by Zoe Dawson
“What could I do? I had to face it. Believe me, I cried a lot and tried to deny it, but when the stick turned blue. I had to accept it. Abortion is just not something I would ever consider.”
“Of course not.”
“And to destroy a life that I’d helped to create…” tears flooded my eyes and I covered my face. “He was so beautiful. I only got to hold him for two hours after he was born. He looked so much like Boone.” That night flowed back to me. How wonderful Boone had been, even though I was a virgin, he handled me so gently, so sweetly.
“How did you accomplish this amazing feat?”
“I had applied to MY, Mission Youth, last year. My daddy made it mandatory that my brother and I serve the greater good. So I was to research and decide what I wanted to do when I finished high school. The stipulation was it had to be for at least a year. My brother really threw him for a loop when he joined the Marines. He told my daddy that it was the highest form of volunteerism, just after he told him it would be a cold day in hell before he’d be a preacher.
“I was supposed to get my last shot for my trip to Africa, but, of course, after I found out I was pregnant, I couldn’t do that. So I just pretended I did. When I got to New York City, I emailed the organization and told them I had to pull out for health reasons. I didn’t go into detail and since all their correspondence was with me, my parents were left in the dark.
“As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I started looking for Boone, but I couldn’t find him. I didn’t know how he would react, but I just assumed it wouldn’t be good, because he never tried to find me.”
“Oh, God, Verity. He was in rehab.” Aubree said. “Booker told me a lot about his brothers. He wanted me to understand how much they have overcome. It’s a lot. Boone has completely turned his life around. He’s the sweetest, most caring guy. He really is. I think that’s why plants respond to him. He loves them and has such a green thumb. He even brought a plant back to life that I had almost killed.”
“I know that now, but back then, I thought he didn’t care. I didn’t realize that he’d been so wasted he just didn’t remember. I was so scared. I made the decision to give up the baby, feeling like I had no other choice. I just didn’t know how devastating it would be. I feel like I’m half a person without that beautiful little guy.” I took an unsteady breath and wiped at my tears-streaked face. “I emailed my parents every week with updates about my work with literacy. At least I didn’t have to lie about that. After I got to the city, I volunteered with Coalition for Literacy, because it was important to me to at least fulfill my mission.”
“How did you live, Verity?” River Pearl said, looking at me with a newfound respect.
“Adoption Agency. They give you a place to live, pay all your medical costs, and even provide grief counseling. My counselor was simply wonderful.”
“I can’t believe you were in the city and you never came to see me,” River Pearl said, looking hurt.
“I saw you. You were outside your agency talking to an older man.”
She was silent for a moment, thinking back. “In January?”
“Yes, I was hugely pregnant by then and I couldn’t let you know I was there. I really wanted to talk to you then…” I broke down.
She put her arm around me. “Verity, I’ve been so wrong about you. You are stronger than I had ever expected. How you got through this alone, I’ll never know.”
“I wasn’t alone.”
“Who was with you?” River Pearl asked.
“Minnie Tattersall.”
“That twenty-two year old from the UK who’s made a huge splash in the design world?” She looked impressed and sympathetic all at the same time.
I nodded. “Yes, as soon as I got to New York City, I knew I couldn’t sit around for nine months waiting for the baby to be born. It was an opportunity for me to see if I had what it took to be a designer, which you know is all I want to do. I went right to her offices unannounced and showed her my sketches and the collection I dreamed up on my bed after I finished my homework every night. I was so nervous, but I figured I had nothing to lose.”
“She loved them,” River Pearl said with a smile.
“She gave me an apprenticeship, and my line is debuting in September during New York Fashion Week, under her mentorship. It was my plan to tell my parents that I’m moving to New York City in the fall. That’s why I came home. She and I have been working together for a year. She was there for me every minute, and I sneak off into the bayou to talk to her every day. She was there in the delivery room when my son was born.”
Aubree took my hands. “Verity, you didn’t plan to tell Boone about the baby, did you?”
“Originally, no. I was just going to be here for the summer. Then stuff started happening with Boone and before I knew it, I was sucked into something I’m not sure I’m ready to handle. I’m in such turmoil right now. I’ve made a terrible mistake. You see, I had to lie about knowing who the daddy was to give him up.”
I had to stop and swallow and breathe for a minute before I could go on. “Last year I was convinced it was the right thing to do. Now, I don’t know. I’ve taken away Boone’s choice, and I feel terrible about it. He never had a chance to decide what he wanted to do. But I just can’t bring myself to tell him. I don’t know how he will react, but from what I’ve seen so far, and what he said to me when he was delirious, I don’t think he would have given up his parental rights.”
I could see that Aubree didn’t approve, and when I looked at River Pearl, the same look was in her eyes. “I really need to talk to Boone,” I said. “He asked me out.”
“What are you going to do?” Aubree said, the weight of this secret and her concern for both me and Boone in her eyes.
“I don’t know. I thought about him with nothing but resentment and anger for so long. Now it’s like I have been torpedoed and I feel like I’m floating around in the water broken up into too many tiny bits. I’ve wronged him terribly. Other than our son, he’s really the only innocent person in this whole mess.”
“That’s not true, Verity. You’re innocent of it as well. This can be laid right on Stacy Chambers’ doorstep. What she did to you was underhanded and wrong.”
“I know. But, although Boone and I had a child, that little boy is paying the price. Not that his adoptive parents aren’t good people. I did my best to choose good parents for him. In fact, it was the first time I’ve ever seen a grown man cry. He was overcome when they came to the hospital. My heart hurts every time I think of his reaction. But they aren’t his real parents. I’m his mother, and I feel like I deserted him. But I couldn’t face my daddy. I still can’t. This whole thing is just unbearable, and no matter how I try, I can’t see a way through this to do the right thing.”
“Maybe the first step is getting to know Boone. Based on what Aubree saw the other day, it seems you two are getting along pretty well.”
“I don’t even know how I would tell him, or that I would ever have the courage. I’m afraid of the fallout. I know that’s selfish, and I should just step up and take the responsibility. Especially after all the stuff my daddy hammered into my head…but I just can’t get myself to do it.”
“Boone’s home right now, and I know he’s dying to talk to you.”
I nodded. “Thank you, my best of friends, for listening to me and supporting me.”
It took me very little time to get to Boone’s house, because Aubree lived with Booker. I parked and walked up to the door, knowing it was time for me to tell Boone at least part of what had happened.
I had to be honest with myself. I longed to see him again. After what we’d shared in the tub, after all that he had told me, I couldn’t seem to get enough of him. Was I scared? Shitless. But I owed him at least a partial explanation. It was the least I could do.
I could hear quite a lot of noise coming out of his house. Music and clomping noises. I knocked several times, but no one came to the door, so I tried the handle. When it turned, I
went inside.
It was earsplitting, all that music and laughter and stomping.
They had pushed Boone’s dining room table against the wall and rolled up the beautiful area rug to reveal the dark mahogany floor beneath. Booker was twirling and staccato-stomping around Boone’s dining room while Braxton and Boone played what sounded to me like flamenco music.
They were all laughing like fools, but my eyes went directly to Boone. Booker did a flourish with his heel that looked to me more like river dancing—that Irish step dancing—than he did the lively Spanish dance. He had chip clips pinned to his fingers, which I was sure were supposed to be castanets. When he flung his arm, one of the chip clips flew off and hit Braxton in the face.
Boone stopped playing and doubled over, howling with laughter, then threw his head back. When he did, he lost his balance and landed on his butt, but he protected the guitar with his body. Booker danced around him, and that’s when Braxton lost it, and there was nothing left but their raucous laughter.
Booker spun around and threw his hands in the air shouting olé. And that’s when I lost it and started laughing right along with them.
Boone popped up from the floor, all laughter gone, Booker groaned, and Braxton laughed even harder.
It didn’t take long for Booker and Braxton to clear out. I still blushed a bit when I met both of their eyes, but they were smiling at me as they left.
Boone set his beautiful guitar back into its case and joined me where I stood speechless in the middle of his living room.
“Do you want to sit down?”
“How are you doing?”
We spoke at the same time, and I skipped the questions and stepped up to him to feel his forehead and find out for myself. “You’re warm. You shouldn’t have been fooling around like that.”
“Blame it on my jackass brothers. They were trying to keep my mind off. . .um.”
“Me?”
“Taking the fifth,” he said.
“So, you do remember some of the stuff you blurted out in the tub?”
He looked away. “Let’s not talk about that. I remember what you looked like, and if I continue to talk about that, I’m going to get another hard-on and then really get distracted.”
He had a point. I got flustered thinking about him getting hard for me. If I thought for even another minute about how Boone had looked in the tub, I would get distracted, too. “That seems like a good idea.”
“Do you want something to drink?” he offered.
“No, Boone. I came to talk to you because it’s past time that I did.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Maybe we’d better sit down.”
I met his blue eyes and decided I would never get tired of being with Boone. Looking into his eyes, studying every angle and plane of his face, breathing in his gorgeous, unique scent. I was struck again how much the son I delivered five months ago had looked like him. My heart lurched.
“The graduation party,” he said.
“It always comes back to that night, doesn’t it, Boone?”
“What happened, Verity?” His eyes were worried, concerned and I felt sorry that we had been interrupted and he’d had to wait for me to explain what I had said. “I’m dying, here. You said it wasn’t the first time you saw me naked. Did I streak or something?”
Nervously wiping my hands on my shorts, I screwed up my courage and looked him in the eye. I said softly, “We had sex, Boone. In the bed of your truck beneath a full moon. All night long.”
He blinked at my words. There was an unnatural tension in every line of his body, and a tormented look in his eyes as shock cleared.
I watched the subtle play of emotions on his face, mostly anger and a whole lot of worry. “Boone. Say something. Anything.”
“We had sex?”
I nodded.
“In the bed of my truck?”
I nodded again and closed my eyes.
“All fucking night long.”
“Pretty much.”
He took a shuddering breath. “Fuck!” He stared at me, the realization making his eyes look even more tormented. Something electric passed between us, and I couldn’t stand to see his pain. I experienced a rush of compassion for him that overrode everything, and I simply reacted.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his throat. “Boone, it wasn’t your fault. It was me. I initiated it. I seduced you. You even protested, saying that you couldn’t. That I was off limits. I didn’t understand at the time, and now I know why you said that, but I was under the influence of the X, and I just took what I wanted.”
He moved me back, and I thought he was pushing me away, but he cupped my cheeks, his face intense, his eyes haunted. His voice broke when he said, “Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head, tears gathering even as I fought them. I didn’t want to make it worse by crying. Boone was already distressed enough. “That would be the first question you would ask me.”
“What the fuck? Of course it is. I know you were a virgin. You had to have been. Fuck, your first time and I was wasted. Geezus.”
This time I cupped his face. “Listen to me. You were amazing. It was like you knew exactly how to make it wonderful for me. There was barely any pain, Boone. You tried everything you could think of to stop me, but when I got my hands on you, you kinda lost it.”
He groaned. “Do you know how pissed I am right now?”
“I can imagine. I wish I had talked to you about this sooner.”
“No, not that. I fucking missed it. I missed having the memory of being with you for the first time. That really pisses me off.”
My heart just suspended in my chest. All the romantic notions that I had about Boone Outlaw when I first crawled across his body in the bed of that truck couldn’t begin to measure up to what he had just said. His sincerity…in this moment in time, so far away from that other monumental experience, when I had not only taken him into my body because I wanted to, but had conceived a child with him?…my earlier notions of his integrity and sincerity simply paled in comparison.
He made it so difficult to not just blurt out the rest of it, but I still didn’t know what I was going to do. I had a life that I’d built in New York City with Minnie and her Tattersall brand. Right before I came back, she had said she wanted to talk to me about a business opportunity, but thought I should take care of all this Suttontowne stuff first.
For a split second I wished I had just told my parents that I wasn’t coming back home and had simply remained in New York City, taking Minnie up on her business opportunity. But it was too late for that, and I was going to get the dream that I had dreamed while I was still in high school in spite of all my mistakes. In fact, the irony was that if I hadn’t been given that X and gotten pregnant, I might never have found the kinds opportunities that were now mine to explore.
Could that pregnancy have been the best thing that ever happened to me instead of the worst?
Rather than trying to work it out right now, I simply leaned in and kissed him, brushed his soft, enticing mouth with mine. He leaned slightly back to look at me, his eyes dark and intense, mesmerizing. When our lips met again, his kiss was unhurried, just the way Boone did everything. Then he settled his mouth more firmly over mine, and thought ceased. My eyes drifted shut. My hands burrowed into the fabric of his shirt. Boone pulled me close, slanting his mouth across mine, taking possession of it. At the feel of his tongue I gasped, and he slipped into my mouth, thrusting slowly, deeply.
I hadn’t ever kissed anyone like I kissed Boone. It was as if my whole being participated. It’s what I remembered from our union in his truck bed. I couldn’t help it. I really didn’t want to. I wanted to experience him every way I could to make sure that I wouldn’t be leaving something behind that could become…more.
He cradled me against him like I was as fragile, as delicate as a glass figurine. His fingers went into my hair, sliding through it slowly, only to pull out and slide in again, then
cup the back of my head. He deepened the kiss, a soft groan that traveled through me like a soft hush in a dark room.
The pain and agony and loss butted up against all the sensations that Boone evoked. He was the father of my child. I wanted to know him. I wanted to see who he was, and I missed my little boy. That longing was like a black, sucking hole. I wanted comfort from Boone, and he gave me that and more.
A year ago I had been a virgin, uptight, just as Stacy had said. I was determined back then that my first sex would be with Boone, because I wanted to know if I could be something more than just the preacher’s uptight daughter.
But the X had changed that. Or had it? Had it, instead, merely released me from bindings that I’d worn for so long I didn’t even notice them anymore? Or was it because I had fallen from grace at the mercy of hot blue eyes, a supple and delicious mouth, a deep, sultry voice and broad shoulders that knew how to shelter and hold a woman? And a body that was sculpted in thick muscle, designed to give a woman the kind of pleasure that she wouldn’t soon forget? Boone knew what to do with what he had and what he had—criminy, it was beautiful.
And then I wondered if it was because of the compassion that I could swear I saw in those hauntingly blue eyes. Did it underlie everything he did? I wanted to know that, too. How I had misjudged him. I wanted to make it up to him, too. Kissing him was just the first step in the journey of him.
I always thought of Boone as the heart of the Outlaws. Booker with his intellect and Braxton with his physicality made up the whole of the threesome.
What was that Star Trek Borg mantra? Resistance is futile?…resistance to Boone was simply beyond me.
He broke the kiss, nestling his warm face into the hollow of my neck, his chest working against me. “What was that for? More research?”
“Yes. It’s the only way to gather data. Don’t play with me. I know you’ve been told you’re irresistible.”
“Hardly,” he said, “You know I never went in for that science stuff. Much more interested in music, but now I’ve learned that there’s something to be said for ah…gathering data.”
He raised his head and met my eyes. “So, our first encounter after we lusted after each other in high school, and I fucking barely remember a thing. What are we going to do about that, Verity?”
