Chapter 6 #2
“A trip into the bayou? Was that some kind of ambush, Ethan?” she asked, her voice soft and breathy.
“What if it was?” I asked, holding my breath.
There was silence for a minute.
“Throw the guy a bone,” Brax said in the background.
I swore softly under my breath. “Tell him to stay out of it.”
She did and Brax just laughed. “He made a rude gesture and I’m sure it was directed at you. At least I think it was.”
I grinned. “C’mon, Lawson. You’ve got to see Hope Parish.
It’s amazing. You’ve been here for a while already and haven’t even seen the town.
This will be a start.” She sighed and I wished I could see her expression.
“You know the floor is cypress and I laid it myself. The beams in the ceiling I cut to fit perfectly. All those blisters should heal,” I said with enough forlorn in my voice to make even a stranger feel sorry for me.
“Oh, you are being very bad…and very…persuasive.” Was I imagining things or was that definitely affection in her voice.
She was torn, and I understood that she was struggling with keeping her distance.
This was supposed to be temporary for her, but I had an ulterior motive.
I really should back off. Resist her. I was fragmented in my work and in my thoughts about the future.
Getting caught up in Lawson wasn’t helping matters any.
My daddy was going to put more and more pressure on me until I gave him the answer he wanted.
I wasn’t sure ten years ago, and I wasn’t sure now.
Had I run from being a preacher because it wasn’t right for me?
Or had I run because I didn’t want to follow in my old man’s footsteps, be an extension of anyone, live up to his expectations and not my own?
Being a Marine had defined me in a way I had never expected.
It was hard, demanding, heartbreaking, and the best thing I’d ever done in my life.
I grinned without an ounce of remorse. “No pressure. It’s just an outing.”
Her quick laughter settled over me, and I closed my eyes at the sexy sound. “No pressure, my butt.” She sighed again. “I’m not off until nine, so—”
“Leave now,” I heard Brax say. “You’ve been here since five this morning. Why don’t you go to lunch with Ethan? Get outta here.”
“That’s a great idea. Why don’t you come home with me? Then we can go from there to the boat, see some of the bayou before it gets dark? There’s nothing like a bayou sunset. Does that work?”
“What?” Her voice was suddenly breathless. “Lunch with your family? I’d need time to change. I wouldn’t want to hold you up—”
“Thirty minutes.”
“I don’t have a thing to bring.”
“I can spare some of my fresh biscuits,” Brax said and Lawson made an exasperated sound.
“Isn’t this imposing on your family? It’s short notice.”
“My momma and daddy love company, especially new people. He’s the town’s preacher.”
“The town’s preacher…I don’t know, Ethan.”
“He’s not going to make you kneel and praise God. At least, not at the first meal. But we’ll probably have hellfire and brimstone for dessert.”
“My favorite,” she said with a dry tone, but I heard the inflection of humor in her voice. “This isn’t funny.”
“Aw, c’mon, darlin’, I’m charming and you know it. I promise the food will be good and my parents are great. My sister and her husband will be there along with their kids. It’ll be organized chaos.”
“That’ll feel just like Outlaws.”
I laughed, “Yeah. Just like Outlaws.”
“Will there at least be whipped cream and a cherry on top of the hellfire and brimstone?” I laughed at her cute joke and the fact I had won. I could hear the acquiescence in her voice. “Pick me up in thirty minutes.”
She disconnected the call, and I sat there for a few minutes, anticipation of seeing her sooner than I thought curling through me. Thank you, Brax! And, the thought of having Lawson all to myself jacked me up.
At exactly thirty minutes, I was outside her door.
When she emerged, I caught my breath. Lawson always looked good, but she’d gained a little bit of weight which filled out her beautiful face, and for the first time, she hadn’t put her hair up in a bun.
I couldn’t quite breathe as the wind caught her waist length locks and they ruffled around her body.
She wore a white dress, the lace resembling spider webs along with a small short sleeved pink sweater, flat pink sandals on her delicate feet.
She carried a plastic container and a small bag.
Once I could breathe again, I jumped out of the truck.
“Can I carry something for you?”
“I should say so. You got me into this.” Her cheeky tone only made me smile. She knocked the bag against my chest, and I caught it with an oof . When I inhaled, I got a lungful of her flowery scent, enticing me to bury my nose in her fragrant hair.
She tipped the plastic container and said, looking mildly embarrassed, but smiling all the same, “These are the biscuits. Brax is one pushy so and so…uh…boss.” I opened the door for her and she slipped inside.
I tucked in her skirt and accidentally brushed my fingers against her silky thigh.
She smoothed over the area I’d touched and gave me a magnetic glance from those sultry blue eyes as I closed the door.
Going around to the driver’s side, I got in and deposited the bag in the back seat.
“You look nice,” she said, setting the container on her lap.
My body leapt in response to her softly spoken compliment, urging me to do something—anything—about it. Hard to keep my perspective when she was so easy to interact with and this sexual tension between us was palatable. After kissing her mouth, I so wanted more of it.
I glanced at her and said, “You look beautiful.”
She toyed with the lip of the container and looked over briefly before focusing on the windshield again. She had freckles, a light scatter of them across the bridge of her nose, adding to her aura of innocence.
We approached town and the edge of the buildings broke through the dense growth of trees. “Here we go,” I said. “This is Suttontowne.”
She took in the buildings, storefronts, and the gazebo in the center square. “There used to be a statue there of Colonel Beauregard Sutton, the founder, but he turned out to be a thief and a murderer, so my best friend, Chase Sutton, the founder’s descendant pulled it down with his pickup truck.”
She turned to look at me, her gaze wary. “Are you pulling my leg?”
“God’s truth. Would a preacher’s son lie?”
“I’m not sure. Would he?”
“Nope. Truth is always the better course of action.”
“How about little white lies?” she asked, her voice sounding intent.
“I guess they would be okay because they come from a place of sparing people’s feelings.”
“Everyone has motivations for doing or saying things,” she replied. “As long as no one is getting hurt, what’s the crime?”
She didn’t look remotely vulnerable. Quite the opposite. So why was it I felt like she was asking me if I was going to hurt her? “I’m not the white lie police,” I said. “We could ask my daddy his opinion.”
Her mouth quirked at my response, but her gaze seemed to continue to seek something out on its own.
Just as I was about to break the silence, she said, “And eat more hellfire and brimstone. I think not. It just goes right to my hips.” She watched as the town disappeared behind us, the foliage closing in on either side once again.
As if our little moment hadn’t even happened.
But it had happened, and I wasn’t being quite as successful shaking off its effects as she apparently was.
Soon we got to the church that was just at the outskirts of town.
There was the rectory with its play area for the daycare my mom ran, the church with its steeple, the picnic tables, grill and gazebo Boone had installed, the lushness of the bayou beyond framing the charming view in deep, forest green.
I’d grown up here, played and swam in the bayou, caught frogs and ran wild with Chase Sutton while tolerating Chase’s kid brother Jake and the Outlaw boys tagging along. My chest got tight thinking about it.
As soon as I parked, we could hear childish laughter and squeals coming from the back of the house where a creek flowed.
I went around and opened the door for her and she slipped out.
She turned just as I reached down for her bag.
The movement sent my nose right into her hair, where I’d wanted it when I’d picked her up.
I should have backed up, putting space between us.
But, I was overcome with the scent of her, taking full advantage of the accidental contact and breathing her in.
She didn’t move. I tried to tell myself it was because she was trapped between me and the truck, but one move from her would have had me retreating, except she continued to stand still.
Rushing into something with a woman who wasn’t going to stay wasn’t smart, but after kissing her and comforting her, I just couldn’t seem to separate my head from my heart.
We had been harmlessly flirting since we left Outlaws. This…well, this didn’t feel harmless.
“Ethan? Come on in.” The sound of my momma’s voice made me pull away, but still felt like an effort. I snagged the bag and backed off her.
Saved by the Momma bell.
“Who do you have with you?”
The moment was broken when Lawson frowned, then backhanded me on my upper arm. “You didn’t tell your momma I was coming?”
“No, it slipped my mind.”
“Geez, Ethan. This is an imposition.”
“No it’s not.” I grabbed her arm, closing the door and dragging her up the walk. “Momma, I brought a guest. This is Lawson Edwards. She’s new in town and working at Outlaws.”
She gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and said, “Yes, I’ve heard rumors about a new girl.” After she let me go, she reached out her hand which Lawson took, shaking it briefly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“I hope this isn’t an imposition, Mrs. Fairchild.”
“Oh, please, call me Monica,” she said waving us inside. “We always have room at the table.” She smiled warmly. “I’ll take that.”
“It’s Braxton Outlaw’s biscuits.”
“Oh, how sweet of you and very yummy. Now I won’t have to make any, even better,” she said cheerily. She set the container in the kitchen and came back out. “We’re down at the creek. I just popped up here for some lemonade.”
She reached for a tray that was on the coffee table, but I smoothly took it out of her hands. “I’ll carry it.”
She set her arm around Lawson and started to steer her toward the back door.
She glanced back at me with this dazed look on her face at my momma’s kindness.
I smiled at her and shrugged. “So, Lawson, tell me about how it is to work for Braxton.” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper and murmured, “I hear he’s a pussycat. ”
That set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.
When we got down to the creek, my sister was in Boone’s lap, my niece, Nola, one of the twins was in a playpen and Henry and Duel were in the water.
After I set down the lemonade and introduced everyone, including my daddy who was sitting on the swing with my nephew Morgan in his lap, Lawson was still staring at Boone.
“They’re twins?”
“No,” Boone said with a twinkle in his eyes. “We’re triplets. My brother Booker lives in New Orleans with his wife Aubree. She’s studying to become a doctor.”
“Three of you?” she asked, looking from him to me.
“Yes, but Brax is the only jackass.”
“Boone,” Verity said with a slap on the shoulder.
“Well, he is,” he said, dumping my sister into the chair and rising up to snag a glass of lemonade for Verity then himself.
“Hope you brought a bathing suit,” Boone said to Lawson with a grin, reaching down and bringing out some water guns. “It’s going to get wet and wild around here.”
The whole party dissolved into a spray fest after Lawson and I changed our clothes. We splashed and took our share of streams of water bullets to the face. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.
I watched her interacting with my niece and nephews as she helped them with small things, like wiping their faces or getting them some more lemonade.
I was envious of what my sister and Boone had.
They were so in tune, so happy with their growing family and their love for each other.
Nothing would ever come between these two again.
After that thought, Lawson caught me with a stream of water, and I retaliated by grabbing her around the waist and chucking her into the creek.
Her slight, lithe body felt good in my arms, and I thought one day I wanted a family like Verity’s.
Dinner was more sedate, with us finding out Aubree was graduating from college and there would be a blowout party for her homecoming next week.
She and Booker were staying in New Orleans, and she’d spend the next few years at Tulane as a med student, then finally her residency and taking over Doc Rust’s practice in Suttontowne.
She’d made the announcement in January that she was pregnant.
She was on to the next step in her career with a baby due in July.
Boone distracted me from my thoughts when he insisted on getting everyone singing in staggering lyrics, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” The way my sister looked at him made my heart ache.
But, Aubree’s good news also made me think again about where I was going.
What I wanted to do, especially when my daddy cornered me before I left and asked me once again about the seminary.
I put him off again which didn’t make him happy, but I just wasn’t sure what my next steps were.
A big part of me didn’t want to disappoint him, but a larger part of me wanted to be my own man, decide for myself what was important to me and not follow in someone else’s footsteps, but make some of my own.