A Perfect Mess (3 page)

He snatched up the cap, gave me one of his lazy looks and sauntered to the door, where he snagged it on a hook.

Towel-drying his hair left it in spiky waves all over his head. I simply had to turn away.

And saw that the sheriff had arrived. I headed outside with Booker following.

“Hello, Sheriff. Thank you for coming out so quickly.”

“What happened here, young lady?” Mike Dalton was a tall, lanky man with piercing green eyes and a ruggedly handsome face. He inspected the damage, took my statement and cautioned me to be careful. He eyed Booker, giving him that cop stare.

“I send you to do a simple task, boy, and you scare the bejeesus out of her?”

“It was an accident.”

He shook his head at Booker, then pinned me with a serious look. “Aubree. What I wanted to talk to you about is…I’m not so sure your aunt fell.”

“What? What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know yet. The front door was unlocked. Your aunt was a stickler for locking that door. I’m going to get back to the hospital in case she wakes up. Booker, make sure she gets in the house safely. We’ll talk some more later, Aubree.” He got back in his car and drove off.

“I think there’s a waterproof tarp in your aunt’s shed that will cover the hole in your back window. I’ll go get it.”

“I can help with the tarp.”

“I got it covered.”

My anger flared. I didn’t need him to do me any more favors. “I’m not going to leave all the work to you. It is
my
car. I insist.”

“Suit yourself, sugar.” He straightened and looked at me intently again, in that way he had of making me feel as though I was the only one in the universe. His universe. It was both confusing…and quite a turn-on.

“There’s a flashlight—”

“Your aunt has a flashlight—”

We both spoke at the same time and both stopped when we realized we were saying the exact same thing.

“Yes, I know where the flashlight is.” I said, once again wondering how he knew my aunt’s house so well. “I do live here.”

“It’s best to head out the back way.”

I nodded and followed him into the house and to the kitchen, grabbing the flashlight on my way past the drawer.

“I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Do you really think it was some kind of prank?” I decided against mentioning the laugh I heard while I was on the front porch, dismissing it as anxiety.

“Probably,”

I agreed, not wanting to think anything more sinister could be happening. I know. Denial, but I thought I’d cut myself some slack for now. After all I had to deal with my aunt’s coma, shattered windows and Booker Outlaw all in one night.

I stopped dead when he flipped on the back light. “Whoa, what happened out here? This is beautiful.” The patio had been converted from a sorry broken-brick-ankle-breaking disaster to something lush and gorgeous.

“She got some landscaping.”

“I’ll say. Did you do this? Is that why you know her house so well?”

“Nope, it was my brother, Boone.”

“Oh,” I said and shivered when he opened the door. He glanced at me, shrugged out of his duster and draped it around my shoulders. It was too big for me, but it was warm inside from Booker’s body heat.

I flipped on the flashlight as we walked through my aunt’s renovated patio. It had been transformed into more of a garden. At the shed in the back, I held the light for him. Booker went inside and found the tarp.

Back at the car we worked together to get the hole covered, weighting down the tarp with rocks.

“Do you have luggage?”

“Yes, in the back seat.”

“I’ll get it. Why don’t you head back up to the house?” When he saw the protest on my face, he held up his hand. “This time I insist, Aubree.”

Shit. I had to stop liking the way he said my name.

“Thank you,” I said, ducking inside the car to grab my cell and my Einstein tote. I walked back to the house, but peered at him through the side window.

The rain had started up again, and the dark night and downpour almost obscured him from my view.

I’d have to call an auto glass place tomorrow and get the window fixed. They were calling for more rain this week.

Right now I was still reeling from my scare…and from seeing Booker again in the flesh.

He came back into the house carrying my luggage, which he set at the bottom of the stairs. Rain dripped off the bill of his hat while he regarded me intently.

He took a scant step forward, and I was suddenly painfully aware of my appearance—which was ridiculous, given the circumstances, but true nevertheless.

He’d always had that effect on me. And it had always been ridiculous. Growing up, he’d been Booker Outlaw, living under the terrible stigma of his confederate relative. Most times, when our paths had crossed, he’d worn little more than ragged cutoffs, with callused hands and hair in desperate need of a cut. I’d been an awkward teenager with my face constantly stuck in a book.

My cheeks heated now as they always had when he looked at me with those blue, blue eyes of his, somehow always managing to make me feel like a mess even when I knew I was put together perfectly. This time he probably could make a case for it. I resisted the urge to straighten my hair, smooth the wrinkled t-shirt I had thrown on before leaving New Orleans hours ago.

“My coat?”

It was the slight hesitation in his voice that snagged my attention, dragging it from past to present. He’d always been intense, with quite a lot of charm that had attracted more than one female. Or maybe the challenging edge to his tone had been exclusively for me. Regardless, I didn’t think I’d ever heard him sound anything less than certain. Of course, though it shamed me to say it, I could probably still recall perfectly every single second of every encounter we’d ever had.

“Thank you, Booker. I really appreciate you helping me.” My tone conveyed more meaning and he picked up on it. Seeing Booker again, the object of many fantasies materialized, remembering his patience about the trauma of my aunt’s accident, the rock through my car window, and the wild flight from my car, made me feel even worse about the way I had treated him nine months ago and further back, all the way back to high school—when he’d been nothing but supportive and sensitive. And here I was bitching at him about putting his wet baseball hat on the furniture. Sheesh.

It was too much. He still made my heart pound. I felt under siege. By too many memories and too much unsaid between us. The unsaid part weighed heavily on me.

He reached out and tilted my chin up with his forefinger. “You’re welcome, Aubree.” The warmth of him seeped into my cold body. Shivering slightly from his touch, I hoped that Booker just thought it was from my wet clothes.

My mouth went dry and I cleared my throat. “Next time you come up on someone’s car, try not to scare the person half to death.”

There was that little quirk again, at the corners of his mouth. Better not to look at his mouth. God, I was looking at his mouth.

“Sure, sugar. Sorry I scared you.”

“Well, I’m just glad it was you and not an axe murderer.”

“I’m glad it was me, too.”

Was it my imagination still running wild, or had there been something suggestive in that? I dragged my gaze from his firmly chiseled lips—age had only improved every rugged inch of him—to his eyes, eyes that held me spellbound. I reminded myself sternly that what mattered right now was that they probably saw way too much in mine. I slipped out of his coat and handed it to him.

“Good night, Booker.”

I glanced at the stairway, knew it led to a generous bathtub that would soon be filled with hot, steaming water, water that would warm me all the way to my marrow.

He didn’t shift away, didn’t let me past. For the longest moment he simply held my gaze, trapped it in his own, and kept it there while he studied and probed. He never dropped his gaze below my face, and yet I felt thoroughly…frisked. I wanted to fold my arms over my chest, hide my reaction to him. I didn’t dare move a muscle.

“I’m just a phone call away,” he said quietly. “If you need me.” He pulled a pen out of his pocket and grabbed my hand, making my skin tingle with the heat and texture of his, and wrote his number on my palm.

“Good night, Aubree.”

It wasn’t until he shifted back, putting some space between us, that I let out the breath I’d been holding. I walked to the door, determined to put distance between us before I did something even more reckless than letting him get that close to me.

“Bye.” The sultry night hit me like a wet blanket when I forced myself to calmly, naturally, open the door for him. But, even when he was standing on the porch, I didn’t shut the door. He glanced back at me from the shadows.

“It’s about time you came back here. Your aunt missed you. Close and lock the door, sugar.”

It was a parting shot, and the instant guilt consumed me, anger flared, but I clamped down on it. I often felt like one of those people at the circus who ate fire. It burned in my gut.

With every ounce of bad-boy charm he possessed, he surprised me by grinning. Broadly. “See you around.”

“Yeah,” I said faintly as I slammed the door. That small act of rebellion made me clamp down harder on my self-control. His words sounded more like a promise then an off-the-cuff comment. But I watched him step off the porch and disappear into the darkness. That terrible craving hit me again. He was not someone I should be involved with. His reputation, his laissez-faire attitude, his gorgeous good looks. “Not if I see you first,” I murmured to the silent house.

Just because I found him attractive didn’t mean I had to act on that attraction. I knew what was best for me. What would he want with a rigid, uptight girl like me, anyway?

Chapter Two

Booker

Aubree freaking Walker
.

Yeah. She hadn’t changed one bit. Still gorgeous, still distant and buttoned up, still curvaceous. I shifted. My thoughts and my purely male biological reaction to her. They weren’t a good combination. Yeah. Heavy wood in the morning.

I turned over onto my back and glared at the goddamned ceiling fan.

And my brain took a track I’d tried very hard not to travel down for the past nine months. What had she been doing all this time at Tulane? Had she thought about me? Or had she lost herself in another guy?

Another guy inside her.

Fuck

I felt awful about the way she had just taken off, and sick about both that and what had happened. I was also really angry. Disappeared without even a goodbye.

But now she was back because of her aunt’s terrible accident. Was that the only reason, or was Aubree looking for closure?

Only two times I’d been one-on-one with her, on Wild Magnolia Road and again really early this morning, and both times there had been something terrible going on. Would I ever have the chance to relate to this girl in a completely normal setting? I wasn’t some kind of knight, but I also wasn’t going to let her get hurt. Whoever had thrown that rock better watch his step.

Would she ever get it that I’d crushed on her in school? I hoped not. I knew Aubree’s sort. Forever kind of girl was how I pegged her type. Sure, I could flirt and I could tease, but getting involved with her was a bonehead move. And, if there was anything that I did well, it was looking out for myself.

She looked good, though. Really good. But I felt a pang that she had not only avoided me and Suttontowne, but her aunt, too. Poor Lottie. She was upset about Aubree’s all-too-transparent excuses not to come home, not even for the holidays. Aubree was all Lottie had. I hoped this wasn’t about me. I would hate that. People should never abandon the ones they love. My father popped into my head, but I pushed that thought away. The old man didn’t deserve even one thought from this son.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Time to get moving. When my thoughts started down this ole tired road, it was time to find something else to occupy my mind.

In the bathroom I splashed cold water on my face, and then stood in front of the sink, forcing myself to keep my hands relaxed. No matter what my feverish little brain could come up with, wooing Aubree into bed was not going to happen. That much I knew.