A Perfect Dilemma

by Zoe Dawson

  My blood was already in the water, so those gators were already in a frenzy. As soon as Earl splashed down, they were on him, tearing and shredding until the water turned red. The screams were terrible. Inhuman.

  The strength went out of me as completely as a snuffed flame. I fell to my knees and collapsed to the ground, clutching my ribs.

  “Dammit, River. What the hell happened?”

  “Not now, Chase. Help me. Please. He’s been shot.”

  “Who? What happened?” Chase growled, even as he was taking off his shirt and pressing it to my side. I groaned as the painful pressure lanced through my chest and across my abdomen.

  “Earl. I’ll explain it later,” she growled back. “Please don’t die,” she demanded of me in her best Princess voice, her face scraped and dirty, her neck red and bruising, her eyes frantic. I tried to lift my arm so I could touch her, but couldn’t manage it. I wanted to reassure her.

  “Please don’t leave me,” I think I managed to say.

  Darkness settled over me like a soft blanket, and I surrendered to the pain.

  #

  Braxton

  I remembered in dreamlike bits and pieces. A force of will, pushing, prodding, begging, swearing, goading me to move my feet. The solid support of Chase at my side. Take a step, then another. The pain was blocked out, but not the weakness or the sense of disconnection from my mind and body. River wouldn’t stop prodding me, and I remembered wondering how could she be so fragile and so tough.

  There was movement, a car, Earl’s car. And the sound of rain. Rain and tears. River crying over me. I wanted to tell her not to. I couldn’t stand the thought of making her cry, even though I had done it more than once. There were so many things I wanted to tell her. Things like how my anger had evaporated when Earl confessed he had murdered my daddy. With knowing he hadn’t abandoned us. I felt so relieved, so free.

  I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, but I couldn’t seem to find enough breath to get the words out.

  Darkness, then light. The hushed, firm voices of men and women in white clothes. Cool hands touching my arm, my cheek. Sweet lips and whispers of love. River Pearl. A mask going over my face, me murmuring her name over and over in my head like a litany until…I floated and thought about nothing at all.

  I stirred. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. I blinked my eyes open, flinched, and then blinked them again. The person sitting beside my bed wasn’t who I expected.

  “Jake? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “I see not even a bullet improves your disposition, Brax.”

  “Fuck, no. Just pisses me off.”

  He ran his hands over his face. “Look, I want to tell you a couple of things. First, I’m sorry for all the shit I put you through, but by now you know I was only trying to…ah, dammit.”

  “Protect me?”

  He got up and stared out the window, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah, that. Stupid, huh?”

  “No. I knew.”

  “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Mostly because I was pissed and I wanted you to tell me.”

  “Which is why you kept flipping me off?”

  “Well, fuck, yeah.”

  “Geezus, Brax. You are a pain in the ass.”

  “Look who’s talking.” I said, giving him the finger. “What’s the second thing?”

  He rubbed at his eyes and came back to the head of the bed. “Thank you for saving River and Chase. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful we are. I never trusted that bastard.”

  “I had selfish reasons for saving River.”

  “Brax, about River…”

  “Braxton,” my ma said, as she entered the room, Win Sutton right behind her. “You’re awake. I’m so glad.”

  She hugged me and I awkwardly hugged her back.

  Win extended his hand and I shook it. “What are your intentions regarding my ma?” I demanded, point-blank. Jake chuckled, then covered it up by coughing.

  “Honorable,” he said looking at her. “And long term,” he added, and I saw the way my ma looked at him. I felt a pang, a good one, to see she had found someone she could care about again. Win caught my eye. He cleared his throat. “Let’s give them some privacy, Jake.”

  “Later, Brax.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” I said.

  Boone and Booker entered the room as Jake and his uncle left.

  “Hey, huckleberry,” Boone said, giving me a hug, with Booker following suit.

  Boone said, “The doctor said the bullet grazed your side and, lucky for you, Earl was a lousy shot. So laceration from the bullet has been stitched, and you have a fractured rib and a mild concussion from where Earl hammered your temple with a rock which happened to be harder than your head. You should be out of here in no time.”

  I looked at them and took my ma’s hand and broke the news about her husband and our daddy. She covered her mouth, tears gathering and streaming down her face. She sank down into the chair beside my bed. Both my brothers looked stupefied, then moved closer to my ma, Boone slipping his arms around her.

  “I knew it. I knew he would never leave us,” my ma said.

  “You were right. He never did.” The knowledge that my daddy had been a good, upstanding man still rocked me. But it also freed me from the anger that had swirled inside me

  “Oh, my beautiful Brody. How I will always miss him.”

  I reached out and squeezed her arm and she covered my hand. For a moment we all were just silent absorbing the truth even as it altered everything we knew and believed.

  “I have some more shocking news. It’s good you’re seated.” I told them about the Colonel and Duel and what had really happened. Then I couldn’t hold back any more.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s gone, Brax. She flew to New York yesterday.”

  “She left?”

  Booker nodded. “I’m sorry. I thought…fuck…I’m sorry.”

  Numb, I closed my eyes. Before I knew it I woke up again. The room was dark and the IV was gone from my hand. Without thinking about what I was doing, I swung my feet to the floor. It hurt to breathe, to stand, to move. I got dressed, stopping every few minutes to breathe deep…according to my doc, it was important to stave off pneumonia to fill my lungs as often as possible.

  I slipped out of the room and hailed a cab, giving him River’s address. When he pulled up to the house, I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door.

  When the housekeeper answered, Jake saw me from the bottom of the stairs. “Brax, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Braxton Outlaw is here?” I heard a female voice. River’s momma. She came out into the foyer, followed closely by her husband.

  “Why are you looking for River?” she asked.

  “Because I’m fucking in love with your daughter and I’m going tell her. Where is she?”

  “Brax you’re in no shape to be—”

  “Where is she, Jake?” I yelled, and then had to lean against the wall while the pain ripped through me.

  Mrs. Outlaw reached out and took my arm. “Come sit down, Braxton, please. There’s no need to get all in a tizzy.”

  She drew me into the living room and I sat down, hissing with the pain, breathing through the pain, figuring it was the fastest way for me to get to River Pearl.

  “Are you sure you should have been released from the hospital?” she asked, pouring me a glass of water from a pitcher on the side table.

  “I wasn’t exactly released.” I said, taking the water and downing it. I was feeling parched after losing so much blood.

  “What?”

  I just gave them all an exasperated look.

  “Thank you, by the way, Braxton, for rescuing my daughter and my son.” Tears gathered in her eyes and she squeezed my forearm.

  “Yes,” River’s daddy said, clearing his throat. “Thank you. We had no idea Earl was so violent. The murder of your daddy is terrible. We’re
so sorry. I didn’t know about Duel. I never bothered to read those journals.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Sutton,” I said wryly. “I know exactly how to manage in this town. I’ll talk you through it.”

  “I suspect I deserve that. I was only trying to protect my daughter.”

  “Which will be my job from now on.”

  “Surely you’re not flying to New York tonight,” her momma said. “She’s not exactly informed us of her plans. She thoroughly told me off and put us both in our places.”

  “I’ll go to the ends of the earth for her. I just need to know where she is. Please, Jake, I’m begging. I have to talk to her.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, breathing around the pain.

  “The ends of the earth, huh? You don’t have to go that far.” I smelled her fragrance a split second before I heard her voice.

  My eyes snapped open. “Sugar,” I rasped. She was standing in the doorway with a bag in her hand.

  “What are you doing out of the hospital?” Her cool eyes cut to her brother. “Jake, why didn’t you tell him I was coming home today?”

  “I was trying to,” Jake said, crowding his parents out of the room and closing the door behind them.

  Without taking her eyes off mine, she shook her head. I was soaking in her beautiful face, her fragrance, her sweet voice. “Don’t leave, River.” I leaned my head back, my chest so tight. “I’m supposed to breathe.”

  “That’s kinda important,” she smiled, tenderly brushing the backs of her fingers over my face, which I’d noticed while dressing was still bruised and swollen from my fight with Earl. The bastard who killed my daddy. Who was now gator food, and justice had been served.

  “I’m not leaving.” She smiled when she watched my relief relax the tension in my face and neck. “I went to New York to get out of my contract,” she continued. “My last modeling gig will be Verity’s fashion show. I turned down the TV show. I’m free to make own choices. You taught me how to do it. You’ve always lived your life exactly how you wanted. No more pageants. I’m hanging up my tiara.” She wiped her eyes. “Now, let’s get you back to the hospital.”

  Everything in me loosened up, the last remnants of fear uncoiling from around my gut and heart. “I’m not going back there. I just need to tell you something.”

  “Here?”

  “I don’t give a fuck where we are.”

  She was wearing one of those damn cute dresses that always made me need to take a deep breath. Maybe it could be my therapy. It was hot pink, tight, with thin straps crisscrossing her creamy back. I fucking loved hot fucking pink. With her face subtly made up, it added a contrast to her incredible beauty. Her lips were pink, too. Her hair was in a sleek, high ponytail.

  She leaned in. “Kiss me, Brax, like you want to,” she whispered, her voice kind of raw and throaty, as if we’d already been kissing the stuffing out of each other for the last couple of hours.

  Her face and neck bruised from her fight with Earl was close to mine. “River…” I said. Not kissing her was what I was trying to do. I was trying to get something said first.

  “Braxton.” She breathed my name. “I double-dog-dare you,” She was teasing me, reminding me of our encounter only a few weeks ago. She had changed me so much since then. Her fingers sifted through my hair. I was trying to hold on to my sanity, but she was working me over good. I couldn’t revive my normal, irritable self. I was falling again, it seemed, because I hadn’t fallen far enough.

  I was so ready to have her mouth hard and demanding on mine, but it would fuck me up. It was important for me to say what I came here to say.

  Against my will and every ounce of my common sense, I looked down at her mouth.

  And took a breath.

  My doctor would be so proud.

  She carefully pulled my T-shirt out of my jeans and slipped her hand gently underneath. She met my eyes with a double-double-dog-dare. I saw what I needed there, and my heart swelled, my chest filling to the max. I moved my hand up to cup her cheek, threading my fingers all the way to the nape of her neck. She shivered.

  “Gee-zus,” I swore. She had the most amazing way of turning me inside out, and I’d be damned if she didn’t just do it again.

  I pulled her toward me. Right before I took her mouth, I whispered, “I’m a fighter. I’m hard to get along with. We’ll probably argue a lot, but the making up will be so fucking great.”

  Heat engulfed me like walking into a blast furnace. River’s mouth was soft and pliant against mine. I let go of everything. All of it, the anger, the pain, the fear. The only thing left was my natural contrariness. Which wasn’t going anywhere. I knew it was okay, though, because the strongest love made me a better person without changing who I was. River was that love. The love of my life. I could only be glad I learned it in time.

  “I can handle you exactly the way you are.”

  I took another deep breath, “I’m so in love with you. In love, love, love,” I murmured against her lips.

  She gasped her golden gasp against my mouth. “I have longed to hear you say it. Say it again.”

  “I fucking love you,” I said, my voice gruff and gentle. “I’ll say it as many times as you want me to.”

  She smiled. “There has only ever been you. Ever, always.”

  This time when she kissed me, her mouth was sweet against mine. Her tongue teased me, turning me on like it was hardwired to my groin, getting me hot like hot pink got me hot.

  Her hand was up under my T-shirt again, careful over my bandaged side and fractured rib. “How long do we have to wait before…?”

  “As soon as we get somewhere private.”

  “But Brax,” she scolded, “your injury.”

  “I’m supposed to do a lot of deep breathing. I think getting you alone and letting you do anything you want to me is just what the doctor ordered—a lot of deep breathing.”

  “Oh, Braxton Outlaw, you are such a bad, bad boy.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Epilogue

  River Pearl

  I made sure everything was laid out and ready. Then I glanced at Braxton. He was slouching in one of my momma’s expensive Chippendale chairs, looking cool and sexy and unaffected. I loved him so much I was sure it showed every time I looked at him. He smirked.

  “I bet you a hundred bucks he’s going to say no,” he said.

  “You’re on.”

  He chuckled. “Ooh, she’s a confident little Princess.”

  When I heard the front door close, I peered around and saw my daddy hanging up his panama hat and wiping his brow.

  “Daddy, I need to have a word with you.”

  I darted back into the dining room, giggling. Brax laughed and shook his head.

  “What is it?”

  When he saw the array of sauces, he looked at Brax, who shrugged and said, “I got roped into this, too.”

  “What’s all this?”

  “These are Brax’s sauces. I think we should bottle them and add them to our offerings.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We know the business is flagging. Sit down and taste them before you decide, Daddy.”

  “How did you find out about that?”

  My uncle Win and Brax’s momma walked into the room. Win snorted. “Geez, Jimmy, I told her. She is part of this family. For God’s sake, taste the boy’s sauces. Until you do, you can’t judge.”

  My daddy sighed and settled at the table.

  I looked at Evie and she winked at me. She and my most favorite uncle were quite in love. Learning what had happened to her husband seemed to have given her closure and freed her. She looked so happy and at peace. They had laid her husband’s memory to rest in a touching, intimate ceremony.

  My daddy dipped into Brax’s remoulade first. With a neutral look on his face, he tasted. His expression changed to one of surprise, and he looked at Brax, who smirked. He then tried the jezebel, then the garlic tartar. “Damn, son. I never thought I’
d not only see the day I would consent to allowing an Outlaw to be involved with my daughter, but that one of them would infuse life into my flagging business.”

  “The Suttons and Outlaws always seem to end up being connected,” Brax said. “We’re family now, and family sticks together.”

  He nodded. “River, since this is your idea, you have the ball. Run with it, sugar.”

  I ran around the table and wrapped my arms around my daddy’s neck. “Thank you, for being the Daddy I always knew you were.”

  He reddened and hugged me back. “Are we all ready to get over to the festival? It’s almost time for your speech.

  I nodded and looked over at Brax. “You ready?” He shifted and rose slowly, still careful with his injury.

  “I’m ready, but River....”

  “I’m not arguing about this anymore, Brax.”

  He sighed.

  We went together into town, and my family, along with Boone, Booker, Aubree, Verity, and little Duel, filled the first row. The square was jam-packed, the stage festooned and settled right in front of my ancestor’s statue. Brax touched my arm when I stood to climb the stairs.

  “You don’t have to do this, River. We’ve been outcasts for so long we’re used to it. We all agree. It’s not necessary.”

  I looked at him. “Yes, it is,” I said, then my gaze went to Evie, Boone, and Booker. “They deserve it. Even though Duel and his family are long dead, they deserve it.” I cupped Braxton’s face, “But more than that, you deserve it. I love you and I want this for you.”

  He pressed his face into my palm. “I think you’re more stubborn than I am,” he whispered as he leaned forward to give me a kiss.

  I smiled at Chase over Brax’s shoulder, and he walked over to hug me. Then he squeezed Brax’s shoulder before climbing the stairs to the podium. True to his word, he was standing by me. I followed my brother up the steps with the Colonel’s journal in my hand. I had chucked my speech. I only had a few words to say.

  “Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us once again in this celebration.” I turned to look at the statue of my ancestor, and I liked to think he was relieved and nodding with what I was going to do. Give him the confession he’d always wanted to give him peace. Chase walked up and stood beside me.