A Perfect Dilemma

by Zoe Dawson

  “You are a morally bankrupt, piece-of-shit bastard, Earl,” I said, unable to tolerate his callousness or his presence in my life one more minute. “I’m going to make sure my parents know what kind of manipulative reprobate you are, and I swear I will have you thrown out on your ear.” I hissed. “Now get out of my way.”

  “Don’t threaten me, you little bitch! You have no idea what I’m capable of. You lowered yourself to lie with an Outlaw when you could have had me. But now I wouldn’t touch you.”

  “Good. You make me sick,” I said, hurt and pain overriding my normal, ingrained good manners. But these feelings about Earl had been brewing for years. “Duel Outlaw was innocent, and I’m going to find a way to prove it. The Colonel’s old journals probably have the rest of the information I need.”

  For the first time in my life, I saw something close to fear in his eyes, but in a blink it was gone.

  He grabbed my arm, and I reached for the railing as I lost my balance, sure he was on the verge of throwing me down the stairs. “Let me go, Earl.”

  “Why don’t you ask Chase all about that damn journal you’re looking for? I think he might know all about it.”

  “Chase…” I trailed off realized what a complete horrible bastard Earl was. “What did you do?”

  He just smirked. “We’re just one big happy family,” he ground out.

  “River?” I heard Jake’s voice at the bottom. Earl’s punishing grip released.

  “I suggest you find another place to live, Earl. After I talk to my daddy, you will no longer be welcome here. I have no doubt Jake will back me up.”

  His lips compressed and he let me go so abruptly, if I hadn’t grabbed the railing I would have fallen.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, low enough that Jake couldn’t hear. “I guarantee you that. Why don’t you go back to New York, you little whore?”

  He stomped up the stairs and I continued down. Jake waited at the bottom, and I gave him a weak smile.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Are you hungry? I can sit with you while you eat.”

  “No, I’m not hungry,” I said. “I’m just going for a walk.”

  “It’s late…”

  “Just on the grounds. I’ll be fine.”

  As soon as he nodded and went upstairs, I slipped to my daddy’s study to the liquor cabinet and I grabbed a bottle of whiskey. Slipping out the French doors, I took a swig while walking around to the pool. It burned all the way down my throat and brought tears to my eyes, but the crippling pain eased slightly. The second swig went down just a bit easier.

  After I rounded the house to the pool deck, I stood there for a few minutes while memories of Braxton flashed through my head and the pain I’d just dulled surged up even more strongly. I had to find the journal.

  And I needed to talk to Braxton. I couldn’t leave this hanging. I slipped back into the house and ran upstairs to get my car keys. In the garage, I set the bottle down on the passenger seat and started the car.

  When I got to Outlaws, I hesitated. Looking at the bottle, I decided I needed something to take the edge off so I wouldn’t come across as desperate. I wasn’t thinking straight, but the alcohol helped. I wasn’t a big drinker, wasn’t a party girl, but I needed something to fill the horrible, yawning hole that had opened up at the sheriff’s office.

  Before I knew it, my vision was blurred and I was drunk. I opened the door, dropping my keys to the white shells, stumbling a little when I lost my equilibrium while reaching down to pick them up.

  Using the hood to steady myself, I pulled out my phone and pressed numbers.

  “Hello.”

  “Chase,” is said. Tears threatened again, but I pushed them back. I took a step toward the neon sign, and another one, until I was finally through the front door.

  “River. What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

  “I need to talk to you.” I said, my words slurring terribly.

  The Outlaws were on stage, and there were only a few people left finishing up their dinners. Brax looked terrible, with dark circles under his eyes. Something in me loosened at the sight of him, not just because I needed to see him, but because it was obvious he missed me. He was playing his fiddle with his eyes closed while Booker sang.

  “River. I’ll come to you. You sound drunk. What happened?”

  “Bad things,” I said, slurring my words again.

  “Where are you?” His voice was full of concern and my heart squeezed. Earl had somehow been responsible for driving Chase away. I knew it in my heart.

  “Outlaws,” I whispered, losing my focus as the last chords of the song faded. I ended the call as I reached the stage. Boone said, “River?” and Brax’s eyes popped open.

  I grabbed the microphone, the alcohol knocking down my inhibitions and the pain making me reckless. I wanted to show him what he meant to me.

  I walked over to Booker and whispered a song in his ear. He looked at me with sympathy. “River, maybe...”

  “Play it, please, Booker.”

  The opening notes of “Make You Feel My Love” filtered across the bar, and people looked toward the stage. I sang my heart out. The lyrics poured out of me, and my voice low and sultry. Boone picked up the melody, but Brax stood there looking at me with a desolate expression.

  Tears gathered as I got to the end of the first verse, my voice catching and hoarse with emotion.

  As I hit the second verse, he set his fiddle down and stepped off the stage, walking away from me. A sob escaped me and he stopped and turned around. Coming back he took my hand. “River, stop this. It’s not helping.”

  I pulled away from him and lost my balance, slamming right into Boone, who was knocked off his stool with a discordant chord. He caught and steadied me.

  Booker stopped playing, exchanging an oh, shit look with Boone. I stared at Braxton with my heart in my eyes. His expression faltered, something fleeting intensifying the starkness around his mouth. I wanted to touch him so much.

  “We can get past this,” I said brokenly, another sob escaping at the bleak look in his eyes. “We can. I need to talk to you.” Murmurs went through the crowd, but I could care less what any of them thought of me.

  “River,” he said, raggedly, his voice strained. He tried to take my arm, but I pulled away and stumbled to the bar. Climbing up on top, I started singing again, and I didn’t give a shit that my voice sounded pitiful and full of tears and anger and despair.

  “Geezus,” Brax said at the edge of the bar. “Sweetheart, come down from there and we’ll talk.” His voice was quiet, and I swiped at a fresh wave of tears.

  Poor Brax. He didn’t know what to do or how to handle me. He was so tangled up in his own guilt and despair. I kept singing until, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Chase. He was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, looking at me with love and compassion. My heart shattered into a million pieces.

  Chase walked to the edge of the bar and whispered, “River. It’s okay.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not okay. It’s never going to be okay.”

  “It will.” He reached out his hand like a lifeline and I fell apart, simply lost it.

  Instead of heading for him, I headed for Brax. He was the only person I could see while things started to spin.

  #

  Braxton

  I caught her around the waist and hauled her off the bar. Not the smartest move, but she was drunk and hurting. I’d hurt her badly. I gave her a moment to find her feet.

  It took a long time.

  A very long time, during which she just leaned against me, all curves and heat, her wet face pressed into the middle of my chest, her breath getting my shirt damp.

  Kee-rist. I was dying all over again. Stay detached, I told myself, trying to remain uninvolved, keep it neutral, despite the fact that her hands had moved to my waist and were fisted in my shirt, holding on to me like she was never going to let go.

/>   I didn’t want her to let go.

  Yeah, despite everything, I had been managing. Getting turned on wasn’t helping, but I was determined to handle that too. Because the truth was, she wasn’t coming on to me. I think I would have been able to hold onto my sanity, my equilibrium, if she hadn’t gone and done this heartbreaking thing. Still clinging, still plastered against me, she tilted her head back, sent a long fall of golden brown hair sliding over my shoulder and down my arm, and she looked at me, caught my gaze with her own, and it was a complete and utter knockout, right down to the mat, stars circling. She took the fighter in me and stripped me bare of all defense. My guard didn’t just drop. She obliterated it until I was helpless, open and completely fucked over.

  She took control of me, and I couldn’t look away. My body went very still. My pulse picked up speed. Warning bells—huge ones—started going off everywhere in my brain…and I still didn’t move. That would have been too easy. I went the hard way, letting my gaze slide slowly over her face, letting my awareness of her seep past my barriers, letting that damn rush of arousal slam into me like a wrecking ball.

  My hands tightened around her arms. Hell, I couldn’t handle this. I was a fool to think I could. Fuck. She was beautiful, and she was in my arms, all warm and lovely and drunk, with blue-gray eyes and a mouth that had already undone me—from the moment I’d first kissed her.

  Beneath the branch where they’d hanged my ancestor.

  Kiss…her lips parted as if she’d read my mind, and my brain started shutting down, all my energy and attention focused on her. Only her. I would have given everything I had to kiss her again. Would have given my last breath.

  “Why can’t you love me?” It was scarcely a whisper, and her words were a little muddled and frantic with desperation. I knew exactly how she felt. I wanted to love her. I wanted to be free to be with her forever.

  I cupped her cheek and smoothed my fingers over her skin. She leaned forward and, before I could stop her, she pressed her mouth to mine. Her kiss broke something open in me. Her mouth was soft and pliant, salty with tears. I groaned with pain and need all wrapped around the pleasure of it.

  I broke the kiss, and said, “River…shh, sugar. Let’s go into the kitchen.”

  “I can fix everything, but it’ll cost us so much. But I don’t care. It’s the right thing to do,” she mumbled while I supported her as we made our way to the kitchen, Chase following, as she slurred something jumbled about Duel being innocent and something about the Colonel that I couldn’t make out, each breath she took smashing me to pieces.

  I got her to the back door, where Chase’s truck was parked. The breeze from the bayou ruffled my hair, skimming the strands of hers against my bare arm. It was torture.

  “Here’s the answer, sugar. Because when you get involved with an Outlaw, you become an Outlaw. I can’t and I won’t make you a target. It doesn’t matter if you’re the preacher’s daughter who deserves respect, with your son in a stroller. It doesn’t matter if you’re a woman whose husband left her with six-year-old triplets. You will be rejected, spit on, shoved, doors slammed in your face. I had to watch it every day. I had to see my hard-working, beautiful ma mistreated because she married an Outlaw. You want to know why I can’t commit? Because fucking to me is just fucking.”

  “No,” she said. “Not with me.”

  She was right. Not with her, but I had to make her understand. “I’ll never put you through that, River. Never.”

  “It’s my choice to make,” she said.

  “And my choice to refuse.”

  She lifted her head and stared at me. “You want to know what I think? I think it’s a convenient excuse.”

  “It’s not an excuse.”

  She fought her way out of my arms, stumbling as both Chase and I reached out to steady her. Fire ignited in her eyes. “Yes, it is. It’s about the anger you’re so used to storing up inside. You keep it here.” She thumped my breastbone. “It’s comfortable and you understand it and you’re afraid of changing. You’re afraid of letting it go.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

  “You don’t want to let it go. It defines you. I think you’re afraid of loving me. Not that you won’t or you can’t.”

  “Maybe I am,” I whispered. “But we’re over, and you have to accept it. I’m not the man for you.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said. “Where is that fighter in you, Brax?”

  “Chase, take her,” I said, as something deep and terrible broke open. Chase’s look of sympathy only made it worse. I felt it happening. A splintering, jagged rent, straight down the middle of me.

  “You cold-hearted bastard,” Boone said.

  “Boone!” Booker shouted.

  “No,” I said, trying to stop it. “He’s right, Booker. I am a cold-hearted bastard.” Then I felt the swell of panic. I couldn’t stem the tide. It was too late, and I was fracturing, wishing with everything left of my heart that I didn’t have to let her go. I turned and darted out the door, leaving behind my responsibilities, relying on the people I’d hired to take care of the bar. I ran to my truck and jumped in.

  I licked my lips, tasting the salt there, and lost it even more, not able to deal with the tide of my feelings for River and how much I had just deliberately hurt her. How much I wanted her.

  I’m a cold-hearted bastard.

  I drove, whispering the words constantly, a hoarse, pitiful chant for forgiveness, a mantra for relief from relentless pain.

  “Fuck me,” I mumbled, my face rigid against the pain.

  The pain built and built, and as soon as I got to my deck, I tripped on the top stair. I wasn’t going to make it inside. I fell to all fours and the fracture expanded, opening up a huge black hole, coalescing into a tidal wave of emotion. It engulfed me, rolled over me, and wrecked me.

  A racking shudder went through me, and another. A sob broke loose. “What have I done?” I whispered. “What have I done to her?”

  Hot tears streamed down, while mortification joined with an agonizing knot in my chest. I was falling apart, and I loved her. I loved her, and all those feelings had to go somewhere. They poured out of my pores and out of my eyes.

  “I’ve got you.” Booker said as his arms came around me and he dragged me into a loose embrace.

  I could feel Boone’s presence like he was a part of me. My brothers, so close, so supportive. Always there. I felt sorry for siblings who weren’t trips. There was nothing like the relationship I had with my brothers. I loved them more now than ever.

  After losing it for God knows how long, I pushed out of Booker’s arms and sat on the deck, rubbing at my swollen eyes, exhausted. Real sleep had been beyond me ever since I sent River away, only fitful and filled with nightmares.

  Boone crouched next to me and set his hand on my shoulder. “Brax, “I’m sorry for what I said. I only heard the tail end of your speech. I didn’t know…”

  “It’s all right, Boone.”

  “No, it’s not, Brax,” he said, but the apology was a settlement. We both knew it. “Do you love her?”

  I looked off into the bayou and said hoarsely, “Yes, I love her, you dumbass.”

  “Yeah,” he chuckled and Booker shook his head.

  “Then go get her. Do it now. What else matters?”

  “You heard what I said at Outlaws. I don’t want her to be a target.”

  “Yeah, and I get that. We both get it. But she’s right, it is her choice, man. My wife was assaulted, too, but do you think it deters her? Hell, no. She’s willing to fight tooth and nail to keep what we have. We knew going in it was going to be tough. I understand about Ma, we both do. We hated how she was treated, but I don’t think she regrets for one day having been involved with Daddy. She still loves him, still believes in him. Even in the face of all those odds.”

  “It killed me when River was hurt because of me.”

  “I know. But man, consider this. We, all three of us, have found ourselves some powerfully st
rong women.”

  “She has a whole life to go back to.”

  “Again, Brax. It’s her decision. All you can do is open up your heart, man. It’s past time for you to find some happiness. You’ve been holding back so long. Let it all go. Things will work out the way they work out. There are always going to be assholes like Daniel Langston and Billy Joe Freeman and Jack Douglas. But, you know what? Langston is gone, Freeman is locked up, and Douglas just got taken down by a girl in front of a lot of people.”

  I barked a laugh at that one.

  Boone smiled. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “We know. But we’re staying. You seem to have forgotten, we’re fighters, too. You give her a chance to settle down, get sober, and then the two of you will talk this out.”

  Boone stood and reached out his hand to me. On the other side of me Booker rose, too, and extended his hand.

  I grabbed their hands and they hauled me up.

  “Fuck, that girl can sing,” Boone mumbled.

  “Yeah, right,” Booker said. “I think we should add her to our act.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head as we walked into my house.

  Hope was something I didn’t usually allow myself, but this time it was solid and strong.

  #

  River Pearl

  Fractured, gray fragments of awareness trickled through my consciousness. Wherever I was, it was sublime. The sheets were great. The pillow over my head great, and, as long as everything stayed completely motionless, I’d be great, too. One little hiccup in my plan, I had to breathe, that was non-negotiable. I hadn’t quite had the need to figure out how to breathe and stay perfectly still. Every breath triggered the huge, wracking, throbbing, crashing pain in my head.

  I pried one of my eyes open just enough to peer between the pillow and the bed all the way across a rather expansive bedroom to a large bank of windows on the other side. And a stunning view of the bayou. The walls were rough-hewn and rustic. From the angle of the sunlight streaming in through the windows, I figured it was about mid-morning—and I’d woken up in an unfamiliar bed.