A Perfect Mistake (4 page)

“You
know, taking over the parish. You could do the books.”

I
slammed down my fork and glared at him. The rush of anger was
welcome. It distracted me, focused my attention on something where I
could affect the outcome—an argument. “My daddy put you
up to this, didn’t he?”

“What
do you mean?”

“This
whole dinner thing. He wants us to be together.”

“Maybe.
I don’t know. He has given me his blessing. I figure we could
go out for a while, then get engaged.”

My
stomach churned and I snatched a quick, hard breath. “Oh, my
God. You have this all worked out. Why do you even need my input?”

“Well,
we’d be partners.”

I
gave him a long, tough stare. That’s it. I was done. I pushed
my chair back and walked out on Billy Joe. The gall of my daddy to
set us up like this. I belatedly remembered that Billy Joe drove us
here, and I had no other way to get home.

“No,
darlin’. You need to get yourself home and to bed.” At
the sound of Boone’s voice I looked to my left.

“Oh
come on, Boone. Come with me.”

The
woman from the bar was climbing all over him. “Ah, no. You
won’t remember a thing. I don’t take advantage of
impaired ladies.”

My
heart stopped in my chest as I stared at him. He was fighting off the
woman’s advances very gently, keeping that smile on his face
and wrestling her into a cab. He reached back and pulled out a bill
and handed it to the cabbie.

Everything
went into a turmoil inside me. My brain, my stomach, my nerves.

The
guilt was like a vise, tightening and tightening until it threatened
to crush me. I couldn’t change the past, but had I been wrong
about it all this time?

When
Billy Joe came up behind me, it suddenly was all too much. I took off
at a run and headed out of town, but Billy Joe caught up to me easily
with his car. He stopped the vehicle and came around the front,
illuminated in the headlights for a second, and I wanted to run
again.

“What’s
wrong with being partners?” He said, catching up to me. His
voice was tight, the kind of tight that said I had better change my
mind, right quick. Nothing on this earth could compel me to marry
this man. I would rather die.

I
heard a truck come to a halt behind us. I didn’t care.

I
laughed bitterly and turned to face him. “Partners? I don’t
want to be a partner. I want out-of-control, can’t-live-without-you,
consuming, joyous, think-about-you-all-the-time love, Billy Joe! I
will never have that with you. Not after a million weeks or a
thousand years. We aren’t compatible. I don’t want to be
a preacher’s wife. It was bad enough being a preacher’s
daughter. I’m not going to waste my life sitting in a church
and
doing the books
! I
have other plans.”

“Verity.
Why are you acting like this? Is this about Boone Outlaw?”

“No.
Surprisingly, Billy Joe I have my own opinions and what I want for my
life.” I started walking away, but he followed me and grabbed
my arm. I glared at his hand, then him. No way was I talking to him
about Boone. “Billy Joe, I’m not a violent person, but if
you don’t let me go and get out of my way, I will show you a
few tricks I learned in New York City”

His
fingers tightened on my arm and his eyes went scary and hard. “I
see the way you look at him. You couldn’t even concentrate at
dinner. Boone Outlaw isn’t for you.”

“Why
because he’s an Outlaw and I’m the preacher’s
daughter?”

“Yes.
I’m here with God’s warning about trusting or consorting
with devils. It’s about saving souls.”

“Don’t
go all pious on me, Billy Joe. If I remember correctly it was you
trying to get into my pants in high school.”

Billy
Joe flushed red. His mouth tightened. “You were made for me,
Verity. I know it. There’s no shame in giving yourself to the
man you were intended for. It’s not that spawn of Satan, Boone
Outlaw.”

I
just stood there for a moment, my jaw clenched so tight it was
starting to hurt. Boone was right. Nothing would ever change in this
narrow-minded town. My mind was in a jumbled, mixed up, completely
chaotic mess when it came to Boone. I’d thought I knew who he
was and today he’d just blown everything I believed about him
to bits. Made me second guess everything, and that touched off a
sick,
Oh, God had I been wrong?
feeling that I hadn’t fully worked through.

“Stop
spouting that over-the-top nonsense, Billy Joe. I will be the person
to decide who I want in my life. Not God, not my daddy, and certainly
not you!”

I
went to step around Billy Joe, but he wouldn’t let go. He
jerked me toward the car, wrenching my shoulder. I grabbed his wrist
and tried to pry his hand off me. “Let
go
of me!”

“Get
your fucking hands off her.”

Suddenly,
I was free and Boone Outlaw stood between me and Billy Joe. He’d
shoved him, and Billy Joe slammed into the side of his car. I
groaned. It must have been Boone’s truck that pulled up behind
us. How much had he heard?

“This
is none of your business, devil.”

“People
keep telling me that, yet I heard you mention my name. So, seems to
me this is my business after all.”

He
glanced at me and I shivered at the way the moonlight made his eyes
look so vivid. He looked even tougher now than he had in the rectory
kitchen when he was crowding me against the countertop. The June
heat, even now after the sun had gone down, was oppressive and made
his hair curl at the nape of his neck and around his ear. His skin
looked so silky there.

“No,
it’s not.”

Boone
narrowed his eyes and stepped up to Billy Joe, the subtle lines of
threat in his body made me quiver, made my insides go a little gooey.
“I’m making it my business, Freeman. Why don’t you
get in your car and get the fuck outta here?”

“There’s
a lady present.”

He
glanced at me and smirked. And I remembered how I had slapped him the
last time he’d smiled at me like that. “A little rough
language won’t damage who Verity is,” he said. “She
knows how to handle herself.”

“Like
you know who she is? She’s not any of your concern, Outlaw.”

Boone
took a breath and got right in Billy Joe’s face. “Maybe
she’d be more interested in getting in the car with you if you
had treated her with respect and hadn’t been a douche.”

“You
wouldn’t know about respect, Outlaw.”

Boone
laughed, and it was deep and rich and did funny things to my middle.

“Yeah,
I have no respect for anyone who thinks they can bully someone into
doing what they want. So, I’m a jackass, right? I’m not
the one grabbing girls by the arm and forcing them into my vehicle.
Time for you to skedaddle, huckleberry.”

Billy
Joe closed his eyes and shook his head, as if he were in profound
emotional pain. “Verity,” he murmured. “You are
walking a dark path,” he said with a dramatic sigh.

“Go,
Billy Joe. We really don’t have anything to talk about.”

He
gazed back at Boone. “This isn’t done.”

He
got in his car and drove away.

“Boone?
Is everything okay?”

My
insides froze at the sound of a female voice. I turned to look
towards Boone’s truck. Marcy somebody or other. I couldn’t
remember her last name. Boone was with someone? That knowledge burned
in my chest and traveled down to my stomach. Of course, why wouldn’t
he be? And,
I
couldn’t…
didn’t
give a
damn
. He could
spend all the time he wanted with her. I turned on my heel and
marched away.

Boone
was the one who grabbed my arm this time.

“Verity,
where are you going?”

“Home.”
I needed time to think about all this…turmoil, and being
touched by Boone Outlaw did not help. He was the source of my
distress, my unease, and so much of the pain that was a year old. I
needed to assimilate it all.

“You’re
not walking.”

I
rounded on him and shook my arm free. “I have two perfectly
functional feet and legs here, so it looks like I am going to do
exactly that, Mr. High and Mighty.”

“Boone?”

“Geezus,”
he said, looking completely exasperated at having to deal with two
females. “Marcy get back in the truck. Everything is fine.”

“Okay,”
she said, shooting me a snotty, I-saw-him-first look.

Without
taking my eyes off her, I said, “Don’t let me hold you up
from your hot date.”

“What?”
At the sound of the interest and surprise in his voice, I pulled my
eyes from Marcy and dropped my head. He stepped closer to me when I
didn’t answer. My nerves jangled when he tipped up my chin.
“What is that? Are you actually sneering at me because I’m
with someone? Last time I checked, she wasn’t slapping my
face.”

“I
bet she wasn’t.” I’m sure Marcy had things on her
mind that had to do with other parts of Boone’s anatomy.

“Do
you still want me to turn the other cheek, Verity?”

Remorse
hollowed my gut and I jerked my chin out of his grasp. “Go,
Boone. Get back to your date. You don’t need to worry about
me.” This was making me even more convinced that I needed to
reassess what I thought about Boone. If he was acting like this over
a small fight with Billy Joe, I was confused as to why he had ducked
me when I was trying to find him. Maybe there was more to that story,
too.

He
took my arm again. “Verity, get in my goddamned truck.”
He said it low and through clenched teeth.

“And
if I don’t? Are you going to drag me there like a douche?”

For
a minute, he stared at me, then he burst out laughing, and the sound
of it set off little fireworks in my blood. All I wanted to do was
get away from him. I had to think.

“You
got yourself some sassy mouth while you were away, Miss Verity
Fairchild.” The smile disappeared from his face as I just
simply went around him.

“Verity,
I’m not joking. You’re not walking.”

I
ignored him. I didn’t need Boone Outlaw to dictate… I
squealed as I was literally swiped right off my feet and flopped up
over Boone’s shoulder.

“You
have a lot of nerve, Boone Outlaw!!”

He
didn’t answer me, and when I wiggled, he slapped me on the
butt.

I
was so surprised it made me freeze in shock.

He
carried me like I was nothing but a tiny burden. When he reached the
truck, he dumped me inside, right next to his hot date, Marcy
what’s-her-name.

Boone

For a little gal,
Verity was one tough little peach pit. Here I thought sugar wouldn’t
melt in her mouth, and she was flinging out the attitude like grub at
a church picnic. She folded her arms and didn’t say a word,
just fumed over there against the door, but I didn’t care. I
was not leaving her alone to walk home this time of night with Billy
Joe Freeman lurking around just waiting for her.

Fucking Billy Joe
Freeman. He’s lucky I didn’t dislocate his damn jaw for
putting his hands on Verity.

“Hi,”
Marcy said. “Weren’t you the valedictorian in school?”

Verity turned to
look at her with a glare that made Marcy glare right back.

“I wasn’t
the valedictorian,” she bit out like Marcy was the village
idiot. “Aubree Walker was. I was the salutatorian.”

“Oh, that’s
right.” She looked at me. “You came in second.”

I was about to say
something about Verity being really smart, but she really didn’t
need my support.

“That’s
right. I did. And, where were you placed?” She tilted her head,
her sarcasm thick in the cab.

Marcy’s mouth
tightened and I wanted to laugh, but I thought better of it. Those
stormy, pretty brown eyes of Verity’s made me want to rile her
up just a tad more. That sugarpie was a turn-on when she had a mad
going.

As far as I was
concerned it was game on with Verity. The preacher’s daughter
and I were going to have words.

Marcy shifted,
slipped her arm around the back of my shoulders and moved closer to
me. It took everything I had not to howl out loud. What a situation.
One pissed-off little spitfire, and one who only wanted to get into
my jeans.

I felt a little smug
that Verity didn’t like that I was with Marcy. Too bad.

I drove into the
churchyard and Verity was out of the truck in a flash, stalking
towards the house. I had to run a little to catch up to her.

She rounded on me.
“Boone Outlaw, I don’t need you to walk me to my door. I
don’t need you for anything!”

When she moved, I
followed behind her until she hit the porch. I stood there while she
fumbled with the keys for, like, five minutes. Finally, I strode up
to the door, took the keys from her trembling hands, and unlocked it
for her. She stood there stoic and stiff. And all I could think was
that I desperately wanted to touch her. I even raised my hand, but
controlled myself at the last minute.

She lifted her head
to look at me. Her eyes had lost that anger and looked…bruised.
She bit her bottom lip as her gaze locked to mine. Everything inside
me just jumbled. Her look told me that she was feeling something
powerful, and once again I felt as if I was the epicenter of that
woe. That caused more than simple turmoil in me, and because I had no
idea how to deal with this overload, I went and said something
flippant. “Apparently, you needed me for something, darlin’.”

I regretted the
words and my cavalier tone as soon as they were out of my mouth, but
I couldn’t get them back.

Her eyes hardened
and she snatched the keys out of my hand. “Why couldn’t
you just have minded your own business? Don’t keep Marcy
what’s-her-name waiting on my account.”

“Why the fuck
can’t you be honest? Geezus!” I said.

Marcy blew my horn
and I glared towards the truck.