cute little guys into these…men with their own lives. They had needed to grow up way too fast.

  “He left when I was six.”

  Braxton gazed down at the photo, and I was struck by how much he looked and sounded like Brody. The three of them had been a constant reminder of my loss, but it wasn’t their fault, and I certainly didn’t resent them for it. But I heard a visceral anger in Braxton’s deep voice. There was so much I wanted him to understand—them to understand—but none of them would listen to me. They believed their father was a thief who had deserted them when they were six years old. Their pain was mixed with a large dose of primitive anger. I wanted to comfort him the way I had when he was small, but the man he was becoming would be offended if I even tried.

  “He’s heartbreakingly handsome,” River Pearl said.

  “Yes, he is,” I said with a hitch in my voice as I came the rest of the way into the living room. “He was a good man, and I loved him deeply. I don’t believe what everyone says about him. That picture was taken the same year I had the boys.”

  I bit my lip while I pushed back at the tears that threatened all of a sudden. I really needed to let Brody go. I had held on for so long that the feeling of missing him seemed natural now.

  River Pearl set the picture down, her face telling me she was sorry she had upset me. She gave Braxton an apologetic look.

  He smiled and shook his head that it was okay. Oh, my boy was besott
ed with this girl. He might think he hid it well, but not from me. I had to wonder why he’d never pursued her. It wasn’t like him to worry too much about what others thought. Maybe it was time I found out why it mattered this time.

  “Your house is beautiful, Mrs. Outlaw,” River said, tactfully changing the subject as she backed away from my small table of memories and settled back on the couch.

  That form of address made me feel way too old. “Oh, call me Evie. You’re nineteen now, a grown woman.”

  She glanced at Brax, who was unmoved by my request. He seemed determined to remain neutral. “Oh, I don’t know if I could,” she said, shrugging a shoulder.

  I smiled and handed her a glass of iced tea, then one to Brax. “Sure you can, cher.” The Cajun endearment slipped out in spite of how hard I’d worked to overcome my accent. It was trouble enough to be branded an Outlaw in this town. But these reminders of Brody had intensified the pang, the sorrow I had lived with daily for thirteen years.

  It was time to change the subject. I reached for the last glass off the tray and dropped into a chair across from River Pearl. This visit was clearly her doing. It was why Braxton was here. “What brings you here, River Pearl?”

  She glanced at Brax, but he remained impassive, simply gazing back at her.

  “Well, Mrs. Outlaw, as you know, my family always delivers a speech at Founder’s Day every year. This year I’ve been tasked with it.”

  “Okay,” I said, not getting what I or Brax could possibly have to do with the celebration of the town’s founder, her much-lauded ancestor.

  “I...ah….want to write about the Colonel and…” she cleared her throat “…Duel Outlaw.”

  That hated name shocked through me and my grip on the tea glass went slack. It slipped out of my hand and spilled all over my handmade rag rug. “Oh, shoot,” I said and rushed to the kitchen. My hands were shaking, my heart racing when I snatched up the kitchen towel and hurried back to the living room, where I knelt and began to mop up the mess.

  I sat back on my heels and took a breath. I sent Braxton a sharp look, but he only shrugged, then shifted and folded his arms. The solemn lines around his mouth told me he was holding in his feelings, and it tugged at my heart.

  I recognized his self-contained expression. I’d seen it when he was a child, when he was worried about me. It was so reminiscent of my husband and his concern for me.

  When the boys were born, it was a hard birth, with some complications. I remembered waking up after surgery to find Brody sitting beside my bed, haggard and unshaven, my hand clasped between both of his. In a low, strained voice, he told me he’d been so scared of losing me. But I hadn’t been worried at all. During the time in the labor room, when everything had been touch and go, he had never once left my side, and he had hung on to my hand as if he didn’t dare let go.

  Caught in a time warp, I tried to breathe through the sudden tightness in my chest. Braxton looked at me, and for an instant there was an unspoken communication between us—oddly restrained, yet revealing—one which silently acknowledged and was ready to accept my decision, whatever it might be.

  Suddenly the ache in my throat was for my strong and beautiful son. Needing a moment to myself, I rose and went back to the kitchen, rinsed out the towel, and set it on the rack to dry. I rubbed at my temple, trying to hold a flood of emotions at bay. I owed it to River Pearl to hear her out, but everything in me rebelled.

  Back in the living room, tensed in anticipation of the can of worms River was about to open, I sat back down, managing a calm face, I hoped, but I couldn’t stop my hands twisting in my lap.

  “River Pearl,” I began. “Why would you want to dredge up such a terrible time? Duel’s lynching has destroyed my family and made my boys pariahs in their hometown. We have been and still are outcasts. I can’t say it thrills me to learn you plan to remind people who Duel was.”

  “Here’s the thing, Mrs. Out…Evie. I think there’s more to the story. The story about my ancestor and yours. The Suttons and the Outlaws seem to be…connected. I found some old journals the Colonel wrote, and they’re full of information about Duel. How he fought in the war and was a medic. I found that so fascinating, I looked up a lot of information about the war. My ancestor had nothing but glowing things to say about Duel. There’s a story there, and I want to explore it and maybe re-introduce him to Suttontowne in a new light.”

  Ha! Like Suttontowne would care. I had to grit my teeth to keep from speaking my thought aloud. The people here weren’t interested in the truth. They were so eager to throw blame onto my family for just about anything…my husband, and now my sons. When I married into this family, pledged myself to Brody without being aware of how he was—no, how his whole family was—perceived, it had caused some distress between us early on. But I had made a solemn vow to him, and I accepted how things were. It was a study in futility to ever think Suttontowne’s residents would change their minds now. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Really, no one cares about him or who he was.”

  “I’m aware of that, but it’s important to me.” She glanced at Brax before leaning forward and setting down her tea, her gray-blue eyes direct. “Brax said you have a lot of mementos from Duel in your attic. Would you mind if I look through them and borrow what I need for the speech? I will return everything.”

  I reached up and massaged my temples again to keep my hands from twisting anymore. My tension was leading to irritation. River Pearl might think this was a simple, innocent request. She might believe in it, but this was our life. Our ancestor. I looked at Braxton again, realizing how much he must care for this girl for him to be willing to support her in this insane idea, and that tied my stomach up in even more knots. This was causing him pain. He masked it with his stoic I-don’t-care face, but it was difficult for him. I tried to use the energy of my anger to press back the fear that was like constant static in the background of my life. How would the town react? Would we have an additional bullseye painted on our backs?

  I looked again at Braxton. “What do you have to say about this? Do your brothers know?”

  He ran his fingers through his unruly hair and sat up straighter, reaching out and laying his hand on mine. There was that silent communication again. “I say if she wants to waste her time and breath on a speech no one is going to give a damn about, let her.” The hardness in his voice softened. “I told her I would help, Ma. She wants to write about their friendship. It’s up to her to talk to Book and Boone.”

  I wasn’t sure how Booker and Boone would take River Pearl’s proposal. My sons and I had more than a personal stake in this. Boone had a business to run, and so did Braxton. I was doubtful anything good could come from it. But Braxton supported her, and I supported my sons. Always. “All right, go and pull the stairs down from the attic, Braxton. Let us know when you’re done.”

  Brax stood up and gave River Pearl a knowing look.

  When I rose, she stood and faced me.

  “What are you playing at, missy?” I said, trying to control my temper. I moved around her and turned my back to my son.

  Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Braxton was occupied. We could hear banging.

  “My son Braxton may not show it, but he’s just as sensitive as my other boys. Only it’s more heartbreaking, because he never lets it out. Never. I don’t want you hurting him with some scheme.”

  That offended her. I could see it in the way her mouth tightened. “I would never hurt him, Evie. I promise.” Exasperation clear in her face, she said, “I just want…I just want to know who Duel was, and more about what happened. To be frank, I’m sick of this whole hate-the-Outlaws thing. Have been for ages. I have nothing but affection and…admiration for the way Booker, Boone and Braxton have made something out of their lives in spite of a town full of people who’ve always been against them. I swear my intentions are pure.”

  The caring in her voice, and the way her expression softene
d and went affectionate, it was clear she cared about all my boys. It alleviated some of the anxiety. “I apologize if I seemed harsh a moment ago, but I’ve always spoken my mind. I thank you for being as honest with me. May I read the speech before you present it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well, you have my permission to borrow what you need. But these were my husband’s things, and I’m very protective of them. They’re all I have left of him. Please treat them with utmost care, River Pearl.”

  “I will take extremely good care of them. I promise.”

  I nodded.

  “Ma? Ready.”

  “Go on, then.”

  Suddenly she hugged me. “Thank you so much. This means a great deal to me.”

  I hugged her back, and when Braxton’s impatient face materialized around the corner, his expression went tender when he saw us. I smiled at him.

  But his eyes were all for River Pearl. I let her go, thinking my boy had it bad. I remembered that feeling, the overwhelming intensity of it.

  She disappeared down the hall with my son, and I moved the coffee table so I could get the rug pulled up to wash.

  What would come of this? Would Braxton be able to keep his cool? How did River Pearl really feel about him? Would she break his heart, or might something beautiful blossom from all this craziness? How would Suttontowne respond to her dredging up Duel Outlaw’s heinous and scandalous behavior? Only time would tell.

  #

  Win

  Anticipation swelled pleasantly as I drove up to the home I had been born and raised in. A home which held many memories. A home I had only seen occasionally in almost sixteen years. I left at twenty-two to make my way, and I had never looked back.

  Until now.