Beauty Shot (Hope Parish Novels Book 5)

By Zoe Dawson

Published by Blue Moon Creative, LLC

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright by Karen Alarie. All rights reserved,
including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may
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your use only, then please return to your preferred vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard
work of this author.

I make every effort to research thoroughly all subject matter, but I’m not infallible. If
you find anything in my novels that I have incorrect, please feel free to let me know.

ISBN: 978-0-9909075-4-1

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Cover Design by Zoe Dawson

I'd like to thank beta readers Sue Stewart and Leisha O’Connor. Thank you, also, to Faith Freewoman for her excellent advice and editing skills.

To being true to yourself…always.

Deke

Leaving home wasn’t
all it was cracked up to be. Sure, I’d be going on a new
journey. I’d be preparing for my future. I’d be learning
and growing, making new friends. But that also meant I was leaving
behind old friends. Supportive people, like my family. People I
worked with and hung out with. People who’d made up my whole
freaking life until now.

At times like this
there is excitement. There is anticipation, but don’t let
anyone tell you there isn’t also nostalgia, sentimentality and
just plain sadness.

There is also some
fear.

I was only eighteen,
and I was normally a confident guy. I always knew what I wanted, when
I wanted it, and had no problem going after it.

But I wasn’t
just heading somewhere new. I was heading somewhere
big
.
From tiny Suttontowne, Louisiana to New York City, where my accent
would sound funny and my ways would seem old-fashioned.

And I would most
likely be judged based on my looks. I wanted Columbia to be
different. I wanted them to see me differently, look past my
pretty-boy looks and see who I really was. But, as always, it was up
to me.

I would teach New
York City a thing or two. Yeah, shoot, I would. The anticipation
wasn’t just about getting to know a new place and conquering
it. Columbia University had given me a full ride to study computer
science, and would prepare me for what I’d always wanted to do.
Game design.

No, there was
someone in New York I had a powerful interest in. Someone who had
recently been in Suttontowne and knocked me ass over teakettle,
stirred me beyond the word hunger and made me want to howl at the
moon.

Which was quite
fitting, because she had a witch’s name and the charisma to go
with it. Minerva Tattersall or, as everyone now called her around
here, Minnie.

When Verity was
carrying Boone’s baby last year, scared and alone, Minnie had
taken her under her wing. Verity had proven to be so talented, Minnie
recently offered her a partnership and Verity accepted.

Thinking about
Minnie made my dick harder than stone, my lungs seize, and my heart
pound. I felt the connection the moment we met. I know she felt it,
too. It was obvious, but she’d held me off, kept me at arm’s
length. I wanted to know what kind of barrier stood between us. I
aimed to find that out, come hell or high water.

Day was melting into
night, and my going away party raged happily behind me. I stood on
Braxton Outlaw’s deck staring out into the deepening gloom,
thinking my thoughts. My momma often said I thought too much, and
maybe she was right.

I had been too smart
for my britches, leastwise that’s what my momma said. I didn’t
quite fit into any of the crowds at school, and I was okay with that.
I couldn’t buy into some of the juvenile shit going on around
me, and I guess my momma was right, maybe I was too smart for my
britches.

The high temperature
and humidity of late summer in Louisiana prevailed, and the tail end
of August was holding tight onto the heat.

It had rained
earlier, leaving everything dripping and glistening. The clouds had
cleared a path for a melted bronze sunset that cast the swamp in
silhouette. The air was fresh, but the mysterious undercurrent of the
bayou lingered as always. My eyes drifted from the still water to the
dense wildness that lay around me.

I’d grown up
at the edge of the Atchafalaya, and the swamp was an unforgiving
place. Steamy and seductive and secretive. Death was commonplace
here, a part of the cycle. Trees died, fell, decayed, became a part
of the fertile ground, so more trees could grow from them. Mayflies
were eaten by frogs, frogs by snakes, snakes by alligators. A death
would find no sympathy here. It was a realm of predators.

New York City wasn’t
much different. It had its own cycle, and wasn’t any less
dangerous than the swamp, but it wasn’t a natural order. In New
York City there were human predators.

“What are you
doing hiding out here?” Booker said, coming up and standing
next to me.

“I’m not
hiding, Book. Just…contemplating.”

“Aside from
Aubree, you are one of the smartest people I know, Deke. You’ll
do fine.”

I nodded. I had no
doubt that I would.

“It’s
natural to feel sad and even a bit uneasy about leaving what you
consider home. I’ve only been in New Orleans with Aubree for
about a week. She’s busy with classes, and I’m trying to
find my writing rhythm in the bustle of a city when I’m used to
the silence of the bayou.”

“I’ll
find my footing once I get there, I have no doubts about that. You’re
right about leaving home. I’m excited, but it’s hard,
too. You’ll find your rhythm, too. Just a matter of time.”

When he slapped me
on the back, I noticed the wrapped gift in his hand. He followed my
look and grinned. “This is for you. I have always found a great
deal of wisdom in it. I think you will, too.”

He held out the flat
offering and I grabbed it, grinning back. I ripped at the
brightly-colored paper I was sure Aubree had picked out and wrapped
for me. I looked back inside and saw her standing at the sliding
glass door, a winsome smile on her face. I acknowledged her with a
nod and a smile and she nodded back. Her eyes touched on Booker and
my heart ached over the way she looked at him. So much in just a
look. It was as beautiful as the bayou.

I hoped to make the
same kind of connection with Minnie.

I looked down at the
book and then up at Booker. “What the hell?” I snorted.
“This is a kid’s book.”

“Maurice
Sendak’s
Where
the Wild Things Are
isn’t just for kids. It’s chock full of wisdom about
human nature and imagination. There are solid life lessons in there
that you’re smart enough to figure out. Read it again from an
adult perspective, and you’ll see what I mean.”

I laughed and
grabbed Booker around the neck. Leave it to him to force me to think.
He was the most cerebral of the triplet Outlaw brothers, and more
reasonable and laid back. Just as intense as Boone and Braxton, but
tempered.

I was two years
their junior, but I remembered them from high school, and remembered
how they hadn’t once let this town get them down.

I took a page out of
the Outlaws’ book. New York City wasn’t going to get the
best of me. United in their unholy trinity, the Outlaw brothers had
been as steadfast and true to their own natures as the bayou was true
to its natural order.

Now the Outlaws were
exonerated, and I was even prouder to be considered part of their
extended family, all because I had been lucky enough to snag a
landscaping job with their brother Boone.

“Don’t
think too hard, though…” Booker glanced back at Aubree,
and she gave him a sultry look, “…life is too short not
to…ah…get to the good stuff.”

“Got it.”
Boy, did I want to get to the good stuff.

He chuckled and left
me, slipping his arm around Aubree, nuzzling her neck as he slid back
the screen door and they walked back through the open sliding glass
door.

I shoved back my
shoulder-length hair, looking down at the book.

“Leave it to
Booker to give you something…what the hell? A kid’s
book,” Boone demanded, yanking it out of my hands.

“You know
Booker.”

“Yeah, I do.
Listen, I wanted to tell you, because I don’t tell you enough,
or at all. But, damn son, you were the best employee I’ve ever
had. You’re amazing with a hammer, can do math in your head
like Einstein, and made sure that everything you did was done to your
own exacting standards.” His voice got hushed, his eyes going
serious. “Plus you saved Verity’s life when you came by
that day, and, man, you saved mine, because she is my life. Now I
have a family…it’s humbling.”

“Aw, Boone.
You’re the best. Don’t make me go all mushy about it.”

He nodded. “Okay.
My brothers give me a hard time, but it’s important to say
things you mean and that mean something.”

“Okay. Meaning
accepted. I’m going to miss working for you. I’m even
going to miss Savannah.”

Boone laughed, then
sobered. He pulled a plastic baggie from his back pocket. “These
are for you. You planted them for me in the back, near our bedroom
window, because Verity loves them. That was all you. I appreciate it,
and now you can take a piece of both the bayou and us with you to New
York.”

“Dahlia seeds.
You think I can grow them in my dorm room?”

“I know you
can. You have the magic touch. Maybe you’ll give them to
someone special, just like I have.” He gazed at Verity, who was
talking to River Pearl, looking radiant and happy. A chill ran down
my spine thinking about how Verity might have died. I was very glad
I’d been my usual conscientious self that day.

“You take
care, and Verity and I will be in touch when we get there in a couple
of weeks for Fashion Week. It’ll be a reunion.”

“I’m
looking forward to it already.”

The sun dipped into
the horizon, and the streaks of bronze deepened into thick, dark
shadows. I would take all this with me when I went.

“Hey, you’re
not mooning about leaving, are you?”

I turned to find
Braxton leaning against the side of the house, one hand on his belt
buckle, the other holding…a box.

He pushed off the
clapboard and walked over. “These are for you.”

He tossed the box at
me and I grabbed it. “Condoms.” I gave him a sidelong
glance. “Booker gave me a book, and Boone a bit of the bayou
and you give me…condoms.”

“Yeah, head,
heart, dick. Just make sure you think with the right head, son.”
He grinned like the devil he could be sometimes. “They’re
more essential than a book and memories of the bayou. You do know
where babies come from, right? I could give you a book about that,
but here’s a hint. They don’t come from the strawberry
patch.”

I snorted and nudged
him.

“And here’s
another hint. Learning how to make them is damn good fun; just don’t
plant any seeds. That’s where the condoms come into play.”