A Perfect Question

  A Perfect Question

  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: 978-0-9861535-1-8

  Find Zoe Dawson on the web!

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  Cover Design by Zoe Dawson

  Acknowledgments

  I'd like to thank beta readers Leisha O’Quinn, Gail Demaree, and Suzi Grekin. Thank you, also, to Faith Freewoman for her excellent advice and editing skills and Jessica Allain for her skillful photoshop abilities.

  Dedication

  To bridges and happily ever afters.

  Chapter One

  RIVER PEARL

  A light breeze shivered through the climbing honeysuckle clinging to the veranda trellis. It had been Boone’s suggestion, and I loved the idea of the lovely coral trumpet flowers enticing hummingbirds and butterflies in the spring and birds in the fall, when they came for the orange-red fruit. Braxton grumbled about a girlie trellis, but the minute he knew I wanted it, he told Boone to install it. Also, to my surprise and delight, this gorgeous white swing that I’d coaxed into a slow, relaxing back and forth rhythm.

  Resting my chin on my hand, I huddled deeper into the generous seat filled with “girlie,” comfy pillows.

  It was still night, but hovered on a new day. The stars were still out, and I looked up and thought about that passage from Romeo and Juliet. When she thought how beautiful Romeo would be cut out in stars. It was a silly notion, but Braxton was like that —all three of the Outlaw triplets were. Limned in light.

  I watched the first rays of daybreak seep over the horizon, turning the sky shades of orange and coral, and casting the undersides of the clouds in midnight blue. The vivid colors bled through the laurel-leaf willows bordering the east side of Braxton’s quaint, shabby-chic house, sending shards of brightness shimmering through the leaves as they fluttered in the wind. It was an awesome spectacle to watch, with only the soft rustle of the leaves and the early morning twitter of birds underscoring the perfect stillness of the clear, steamy morning.

  Although I was quietly absorbing the beauty, my stomach was in knots and just a slight bit queasy, a problem I’d been dealing with too long. So, I went to the doctor three days ago. Doc Rust took some blood and urine and said he’d get back to me with the results. Which he hadn’t yet.

  Braxton’s house was situated on a slight rise of land on the very outskirts of Suttontowne, Louisiana, with a panoramic view of the eastern horizon. I watched the changing sky, knowing I could never reproduce the purity and blend of color on canvas, no matter how hard I tried. But then I never had—there was no way I or anyone else could ever truly reproduce a bayou sunrise. It was simply too intense, too overwhelming.

  I tried to relax into the climbing humidity of another August day, to savor the peace. It had stopped raining during the night, and the dawn was especially fresh and sparkling, the grass still beaded with dew, the trunks of the trees still dark and shiny.

  But a twist of unhappiness interrupted my reverie, and I looked over my shoulder toward the silent house and the man who slept within.

  I shouldn’t be unhappy. I had everything I wanted. Expansion of my gallery, with a new one opening in New Orleans in a few days, stellar artists to feature and work with, painting every day, and Braxton.

  Always Braxton.

  His sauces had become so popular he was offered a cooking show and soon became known as the Huckleberry Chef. With that milestone under his belt, he started a franchise called The Huckleberry Café. He was getting ready to open his first one in New Orleans next week, and his second one in Lafayette the week after. He was hoping my brother Jake would manage the one in Lafayette, keeping it in the family.

  Another breeze stirred, warm with only a hint of the heat to come. I shifted to get more comfortable and locked my arms around my knees, watching the colors shift and change, turning the undersides of the clouds even more vibrant. God, how I had missed this beautiful bayou when I was modeling and often away from Suttontowne. I couldn’t remember how many times as a teenager I had watched the sun creep over the horizon.

  And dreamed of Braxton Outlaw.

  Little did I know back then how much I would love him.

  All that dark, shaggy hair, those knee-melting, hot blue eyes, his full, teasing mouth, and a body roped with mouth-watering muscle. His contrary attitude (which I totally adored) aside, he was the bad boy skirt chaser who’d been snared by yours truly.

  Or so I’d thought. I kept telling myself that he would ask, that it would be soon, but now I wasn’t so sure. And sitting here feeling unhappy about him felt like a betrayal. I couldn’t give my heart to a wild thing and expect not to bleed.

  My heart was forever his. That wasn’t in question.

  No, a perfect question for me was…why hadn’t he asked me to marry him?

  I inhaled deeply, taking in the blend of fragrances, trying to alleviate the sudden lump in my throat.

  His brothers had moved on beautifully. Booker was doing extremely well in New Orleans with Aubree, who was just shy of nine months pregnant with Boone and Verity’s twins, a heartrending and beautiful gesture on her part, since she was so busy with medical school. But she was managing very well, and she and Booker were flourishing. I’d never seen them this happy, or Aubree completely relaxed. That girl had finally figured it out.

  Boone and Verity were adorable together. She had weathered the past holidays, in spite of being devastated when she learned she was unable to have more children. They had adopted Henry Ducet, and that little boy had taken to Boone like he was his daddy, and to Verity as well. Verity’s parents and my own daddy and momma loved that little scamp. He would often come over here and cook with Braxton, his little beagle, Bonkers, on his heels. They were inseparable.

  Braxton would always give him a hard time, but, oh-my-gosh he loved that little kid as much as he loved Duel. Henry would be a heartbreaker someday, just like his adoptive father and uncles.

  I wouldn’t have even thought about The Question if Becky Howe—Braxton’s final conquest that summer before he and I got together—had accosted me in The Coyote, Skylar Bransom’s beauty parlor, a couple of days ago.

  In her nastiest, sticky-sweet voice, she’d said, “I’m sooooo surprised that you and Braxton aren’t married by now. Why, you’re not even engaged, although Lurlene, my BFF—she works for Jackson’s Jewelers?—said he’d been in to look at rings, but left without buying a thing.”

  It wasn’t any secret that she’d wanted Braxton, even though she often said it was just a hookup. A girl knows whe
n another girl really wants her man.

  “What?” I said. My eyes met Skylar’s while she continued painting Bastille My Heart onto my freshly prepared nails. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I told Becky.

  “You haven’t? Uh-huh. Why, it’s been…two years, hasn’t it? That’s kind of longer than I thought it would take him to ask you. After two years, waiting is just pathetic. Maybe he’s scoping out another skirt to chase. After all, he is Braxton Outlaw.”

  After she left, Skylar sniffed and said, “Don’t pay her any mind. She’s just jealous you have him and she doesn’t. It’s just plain pettiness.”

  It had been two years since I won the heart of my Outlaw. Two years since I had discovered the deep, dark secret of my family. That my lauded ancestor was actually the one who committed the heinous crime and allowed Duel Outlaw to take the blame, causing hundreds of years of persecution of the Outlaws. But that was at an end…for the most part.

  The Outlaws would never be conventional. It just wasn’t in their nature, but that didn’t matter to the women who loved them, and never would.

  Now that Becky had snarkily mentioned it, it made me wonder why Braxton hadn’t asked me to marry him. If he still harbored doubts, that would hurt. Hurt deeply. Maybe that hurt was why I had never brought it up. I brushed it aside. It couldn’t be that. But what was it? Was there a reason?

  It had taken me a lot of years to stop being the perfect, well-behaved little Sutton princess, the compliant daughter, and learn to stick up for myself. It had taken me even longer to learn how not to give in to that feeling of inadequacy. I was aware I had a long way to go, but now I’d come this far, I would never let it happen again. That weakness had almost cost me Braxton.

  It had also taken me a lot of years to admit how emotionally unhealthy my family was, to face the fact that my momma was a master manipulator and my daddy was a bully. Only they had never manipulated or bullied me openly—not like they had my brothers Chase and Jake—they had manipulated and bullied me softly, surreptitiously, with my own sense of loyalty, my duty to the family legacy, my easily provoked feelings of guilt. And in some ways the covert manipulation had been far more damaging and twice as hard to fight against. Especially when the first enemy I had to battle was myself.

  The fragmentation of my family lay heavy on my heart. It was the only ugly thing in my completely beautiful world. Chase seemed lost and I couldn’t reach him. Jake, who harbored both anger and resentment at him and my family, acted like everything was A-okay. I hoped for reconciliation between my brothers and my parents when Jake had graduated from Harvard last year and was home full-time. I was still waiting.

  Three robins settled on the lush expanse of grass that rolled to the trees, and I watched them hop from spot to spot, harvesting earthworms.

  “Well, look at this,” a taunting voice came from my left. “River Pearl, the princess of Suttontowne, up before the sun.”

  I stuck a smile on my face and turned toward the familiar voice. My brother Jake was standing at the steps to the porch of Brax’s house, framed on one side by the gorgeous honeysuckle. He had one arm draped over the stair railing, and he was grinning that grin that had gotten him into more trouble than I cared to think about.

  Resting my chin on my knees, I studied him, my smile widening. “Well, I’ll be damned, Prince Sutton, or was that knave…no that’s not right…jester…”

  He stared at me, still grinning that damned grin, a bad-boy glint in his eyes. “Don’t push your luck, little sister. Isn’t there still a perfectly good creek out behind Brax’s house? Want to wrestle gators?”

  I stared right back. “You wouldn’t have a hope in hell, huckleberry. I’ve learned a thing or two on how to fight dirty since I moved to the wilds of the bayou and been influenced by those wayward, and disreputable Outlaws.”

  “Have you?”

  I laughed and shook my head, oddly reassured by his presence. He was four years older than I was, and I had idolized him and my older brother Chase for as long as I could remember.

  “What brings you out of your castle? The king at you again?”

  His grin disappeared and that banked anger flared in his eyes. “What else is new? He sent me to one of the best schools in the world and won’t even listen to my ideas.”

  “Come in here, Sutton, and I’ll kick your ass for you.”

  My stomach jumped and my skin heated just from the sound of Brax’s voice. It was low, and sarcastic as hell, but oh, what it did to me!

  He came out onto the porch and snuggled down against me on the swing. He smelled so good, all heated male and uniquely Brax, as wild and untamed as the bayou. “What you doin’ out here, sugar? Paintin’.”

  “Getting ready to. Why is Jake here?”

  “We’re sparring.”

  “Is there by chance any moonshine involved?”

  “Hell, no. It’s, like, six in the morning. I don’t drink until at least ten.”

  I gave him a considering, sidelong glance, and he smirked.

  “You’re pushing your luck, handsome,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Brax said, nuzzling my neck. “I like pushing all kinds of boundaries with you.” He breathed deep, his nose against my skin. “I only drunk fight with my brothers.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  Unable to help it, I lifted my hand and buried my fingers to the knuckles in that soft hair. I swear it always seemed like he needed a haircut.

  “Me and my still-hard dick missed you in bed this morning,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear, sending tingles down my spine.

  “C’mon, Outlaw. That’s my sister, and you’re creeping me out.”

  Brax raised his head and a gleam came into his deep blue eyes. He grinned, and it was the kind of grin no one, including me, ever liked to see on his face. “How are those abs, Jake? I know exactly how to make you sick.”

  Jake smirked and pulled up his T-shirt, revealing a set of abs that rivaled Brax’s—and that was something. Brax was big, but my brother Jake was bigger, thicker, and had really filled out those shoulders since being away from home.

  “Brax…” I said because he was a little on edge this morning, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he woke up without me and wanted to make love and was now irritated, or because he was feeling something from me. A vibe. We were usually in tune with each other.

  But as my family’s Founder’s Day Festival approached, I felt more antsy and less confident.

  He turned back to me and met my gaze. His so blue and full of the hard time he’d just given Jake. Then his gaze softened and he smiled. Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth to mine while Jake made a disgusted sound, and I vaguely heard the door close. Then my senses were filled with Brax as his hand went to the back of my head, his fingers curling into my hair and tightening. Pulling my head back, he took his time savoring every inch of my lips with his full, seeking mouth.

  “You’re going to make me wait the rest of the day, sugar?” he said against my lips.

  Braxton was lusty, and we often had sex in the morning, but after yesterday, even though I tried with all my might not to let Becky’s words get to me, they had anyway, and I hadn’t been able to sleep.

  It was as if she’d popped some kind of bubble, and I was no longer floating above the earth, but was grounded on it.

  “It’ll do you good to wait. Make it even better.”

  “Outlaw! I don’t have all day,” Jake growled.

  “Your brother is a pain in the ass.”

  “You invited him,”

  He laughed, “So I did. Maybe I should get a spanking.”

  I laughed and pushed his shoulder just when another a car pulled into the drive.

  Brax looked over his shoulder and waved at Verity. “We are popular today,” he groused. He kissed me again, and I pushed him toward the house as I rose. “Get going before my brother busts a gasket.”

  “Going…” he grumbled, backing away from me and not letting my eyes go u
ntil he went into the house.

  I walked to the edge of the porch as Verity came up the stairs. “Hey, I thought you might want to have some breakfast.”

  “Are you playing hooky?”

  She smiled sheepishly. “I have finally finished everything for the show next month, but I haven’t told anyone, not even Minnie.” She laughed.

  “Where are Henry and Duel?”

  “With their Uncle Ethan, who desperately wanted to take them to the zoo. Duel has been going on and on about iguanas. Lord knows why. He must have seen them in one of his animal books. Anyway, Ethan took them both to New Orleans with the mission of showing them the reptiles.”

  “You better hope they don’t come home with an iguana.”

  “Ethan better not. With a dog, two kids, and two more on the way, my hands are pretty full.”

  “Yeah, and I can see you’re so unhappy about it.”

  She grinned and hugged me. “Exactly. A wonderful husband, great family and friends, two beautiful boys, one mischievous beagle. Yeah, life’s pretty good, even with the threat of an addition of an iguana.”

  “Let me get changed and we can go. I’ll have to take my own car, since I need to go into the gallery afterwards.” I went into the house and to my bedroom with Verity trailing behind.

  “That’s fine. I called Aubree, and she’s going to meet us at Imogene’s.” She peeked into the room Brax had set up with tons of boxing equipment. “Jake’s here?”

  “Yes, the two of them have been sparring most mornings.”

  “Jake need to…release some aggression?”

  “Something like that.” I went into our bedroom and grabbed an Aztec-inspired shift dress with blue, orange and black in it. As I pulled it over my hips, I noticed it was a little snug. I had better hit the gym myself. “It’s so good to have had her and Booker here the whole summer. How amazing is that girl?”