Cocked & Unsheathed E-Book

Jamila Jasper

• Herausgeber: Publisher s23991
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Home from the military with a fire of desire burning inside him and a 9-inch python that makes women scream... Zane's instincts to possess Dana Bright kick in the first time he sees her.Her guard is up, but she can't help but crave the sexy soldier just back from the Gulf War.After a sultry night between the sheets, everything in Dana's life changes.Zane's the first man to ever make her climax.Dana knows he could be shipped off to Iraq at a moment's notice...But now that she's addicted to all of his nine-inches,She doesn't know how the heck she's going to say goodbye...This book is for lovers of hot and steamy action between the sheets. If you enjoy romance between beautiful, strong black women and handsome, alpha male white men, you'll enjoy this book. Take a look inside to get a taste of what you're missing...

Leseprobe

Prologue I

As Told By Dana Bright:

I tried to forgive my father. Well, technically John Porter was my step-father. My daddy had died when I was five years old. But my mama still had bills to pay and her small-time job babysitting white ladies’ kids barely cut it. The first man that had come along and offered to take those burdens off her shoulder seemed like a God-send.

But John Porter had been far from a God-send. I’d known him as my father since I was eight years old. And he’d stuck around. Though by now, I’m sure my mama and I both wish that he’d left.

Like every toxic marriage, things had started off great with John.

My mama never had to worry about the lights getting turned off. All of a sudden we had food on the table. All of a sudden me and my sister Cleo were going to the dentist. We had new shoes in the middle of the year. By the time my mama wanted to marry John, hell we couldn’t wait to have a father.

Having a man around the house started off nicely.

I remember waking up on a morning, slipping into my jeans and t-shirt for school and running downstairs to meet John. Daddy.

It was only after the wedding that things changed.

But their wedding day was beautiful. John didn’t have much of a family so to speak, so it was just us Brights. My mama’s family was Southern and they knew how to throw down. Aunties and uncles who had migrated to New York all came down to Peach, Georgia for the affair.

I think the big to-do made things worse in the end. But at the time, there was pure bliss in my house. Everyone wanted to see mama happy and with John, we all thought she would be.

It’s possible the little signs had been there all along. It’s possible there were hints and clues that mama had shielded us from.

We’d always known John was a drinker. We’d known about his two year stint in jail up in Massachusetts. But he’d assured my mama that it was all a set up and he’d been falsely accused.

When a woman is desperate and in love, she’s willing to do crazy things.

Letting John Porter into our home was certifiably insane.

They hadn’t been married one week when it started. Cleo and I were playing upstairs when we heard a blood curdling scream — our mother’s scream. We turned towards each other and ran out of the room. The sound of ceramic crashing against the wall startled us as we peered down the stairs.

John’s fingers snaked through our mother’s hair and he was pressing her body against the wall, punching her in the back as she screamed.

We stood at the top of the stairs, still and stunned. We said nothing. We froze and listened to our mother scream and scream until he dropped her. She collapsed to the ground wailing and John walked off. She sobbed and sobbed there whilst Cleo and I stood powerless, wondering what we should do.

We’d never been exposed to that before. A man putting his hands on our mama was plain incomprehensible. But we knew that we should never tell. We knew that what we’d experienced had been shameful. Our childish minds couldn’t process whether the shame belonged to us, our mother, or to John.

Now that I’m old enough to understand, it’s too late. Our childhoods already happened. Our mother is already broken. And my sister and I are drifting through life pretending to be normal. But nothing that happened to us was normal. And any chance at being normal was stolen from us.

Cleo developed such a deep distrust of men that I think it changed her forever — even more than it changed me.

Cleo didn’t speak to either of them anymore — not John and not mama. I tried to convince her otherwise, but she was adamant about wanting them out of their lives. That meant mama — in all her old age — was my responsibility.

After work, I promised her I’d come over. John was out with one of his other women so mama thought it would be a good time to drop by. I was happy he was gone even if it was just for the afternoon. Despite my best attempts to forgive him, I still felt uneasy around John. I still felt that nagging sense that a whooping was just around the corner. Silly. John was too old to whoop anyone anymore.

That didn’t make my gut feel any safer.

I drove over to mama’s little house in Peach, just a few miles away from my own.

The door was unlocked and as I walked in, I could hear her fussing over something in the kitchen.

“Momma I’m home!” I called out to her.

She didn’t reply.

​“Momma it’s Dana!”

“C’mon into the kitchen child.”​

I walked into the kitchen where my mother was cutting up some fresh cornbread she’d made in her cast iron skillet.

“Mmm. That smells delicious.”​

“Lemme get you some butter.”

She buttered my cornbread, putting a fresh slice on each of our plates. When she’d served us both up, she led me out into the living room.

“John might not be back for another two or three days.”​

I didn’t want to talk about John.

“He’s off with Edith?”

My mama shook her head, “No a new woman. Younger. ‘Round 55 years old.”​

I pursed my lips in disapproval. My mother had known about John’s cheating for decades and she never did anything about it. After years of being beat down on, she didn’t have it in her to stop him. Even if he ran women ‘round her for decades, she did nothing.

“Okay mama.”

I bit into the cornbread, appreciating the flavor as my mama’s family recipe practically melted in my mouth.

“So how you doing? How’s work?”

“Work is work.”

“Mhmm. And what about that boy you were hanging round?”

I pursed my lips. My mama always brought up some boyfriend of mine right after I’d kicked him to the curb. I wasn’t one of those women who was confused about what the problem was. I’ll admit it to you right now. The problem was me. I was the one who kept choosing men that forced me to replicate my past.

I would see the good qualities that John had in other men and my magnetic pull towards them was immediate. Of course, just like with John, their bad qualities had come out immediately. The only thing I was grateful that I’d never done was get married.

Lord, I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be married.

The closest I’d come was Willy Morris. He was fifteen years my senior and a police officer. We’d been together for eight years. Seven of those years he’d beat me black and blue until I snapped, nearly killing him in self-defense. I shot him right in the foot and he howled like a goddamn coyote. Willy didn’t press charges, but I never saw him again after that. He never came sniffin’ round and I promised myself I’d never let a man whoop me like that again.

You know the saying “there are many ways to skin a cat”? Gross, I know. But that’s sort of what it’s like with bad men. There were so many ways for men to treat me wrong without laying a finger on me. That’s what I was forced to learn after Willy.

And well, the last guy I was with had found a way to hurt me again. But this time, I wasn’t the one who’d left.

“Orville?”

“Yes, Orville. What ever happened to him?”

“He moved out west mama.”

​“So y’all are finished?”​

“Beyond finished,” I mumbled.

I couldn’t bare to tell my mama the full story. Orville had a whole family out west. In this current age of social media and the internet, his wife had found me and she’d pleaded with me to convince Orville to come home. He’d been gone from them for a year without saying a word and the poor woman was desperate.

I had to end it with him.

Yet another boyfriend that ended up not being worth a damn.

I wondered how many years I could go on blaming John for how I was. Maybe I was just broken. And maybe I was always meant to be broken.

“You’ll find someone else. Someone who treats you right. Look at me. After your daddy died, I found John.”​

Yes, my mama still said stuff like that. Even after John had beat her black and blue and even after he’d cheated on her with everything with a pussy in a fifty mile radius.

“I’m hoping not to find a man like John.”​

I knew my sharp tongue would get me in trouble with her, but I still had a little bit of Cleo in me. I couldn’t pretend that everything was okay.

​“Listen… John has provided for me. He’s provided for you and your sister. The man has his flaws but you two sound downright ungrateful sometimes.”​

I felt the cornbread turning in my stomach. Yes. John had done so much for us.

I remembered the first night he’d climbed into our bed when we were ten years old. How he’d held a knife to Cleo’s throat and forced me to do things to him. I remembered how it had happened for years and years. I remembered how I’d wet the bed until I was seventeen. I remembered how Cleo had gone to that New Orleans witch doctor to have an abortion after John had gone too far.

John. The provider in our family. He had done so much for us. We should have been eternally grateful.

“We ain’t ungrateful mama,” I whispered.

Speaking out against John would get you nowhere in her house. No matter what he’d done, my mama had been brainwashed into thinking it had been better than raising us alone would have been.

“Well Cleo’s damned ungrateful.”​

I remembered the blood washing down her thighs after the witch doctor’s medicine that John had forced down her throat pushed the baby out of her. I stood with her in the shower, rinsing the blood down her thighs as she screamed in pain. Not just the pain of the induced miscarriage, but the pain of being impregnated by her stepfather. The pain of enduring years and years of rape, only to have it end like this.

We thought that maybe after we were older John would stop being attracted to us. But it never really stopped. And I never really knew how much our mama knew about it. We never told her and never spoke much about it. But she had to have known, hadn’t she?

How could she miss out on Cleo’s screams? Or the way our teenage years had been fraught with disciplinary infractions? How could she miss the fact that the life had been sapped from our faces? How could she miss out on the fact that we both carried the wounded empty expressions of woman who had been broken?

John made no secret of his attraction to us when we were younger. So I told myself that she had to know. And I had to tell myself that she was just too scared to do anything about it. She was my mama, of course she cared about us. But she was under his spell too. I tried to forgive. I really did.

And I thought I could forgive. My sister on the other hand couldn’t. Cleo had packed up and left Peach as soon as she turned eighteen. If she could have gone earlier, she would have. And I didn’t blame her the way my mama did. We hadn’t had real childhoods. Not after daddy died. John had stolen them away from us and each time I had to face him, I was reminded of that.

“I don’t think Cleo’s ungrateful mama.”​

My mother snorted and then wandered off to the kitchen for more cornbread. I tried to relax. I hadn’t come here to get a lecture about Cleo’s malfeasance. And I hadn’t come here to be reminded of all the things I spent every day of my life trying to forget.

“You know… I know you two didn’t have the perfect life growing up.”​

I said nothing.

My mother sighed, “But I’ve been praying for you Dana. I’ve been praying that the right man will come along.”

I snorted, “I doubt it.”

My mama chuckled, “You don’t believe me. But there’s a line in the Bright family that possesses the sight. I think you’ll meet someone very soon.”

I scoffed, thinking she was just trying to make me feel better. But I wondered how true that could be. Could there really be someone out there that would break my curse with men? Was it possible to attract a man who didn’t sense my dark past like a vampire?

“Well mama I hope you’re right. I’m getting older and… it would be nice to have someone.”​

“Don’t just settle for the first man who comes along.”

Sometimes my mama said more than she meant to say.

​“Can I have some more of that cornbread?”​

“Sure thing.”

I followed her into the kitchen. After I had another slice, we changed the subject to more pleasant things. No one wanted to talk about John anymore, or my last boyfriend, or the fact that Cleo hadn’t spoken to anyone in the family for over a decade.

We laughed for a long time. My mama told me about new ideas for my yarn store. And she told me about Doris, her latest spades partner. Then after a while she got tuckered out and just fell asleep. I cracked open a book as she drifted off to sleep.

Her snores rang through the house. I read until I feared John would come home. I snuck out of my mama’s house, locking the door behind me with her keys. The screeching of cicadas created a soundtrack for me as I walked to my car. Once inside, I checked my phone and I saw a message from Cleo.

I was the only one she bothered talking to, but she’d made me promise not to tell mama.

“I’m getting married.”​

That was it. I rested my head against the steering wheel and started to weep. Cleo had broken the curse of our childhood. She’d found a good man out there. I knew he had to be a good man because Cleo was no fool. She wouldn’t let anyone else get too close — not after what we’d been through.

My tears were both tears of joy and tears of envy. While Cleo had managed to step closer to happiness, I couldn’t have felt further away from it. I was still in Peach, dodging John, listening to mama deny the past, and falling in love with dead beats.

I was stagnant.

And I wanted a big change.

Prologue II

As Told By Zane Hunter

At the train station in my wife and my town, the attendant barely recognized me. I’d gained about 50 lbs of muscle in my tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively. My skin had turned from a pasty peach color to a deep tawny tan. The relentless Middle Eastern sun had defied my redneck genetics and given me a permanent glow. I hadn’t spoken to Shauna, my beautiful wife, in six months. There wasn’t much time or opportunity for communication. Half the time when I called her, she didn’t pick up.

I think it was too difficult for her to handle me being away. Shauna had been thrilled about the fact I was in the army when she’d met me. She bragged to all her friends about being an army wife and she was the most active in all the local groups.

When it was time for me to get deployed — three years into our marriage — that all seemed to change. It was no longer something that brought her pride. She snubbed me for those ninety days before deployment, claiming that I’d abandoned her and ignoring my promises to her that I’d be back before she knew it.

Her crying fits then scratched at my heart, filling me with guilt that I’d carry until my last day of service. I would hold her for hours and hours each night, reassuring her that all would be well and that at the end of it all, I’d be back in Birch.

The attendant was a woman I knew well from high school. Nancy Kolodzy had put on twenty pounds since high school in all the right places. As a young mother, she’d been saddled to Peach since she was eighteen years old. And like me, I suspected she never wanted to leave small town Georgia. That was just us country folks, we liked our humble towns and anyone who didn’t get it could be damned. We just weren’t city folks at our core. And I certainly hadn’t acclimated to the desert despite the robust tan I was sporting.

Just like me and Shauna, Nancy had left Peach for the neighboring town in hopes of getting access to a better school district and slightly nicer houses. Still, Shauna had her shop in Peach and I was one of the guys in town who’d made it back from the war.

“Can’t believe you didn’t recognize me,” I said with a grin.

She looked back sheepishly, “I guess I’m surprised to see you back in town.”​

I wrinkled my nose, “I can’t see why. I’ve got a beautiful wife in Peach, she’s got a beautiful shop and I’m ready to set down some roots.”​

Nancy pursed her lips and darted her eyes away from me as if she knew something that I didn’t.​

“Well welcome back Zane. Need a taxi?”​

“Yes please ma’am,” I replied, running my hands through my hair.

I didn’t think I was capable of sweating in Georgia anymore. Nothing could be hotter than the Iraqi sun under pounds and pounds of gear and guns.

I continued making small talk, “And how’s your son… Josiah?”​

Nancy’s first teen pregnancy had been with a black man which had caused quite the stir in our childhoods. I didn’t see much sense in all the attention to “proper” interaction of the races that was pushed in Peach. I was probably one of the few townsfolk who cared to check in on her small caramel colored boy with his green eyes and mousey brown afro.

Nancy cracked a smile at my mention of her son.

​“He’s doing well. If I can convince the teachers to stop suspending him, things would be going better.”​

“Troublemaker?” I asked.

Nancy shook her head and her face fell. I realized that perhaps what her son was dealing with was a bit of the discrimination that colored the underbelly of towns like Birch and Peach. No matter how desegregated they appeared on the surface, the hidden veins of racism flowed deeper than the sewage pipes beneath the town.

“We may have to move out of this town if things get much worse.”​

I grinned, “Can’t see myself leaving Peach anytime soon.”​

Nancy had that awkward look again and she mumbled, “The taxi’s here Zane. God bless you.”

Her added blessing was unlike her. That coupled with her strange behavior led me to believe that she really did know something I didn’t. The question was what.

The taxi driver was Luke Anderson, a man I knew well. Except when I’d known him — in a time that felt like generations ago — he drove the small bus that ran through the city.

“Why Zane Hunter!” He growled at the top of his lungs, “Welcome back to Birch! Thank you for your service.”​

I flinched as I heard those words that I knew were meant in good faith. There was nothing glorious or noble about what we’d done in Afghanistan or Iraq. I’d seen my fair share of hell on both war fronts and the gracious civilians back home had been spoon fed a story that was far different from the reality on the ground.

“Thank you for your service” morphed to “Thank you for the murders carried out in the name of fat cats who don’t give a damn about the American people” in my cynical mind. To say that my tour of duty had left me scarred would have been an understatement. But this little story isn’t about the sleepless nights, the cold sweats, the sound of Iraqi women’s screams as they cradled the bodies of their dead children. This isn’t about the Afghanis who spit on us as we walked through town. This isn’t about the bastards in my battalion who joked about raping the townswomen or the few good guys who ended up getting blasted to bits. This isn’t about the guys who were injured. Or the look in their eyes as they knew in their hearts they were going to die and they’d never see their blonde haired, blue eyed Georgian sweethearts ever again.

If this story had to be about that, no one would read it, would they?

This is a story about what happened when I arrived in Birch. Not my demons.

“So! Where are you headed?”​

I chuckled, “You know where I live. Same place as Shauna lives buddy.”

Luke’s face took on that serious expression, just like Nancy’s had. Either I’d caught everyone on a bad day or there was something that was different about Birch. Something that had changed since my absence.

“Shauna knows you’re coming?”​

I replied eagerly, “I sent a letter. So I’m hoping she’s ready for me. If she isn’t, it will be a mighty fine surprise.”​

Luke chuckled awkwardly, “That it will be.”​ ​He was quiet the rest of the drive. The drive to our place wasn’t long. I noticed that the house had a strange cold energy as we pulled up outside.

“Seems quiet.”​

Luke didn’t say anything for a minute.

​“You know what Zane? Ride’s on me. You just got back from hell on earth. It feels wrong to charge.”​

“You still gotta make a living Luke,” I retorted.

Luke waved me off.

“Don’t you dare worry about it Zane. Take care of yourself, you hear me?”​

I got out of the cab in my military gear with my single backpack which had all my worldly possessions from the past few years. I had money in my bank account on account of my inheritance and my salary from the army which I’d saved every penny of for the past decade and a half.

Now, I was heading to see Shauna. My heart was racing. We hadn’t seen each other in so long and I had so much to tell her. Now we could finally get a start on our futures. We could live the married life we were supposed to live and travel ‘round the world. I’d planned on taking her on an Alaskan cruise.

For guys like me “retirement” could end anytime the army wanted it to. But for now, I was retired. And I had no intentions to rush back into the army or onto the warfront where I’d lost so many brothers that I cared about.

I watched Luke drive off before I turned towards the house. Strange. The blinds were pulled down and the lawn was overgrown. My heart sank. Shauna was probably stricken with grief these past few months. She’d had no time to think about the lawn or spring cleaning. Guilt followed.

I went ‘round to the back door which we used the most and knocked on it.

​“I’m home!” I called.

There was no response, not even a sliver of movement from inside the house.

​KNOCK.

KNOCK.

KNOCK.

“I’M HOME!” I raised my voice.

I felt my heart jump. Was it possible that Shauna was out at the grocery store and I’d just arrived at a bad time? Or was she really… gone. I told myself not to jump to the worst conclusions so I knocked again and then I just sat down on the back step.

I didn’t move for four hours. The sun was setting when I broke my disciplined watch. It was clear that she wasn’t home and she wasn’t planning on coming home.

I tried to convince myself then that she’d gone to visit her parents. But Shauna hated her parents. And she knew I was coming back today.

For the first time since I’d arrived on 44 Helen St., I tried the door. It pushed open easily.

I took my first step inside my house since I’d left all those years ago.

It was empty. I inhaled sharply but my body wouldn’t let me push the breath back out to take another one. All our photographs, all our furniture, everything we’d collected over the years together was gone. There was not a single piece of evidence that the house had been inhabited.

I managed to start breathing again. I ran my hand over the empty walls coating my fingers in a thin layer of dust. When I walked into the kitchen, I saw an envelope seated beneath a vase that I’d bought for Shauna from Kuwait and had shipped over specially. She’d left it behind.

I trembled as I grabbed the letter. The weight of it let me know it wasn’t just paper inside. I looked inside and saw her wedding band and the $5,000 engagement ring I’d had custom made for her by a jeweler all the way in Atlanta. My mouth was dry. I didn’t know if I had it in me to open the letter. The emptiness that I felt and the denial that was still pumping through my veins made me slower than molasses in winter.

When I finally got the letter out, I opened it. Shauna’s handwriting was that perfect neat cursive script that I’d marveled at so many times before. I didn’t want to read the words she wrote and I couldn’t read them at first anyways. Tears choked up my eyes and I couldn’t see. My tan face was red hot with shame, with shock, with embarrassment that after all her pleading, in the end I was the one who had been abandoned by her.

All those years in the hot desert sun of the Middle East, fighting for us to have the freedom to live our lives had been worthless. I’d lost the woman I expected to spend the rest of my life with.

Dear Zane.

Those two words alone punched through a layer of my denial. My palms were sweaty so I wiped them off on my khakis before continuing to read it.

I never wanted things to end this way. If you’re reading it, I’ve left Birch and I’ve left Peach. The keys to my chocolate shop are under the flowerpot outside the front door. As you may have guessed by now, I’m gone. This happened suddenly Zane and I can’t bear that I had to leave you like this, but this is the path my life has taken and there’s no going back which is why you found this house empty. I had no choice but to leave like this. Anything else would have been too hard for me.

To give you some closure, I’ll explain how this all ended but you won’t be able to find me again. Don’t try Zane. It will be too painful for me.

Six months ago, I met a man. Well “meet” isn’t exactly the right word as we both know him quite well. Lester Trumbull was always around helping me ‘round the house and assuring me that you’d be back soon. After a while I began to realize that I’d developed feelings for him, feelings unlike anything I’d ever shared for you. I know Lester is your best friend, but I couldn’t help it. As the days passed, I started to love him. And Lester started to love me too.

We were drinking whiskey one night when things went from bad to worse. I convinced myself it could be a one time thing and when you were home from the war, things could go back to the way they were. Life wasn’t fated to happen that way Zane and I’m sorry. But you have to understand, when I made those vows, I didn’t understand that being an army wife would mean waiting for you for so long. It was almost cruel of you to leave me the way you did.

After our one night, I got pregnant. I didn’t want to tell Lester and I sure as sugar couldn’t tell you. You’re the hero fighting for our freedom and I knew I’d just gain a reputation as a cheater. But I’m not a cheater Zane. I really loved Lester. And I decided to keep the child.

Lester tried to convince me we could keep things a secret, but I knew I didn’t want that. I wanted him. Lester inherited about $5 million from his grandpa at that time and how could I say no to that? I know you’ll think this was about money Zane, but it was about love and my baby.

My love for you ended. I know you were waiting for me and I know I should have given you time to talk about things but I couldn’t. This is over. Our love was spectacular. When I was your wife, I had everything I wanted — friends, love from the townspeople and a respectable position in town. Now I want more for myself than being your wife.

I don’t want you to forgive me Zane. I want you to forget me. Move on. Find a small town girl who doesn’t want the world.

Again, I’m sorry.

And I’m sorry I never paid you back the loan for the shop, but Lester and I need it so we can raise our baby. I hope this finds you well.

— Shauna.

I dropped the letter and watched as it floated to the ground. And then I hit the ground with a thud, slipping into a deep unconsciousness.​

Chapter 1

old Wounds

The yarn store on Main Street was sandwiched between a shoe store that had been a town fixture since the Great Depression and a nail salon that never seemed quite clean enough to conduct business in. Dana’s store had opened up exactly two years after her ex-boyfriend Orville had up and left to California.

People in town talked. They whispered that Dana had shot Orville in the foot just like she had one of her old boyfriends. The streets were loud with whispers. But Dana kept her head high just like she always had. The townspeople might have known her, but there were still some parts of her that would always be kept secret.

Bright’s Yarn Shoppe was stocked ceiling to floor with specialty wools shipped from all over the world. Dana’s store was her passion, but the simplicity of it all represented what life was like in Peach. It was always quiet. The most exciting day of the year was the high school’s homecoming game. And nothing ever happened. Much to the chagrin of the white folks in town, Peach was a diverse place. There was still a “white side” of town and a “black side”, but downtown, people of all colors had small shops and mini-marts.

Dana arrived at the store bright and early. When she’d woken up, she’d found the tires to her Chevy slashed again so she’d made her way on foot. After Orville, she’d found herself mixed up with a man named Bart Trumbull. They’d only been on six dates and Dana hadn’t so much as kissed him. But the moment she’d decided to move in a different direction, he had a problem with it. Since then, he’d been growing increasingly more aggressive.

As Dana unlocked the front door to her shop, she thought about how her mother’s portends of good romantic fortune had been 100% false. Cleo was married, but she was still stuck in the small town of Peach daydreaming of a man who would sweep her off her feet. There wasn’t much work to do to open the store. And to tell the truth, Dana had only come early because she couldn’t stand to sit around her house and stay mad over the slashed tires.

She’d already replaced a whole set of four and money was far too tight for her to be digging into her savings account again for another attack. She’d gone to the police about Bart but without any evidence, they refused to take action. Dana thought that the fact Bart’s daddy was a big time military hero in town had a part to do with it. The police force wanted no trouble with the Trumbull family so Dana had to deal with her lot in life — slashed tires and very creepy, lonely walks home in the dead of night.

Light filtered through the window as the sun rose and the dust particles and fiber particles floating in the air became visible. Dana organized her shelf with the new alpaca wool shipment from Ecuador and then head to the back office to start printing the fliers for the year’s upcoming yarn crawl.

Dana had one assistant working the shop with her but she knew Belle well enough to know the girl would be late on Monday morning come hell or high water. Dana couldn’t wait for Belle to get there. After what had happened with her tires, she was worried about walking ‘round town alone.

Bart so far hadn’t seemed so skilled at taking ‘no’ for an answer and Dana worried that he would go too far. Like slashing her tires twice wasn’t already too far. Dana wondered if she would ever break her streak of terrible men. She was tired of getting her own hopes up that things would work out. Maybe Cleo was onto something when it came to men.

Dana knew she was getting close to a proper breakthrough, but she just hadn’t done it yet. Her latest resolution (after Bart had proven to be an abject failure) was that she would stop going after men who were only looking to her for her money. It was time to really move on up in life, especially since her yarn shop was starting to take off.

As the town’s population grew older and as her weekly knitting club had grown to over fifty members, yarn was really starting to take off in Peach. It’s not like there was any real nightlife anyways. (There was just an old bar where the farmhands and construction workers met up after work to shoot the shit and drink whiskey.)

Dana pulled out her journal and started doodling as she looked out the window waiting for Belle to arrive. Dana’s heart stopped when she saw a group of men she’d mistaken for the Trumbull brothers walk by. Luckily, they were just the O’Brien brothers — six Irish Catholic brothers all born less than two years apart from each other. They were the only Catholics in town and the only Irishmen. And they meant no trouble.

The eldest one, Sean, waved at Dana as they walked by, putting her at ease.

Dana returned her attention to her journal and began to sketch out ideas for expanding more of the shelves in her store. Her lines trailed off into butterflies and Dana found herself deep in a fantasy, sketching out a world of magical butterflies and bright beautiful peonies.

A knock at her door startled her out of her reverie and she slammed her journal shut. She looked up but couldn’t see who was at her door.

​“Belle?”

No response.

Dana moved from behind the counter and started to approach the door. She clutched the mace she carried in her pocket but released her grip when she saw there was no harm to her. It wasn’t Belle and (thankfully) it wasn’t Bart either. It was a potential customer.

Or at least that’s what Dana assumed. She didn’t recognize this man at all.

She unlocked the door and opened it.

“Good morning!”​

As Dana looked up to greet her new customer, she couldn’t help but feel surprised. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy she expected to see in a little yarn shop. He was well over 6’4” tall. His hair was thick, coarse and dark brown. His skin was tanned — as if he’d just come by from a Caribbean vacation. His eyes were a brilliant blue color, as bright as the Gulf of Mexico.

“Good morning ma’am. Sorry for bothering you.”​

His accent betrayed him as being Southern.

“It’s no trouble. I should have been open anyways.”

​“Mm,” He grunted.

“My name’s Dana. I’m the owner here. Let me know if I can help you with anything.”​

“Zane. Zane Hunter,” He replied, stretching out his hand to shake hers.

As she grasped his hand and was met with a firm grip, Dana noticed a tiny smile sneaking across Zane’s lips.

“How long have you been in town?” Dana asked.

Zane chuckled, “I’m from Peach.”

“No way!”​

“I am. How long have you been in town.”

“My family moved here a decade ago.”​

Zane grinned, “I was long gone then.”

“Oh.”​

Zane looked around the store.

“Why don’t you show me ‘round this place?” He asked.

Dana nodded. She found it hard to keep her eyes off Zane. He was tall, handsome and he had the fresh scent of a citrusy aftershave on him. She started weaving through the shelves in the store, talking excitedly about the new shipment of yarn from Ecuador, her locally sourced wool, the cashmere they’d imported from California recently and the merino sweater project she was hosting at the end of the month.

Zane seemed to be listening earnestly, but he also seemed far more interested in the look of the place.

“You’ve painted it,” He stated.

Dana wrinkled her nose and nodded.

“Yes. The green that was in here before was… drab. I’m sorry, do you know this place?”​

Zane nodded, “My ex-wife used to own a chocolate shop here.”​

“Oh.”

“Went out of business long before you moved here.”​

“Funny I never heard of it.”

Zane shrugged, “Guess people moved on. So which farms do you get your merino from?”

Dana found his question unusual. He didn’t seem like a knitter. And he didn’t seem like he was really going to buy anything. His questions seemed more like small talk to pass the time. But before Dana could answer his question, Belle entered the shop.

“Sorry I’m late Miss Bright!” ​

Dana and Zane turned to look at her. Belle was dressed like a goth — a messy goth. Her brown skin glowed in the morning light but aside from that she looked a mess. Her relaxed hair was pinned sloppily atop her head. Her eyeliner looked smudged. Her all black outfit paired with high heeled black boots made her stand out in a town of Southern folks who didn’t think outside the box much.

“No problem Belle. I just need you to get the register set up for me this morning. I’m with a customer.”​

Belle caught sight of Zane and she raised her eyebrows.

“Yes ma’am,” She replied and bustled off the the back.

“Sorry about that,” Dana said to Zane.

He smiled at her, “No problem. So. You were telling me about why you decided to open up shop here?”