Ordinary is Perfect
Army veteran Catherine Daye long ago accepted her passable looks, mediocre talent, and average intelligence. In fact, she bought a rundown farm on seventy acres to retreat from the world and live out her simple, ordinary life. Atlanta marketing superstar Autumn Swan’s world is anything but simple. Constantly plugged in to what’s trending on social media, it’s her job to keep her clients ahead of the competition. When her favorite cousin dies suddenly, she finds herself the owner of a modest country home, guardian to a sullen, tomboyish ten-year-old, and neighbor to an intriguing woman who isn’t as ordinary as she appears.
Praise for D. Jackson Leigh
Dragon Horse War
“Leigh writes with an emotion that she in turn gives to the characters, allowing us insight into their personalities and their very souls. Filled with fantastic imagery and the down-to-earth flaws that are sometimes the characters’ greatest strengths, this first Dragon Horse War is a story not to be missed. The writing is flawless, the story, breath-taking—and this is only the beginning.”—Lambda Literary Review
“The premise is original, the fantasy element is gripping but relevant to our times, the characters come to life, and the writing is phenomenal. It’s the author’s best work to date and I could not put it down.”—Melina Bickard, Librarian, Waterloo Library (London)
“Already an accomplished author of many romances, Leigh takes on fantasy and comes up aces…So, even if fantasy isn’t quite your thing, you should give this a try. Leigh’s backdrop is a world you already recognize with some slight differences, and the characters are marvelous. There’s a villain, a love story, and…ah yes, ‘thar be dragons.’”—Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews
Touch Me Gently
“D. Jackson Leigh understands the value of branding, and delivers more of the familiar and welcome story elements that set her novels apart from other authors in the romance genre.”—The Rainbow Reader
Swelter
“I don’t think there is a single book D. Jackson Leigh has written that I don’t like…I recommend this book if you want a nice romance mixed with a little suspense.”—Kris Johnson, Texas Library Association
“This book is a great mix of romance, action, angst, and emotional drama…The first half of the book focuses on the budding relationship between the two women, and the gradual revealing of secrets. The second half ramps up the action side of things…There were some good sexy scenes, and also an appropriate amount of angst and introspection by both women as feelings more than just the physical started to surface.”—Rainbow Book Reviews
Call Me Softly
“Call Me Softly is a thrilling and enthralling novel of love, lies, intrigue, and Southern charm.”—Bibliophilic Book Blog
Every Second Counts
“Her prose is clean, lean, and mean—elegantly descriptive…”—Out in Print
Riding Passion
“The sex was always hot and the relationships were realistic, each with their difficulties. The technical writing style was impeccable, ranging from poetic to more straightforward and simple. The entire anthology was a demonstration of Leigh’s considerable abilities.”—2015 Rainbow Awards
Ordinary is Perfect
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Ordinary is Perfect
© 2019 By D. Jackson Leigh. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13:978-1-63555-281-2
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: January 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Shelley Thrasher
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design by Sheri ([email protected])
By the Author
Cherokee Falls Series
Bareback
Long Shot
Every Second Counts
Romances
Call Me Softly
Touch Me Gently
Hold Me Forever
Swelter
Take a Chance
Ordinary Is Perfect
Short Story Collection
Riding Passion
Dragon Horse War Trilogy
The Calling
Tracker and the Spy
Seer and the Shield
Acknowledgments
Elvis inspired this book.
Not the “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog” singer, but a plain brown dog of very mixed heritage—maybe Labrador, maybe German shepherd, possibly Australian shepherd—with a half-length tail and of very average size.
Only, like the singer, Elvis the dog isn’t ordinary.
People seem inexplicably drawn to him, as though they are reassured they are not alone because he understands all the things they perceive to be ordinary about themselves.
So, I want to thank Elvis and his exceptional owner, Catherine Woodworth, a loyal reader who became a friend after she offered to drive all the way from Arkansas to Georgia to adopt sweet Elvis upon seeing his photograph and reading his hard-luck story.
Finally, as always, I want to thank my insightful editor, Shelley Thrasher. I value her advice because she always makes my story better.
For Catherine and Elvis.
Chapter One
After a few months, most became numb to everything except the hyper-alert, gut-churning fear that each day, each hour, each patrol, each step onward might be their last. Catherine Daye didn’t. Not after a few months, not after many months, not after two and a half tours.
Midway through her third tour, she still felt the sting of the sand against her sun-scorched skin and the beads of sweat that dripped from the sodden strands of her short brown hair. She scanned the buildings ahead, square and bland like the desert surrounding them. Her gut twisted and soured. Something felt very wrong. A few vehicles were parked near structures, and clothes flapped like flags from lines suspended along slanted poles. But she had a clear view of the community well, and the women weren’t there. They were always there, waiting for the medical services and food supplies her patrol brought each month.
She and her patrol approached cautiously, sliding their backs along the walls, murmuring reports into wireless com units.
“I don’t like this,” she said.
“Second that, Sarge.” The nasal, edgy voice of Private Tom Michaels sounded in her earbud.
Staff Sergeant Jeff “Hammer” Booker, their patrol leader, issued hand signals for them to advance into the village center and begin clearing houses. They moved in silent pairs, reporting in at each location.
“First on the right is empty. Looks like they left in a hurry. Food’s left out, half-eaten.” Corporal Bo Ever’s soft drawl was calm.
Booker growled an answer. “Chalk it and move to the next.” She and Booker had toured together before and were both up for promotion from sergeant to staff sergeant at the same time. But Catherine had asked her colonel to delay her upgrade so they wouldn’t be split up and given separate patrols to lead. She’d had a nauseating premonition she wouldn’t come back from a thir
d tour if she and Booker weren’t able to watch each other’s back. So he was leading this patrol, while she took the rear command.
Others in the group checked in with similar reports—Roman, Stormy, Hulk, Bluegrass. They all were christened with nicknames when they arrived. Even Catherine. Sort of. She was the Cat Woman. Clever, stealthy, and deadly when she needed to be.
She ducked in and out between the buildings, checking the village’s perimeter. Nothing but empty desert. Appearances could be deceiving, she learned on her first tour. The enemy could rise out of the sand like deadly scorpions before your brain registered why the desert was swarming with them.
She half listened to the check-ins as she crept to the doorway of a one-room adobe house. A chalk mark told her it’d been cleared, but her gut didn’t agree.
“Cat? You copy?”
Catherine touched her ear com to key the mike. “I copy.”
“Village is clear. How’s our backside?”
“Just scratching an itchy spot, Hammer.” She tapped her ear com, switching to a private channel. She never used his nickname on the com. It was a signal.
“Yeah. I feel it, too. Where are you?” He’d also switched.
“I’m rechecking building three on the left. I’ll be done by the time you guys group up.”
“Three minutes. I want to get out of here,” Booker said quietly.
“Three minutes,” she repeated, switching back to the main channel.
She hesitated in the doorway. Don’t go in there. Don’t go in there. Her chest grew tight, so tight. She sucked in short, rapid breaths. Ignoring her rising panic, she edged inside.
Catherine scanned the floor for trip wires or signs of an IED, then surveyed the twelve-by-twelve room. Sleeping mats were rolled and neatly stacked against one wall. A cooking area took up another wall. Dishes of half-eaten food filled the surface of a low, square table in the middle of the room.
Three minutes. In and out. Chickens pecked at the dirt near a door at the rear of the room, left open to reveal a small awning-shaded yard. The birds wouldn’t be that close if the enemy was waiting just outside the door. She glanced over her shoulder and began to back out of the hut when a small noise sounded from some blankets thrown in one corner. Don’t look. Don’t look. Her gaze was drawn to the messy pile that didn’t fit with the tidiness of the rest of the room. Sweat dripped from her chin, trickled down her neck. Her breath wheezed in her throat. She extended a telescoping baton, then used it to lift the blankets while she stood off to the side.
The terrified eyes of a frail, elderly woman stared at the automatic rifle Catherine pointed at her, and Catherine immediately swung it away. “I’m not going to hurt you.” That’s not right. Tell her to get up and out. What were the right words? She could speak passable Pashto, but that whining noise was making it hard to think. Her heart began to pound like a bass drum in her ears. Still that whine pierced her brain.
“Incoming!” Booker barked.
A long blade sprouted between the old woman’s breasts, and she opened her mouth with a strangled gasp. Catherine dropped to her knees and yanked the woman forward. The aim of the Taliban fighter hiding behind the woman was off, but he pumped an armor-piercing bullet into Catherine’s shoulder a split second before she fired two neat shots into his forehead. She cried out against the fire in her flesh, but the sound was lost as a mortar tore through the wall to her left and her ear com exploded with barked commands.
***
Barking snatched Autumn Swan from a deep, comalike sleep to hyperalert in 0.05. She jumped from her bed and raced out of her bedroom.
Autumn squinted against the sunrise spearing through the mostly glass balcony doors of her airy Decatur, Georgia, apartment, then snatched up dark sunglasses from the sofa table, slapped them on, and danced over to the laptop on the dining-room table that had begun to rap about someone letting dogs out. She paused just long enough to tap the keyboard and confirm what her barking-dog notification indicated.
“Yes, yes, yes.” Autumn stretched her arms toward the ceiling and wiggled her fingers in celebration. Her new client’s website had hit its business plan’s unique-visitors, thirty-day target in only ten days. “Am I good or what?” It wasn’t really a question, but she answered it for herself anyway. “I’m good. So good. So good,” she chanted, hopping around in a weird, all-her-own dance. Self-affirmation is a good thing, right?
She danced into the kitchen to share the love with her Starbucks espresso machine, then stopped her finger inches from the power button. Nah. She needed to be around people this morning…so she could brag a little. Why brew and froth when someone else could do it for you? She grabbed her phone, snapped a photo of her Starbucks mug, and sent it with a simple meet-me-in-forty-five text. A shower to make herself presentable after only three hours of sleep, then she’d pop in for a triple espresso and an ego boost. She could grab something sweet while she was there, too. When her mind flashed on the new dark-haired barista, a graduate student at Emory, she scolded herself. “To nibble. I meant to eat…ugh. I sound like such a guy,” she said. “Cinnamon roll. I’ll get one of those delish cinnamon rolls to go with my triple shot.”
It wasn’t really necessary to explain everything to herself, since she knew what she meant. But she’d grown up an only child and discovered early that she was the best conversationalist she knew. Well, at least when nobody else was around. Okay. That didn’t sound right. But her brain worked lightning fast when she was alone or interacting through the screen of the internet. Nobody could hold a candle to her on any social-media platform. She was a blaze of quips, comebacks, and pearls of wisdom. Put her in a group or, heaven forbid, one-on-one with a real person, and she was instantly struck dumb. She’d sought therapy and mostly overcome that tendency when she realized the world would never experience her marketing genius if she couldn’t talk to clients. But it worked only in business situations. She still stuttered her way through personal conversations and was most comfortable behind the façade of the internet.
Autumn loved her home. She had lucked into a promotion that offered a five-year lease on this gorgeous second-floor, one-bedroom luxury apartment with an open floor plan, lots of windows, and French doors leading out to a balcony that overlooked a park. Her décor was shades of white and yellow with small splashes of green. Plus, she was only five minutes from downtown Decatur, the business district of the Atlanta metro area gayborhood. It paid to see and be seen in the restaurants and coffee shops there. Especially since it was where the local lesbian population was concentrated. Her mind drifted again to the barista. Hmm. She strutted into the bathroom and flashed a huge smile at the mirror behind the sink. If she hurried, maybe she could ride this wave of confidence long enough to flirt her way to a date.
***
Catherine curled forward, eyes squinted tight as though that could shut out the pain. She gasped, one breath, two, and opened her eyes to darkness. The pain was subsiding as quickly as it came. Not dark. Dim light. The tendrils of her night terror still pumped her heart double-time, but Booker’s sharp commands changed to dog barks. She wasn’t in Afghanistan. She was in her farmhouse.
Frantic barking and the loud thump of something against her front door filtered through her open bedroom door from the living room.
She looked at the clock and scowled. Five fifteen. “What the hell?”
The sound of claws scrabbling against her freshly re-varnished oak door forced her fogged mind and sluggish body into gear.
“Okay, okay.” Catherine tossed off the quilt. “Geez. It’s supposed to be warming up some by now.” She stepped into her jeans and zipped into a thick hoodie. Toenails were clicking a circuitous route on the wood planks of the broad porch, stopping each time they passed the door to jump against it. It had to be Elvis, but why didn’t he go around to the pet door at the back of the house? Oh, right. It was still blocked, something she did to keep out varmints when she was away or Elvis was staying next door.
Somet
hing felt off. Just like the village. His urgency threatened to throw her back into the desert flashback she’d just escaped. More likely, he’d sensed her flashback and come to rescue her from it. He’d done it before—huddling close, bringing her back, and grounding her in the present. She didn’t know how he did it, but he was somehow a magic elixir.
She opened the front door, and Elvis nearly knocked her down. She’d never seen him so frantic, so insistent as he planted his front paws on her hips, only to jump back to the ground and race down the steps, barking. She stared dumbly at him. “What’s wrong, Elvis?”
If dogs could roll their eyes, Catherine was sure he would have. Instead, he returned to her, slammed his front feet against her hips again, then whirled and ran back into the yard and barked for her to follow. Only this time, he didn’t stop. He ducked under the split-rail fence and raced across a newly plowed field to the line of trees that separated Catherine’s farm from the house where her neighbor Becki and her eleven-year-old daughter, Gabe, lived.
Catherine stared after him in disbelief. “Elvis.” Her shout frosted in the air, and faint barking drifted over the strange stillness. It could take another thirty to sixty minutes for the sun to crest the mountain to their east, but the night sky was already fading to gray. Another sharp bark drew her attention back to the line of trees where Elvis had disappeared. An ominous chill ran from the back of her neck down her arms, pebbling her flesh.
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