Everything But Perfect, page 1
Everything but Perfect
Jevenna Willow
Everything but Perfect
copyright Jevenna Willow
2015
Cover art JY Creations
All rights reserved.
All characters, places, and situations are made up in the mind of the author and represent no one known, or otherwise.
This is a work of fiction.
Copyright infringement of this book is punishable by law.
I would like to thank a wonderful woman who not
only reads my books, but gives great advice and
correction when needed.
Thank You, Patricia
Chapter One
Overly filthy? Well, that was just one of many problems that went along with a routine screwed by fate.
Cheyanne Ribbons glanced down at the ever-present stains on her well-worn jeans. She’d pulled the short straw late last night, and stains were now accompanied by encrusting and substantially pronounced white sugar from a deliciously tempting doughnut.
The new dig sight had produced nothing. Oh sure, there were the usual artifacts, bits of broken pottery, and a few small bones amounting to those of consumed animals—the whatnot of an archeological occupation. Other than that, she’d spent the better part of her day in patient wait for the courier to arrive from the State University. He was to take back with extreme caution what amounted to nothing more than an exasperating waste of her time. Adding to that, the insurmountable frustrations at giving the man explicit instructions, that if he so much as even chipped off a tiny piece of the pot, she would be the first in line to kill him; whereas, he had quickly handed over the sugar doughnut before she’d been capable of gaining her wish.
Ugh, men!
The prime of her life, when everything was still where it was supposed to be, still useable, and still desired by men—what an absolute waste of four years, surrounded by men.
She frowned, licking her fingertips free of the remaining sustenance, gaining what she could by an ill-gotten fried concoction. This was the last place on earth she’d thought she would get to enjoy the treat. Benghazi wasn’t exactly known for doughnut making, now was it?
Though a sugar high would get her past the point of a downward turn in her mood, it certainly would not allow her to forget. No. Somehow, that seemed to go on and on. She was being forced to remember life’s rules, and those rules sucked.
She lived for the rare and unusual just beyond the next level of sand; longed for that truly incredible feeling of her breath expelling so rapidly from her lungs, while holding in the palm of her hand what God buried for centuries past; a new hope of something unknown, perhaps someone unknown. After all, she was not the best in her field for naught. One of New York’s finest archeologists, they said. Dammit! Not this time.
There simply was not enough sugar in the world to take the sting of what was happening to her away.
Another of her famous soul-searching sighs released, she raised her dirt-smudged hand to wipe off the evidence of a stolen breakfast. Her rough skin was a deep golden brown from time spent in the elements, her long, auburn hair blew in the gentle—albeit, hot African breeze. She waited with trepidation for the train to arrive, adjusting the strap of her duffel higher on her shoulder.
Today she would not be able to hold her head high, write any speeches, or bore her associates to tears, this done on more than one occasion, and damn, that hurt to acknowledge the loss. What she needed to do was bury her head in the sand and pretend life didn’t suck.
Looking directly into the failing sunlight for a telltale sign that the train was on schedule, knowing it could be hours if something went wrong father down the line; they were hours she did not want to waste while on a people-infested platform, wishing she could disappear.
Good God! Was that a man holding four dead chickens in his hand?
Cheyanne grimaced, withdrawing her gaze. She did not intend to sit on the train next to any man with chickens dead, or alive.
She quickly meandered among the crowd, avoiding unnecessary poultry encounters. The sweaty bodies were filling the platform in rapid haste. Sun-bronzed hides with patience in their hearts awaited the passage to Cairo without complaint.
Somehow, their existence was suffocating her.
Her stomach tied in knots for days, her mind preoccupied, distracted beyond normalcy, she hadn’t been thinking about the dig site. Nor, any new discoveries someone else might make while she was gone.
After four long years in the hot African sun, she was heading home. Not that she’d ever entertained or even wished for this to happen. She was going back because a summons came to her via the courier. She was to return, ASAP, no questions asked.
The bitter aftertaste of disgust settled too long on her tongue, fueling her fury. The way the summons came, by University hands, stung her insides. Her father, head of the Geology department, Joe Ribbons hadn’t been amused his youngest daughter happily abandoned the bosom of her family four years prior, leaving for Africa to search for historical artifacts. In fact, his Ribbons temper nearly caused him a heart attack.
Yeah, right. He dying a normal man’s way would have been beneath him. Father and daughter never saw eye to eye, on just about everything. Besides, demanding men do not die. They thrive on the blood of those they control.
Still, he had said, quite clearly, she was not to leave without his permission. If that had not been enough to drive the wedge further into their strained relationship, nothing could.
In the dead of night, she bolted out the door, never looking back. She took with her four of her co-workers: Carl Dorn, Dick Lemane, Fred Geovanni, and Angel Baker. They all crammed into Geovanni’s musty old Buick, with very little baggage between the five, boarded a plane, and went straight for Benghazi. Life had to be lived, and Benghazi was the place to go—archeologically speaking.
She never looked back. The others might have, but she could not put her heart in any particular direction without it being painful. It was not until halfway across the Atlantic Ocean when she fell into a small fit of tears.
Perhaps her rash decision to leave comfort and security had been a little too rash. Now, four years later, she was glad she did what she thought she had to do. The world knew her, when before, she’d been nobody.
She’d nearly broken Angel’s heart in his attempt to win her over, however.
Cheyanne headstrong with her convictions, Angel Baker equally stubborn, he was no match for a woman hell-bent on defiance. He’d allowed her the space she needed and had developed into her one true friend—her best friend. Now, as she again stared off, looking for the train, it was Angel she found at the end of the platform, his eyes searching for her. He ran up to her and she threw her arms around his neck, dropping her duffel.
He was much taller than she was, almost a good foot. Four years of digging hard-pack had toned his muscles, tanned his skin, and increased the potency of his good looks. Never mind he was so blonde, the sun was jealous.
Angel was a damn good sight to see, but he was Angel, and that meant more to her than exploring a relationship with him. Turning him into a lover would have complicated a lot more than she had the energy to waste.
“You would not be leaving without saying goodbye, would you?” he asked.
Her eyes moved quickly over his rugged features, her heart breaking in two. Saying goodbye to the rest of the team had been easy. Saying goodbye to Angel was tearing her apart.
“I tried waiting for you,” she sputtered out. Dammit! She knew she would break down the moment she had to let him go. “I didn’t think you would make it.”
She locked her fingers tightly around his neck, holding on for dear life. Seeing him like this had started her on a fast, downhill roll, with no recovery in sight.
“What? And let you skip town, without as much as a kiss?”
“Oh, Angel…I don’t want to go. Not back there.”
The gathering crowd was sending her a variety of curious stares. How little they knew what awaited her once home, or that forced into doing something she detested was beyond her emotional control.
The word home was listed right up there with other four letter words unspeakable to her.
“You have to go,” Angel reassured. “It’ll drive you insane not knowing why they want you home.” He moved his strong hands up to capture those nearly strangling his neck, pulling Cheyanne’s down to his well-muscled chest. From there, he set them on his heart.
“And we can’t have an insane archeologist, can we?”
“I could stay here…he can’t find me here,” she pleaded. “Not if I try hard enough to hide.”
“It wouldn’t do you any good, and you know it. No matter where you are, where you hide, eventually he will find you. Go home Cheyanne, but just make damn sure you come back as soon as you can.” Angel’s gentle smile did not reach his eyes, however. There was a lot he wasn’t saying, keeping it bottled up.
He was trying to protect her.
“We’ll save you at least one good spot.” An ongoing joke between the five, for all the good spots was hers, first and foremost.
Smiling at his carefree face, she set her slender hands on either side of his unshaven cheeks, pulling his head down to hers, and then placed her lips against those that were equally as sunburned and chapped. Angel’s startled mouth closed over hers quickly. An embrace that certainly held back more than it gave; not once, over the last four years had she dared kiss him. Not even a friendly peck, given out
Still, she needed this one moment alone with him. This one moment just to be sure. She needed to feel the loss, permanently she supposed.
Certainly never expecting fireworks to go off, no rockets, no bright twinkling stars, no sudden shockwaves that stopped normal breathing, she was not disappointed when his kiss did not even set a spark.
With this one uncomplicated first and final kiss, it was a given Angel would be her very best friend. It made it that much easier to leave his embrace when the train pulled into the station.
“I’ll write to you every day,” she promised, her voice loud over the noise.
Angel helped her onto the train. “No, you won’t,” he teased lightly, grabbing for her hand one last time.
“Then every other day,” she offered, giving his fingers a squeeze.
Again, the telltale moisture built behind her lids as she watched her dear friend’s face mix with the desire to add something she did not want to hear, to already spoken words he’d said late last night.
“Cheyanne, my love, you will not find the time even to pick up a pen, let alone remember who you left behind.”
“I will never forget who I left behind.”
As the Egyptian Express blew its whistle again, she had to let him go, boarding with the other passengers. Moments later, the wheels started to move. Cheyanne knew she was likely never to see Angel’s golden head anytime soon. The train picked up speed and within a New York minute he was gone from her life for good.
Succumbing to what she considered fate, she numbly moved forward. A vacant seat by the window, she sat down, glancing out. Her beloved Africa was passing by in a filth-covered blur.
Benghazi was about to be a distant memory in her heart, nothing more. To hold onto it would just make this all the more painful.
Settling her thoughts, she stuffed her duffel under her legs and leaned back into the seat. It was simply too heart wrenching; gazing upon all that she had grown to love—most of it streaming by her head.
She closed her eyes for the long journey, and groaning, slouched down on the seat. She fell asleep almost instantaneously. One sugar doughnut in her system was not enough to keep her awake through something as dreadful as what lie ahead.
Three hours later, she found her head lying on someone else’s shoulder. Hell had no chance with the glare coming from his eyes. Unsmiling, and a bit self-condemning, he was not all amused she’d used him as a pillow. He raised his hand and shoved her head off the very second she could comprehend what she had done.
“I—I truly am sorry,” she stammered out.
She drew her gaze away and stared straight ahead, trying to settle her heart. The rest of what should have been said remained trapped in her throat. Cheyanne was not that easy to shock, much less from a lethal glare from a handsome man, but there were times when things she had to consider as ‘a first’ happened to her.
His initial glare still felt cold against her skin.
Four years she’d been living in very close quarters with men. She knew testosterone glares. Nevertheless, she felt her armor dented. Cripes! Had he never fallen asleep in a strange place?
She held back her swift retort, but the adrenaline in her wanted to smack his obvious arrogance right off his non-smiling face.
Hard lines of stress around tightly drawn lips, hair of warm mocha, and eyes to match—he watched with almost seemingly fascination the heat color her cheeks, yet he said nothing to make her feel as though he would accept an apology.
Cheyanne swallowed the hard lump in her throat and tried to acknowledge her mistake. She was quite adamant he could not possibly be angry with her. Perhaps another attempt at being nice, tongue in cheek, would smooth out his ruffled feathers. It certainly could not hurt.
“I really am sorry,” she said.
“I really don’t care.”
What? Not even a facial twitch to warn her of something like that? Maybe he could not understand much of her English. If so, she could not speak Benghazi, even after four years of living among the natives.
He then grumbled, “And you should be sorry.” His jaw clenched harder than before, he crossed his arms over his massive chest, and then scrunched down in his seat. Ten seconds later, his eyelids closed, and she heard the distinct rumble of gentle snoring.
You should be sorry?
Why, of all the nerve…
These words stewed in her brain for the next ten minutes; marinated into incomprehensible limitations.
It was not her fault that her head had found a comfortable pillow. Well, it was, but that was a moot point. One can’t plan something like controlling the body, if so dead tired a bomb could have gone off, and she wouldn’t have heard it. Jeez! He acted as if she had made it a life goal to board this train just to piss him off. Did he purposely forget she’d fallen asleep well before he took the seat next to her? She was damn certain it had been empty when closing her eyes.
Dealing with a man who could not accept an apology was now topping her list of things to avoid. That, and venomous snakebites, of which she had dealt with just last month and survived. She tugged her large duffel out from under her legs, placed it on her lap, hoping against hope he could allow her out of her seat. The insufferable man never moved an inch. His eyes closed, his breathing slowed…Dear God, had he truly fallen asleep?
She highly doubted anyone could fall asleep that fast. The adrenaline of too much testosterone alone should have kept him awake, for months to come.
Clearing her throat, to no avail, he still would not budge.
There was only one solution to an enormous problem. She glanced back to see if anyone was in the seat behind her, found no one, and smiling, climbed over the seat to step out into the aisle, unharmed. Curious onlookers were giving her doubt to be lady-like after a stunt like that. Nevertheless, she headed for the dining car with nary a glance back.
Famished, she ordered then waited for her food. Moments later, an Egyptian waiter brought out curried goat, steamed bell peppers and rice, accompanied with a glass of wine.
Cheyanne dove into her meal with little regard for propriety. Over the course of four long years, her crew had lived on tins and dehydrated meals. An oddity was fresh fruit and vegetables.
Her mouth watered in anticipation to every bite put near her lips. Swallowing most without breathing, she would have licked the plate clean, had others not been watching her. There were so many dark eyes curious to her every move.
Not once was she acknowledgeable that someone was watching her as if she were a spoilt child standing too close to an unsupervised candy dish, from just two tables away.
****
Amusement reached the shadowed features of cheeks covered in a day’s worth of stubble, as Mitch Lavede waited with coffee in hand until certain she would order nothing further. He rose from his seat and headed directly to her table. Perhaps to repent his earlier sins? Then again, perhaps not. After all, the day was still young. He had plenty of time to make the most of it, and sin like hell if needed.
She pushed away her plate and leaned back against the well-worn upholstery, her heavy sigh bringing a smile to his face.
“Don’t tell me you’re not ordering dessert?” he said, startling her.
She visibly jumped, her clouded gaze raised to his. “Excuse me?”
Mitch had no trouble looking at her, as she seemingly had trouble looking at him. Rather, he looked her over, head to toe. He stopped on certain points of interest, and then continued, undaunted.
He had to push himself to make conversation with her, when he’d rather be taking her back to his sleeping car and using his time wisely. Women on trains in foreign countries were into doing wild and crazy things on the other side of the world; the farther away from home, the crazier.
He sat down and introduced himself. When he wanted something, he always took the lead in order to get it, brazen or not.
“Mitch Lavede…and you are?”
“Not interested.”
Her words said this, but her eyes could not back up the lie.
“I am not asking you on a date. I only asked what your name is.”
