A Perfect Mistake (17 page)

“I-I-I’m…um…are
you sure? Me?”

“Boone, just a
straight yes or no is all I require.”

I looked at Verity.
She looked a little shell shocked. I had performed often at Outlaws,
but the night she was there, Booker did the singing. He wanted to
show off for Breebree and Brax and I went along with that. Bro
solidarity.

Her eyes softened
and she gave me an encouraging look and a quick nod. Freeman just
glared at me.

“Yes. I’ll
do it.”

“Excellent.”

I walked away from
the sanctuary, heading for Deke. When I came up to him, his gaze was
riveted on Verity.

“Sweet Jesus,”
he said.

His gaze went over
her, then went over her again, taking her in from the top of her head
to her delicate feet in those innocent-yet-sexy white sandals.
Lingering over the shape of her legs, the curves of her breasts, and
the wild, out-there beauty of her face.

“She’s
incredible, a guaranteed, ball-busting heartbreaker.”

“Mine,”
I said.

His blue eyes
shifted to me. The second time in one day that I wanted to deck a
guy. Deke was lucky I liked him.

“Dammit. No
poaching, but man, if I didn’t respect you so much, Boonie, I’d
be all over that.”

“It would be
good if you shut up now,” I said. I shoved my iPad at him and
grabbed him by the arm, shooting Verity a glance over my shoulder.
She was still looking at me as if she had never seen me before, like
she wanted to melt against me. Keeping myself from lying her down and
shoving myself so deep into her that I would lose myself was getting
fucking harder by the minute.

Just now, I wanted
to get good and lost.

Fuck.

#

Verity

I couldn’t
help just staring at Boone. I’d never heard such a pure, clear,
sexy voice before, not even on any recording artist I listened to.
Not even Booker’s voice had that quality. My heart didn’t
even know what to do with all the stuff that was filling me up. Boone
was like a constant set of explosions. One after the other.

Now he was
conversing with a blond hunk who was looking at me like I was his own
personal ice cream cone on a really hot day. The guy was gorgeous and
ripped, taller than Boone by two inches at least, and Boone was six
feet two. Wider in the chest and shoulders with a lot more muscle,
the guy’s shoulders and biceps were impressive. He was hot,
with his golden, wheat-colored hair pulled back in a low ponytail,
and ocean blue eyes. His goldenness was a stunning contrast to the
dark beauty of Boone. I dismissed the guy in the heartbeat it took me
to glance over him.

They left the
church, and as soon as the other people who had come out to listen to
Boone sing disappeared, Billy Joe grabbed me roughly by the arm and
dragged me behind the sanctuary and into the vestry.

“You think you
can treat me like this, Verity?” His hand tightened on my arm.
“For Boone Outlaw? You’re obviously under his spell. He’s
a devil.”

“No he isn’t,
and you are being a complete jerk. I’m not interested in you,
Billy Joe. We don’t have a relationship. Now, let go of me!”
I demanded, trying to pull away from him, but he just tightened his
fingers, digging into my skin. “You’re hurting me.”

He shoved me against
the wall and pressed against me, his mouth coming down, but it never
met mine. Suddenly, he was just gone. And all I caught was a streak
of blue, biceps bulging, as all six feet two of enraged Outlaw
slammed into Billy Joe, shoving him away from me. He hit him in the
jaw so hard Billy Joe crashed into the wall and hit the floor. Then
Boone was standing in front of me, his body a tough and muscular
barrier between me and Billy Joe. I wrapped my arms around his waist,
pressing my face against his back. I could feel his rapid heartbeat
against my forehead.

“Out of
respect for where we are, Freeman, I won’t fucking kick your
ass, but if you
ever
lay your hands on Verity again, all bets are off. I will fuck you
up.”

I heard Billy Joe
get to his feet. “You’re going to be sorry, Verity.
Really sorry, you little bitch! You two deserve each other,”
Billy Joe snarled, and his heavy footsteps faded as he left the small
room.

Boone turned to me,
pulling me against him and burrowing his face into my hair. “Are
you all right?”

I nodded. I couldn’t
speak. He gently cupped my chin and tilted my head up. His arms
tightened around me. He searched my face and held my eyes trapped
with his concerned ones. Then with a soft moan, he just slipped his
mouth over mine. I wanted to cry, and if I had been able to catch my
breath for even a second, I might have—but I wasn’t going
to be able to catch my breath, not with Boone kissing me, touching
me.

He had magic hands,
utterly magical, and the taste of his mouth left me breathless—again.
I had nothing to compare Boone to, because he was literally the only
boy I had ever kissed, but I knew there was no one who would ever
taste like Boone Outlaw, darkly delicious, primal male, answering a
need in me I hadn’t known I had until the first time I’d
kissed him. I’d wanted him so badly all during that party, even
before I swallowed that X. And, after I had, there was no stopping
me, not even Boone had been able to stop me.

I’d been
enthralled with him, absolutely mesmerized by the heart-stoppingly
beautiful boy who had looked up at me sleepily from that truck bed.
He was the most fascinating combination of tough guy tempered with a
sweet, gentle side that was compelling and made my heart break, not
only because I’d discounted him, but because of the secret that
burned hotter in my gut with every minute I kept it from him. But I
couldn’t tell him. Not now. Maybe not ever.

The ramifications of
telling him that I had lied and taken away his choices scared me. I
was afraid he would hate me. I didn’t want to lose that special
way he looked at me the way I had lost my son. No, not lost, given
up.

Given up. Oh,
God. If only I’d known then what I know now.

I had been so
frightened when I discovered where having wild sex with Boone Outlaw
had landed me. Just barely nineteen and pregnant. Terrified and alone
in a new city, without the comfort of my momma, whom I had missed
with a pain so sharp it was still there. I think my momma would have
supported me. It wouldn’t be my momma who judged me or looked
at me with that disgusted, shamed look. No, it was my daddy who would
look at me that way if he learned that I had been carnal with Boone
and birthed a child out of wedlock.

He would be just as
freaked to learn that I still had carnal thoughts about Boone. That I
wanted him even now. But there would be no more mistakes. I was on
the pill. And I had already decided that I wanted to be with Boone
again. I wanted him to participate one hundred percent, to make the
choice to be with me and remember every moment of it.

Boone was everything
I had never had, everything I wanted to be—wild, free, not
living by anybody’s rules.

His face in the
moonlight when I’d taken him inside my body was something I
would never forget. The pleasure, the intensity of his eyes, even
glazed with drink and drugs, the soft sounds of his groans as I took
him in uncontrollable thrusts, the X heating my blood and my core
until I couldn’t think, could only want and want and want.

I wanted like that
now, and there was no drug in my system except Boone. He was the only
drug I needed.

That’s when my
plans took a nosedive and everything just went to hell inside my
head, jumbled up into a crazy, mixed up chaotic muddle.

He pulled his mouth
from mine. “Come with me to Lafayette. I have to give this lady
my plans for her English garden.”

“What? But
that’s a business meeting.”

“I’ll
just tell her you’re my assistant,” he said, “I
don’t want to leave you here right now.”

“I have to
help Lindsay with lunch.”

He looked at his
watch. “That’s three hours from now. I can easily have us
there and back with time to spare. Come with me, darlin’.”

There wasn’t
anywhere else I wanted to be. “Yes,” I said.

Verity

“You’re
staring at me. Is that because you think I’m a savage for
socking Billy Joe in church?”

He was heading away
from the church, and the relief of getting away from there was making
me feel a bit giddy. The expansive cab of his truck was just as neat
and tidy as his house and bedroom had been. An interesting side to
the most reckless of the Outlaw brothers.

His question was so
far from the truth that I laughed, still staring at him. He glanced
at me again. I shivered remembering the anger in Billy Joe’s
eyes and the hostility that poured off him. “Billy Joe got what
he deserved. He doesn’t have any control over me. I was only
thankful you were there to stop him.”

I felt different
because of Boone’s example. He never apologized for his
actions. Just did what he thought was right. All these years, I’d
made myself small, let my daddy discount me, make me less of an
individual and more of an extension of him. I’d stifled who I
really was to fit myself into his mold of the perfect preacher’s
daughter.

I decided that now
it was time for me to be who I was. To figure out what I wanted out
of life, and to take it and mold myself in my own eyes. Not in the
eyes of my daddy, or even in God’s eyes. Although I did love
both. No, I was ready to become who I really was, and it wasn’t
some shrinking, bite-her-tongue jellyfish.

The thought of
telling my daddy still terrified me, but even more terrifying was
telling Boone.

“Then why are
you staring at me. Is it my amazing good looks?” he said,
ever-so-conversationally.

“You say that
like you’re kidding, Boone, but you are drop-dead gorgeous. You
must be aware of that. You had them hanging on the bar at Outlaws
when I was there, panting to get your attention.”

He shifted. “I
guess, but drawing girls by the way I look doesn’t really
interest me.”

“There you go,
making me change my opinion of you.”

He shot me a quick
glance full of trepidation. “What does that mean?”

“It means, I
have so many regrets. That’s why I’m staring at you.
Regret for what I’ve done and regret for what I didn’t
do.”

“Why don’t
we just leave the stuff from our past in the past? It’s over
with. Starting fresh seems to me to be a better idea.”

“There’s
always baggage.” The toe of my foot hit his iPad and it flashed
on. I reached down to retrieve it and got caught on the first photo.
“What’s this?”

He looked over at
the device and said, “That’s my portfolio.”

“May I?”

“Sure. I show
it to everyone, no reason you can’t look.”

I started browsing
through the images, and as each one sailed past, Boone’s talent
evident in each project, my chest tightened even more and tears that
were hot with remorse pressed harder and harder against the backs of
my eyes. Then I got to something that wasn’t part of his
portfolio. It was a portrait of me, my face pensive, leaning against
a window frame. He’d drawn this on his iPad? A tear slipped
out, dropping onto the screen. After that, I couldn’t hold them
back. I closed the device and set it in my lap, and then turned to
look at him again. The pain, the longing were all tying me up in
knots.

“Boone,”
I said softly. “I’m so sorry that I caved to peer
pressure, sorry that I let this town dictate to me who I could and
couldn’t talk to, interact with. Sorry that I didn’t find
you last summer. Sorry for…” My voice died, my guilt
shutting off the sound.

He glanced over at
me, then his face got all concerned and he pulled the truck over,
into a secluded spot so that we were sheltered from the road.

“Verity.
What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“Because I
wanted to talk to you every day. I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I
was attracted to you, only I kept denying that because I had to be a
good girl.” It all came pouring out of me. In the past, I might
have worried about being foolish, but I didn’t think I was
wrong about Boone, and that made it ten times worse, because right
this minute I was more sure about him than I had ever been about
anyone in my life. “I had to be perfect. And, you were Boone
Outlaw, the bad boy with a bad reputation that you didn’t
deserve. But who can do that? Who can measure up to being perfect?
Who would want to?”

I covered my face
with my hands and he unclipped my seat belt, dragged me into his lap
and slipped his arms around me. It felt so good. So amazingly good.

“Why, Verity?
Why me?”

I dropped my hands
and looked up into his earnest face. “Because we were both
handicapped by where we lived and who we were. Because we gave in and
gave up because we were scared and young and stupid. Because you
looked so lost. As lost as I felt, and I thought maybe you and I, we
could find our way together.” I had such a sucking black hole
in me. I needed to heal it, close it up because it hurt so much, and
drained the life and hope right out of me. And this was only the
first step.

His proximity
soothed me, but also made it hard to concentrate.

“Is this the
part where you’re going to apologize all over me?”

“I’m
serious, Boone.”

“I can see
that. I’m trying to hold onto my sanity here, Verity. I’m
trying to keep my hands off you, my mouth off you. I’m trying
to…give us time to see…”

I covered his mouth,
his lips soft and firm against my fingertips. I leaned into him, my
face close. Then replaced my fingers with my mouth and kissed him
with all the longing I had in me. Breaking off, with just a
hairsbreadth between us, I whispered, “The last time we were
together, we both didn’t make that choice. Now that I know you
better, I’m making that choice now. I want you, Boone. I can’t
say it any plainer than that. I have wronged you in many ways.”
I pressed my mouth against his again, consuming him the way this
feeling for him was consuming me. Could this be another mistake?
Maybe, but maybe my mistake had been not trying hard enough to find
him.