Everything But Perfect

Everything
but Perfect

Jevenna
Willow

copyright Jevenna Willow

2015

Cover art JY Creations

All rights reserved.

All characters, places, and
situations are made up in the mind of the author and represent no one known, or
otherwise.

This is a work of fiction.

Copyright infringement of this
book is punishable by law.

I would like to thank a wonderful
woman who not

only reads my books, but gives
great advice and

correction when needed.

Thank You, Patricia

Chapter One

Overly filthy? Well, that was
just one of many problems that went along with a routine screwed by fate.

Cheyanne Ribbons glanced down at
the ever-present stains on her well-worn jeans. She’d pulled the short straw
late last night, and stains were now accompanied by encrusting and
substantially pronounced white sugar from a deliciously tempting doughnut.

The new dig sight had produced
nothing. Oh sure, there were the usual artifacts, bits of broken pottery, and a
few small bones amounting to those of consumed animals—the whatnot of an
archeological occupation. Other than that, she’d spent the better part of her
day in patient wait for the courier to arrive from the State University. He was
to take back with extreme caution what amounted to nothing more than an
exasperating waste of her time. Adding to that, the insurmountable frustrations
at giving the man explicit instructions, that if he so much as even chipped off
a tiny piece of the pot, she would be the first in line to kill him; whereas,
he had quickly handed over the sugar doughnut before she’d been capable of
gaining her wish.

Ugh, men!

The prime of her life, when
everything was still where it was supposed to be, still useable, and still
desired by men—what an absolute waste of four years, surrounded by men.

She frowned, licking her
fingertips free of the remaining sustenance, gaining what she could by an
ill-gotten fried concoction. This was the last place on earth she’d thought she
would get to enjoy the treat. Benghazi wasn’t exactly known for doughnut
making, now was it?

Though a sugar high would get her
past the point of a downward turn in her mood, it certainly would not allow her
to forget. No. Somehow, that seemed to go on and on. She was being forced to
remember life’s rules, and those rules sucked.

She lived for the rare and
unusual just beyond the next level of sand; longed for that truly incredible
feeling of her breath expelling so rapidly from her lungs, while holding in the
palm of her hand what God buried for centuries past; a new hope of something
unknown, perhaps someone unknown. After all, she was not the best in her field
for naught
. One of New York’s finest archeologists
, they said. Dammit! Not
this time.

There simply was not enough sugar
in the world to take the sting of what was happening to her away.

Another of her famous
soul-searching sighs released, she raised her dirt-smudged hand to wipe off the
evidence of a stolen breakfast. Her rough skin was a deep golden brown from
time spent in the elements, her long, auburn hair blew in the gentle—albeit,
hot African breeze. She waited with trepidation for the train to arrive,
adjusting the strap of her duffel higher on her shoulder.

Today she would not be able to
hold her head high, write any speeches, or bore her associates to tears, this
done on more than one occasion, and damn, that hurt to acknowledge the loss.
What she needed to do was bury her head in the sand and pretend life didn’t
suck.

Looking directly into the failing
sunlight for a telltale sign that the train was on schedule, knowing it could
be hours if something went wrong father down the line; they were hours she did
not want to waste while on a people-infested platform, wishing she could
disappear.

Good God! Was that a man holding
four dead chickens in his hand?

Cheyanne grimaced, withdrawing
her gaze. She did not intend to sit on the train next to any man with chickens
dead, or alive.

She quickly meandered among the
crowd, avoiding unnecessary poultry encounters. The sweaty bodies were filling
the platform in rapid haste. Sun-bronzed hides with patience in their hearts
awaited the passage to Cairo without complaint.

Somehow, their existence was
suffocating her.

Her stomach tied in knots for
days, her mind preoccupied, distracted beyond normalcy, she hadn’t been
thinking about the dig site. Nor, any new discoveries someone else might make
while she was gone.

After four long years in the hot
African sun, she was heading home. Not that she’d ever entertained or even
wished for this to happen. She was going back because a summons came to her via
the courier. She was to return, ASAP, no questions asked.

The bitter aftertaste of disgust settled
too long on her tongue, fueling her fury. The way the summons came, by
University hands, stung her insides. Her father, head of the Geology
department, Joe Ribbons hadn’t been amused his youngest daughter happily
abandoned the bosom of her family four years prior, leaving for Africa to
search for historical artifacts. In fact, his Ribbons temper nearly caused him
a heart attack.

Yeah, right. He dying a normal
man’s way would have been beneath him. Father and daughter never saw eye to
eye, on just about everything. Besides, demanding men do not die. They thrive
on the blood of those they control.

Still, he had said, quite clearly,
she was not to leave without his permission. If that had not been enough to
drive the wedge further into their strained relationship, nothing could.

In the dead of night, she bolted
out the door, never looking back. She took with her four of her co-workers:
Carl Dorn, Dick Lemane, Fred Geovanni, and Angel Baker. They all crammed into
Geovanni’s musty old Buick, with very little baggage between the five, boarded
a plane, and went straight for Benghazi. Life had to be lived, and Benghazi was
the place to go—archeologically speaking.

She never looked back. The others
might have, but she could not put her heart in any particular direction without
it being painful. It was not until halfway across the Atlantic Ocean when she
fell into a small fit of tears.

Perhaps her rash decision to
leave comfort and security had been a little too rash. Now, four years later,
she was glad she did what she thought she had to do. The world knew her, when
before, she’d been nobody.

She’d nearly broken Angel’s heart
in his attempt to win her over, however.

Cheyanne headstrong with her
convictions, Angel Baker equally stubborn, he was no match for a woman
hell-bent on defiance. He’d allowed her the space she needed and had developed
into her one true friend—her best friend. Now, as she again stared off, looking
for the train, it was Angel she found at the end of the platform, his eyes
searching for her. He ran up to her and she threw her arms around his neck,
dropping her duffel.

He was much taller than she was,
almost a good foot. Four years of digging hard-pack had toned his muscles,
tanned his skin, and increased the potency of his good looks. Never mind he was
so blonde, the sun was jealous.

Angel was a damn good sight to
see, but he was Angel, and that meant more to her than exploring a relationship
with him. Turning him into a lover would have complicated a lot more than she had
the energy to waste.

“You would not be leaving without
saying goodbye, would you?” he asked.

Her eyes moved quickly over his
rugged features, her heart breaking in two. Saying goodbye to the rest of the
team had been easy. Saying goodbye to Angel was tearing her apart.

“I tried waiting for you,” she
sputtered out. Dammit! She knew she would break down the moment she had to let
him go. “I didn’t think you would make it.”

She locked her fingers tightly
around his neck, holding on for dear life. Seeing him like this had started her
on a fast, downhill roll, with no recovery in sight.

“What? And let you skip town,
without as much as a kiss?”

“Oh, Angel…I don’t want to go.
Not back there.”

The gathering crowd was sending
her a variety of curious stares. How little they knew what awaited her once
home, or that forced into doing something she detested was beyond her emotional
control.

The word home was listed right up
there with other four letter words unspeakable to her.

“You have to go,” Angel
reassured. “It’ll drive you insane not knowing why they want you home.” He
moved his strong hands up to capture those nearly strangling his neck, pulling Cheyanne’s
down to his well-muscled chest. From there, he set them on his heart.

“And we can’t have an insane
archeologist, can we?”

“I could stay here…he can’t find
me here,” she pleaded. “Not if I try hard enough to hide.”

“It wouldn’t do you any good, and
you know it. No matter where you are, where you hide, eventually he will find
you. Go home Cheyanne, but just make damn sure you come back as soon as you
can.” Angel’s gentle smile did not reach his eyes, however. There was a lot he
wasn’t saying, keeping it bottled up.

He was trying to protect her.

“We’ll save you at least one good
spot.” An ongoing joke between the five, for all the good spots was hers, first
and foremost.

Smiling at his carefree face, she
set her slender hands on either side of his unshaven cheeks, pulling his head
down to hers, and then placed her lips against those that were equally as
sunburned and chapped. Angel’s startled mouth closed over hers quickly. An
embrace that certainly held back more than it gave; not once, over the last
four years had she dared kiss him. Not even a friendly peck, given out as a
good gesture. It would have complicated what they had and would have thrown a
wrench into their well-oiled system.

Still, she needed this one moment
alone with him. This one moment just to be sure. She needed to feel the loss,
permanently she supposed.

Certainly never expecting
fireworks to go off, no rockets, no bright twinkling stars, no sudden
shockwaves that stopped normal breathing, she was not disappointed when his
kiss did not even set a spark.

With this one uncomplicated first
and final kiss, it was a given Angel would be her very best friend. It made it
that much easier to leave his embrace when the train pulled into the station.

“I’ll write to you every day,”
she promised, her voice loud over the noise.

Angel helped her onto the train. “No,
you won’t,” he teased lightly, grabbing for her hand one last time.

“Then every other day,” she
offered, giving his fingers a squeeze.

Again, the telltale moisture
built behind her lids as she watched her dear friend’s face mix with the desire
to add something she did not want to hear, to already spoken words he’d said
late last night.

“Cheyanne, my love, you will not
find the time even to pick up a pen, let alone remember who you left behind.”

“I will never forget who I left
behind.”

As the Egyptian Express blew its
whistle again, she had to let him go, boarding with the other passengers.
Moments later, the wheels started to move. Cheyanne knew she was likely never
to see Angel’s golden head anytime soon. The train picked up speed and within a
New York minute he was gone from her life for good.

Succumbing to what she considered
fate, she numbly moved forward. A vacant seat by the window, she sat down,
glancing out. Her beloved Africa was passing by in a filth-covered blur.

Benghazi was about to be a
distant memory in her heart, nothing more. To hold onto it would just make this
all the more painful.

Settling her thoughts, she
stuffed her duffel under her legs and leaned back into the seat. It was simply
too heart wrenching; gazing upon all that she had grown to love—most of it
streaming by her head.

She closed her eyes for the long
journey, and groaning, slouched down on the seat. She fell asleep almost
instantaneously. One sugar doughnut in her system was not enough to keep her
awake through something as dreadful as what lie ahead.

Three hours later, she found her
head lying on someone else’s shoulder. Hell had no chance with the glare coming
from his eyes. Unsmiling, and a bit self-condemning, he was not all amused she’d
used him as a pillow. He raised his hand and shoved her head off the very
second she could comprehend what she had done.

“I—I truly am sorry,” she
stammered out.

She drew her gaze away and stared
straight ahead, trying to settle her heart. The rest of what should have been
said remained trapped in her throat. Cheyanne was not that easy to shock, much
less from a lethal glare from a handsome man, but there were times when things
she had to consider as ‘a first’ happened to her.

His initial glare still felt cold
against her skin.

Four years she’d been living in
very close quarters with men. She knew testosterone glares. Nevertheless, she
felt her armor dented. Cripes! Had he never fallen asleep in a strange place?

She held back her swift retort,
but the adrenaline in her wanted to smack his obvious arrogance right off his non-smiling
face.

Hard lines of stress around
tightly drawn lips, hair of warm mocha, and eyes to match—he watched with
almost seemingly fascination the heat color her cheeks, yet he said nothing to
make her feel as though he would accept an apology.