A Perfect Mess

  A Perfect Mess

  Zoe Dawson

  Acknowledgments

  I'd like to thank Barbara Robyor, Dare Cook, Jannice Roy and Sue Stewart for all their many, many sessions of reading this book over and over again. Thank you, also, to Faith Freewoman for her excellent advice and editing skills. A big thank you also to Sarah Hansen for her fabulous cover design.

  Dedication

  To first loves.

  Chapter One

  Aubree

  “This solution is incorrect, Miss Walker.”

  I looked down at the formula and went back over it carefully. “No, sir. I believe that this is the correct answer. I’m sure I got it right.”

  “No. It’s wrong.”

  “Could you tell me why?”

  “Because a mongoose doesn’t mate with a chicken.”

  “What? I’m sorry. I don’t understand what that has to do with math.”

  “Exactly. Perhaps you haven’t been working hard enough. Maybe you got too many A’s and not enough F’s. Everyone in this class knows that a mongoose doesn’t mate with a chicken.”

  I looked around at the class. All the desks were occupied with…chickens. They all looked at me with beady red eyes and sharp yellow beaks, laughing their fool chicken heads off.

  Oh god, I was being mocked by a roomful of chickens who knew how to do math better than I did. “But they’re all chickens. Of course, they would know the answer.”

  “That’s right, and you’re not a chicken.”

  “But I could be a chicken. I could study more, work harder.”

  “I’m afraid not. Do you know what happens to you in this class if you get the problem wrong? If you don’t measure up?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s the stewpot. We don’t tolerate stupid chickens in here.”

  “But…but I’m not a chicken.”

  “No? Then you’re just plain stupid.”

  “No!” I cried. “I’ll try harder. I’ll be as good as I can.”

  “I’ll be the perfect chicken,” I murmured, tossing and turning, kicking at the bed sheets. A pillow sailed across the room and struck me right in the head, drawing me out of that fitful dream.

  “Aubree. You’re having the chicken dream again. If you don’t shut up, I’m going to yank out all your feathers,” Ashley grumbled. My roommate Ashley Cook and I were opposites. I was an uptight stats major and she was an artsy landscape architecture major. She was wild. I was sedate. But somehow we clicked.

  Before I could respond to her half-serious threat, my cell phone chimed. I sat up in bed, now fully awake, my heart pounding. A call at this time of night was never good…wait…two a.m….it was technically morning. I fumbled around for the light and stumbled out of bed.

  “Aubree. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I said rummaging through my Einstein tote in frustration.

  “Oh, just turn it upside down.” Ashley huffed. Her golden blonde hair fell forward in a loose braid as she got out of bed, grabbed it out of my hands, and upended my neatly packed bag onto my bed. She snatched my cell from the jumble and handed it to me. “I swear, Aubree, you’d spend all night huntin’for it.”

  “I knew exactly where it was, miz pushy. You didn’t have to make a mess out of my bag. Albert hates that.”

  An indignant sniff was her reply. “Albert can kiss my ass along with your chicken professor. Besides, you love putting all your humpty-dumpty stuff back together again. Admit it.” She yawned and settled herself on the edge of the bed once again, legs crossed, her expression wry.

  “Hello.” My voice was scratchy from sleep.

  “Aubree Walker?” The man’s voice was deep, brushed with a soft Southern drawl.

  “Yes,”

  “This is Sheriff Mike Dalton.”

  I frowned. I knew that name. “From Suttontowne?”

  His voice was brusque, but there was regret threaded through it. “Yes. I’m calling to inform you that your aunt has been injured. She’s in the hospital.”

  My hand flew to my mouth, my heart jumping into my throat. “Oh, god. What happened?” My Aunt Lottie was my only living relative. The past and the present merged and I was back against the wall, waiting for my mother to wake up from an eternal nap. If it hadn’t been for my Aunt Lottie, who had welcomed me into her home and her life with open arms, I would have been alone.

  “The best that we can tell, she fell down the stairs.”

  I bit my lip until I tasted blood, fighting furiously to hold back the tears that gathered in my eyes and constricted into a solid lump in my throat. “How bad is she?”

  “She’s been unconscious since I found her when I was doing my rounds. But the good news is there are no broken bones.”

  “That’s a relief. I can be there in two hours. Do you know when visiting hours are?”

  “Just a moment.”

  I heard muffled voices and then he came back on the line. “Eight a.m.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Sheriff.”

  “You’re welcome, Miz Walker. Call me when you get to town and we’ll talk.”

  “Okay, goodbye.”

  “What happened, Aubree?” Ashley rose and put her arm around me.

  I looked over at her. “My aunt’s in the hospital. She fell and is still unconscious. I’ve got to go back to Suttontowne.”

  “Now, tonight? Can’t you wait until the morning?”

  I shook my head. My mother had died when I was at school. I couldn’t take the chance that the same thing would happen to Aunt Lottie. I owed her so much.

  I went to the closet and grabbed my suitcases and threw them on the bed. I was relieved that exams were over and all I had to worry about was my research assistantship.

  “What about your RA with Dr. Wells?”

  “I should be able to do the bulk of the work on my computer while I’m in Suttontowne. I’ll email him before I leave.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  It took me no more than thirty minutes to pack and dash off an email to Dr. Wells. Ashley helped cart some of my luggage down to the car. Before I slid into the driver’s seat, she hugged me.

  “Make sure to keep me posted on how she’s doing. And be a good chicken while you’re gone.”

  “Cluck, cluck.” I managed with a weak smile. “I’ll call you. Thanks, Ash.”

  As I drove towards Suttontowne in Hope Parish, where I had lived with my aunt for seven years, I struggled to manage my increasing anxiety. I couldn’t lose my aunt. She was the only family I had left, and losing her would leave me totally alone. Even more alone than I had been for the first twelve years of my life.

  It had scared me something terrible when my mother went into one of her blue spells—crying all the time, hardly ever getting out of her nightclothes, shutting herself away. I’ve always thought that the last spell she had did her in. She’d been too blue to get out and see a doctor, and she’d died of pneumonia. Two days later my Aunt Lottie found me still pressed against the wall too terrified to move. Too terrified about what would happen when they found out my mother was gone and I had nobody.

  I shook the anxious thoughts out of my head and turned on the radio to a lively Cajun station, hoping the cheerful Zydeco music would keep my fears at bay.

  Avoiding the rear view mirror, where I couldn’t help seeing the old ghosts that haunted the depths of my green eyes, I let the music take me home.

  Someplace I didn’t want to be.

  Ever again.

  But I couldn’t turn my back on my aunt. You already have, that strident little voice inside me said.

  My aunt was in a coma. In the hospital. That only added to the mountain of guilt I carried around like a backpack filled with bricks. And it’s always easy for me to add an
other brick.

  I should at least have gathered up the courage to visit. But I wasn’t there. Just like I hadn’t been there for fall break, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas. New Year’s Eve? Nope. Rang in the New Year in the lab so I wouldn’t have to think about it. Spring break? Yup, you got it. I was working. Easter came and went while I did my statistics thing. I hadn’t planned to be there for summer vacation, either. Work, right. A great RA with a fabulous professor analyzing clinical trials.

  What Thomas Wolfe said, that you can never go home again, was so close to the truth it was scary. But I hadn’t had any way to truly understand what it meant back when I was sitting in high school English. With maturity comes wisdom? Maybe not in my case.

  As I headed towards South Louisiana and the swamp, a storm gathered on the horizon and lightning flashed. That storm also made me think of the boy I had left behind in the worst possible way, under the worst possible circumstances.

  I was heading back to the place where Booker Outlaw and I had collided on one of the worst nights of my life. I trembled just thinking about him and what he’d done for me.

  Now—as I returned to Hope Parish, to Suttontowne, Louisiana for the first time since I left for Tulane—I began to understand the message of Wolfe’s quote

  My experiences changed me. I’d never be the same girl I was before the secrets and the lies. Before the night Damien Langston changed my life forever.

  By the time I pulled into my aunt’s driveway, the rain was coming down so hard I couldn’t see anything but silver sheets streaming down my windshield. May in Louisiana was like monsoon season. The downpour trapped me inside my car and left me feeling isolated and cocooned at the same time. And I don’t do well when I’m alone with my thoughts. When there’s no problem to solve or work to accomplish.

  My aunt’s white plantation house, generations old, had aged gracefully into a soft patina of yellow. It almost broke my heart to see it again, to think that my aunt might die before I could tell her I was sorry for my neglect…to realize that although I hadn’t planned to come home again, ever, I had missed this house—and even more, my beloved aunt—with a deep, enduring ache.

  But abandoning this town had been a necessity that burned inside me like old Mr. Lacroix’s cheap moonshine.

  My vision blurred, my nose runny and probably red from the tears that had started when I was about an hour outside Lafayette. I sat trapped by the rain. My stomach had already been in such knots that I hadn’t eaten anything since leaving Tulane.

  No, I couldn’t come home again, but I could and would be there for my aunt. It tore me up to think of her falling down that wide, grand staircase, lying there alone for who-knows-how-long in that big, empty house.

  I went cold at the thought. Really cold. And scared. It was too early to visit her at the hospital and, even though I wanted to see her desperately, I would never break the hospital rules. They were there for a reason. Sick people needed their rest to get better. And I wanted my aunt back.

  Grief clutched at me. My throat went tight with pain. Memories of life with my wonderful aunt flooded me, only adding to my tears. Those memories opened up deep emotions that rocked me. I was a terrible niece. I hadn’t bothered to come home for the holidays, instead making the excuse that I had to work. The guilt made the knot in my throat even more painful.

  All because I was a coward.

  I was trying to mop up a fresh flood tears when something furtive darted past the back window. It appeared abruptly in my peripheral vision, its figure distorted by rain, mists on the window, and still more tears. I gasped and grabbed the steering wheel in panic, while the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I stared in the rear view mirror, raising a hand to quickly wipe my eyes clear, searching for the apparition, but just as abruptly, it was gone.

  Were my eyes deceiving me? I peered into the rain-soaked darkness, but the silver sheets obscured my view.

  The pelting cascade of water struck the roof in a staccato rhythm which had, only moments ago, been soothing. But now I realized the downpour muted any outside sounds that might have given me a clue about what had flitted past the car. The storm had rendered me deaf and blind, and my skin crawled. Was someone out there? I looked around, my senses on full alert, but could see nothing.

  Suddenly my back window exploded in a cascade of finely-beaded glass. Something heavy hit the back seat. I screamed as glass fragments and blowing rain struck the back of my head and neck with moisture and stinging pain.

  For a moment I was stunned. My car keys slipped from my slack grasp and fell into shadows, landing somewhere on the floorboards. Someone had thrown something through my window. The oddness of the eerie, sneaky figure added to my confusion.

  My hand went to the back of my neck and came away red with blood. I twisted around left and right to see if whoever had broken my window was still out there, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. When I reached down to try to find my car keys, my skin crawled with the feeling I was being watched.

  My self-control slipped and I had to get into the house as quickly as possible.

  I looked around one more time, but couldn’t find anything unusual. To hell with it. I needed to call for help. I reached for my phone and swore under my breath. It was dead.

  The rap on my window jolted me. I jerked my head around and saw the unmistakable outline of a broad-shouldered man standing outside the door. He was shouting something at me, but my nerves and the pounding rain drowned out what he was saying. When his fist hit the window again, I dropped my phone and redoubled my efforts to find my car keys, my movements jerky with fear, my breathing quick and uneven. His fist hit the window again. I knew he could easily come through the back window, and then I would be trapped just like the last day of my summer vacation on Wild Magnolia Road. The door handle jiggled.

  My heart stopped, and then finally self-control made room for the rational part of my brain.

  I wasn’t safe here.

  But I wasn’t safe outside, either, and without my keys…I couldn’t get in the house.

  The sound of the handle scared me. At least I had a chance to hide myself in the bayou.

  I flashed back to that night, his hot breath, his groping hands. I bolted across the seat with a cry, pushed the passenger side door open and stumbled from the car. Immediately the deluge soaked me to the bone. I ran. My heart beat frantically, as if it would pound right out of my chest.

  I heard a shout; the sound of a male voice set off a spurt of panic. What was happening? Who was he and what did he want? Why did he destroy my rear window? The roar of the rain muffled what he was yelling, blurred his image. When I saw that he was pursuing, my heart accelerated with fear, my breathing harsh in my ears.

  And that terrible night flooded back as if it was happening all over again.

  The soft ground beneath my feet dragged on my sandals, like I was running in quicksand.

  The shout came again—this time much closer—and I screamed. I scrambled through brush that clutched at my clothes like gnarled, grasping fingers.

  Urgency making my head light, darkness closing around me, I fought blindly through the thick underbrush.

  Suddenly I was hit from behind. I went down hard onto a grassy area as a heavy weight flattened me. The soft ground saved me from scrapes, but the jolt rocketed through my body.

  The minute I hit the ground, I fought to my back, bucking and snarling, frantic to get him off me. His voice lashed at me. But, in my blind panic, I couldn’t make out anything. All I could think was to get away.

  I knocked off his baseball cap, my arms flailing. Pushing hard against his chest was like trying to push against concrete.

  He did not budge.

  The rain pelted my face in large drops, continuing to obscure my vision. I could only fight while my body vibrated with pulse-pounding terror.

  At last the rain let up enough that the water finally cleared from my eyes.

  He gripped my arms and shook me slightly, shouting my
name into my face. Snapping out of my terror, his voice finally registered, I looked up, up into the face of my attacker.

  All my muscles froze. I was unable to move or breathe. No. My mind spun wildly, trying to absorb the information. Of all the people, why did it have to be him?

  I looked up into Booker Outlaw’s face and gasped. He was last person I was prepared to or wanted to see.

  There was no mistake. I knew those sculpted lips, those soul-deep, dark blue eyes, the planes and hollows of his face, and the rock-hard jaw that had only gotten more handsome and mature. And there was no mistaking the sinfully dark hair that now lay like wet black silk around his handsome face.

  Nine months melted away in a blink of an eye. The last time I’d laid eyes on him, he’d been in the bayou, a shovel in his hand, the shared perfect mess between us.

  The unpredictable and wayward teen I had known looked more like a man, and that powerful maleness created such an uproar that my nerves were drowned out by the jingle-jangle of my senses.

  He didn’t move; the look on his face was subdued, his eyes flat with anger. He stared down at me as if he was seeing a ghost. Then, his eyes changed as he took in my face and I’m sure the last hour of tears and guilt and pain were etched there naked for him to see.

  I pushed at him, but he still didn’t budge. And I was suddenly aware of just how close he actually was. His muscled thighs crowded mine; his strong arms bracketed my head. He smelled safe, strong—like cinnamon and warm, male skin. His ragged breath fanned my neck.

  My pulse sped up. My shaky breath snagged in my lungs. The heat of him radiated through the layers of clothes, his hard muscles pressed against me.

  The intimacy shocked me, excited me. And then he shifted, and a sudden heat shot through my blood.

  I tightened my grip on his arms.

  His dark eyes locked on me.

  “Aubree. Welcome back.”

  His voice was husky, filled with that special tone that he seemed to reserve only for me. Guilt and a twisted longing tightened in my gut.

  His soft Southern drawl was like a hot brush against tingling skin. He was close, so close. And I gazed back at him, trapped by the dark, raw heat in his gaze. I traced the hollows of his features with my eyes.