Pretty Jane (The Browning Series Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  About the Ending

  About the Stars

  About the Music

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PRETTY JANE

  D. Barrett

  For those on the journey,

  And for those looking out for them.

  Copyright © 2018 Dorothy Barrett

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Visit www.dbarrettbooks.com

  Chapter 1

  Beau Browning glanced at his watch, ignoring the recurrent popping he could still hear over the low drone of the plane and the high-pitched hiss of air streaming from the vent above him. He would be landing soon. Only forty minutes left. He could do this. He could just sit there like everyone else in first class and pretend not to notice the girl snapping her gum and reading smut in the seat next to him. Beau tugged at his ears, trying to relieve some of the pressure in his head.

  “Want a piece?”

  She’d set her book down and was reaching inside her studded leather jacket. Beau caught a flash of a naval piercing right before she waved a silver stick in his face like an olive branch. Beau ignored both, averting his eyes to the laptop that sat open on his tray table. He had several hundred missed emails from work, a five-year-old son booked for an autism screening tomorrow, and one freaked-out ex waiting for him in Baton Rouge.

  In other words, he had zero interest in kicking it with his cousin’s bratty former stepdaughter. Unfortunately, Grayson Browning IV, aka the Colonel, had tasked Beau with this babysitting gig after being unpredictably detained in California.

  It was hard enough for Beau to deny the man a favor during ordinary circumstances, but with the Colonel’s brother, George, currently lying in a Sacramento hospital after being shot in front of them twenty-four hours ago, Beau couldn’t have refused. Now here he sat, escorting the pest beside him home to Louisiana.

  Said pest eyed him sulkily, the olive branch in her hand lowering. “Whatever,” she drawled as Beau made an obvious show of checking the TAG Heuer on his wrist again, “they’re your eardrums.” She spat her gum in his apple-cranberry juice, unwrapped the new stick in her hands, and popped it in her mouth.

  Beau took a sip of his drink, ignoring the wad floating in his glass and the warm thigh vibrating against his khakis with increasing hostility. The trick with a girl like her was to not show any sign that any of the annoying-as-fuck things she did were actually annoying the fuck out of you. He’d been fairly successful at this so far.

  Beau went back to reading his mail.

  She went back to reading her porn.

  This lasted all of about five minutes before she slapped the book back down in a huff. “That’s it! I just can’t concentrate on Dagger and Halley with you sitting there all butt-hurt the way you are.”

  Butt-hurt? Maybe he hadn’t been quite as successful as he thought. Beau turned to the girl beside him. This was his first mistake.

  Once you looked at her, there was really no ignoring PJ Bruister. She just sucked you in. And not in a good way. Beau cringed. Good God! Definitely not in a good way. It was really more of a scary-as-hell black hole kind of way. Like all the layers of makeup had some weird magnetic pull, and once you saw them, there was just no way to unsee them.

  She blinked at him now, two unnaturally long sets of pink lashes fluttering against a cloud of blue eye shadow that stretched from one of her temples to the other like a mask. Her lips were twisted in irritation, the top one purple with sparkles, the bottom full and painted black.

  Beau took his glasses off and set them on his keyboard. This was his second mistake. The sight before him wasn’t any less jarring with reduced vision. PJ’s strange mismatched lips settled into a sheepish grin as she sighed.

  “Look, I’m sorry I yelled at you, okay?” She shrugged as though her tantrum that morning outside the airport in Sacramento couldn’t have been helped. “Maybe the argyle asshole thing was a little out of line. I’m guessing since you haven’t said one word to me since we left California, it might have hit a nerve.”

  It hadn’t. Not really. But, honestly, being insulted about one’s personal style choices was pretty rich coming from a chick wearing a dog collar with a Hello Kitty T-shirt. And what the hell? He was an accountant. Argyle was expected.

  PJ rolled her eyes at his sweater-vest like it was somehow far more offensive than the neon-green leggings she’d paired with her miniskirt. “Fine. Don’t say anything. See if I care. I’ve said my piece. Now I can go about my business.” As PJ reached for her book again, Beau made his third and final mistake. He said something.

  “Maybe I just don’t like talking to you.”

  As soon as the words slipped out, Beau could feel himself moving past the event horizon. For a second, PJ’s black-brown eyes shimmered with some crazy, indecipherable emotion, something far more intense in its rawness than any of the wild colors she’d brushed over her skin. Then it was gone.

  “Yes, you do,” she said, smiling victoriously.

  “No. Honestly, I don’t.” Beau rubbed at his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in three days, and the scruff there bothered him almost as much as she did.

  PJ tracked his movements with fascination, her gaze darting from his chin to his hand and then back up to his eyes. “Why?”

  Beau slapped his hand down irritably. “Because every time I do, I find out shit I don’t like.” She arched a brow at him, waiting for him to elaborate. Beau was more than happy to oblige. He leaned over the armrest until he was close enough for his words to be unmistakable. “So we’re clear? You conning the Colonel into letting you go to California with us and pretending to be interested in rescuing his nephew’s girlfriend, when all you really wanted to do was hook up with your boy-toy, Andy, in San Diego? That is the type of shit I don’t like, Prudence.”

  PJ tensed beside him, her hold tightening on her book. He sensed she wanted to deny it, to argue with him just like she had on the ride to SMF that morning.

>   Andy’s only a friend… We just want to catch up… It won’t take that long…

  Beau stared her down, practically daring her to lay that crock on him again. But after a few seconds of silent fuming, all she said was, “My name isn’t Prudence.”

  Beau knew this of course. He called her by the nickname just to irritate her. What PJ’s initials actually stood for was a mystery to him. One he really wasn’t all that concerned with figuring out at the moment. Shifting back in his seat, Beau took another bored sip of his juice. “Don’t care.”

  PJ snapped her gum one last time before swallowing it. Then she leaned towards him. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “you really are an asshole.” She looked down at the book she clutched, a wicked smile forming as she tapped the half-naked dude on its cover. “You kind of remind me of Dagger.”

  Beau grimaced and tugged on his ears again. “Dagger?” What the fuck? Did she mean Jagger? Maybe he wasn’t hearing her right; the pressure was still messing with his head. Damn. She was messing with his head.

  “Yeah, he’s got a blade inked on his—”

  “Please stop talking.”

  “More shit you don’t want to know about?” Her tongue darted up to that purple lip as her grin widened.

  Hells, yes it was. Beau rubbed his neck as he frowned. “You shouldn’t be reading that stuff.”

  She moved next to him, rooting around in her pocket again. This time her hand came out with a travel-sized packet of Tylenol. Tearing it open with her teeth, she shook a couple tablets onto his table and snorted as he glared at her. “Why?” she asked for the second time.

  The word agitated Beau — for a couple of reasons. First, she said it like a kid asking him why the sky was blue, as if she genuinely didn’t know and needed him to explain some great mystery of the universe. And that made him sad. Which subsequently made him mad because he wasn’t her brother, and he sure as hell wasn’t her father, and yet someone needed to watch out for this girl because it was painfully obvious that her parents hadn’t done any better of a job raising her than his cousin had during the three years she’d lived with him.

  And second, Beau had a little boy waiting for him back home who’d never once asked him why the sky was blue, and Max was the one person in the world he would have loved explaining it to.

  Beau snatched the pills from his tray. Then he chugged them down with the rest of PJ’s Snapple as she continued to stare at him with that big fat why in her eyes. “You’re too young,” he told her gruffly. “You’re only seventeen.”

  She watched him with a bemused expression as she twirled one of the long blond braids sticking out from her beanie. “So? You’re only twenty-six, and you like to wear grandpa sweaters. You don’t hear me hollering at you to take them off.” PJ snorted as her gaze slipped to his Lacoste. “Might be kinda hot if ya did though—”

  “Jesus.” Beau shoved his tray table back a few inches, then tilted his face up to the vent, praying for some patience. And for the plane to land soon.

  “Ugh! Fine.” PJ leaned over him and tossed her book to the lady seated across the aisle. “Looks like she’s old enough.”

  The woman was probably in her seventies and appeared about as startled by the new reading material that had landed in her lap as Beau felt about the girl suddenly stretched over his.

  “You go on and keep it,” PJ said, motioning towards the book. “I’ve already read that one.”

  “Oh my…” The lady pushed up her glasses as she read the blurb on the back. “I suppose it does sound a bit more interesting than the in-flight magazine.”

  “It is.” PJ winked at the woman before turning her attention back to Beau. “Happy now?”

  He wasn’t. Not even a little. The studs on her jacket were clawing at his sweater, the spicy scent of her breath was assaulting his senses, and one of her braids was dangling over his crotch. And she was smiling at him.

  Screw it. If she wanted to act like a brat, he would treat her like one. Beau rocked forward with adrenaline singing in his veins. PJ reacted immediately, jerking straight into his tray table and nearly upending the last of his drink. He managed to catch it, but not before cold sticky juice had splattered the skin between his thumb and index finger, and little droplets of red had pelted the stark white cuff of his shirt.

  PJ shot back to her seat, her lips parting in surprise. She stared at the mess, then his hand as he lifted it to his mouth. Beau tasted the sweet tartness of the juice between his fingers. He also tasted a hint of cinnamon. That, along with her rapt expression, was pretty much the last straw.

  Beau rolled back his sleeves with deathly calm, turned, and braced his left palm against the girl’s headrest. “I’m really going to need you to behave, Prudence. Do you think you can be a big girl and manage not to scream, spit, throw, or spill anything until your mommy comes to pick you up from the airport in the next” — he glanced at his watch — “thirty-six minutes?”

  For a second, he saw that look again, that strange ripple of vulnerability that had PJ’s cheeks growing red under all her makeup. It was a look that made him feel every inch the sweater-wearing asshole she’d accused him of being earlier. But then her bratty mouth compressed in a way that suggested she was sorely tempted to do one of the things he’d just rattled off, and suddenly Beau no longer cared he was being a dick. Because the girl shrugging next to him as she swiped at her phone certainly didn’t inspire gentlemanly behavior. Especially since she’d just sent him a great big “up yours” with her eyes as she tapped the icon for her e-reader app.

  Beau saw a dude flash across the screen, another tatted up guy with photoshopped pecs and a douchey smirk, and for some crazy reason, Beau had a sudden urge to slam his fist down on the fucker’s face.

  PJ must have sensed his intent because she scooped up the device and fired a warning glance in his direction. “I can behave,” she drawled sarcastically. “But just so we’re clear” — she smiled again, this time showing teeth — “if you touch my phone… I’ll bite.”

  Chapter 2

  “Miss Bruister, I do believe you’re going to be expelled.”

  No shit. PJ peered up from her phone long enough to take in the woman who’d materialized before her in the headmistress’s office of the Christian Sisters Academy on Lakeshore Drive. She certainly wasn’t her principal, nor did she look like any of the usual old crones that ran the administrative wing of the boarding school PJ attended. This woman was younger and rounder, with smooth tan skin and glowing brown eyes only a few shades darker. She didn’t look much older than PJ’s mom.

  PJ glanced back at her phone. Where the hell was Francine anyways? PJ had only reminded her three fucking times about the expulsion meeting that morning. She needed to be there to sign the usual paperwork.

  “Ahem.”

  PJ looked back up. The lady was still there, eyeing the device in PJ’s hand a lot like Beau had glared at it on that fun little flight home four days ago. PJ hadn’t been lying about the biting thing. She did have a history of violence, which was most definitely why she was about to be expelled from Christian Sisters Academy. It was also why she’d felt a strong inclination to sink her teeth into the dead sexy scowl of the dude that had been sitting next to her on that flight. Whether he touched her phone or not.

  “AHEM!”

  PJ jerked, her mind wrenched from the gutter by the curvy Jennifer Lopez—looking chick now perched on the corner of Principal Dulton’s desk. She didn’t seem to enjoy being ignored. PJ cast one last glance at her phone, tossed it in her backpack, and turned her full attention to the woman.

  “We need to have a talk, Miss Thang.”

  PJ bristled at the attitude. Who the hell was this chick?

  J-Lo Lady smirked as she smoothed a hand over the breast pocket of her blouse.

  PJ was surprised she’d missed the badge clipped there considering the impressive string of stars underlining the words engraved upon it. MS. IVY ESPINOZA, COUNSELOR, OS. PJ frowned as she read the
name, once again feeling certain she hadn’t seen the woman around Dulton’s office before; she’d been there often enough in the past several months to be sure.

  PJ had transferred to CSA towards the end of her junior year after getting kicked out of her previous high school for starting a moderately sized, but carefully controlled, protest fire. Since starting at Christian Sisters, she’d actually been fairly behaved until this most recent incident. In fact, up until this most recent incident, all PJ had ever been hauled in for was her excessive use of makeup, which was apparently in violation of some dumb-ass dress code policy designed to strip her of her inalienable right to express herself creatively through cosmetics. PJ cracked her gum and squinted at the lady on Dulton’s desk. “Are you new here or something?”

  Ivy Espinoza waved a hand, blatantly ignoring her question. “Look, we appreciate that you’ve been trying.”

  We? Who was “we”?

  PJ scanned the room. To her right was a small sofa near a window facing the dorms, to her left, a bouncy IKEA chair. Neither were filled with the usual faculty members who showed up for these types of events. Why was everyone late today? People could talk all they wanted about PJ’s aggressive tendencies, but PJ was never late for things. And she didn’t forget shit.

  Ivy sighed. “At least you didn’t burn anything this time…”

  PJ snorted. New or not, Ivy had obviously done her homework. That book-burning deal was one of her most unreasonable expulsions to date as far as PJ was concerned. What the hell had her old librarian at Treymont High expected she would do after he’d confiscated her preferred form of popular fiction during an afternoon spent in detention? Had the jerk seriously thought she’d sit idly by and silently sustain-read that Laura Ingalls Wilder crap he’d plopped down on the table in front of her? No fucking way. By the end of the day, PJ had tracked down every copy of Little House on the Prairie in the school’s library, dumped the lot of them in a conspicuously located garbage can, and lit that shit up.

  “Perhaps you could have exercised a little more restraint on this one.”