A Perfect Holiday (Hope Parish Novellas #5)

Chapter One

BOONE

I hauled air into my lungs, the rage so intense I literally saw red.

I wanted to kill this bastard. Piece by piece.

Slowly and painfully. All the disgust, rage and compassion I felt on behalf of a little boy who had just lost his mother went into the blow to his jaw.

When he reeled away, I kept moving and hit him again, knocking his slimy ass down.

Chester Skeet Baker. He was Sharon Doucet’s good-for-nothing husband. He beat her and she took it. But cancer took her today—Thanksgiving Day—and she’d died asking for me.

I hadn’t made it in time. But I came directly over here to look for Henry, her son.

He and I met when I was working on the Church landscaping for Verity’s father.

I had Deke build Henry a whole new playground, and later we went frogging together and bonded over our dead daddies.

He was bright, had personality to spare, but he was hurting so bad right now.

“I’ll press charges, Outlaw!”

My strength fueled by rage, I hauled him up to his feet, jerked one arm behind his back and slammed his face into the side of his house.

Gritting my teeth against another surge of murderous fury, I gave Baker another sharp shove.

“Go ahead, Skeet, press charges. Why don’t we call the sheriff right now, and you can explain why you were shouting at and manhandling Henry.

He’s only eight, for fuck’s sake. His mother just died, you asshole! ”

“She coddled him. He’s nothing but a crybaby.”

I twisted his arm higher, exerting more pressure.

“You aren’t dealing with a woman and child now, Baker,” I said, edging my voice with cold steel.

“You touch him again, or God help you, hurt him in any way, and I’m coming back here.

We’re going to take a walk in the bayou.

You won’t be coming out, and no one but the ’gators will ever know where your bones are.

Got that?” Skeet moved his head in acknowledgment.

I gave him another hard shove into the clapboard, then let him go, wrestling my fury back under control.

“I’m taking him to Outlaws for dinner, and you can pick him up tonight.”

When we got in the truck, Henry burst into tears, great, tearing sobs, making my chest hurt and my eyes burn. I hugged him for a long time. “I’m so sorry about your mom,” I murmured.

“I miss her so much. Do you think she’s in heaven with my daddy?”

“Yes, I’m sure she is,” I said, ruffling his hair. “We’ll go to Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ll feel sad, but every day, you’ll keep her in your heart, and it’ll get easier.”

“I still have Bonkers,” he said sniffling and wiping at his nose, and I thought my heart would break.

I hauled him close to me for the rest of the drive.

Bonkers, that cute little beagle that Henry’s mom had given him to help him over the death of his father and to teach him a little responsibility was a big source of comfort in Henry’s life.

***

When we arrived, Thanksgiving was in full swing at Outlaws, my brother Brax’s bar and grill on the bayou. With the number of family members, extended family, and guests, Braxton had decided hosting it at Outlaws made the most sense.

His huge kitchen and plenty of seating room made it easy to accommodate everyone.

There was me, my wife Verity, and our son Duel, Verity’s momma, daddy, and brother Ethan, one of my triplet brothers Booker and his wife Aubree, Aubree’s momma and stepdaddy Mike, my other brother Brax and River Pearl, Ma and Win, my aunt Heloise and uncle Otis, and my cousins, Remy, Dempsey and Creed, Aubree’s friend Ashley and her boyfriend, Liam, River Pearl’s momma, daddy and brothers Jake and Chase (who was a no-show).

Plus we invited Minnie, Deke, Rory and Savannah.

That brought our count to a whopping thirty people minus Chase.

I settled Henry in next to me and hoped being with my family would help ease some of his sorrow for now. I couldn’t do anything about his piece-of-shit guardian, but I could threaten the asshole within an inch of his life.

“My God, Brax,” River Pearl said as she bit into one of the three turkeys Brax had prepared. “You are a cooking god. This turkey is so delicious.”

“Of course it is. He’s also part fowl god,” Booker quipped, and Brax gave him a bland smile.

“Yeah,” I said. “Fowl is the right word. He is a king turkey.”

“Ha freaking ha,” Braxton muttered while everyone within earshot laughed. Ribbing Brax would always be one of my favorite pastimes. But River was right. Everything was delicious, from the turkey to all the fixings. My brother only got better the more he plied his talents.

Life could not get any sweeter than this.

I’d just landed a huge job with Lafayette Hospital, and my business had grown so much in the last year and a half, I needed to expand, and had bought this great old building in Lafayette, which was now manned by a full-time receptionist. I had three crews working all my clients, a new apprentice landscape designer I had just hired, and Savannah, who was into her first semester of her online Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Landscape Architecture.

My business was thriving. My beautiful, sexy wife and Minnie were still in business, and they were making a huge splash in the fashion biz with another very successful Fashion Week this past September.

After dinner, in a glow of contentment, I cuddled Verity while Brax played and River Pearl sang.

Duel was dancing in front of the stage, and my Ma was cuddling Henry.

We had a brief discussion about him. I wasn’t happy he had to go back to Skeet, and neither was she, but our hands were tied.

He was so subdued it hurt my heart. Ma pulled the sheriff aside, and he nodded while she talked. He would keep an eye on the situation.

“When are we going to hear the pitter-patter of little feet, sweetheart?” Aubree’s mother asked. “Any plans we should know about?”

Mike, her husband, squeezed her arm, and she gave him an I’m-just-asking look, which he answered by shaking his head and giving Aubree and Booker a sympathetic smile.

Aubree smiled back. There was a new confidence to her that was tangible, and I was so proud of them, I wanted to stand up and cheer.

Their engagement and marriage had been rocky there at the end, but they had reconfirmed their commitment to each other and weathered the shitstorm caused by Aubree’s lifelong goals.

My brother, always the thinker of this group, learned to stop worrying about not having enough time with her and started embracing everything about their new life. It was uplifting to see the changes in them, and the transparent, abiding, often giddy love they shared.

She shook her head. “Not for some time. At least not for a couple more years. The MCATs are looming. We’re thinking the best time might be at the beginning of my senior year and just before residency.

” Booker’s look told me he was one hundred percent behind her.

I thought it mirrored Verity’s and my connection completely.

“Sounds like a plan,” her mother said. Then she turned to us and smiled.

“And you two? Duel is almost two years old. Seems about right to get going on another one. I know Aubree didn’t like being an only child—and Boone, you for sure enjoy your brothers’ presence in your life. Maybe you’ll have multiples.”

“Trips are a lot of work, but I wouldn’t trade mine for anything,” Evie said with a soft smile. “So take it easy with her, Boone.”

“I always take it easy with her,” I quipped, but Verity didn’t give me one of her sassy comebacks. It was elusive, but something shifted…whether it was some subtle shift in my wife’s body, or a change in the molecules surrounding us, something was different. Like a disturbance in the Force.

How had Aubree’s mom’s question about a second child changed the course of our smooth-sailing, comfortable, calm atmosphere to one of an approaching storm? As if I heard the phrase: Here there be monsters.

Was it too soon to have the next one? If not now, when? It seemed to me that taking the plunge now would be a good idea.

Also, when we conceived Duel, I’d been so drunk I didn’t even remember—well, not fully, anyway—having sex with Verity.

We’d been eighteen, she was high on X, and I was trying to drown myself in enough alcohol that I would be able to keep my hands and mind off her.

The X was just the catalyst, because, as I found out later, Verity had wanted to do me for a long time.

The X blasted her inhibitions to smithereens, and she jumped me in my truck bed.

I still got pissed about that every now and then.

So the thought of being there, being present, and deliberately planting my seed to conceive our second child was mind-boggling sexy and wonderful.

Then Verity did something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Duel, be careful,” she said softly, walked away from me, and totally left Mrs. Dalton hanging. I smiled like she hadn’t just acted out of character, and said, “We haven’t talked about it.”

“You should. Duel should have a brother or sister. You don’t want him to be an only child, right?”

“Mom,” Aubree said, giving me a glance. She’d noticed Verity’s dodge just as I had, but after I got to thinking about it, I chalked it up to panic about the effects a new baby would have on our family and careers at this point.

Would Duel be shortchanged on attention? Would we be able to get eight hours of sleep any time in this decade? But we’d adapted well to Duel’s unexpected arrival after some pretty hard times. We would do fine with a new one added to the mix. I felt ready to take this on.

“I’m asking because babies are on my mind.”

Mike was beaming, and I sat up straighter. “BreeBree, I think you’re mom’s having a baby.”