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  Praise for

  Butterfly Bayou

  “Lila’s strength and vulnerability are balanced by Armie’s intelligence and humor, making them an easy couple to root for. Blake captures the flavor of her colorful Southern town with a vividly drawn cast. . . . This charming series opener hits all the right notes.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Blake has created a couple to root for, along with memorable supporting characters and story lines with depth. Readers will be eager to visit Papillon again.”

  —Library Journal

  Praise for

  Lexi Blake

  “Lexi Blake is a master!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst

  “I love Lexi Blake.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lee Child

  “Smart, savvy, clever, and always entertaining.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry

  “Lexi Blake has set up shop on the intersection of suspenseful and sexy, and I never want to leave.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Laurelin Paige

  Titles by Lexi Blake

  THE BUTTERFLY BAYOU NOVELS

  Butterfly Bayou

  Bayou Baby

  Bayou Dreaming

  THE COURTING JUSTICE NOVELS

  Order of Protection

  Evidence of Desire

  THE LAWLESS NOVELS

  Ruthless

  Satisfaction

  Revenge

  THE PERFECT GENTLEMEN NOVELS

  (with Shayla Black)

  Scandal Never Sleeps

  Seduction in Session

  Big Easy Temptation

  A JOVE BOOK

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by DLZ Entertainment, LLC

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9781984806611

  First Edition: December 2020

  Cover images by Shutterstock

  Cover design and photo illustration by Vikki Chu

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  contents

  Cover

  Praise for Lexi Blake

  Titles by Lexi Blake

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  To Kori—who loves dogs far more than people . . .

  prologue

  PAPILLON, LOUISIANA

  Four years ago

  Zep Guidry closed the door to his truck with a grin and wondered if the news he was about to tell his mother would actually give her a heart attack.

  After all, she wasn’t used to good news about the youngest of her children.

  He’d sown a few wild oats in his time, though not nearly as many as his reputation would have people believe. The truth was he’d had something of a wild youth, but that was going to come to an end. Oh, he would still drink and party. After all, what was life without a party?

  But he was finally going to get serious about something.

  He winced because the thing he was getting serious about was what might cause his mother’s coronary. She would laugh at first, thinking he was joking, and then would come that expression that let him know she wasn’t sure about this. He was going to get serious about higher education. The big envelope had come today. He’d picked it up at the post office box he’d rented a few years back because as much as he loved his momma, she was nosy about everything. She would open his mail without qualm, and he’d wanted a bit of privacy.

  Especially for this.

  His momma knew he’d been taking classes at a community college, but she didn’t know how serious he’d gotten about it. Half the time the classes were online since they were so remote out here, so he hadn’t even needed to leave his apartment over the garage. What she didn’t know was he’d applied to finish up his degree at a four-year university, and he had plans that went beyond that.

  He knew his small family would have supported him, but he hadn’t trusted himself to actually finish. The last thing he’d wanted to do was start something else he didn’t complete.

  There was a joke around town that the only thing Zep Guidry knew how to finish was a beer.

  He was tired of being that guy.

  He would complete his associate degree in a few weeks, and that big envelope from LSU had made his hands shake.

  He was in. He could work part time and had some money saved up. He’d managed to pay his own way through community college by doing odd jobs. Most of which he had finished. It wasn’t his fault that Dean LeRoux’s old cypress tree turned out to be full of very aggressive bees.

  He would complete his undergraduate degree at LSU and figure out where to go from there. All he knew was that he wanted to work with animals. If he got his degree, he would have choices he hadn’t dreamed of before. He might even think about going all the way and becoming a vet.

  Was he really going to do this? Was he going to walk in and announce to two women who thought he was mostly a moron that he was going to try to finish college? Would they laugh at him? They wouldn’t mean to, but it might slip out. Hell, he knew it sounded like a pipe dream.

  But he wanted to try.

  It was the right time. Everything seemed to have settled down. His big brother had left the Navy and was happy in his new job in Dallas. Sera wasn’t exactly happy, but she was trying to find the right career for herself. She would stay and help out their mother.

  Now was the perfect time to try something for himself.

  He jogged up the front steps of the house he’d lived in all his life. When he’d been younger, he’d had the room next to his sister’s. When Remy had gone into the Navy, he’d moved into the apartment over the garage.

  What would it be like to live on his own? He would likely need a roommate. Maybe he could find some gorgeous young lady who could help him through chemistry.

  God, he was going to take chemistry. He hoped he could charm the professor.

  He was going to college. He would be the first Guidry to get a degree.

  He would go to college, get his degree, and then come home because he loved this place. Maybe he could get a job with the park rangers or Wildlife and Fisheries. He could open a shelter close to here because they always had animals that needed help. He could make himself useful.

  All of his life he’d loved animals. Probably liked them way more than humans. Animals didn’t judge a man on anything but how he treated them. Animals didn’t care about a man’s past or who his family was. They didn’t care that he didn’t come from money or didn’t seem to have much of a future.

  The lights from the house glowed against the velvety night. He would miss this place while he was gone, but there was something deep inside that told him he could do this. He could be something more than the screw-up second son.

  He got his key out and opened the door.

  A soft sob caught his attention, and he looked to his left. His mother and sister were sitting on the sofa, his momma’s hand on Sera’s back.

  Sera looked up and her face was red, cheeks streaked with tears.

  He was going to kill whoever put that expression on his sister’s face. His mom looked concerned, but she wasn’t crying. If some great tragedy had occurred, his mother would be crying, too, so this was about Sera. And if his sister was crying, it was likely because some asshole had broken her heart.

  “What’s going on?” He kept his voice soft. He could raise it to the asshole, but he would be gentle with these two women. They’d been the center of his life for so long. Without his father or brother around, they’d been everything to him.

  His mom looked at his sister, who nodded.

  “You should sit down, Zep.” His mom gestured to the seat beside Sera. “Sera’s got something she needs to tell you.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Two hours later, Zep still sat on the sofa, his head reeling and all of his plans changed. He should have remembered how quickly the world could turn upside down and leave him in a place he hadn’t planned on being. It had happened so often, but he’d forgotten.

  His sister was pregnant, and she’d claimed the father wasn’t in the picture and likely wouldn’t be.

  Sera was going to be a single mom.

  Sera was going to need help.

  His mother walked back in, her expression weary. She sank down to the couch beside him. “She’s cried herself to sleep. I think rest is exactly what she needs right now. Things will look better in the morning.”

  That was his mother. When his father had passed, she’d been stalwart. She’d gone from a coddled and indulged stay-at-home mom to working every minute of the day to make sure there was food on the table.

  “Sera doesn’t have any insurance.” He stared at the wall ahead, the ramifications crashing down on him.

  His mom sniffled. “No, she doesn’t. But we can apply for aid. I’m more worried about her car. It’s on its last legs. Mine isn’t reliable anymore, either. I almost never drive now.”

  Driving made his mother nervous. He or Sera or one of her friends tended to take her places she needed to go. “The clinic isn’t so far, Momma.”

  “No, but Doc isn’t an obstetrician,” she pointed out. “We don’t have one here. Doc can handle some of the early visits but we’ll have to go to Houma later on and we’ll have to go to the hospital when the time comes.” His mother rubbed her hands together, a sure sign she was worried. “I have to buy a new car. We can’t break down. And there will be other expenses. I’ve been meaning to get a job. I get bored hanging around the house all day.”

  She didn’t. She loved her retirement, loved hanging out with her friends and being one of the town’s crazy old ladies, as she put it. That was what her life was supposed to be about now. She’d done her work. She was supposed to rest.

  His mind raced, trying to invent a way out of the trap he found himself in. This was his sister’s problem, not his. He wasn’t the one in trouble. They owned the house. His mother wouldn’t need a ton of money, and she might enjoy working at the family restaurant again. His cousin would surely let her take some shifts. They would work out a payment plan for a reliable car and any other expenses. Sera could drive herself. He didn’t need to do anything but follow his own path. This was his life. He should live it the way he wanted to.

  “Hey, baby, what’s that?”

  She was looking at the big envelope he’d left facedown on the coffee table.

  He picked it up and tucked it between the pillows. “It’s nothing. Just some paperwork for my graduation.”

  His graduation from community college. His only graduation. There would be no LSU in his future. Not for a while.

  Because this wasn’t merely his life. It was theirs. The Guidrys. His sister’s trouble was his trouble. His mother’s worries could be halved if he took his part.

  She smiled, a weak, watery expression. “Oh, that’s so wonderful. It will be good to have something to celebrate . . .”

  His mom broke down and he shoved all his plans aside. This woman had been everything when he’d needed her to be.

  He couldn’t be less for her. He wrapped his arms around her. “It’s going to be all right, Momma. You’ll see. We’ll work something out with Doc Hamet and make sure Sera’s taken care of. And you’ll have a sweet baby to love on.”

  “I will love that baby,” she said. “But I wanted so much more for my girl. I didn’t think it would be like this. I was hoping she could go to college.”

  His sister had graduated from high school and then drifted around jobs for a few years while most of her friends had gone to college. They would all be graduating next year and looking forward to starting their futures.

  Sera’s started now.

  He took a deep breath and squeezed her tight. “We’ll all love that baby and we’ll be okay.”

  He would be okay. After all, it had been a pipe dream to think he could get through college.

  But he could be a good son. He could be a good brother.

  That was all that mattered now.

  * * *

  * * *

  MANHATTAN

  One year later

  Roxanne King-Nelson looked at her husband and felt something inside her break. “What do you mean you buried my complaint?”

  Joel Nelson sighed—a long-suffering sound that set her teeth on edge. He’d used that particular sound around her a lot lately. Four years into their marriage and he looked at her like she was more trouble than she was worth. But then they didn’t have much of a marriage anymore. Maybe they never had. “I talked to your captain and he’s agreed this doesn’t have to go any further.”

  She stood in his well-appointed office and realized there were no pictures of the two of them. Oh, there was a beautifully framed photo of Joel standing with her and her family, but she’d started to suspect that her family and its long ties and reputation with the upper echelon of the NYPD had been far more important than any attraction he’d had to her.

  After all, now that she had a problem with her sergeant, he wasn’t exactly taking her side. Joel worked directly for the chief and served as a liaison with any number of city agencies. He was perfectly placed to help her but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen.

  When he’d called and asked her to meet him at his office at One Police Plaza, she’d hoped he’d wanted to talk about how to move forward. She’d known he hadn’t agreed with her decision to file a complaint against her sergeant, but she hadn’t dreamed he would intercept it and toss it out like it was trash.

  She could feel her temper start to boil. It was always simmering these days, a low heat that threatened to become a flash fire at any moment. If she let it go, it might devour her and leave nothing but ash. “Billy Stephens is sexually harassing his female officers, including me.”

  “I know you feel that way, Roxanne.” The words were said with the careful tone of a man who’d done his time in classes on how to handle complaints in the workplace. But then her husband was the kind of man who studied how to manipulate the world to his advantage.

  Unfortunately, he apparently had missed the part where he was supposed to take complaints seriously. “I don’t merely feel that way. It’s true. He sidelined me on two operations I should have been on because I asked him to stop talking about how I fill out my uniform.”

  Joel’s jaw tightened. “I told you I had a long conversation with him about that. He was joking around. You know how guys are. He gives the men in his unit hell, too. While I was there, he told a perfectly fit officer that he was getting tubby. In a weird way, it’s a form of affection for these guys.”

  “I bet he didn’t tell Kevin that his ass could be used to distract criminals,” she shot back. “He says the same crap about the other women he works with. He also asks me to get him coffee. He doesn’t ask the guys.”

  “Would it be so hard to get him a cup?” Joel asked, clearly exasperated. “It’s polite. Look, we all have to put up with things we would rather not put up with. It’s like that everywhere.”

  But it hadn’t been. She’d been with the NYPD for almost ten years, and the Army for three before. “I know that I’ve worked in several units where no one would have joked that way.”

  “You chose to go into that particular unit. You knew it was a male-dominated unit.”

  She’d known they were the best, and she’d wanted to be one of them. “I also chose to go into the Army, and guess what, when a guy on my team got handsy, my superior officer took care of it. It was his job to ensure we had a safe working environment and that everyone under his command was supported when they did their job. I am the best sniper on Stephens’s team. So why was I stuck back at the station during the bank standoff last week? He looked me right in the eye and told me to monitor the situation and handed Smith my damn job.”

  “That’s his prerogative. Maybe he didn’t feel comfortable with you in the sniper’s seat. Maybe he was worried you would make the team look bad since that’s what you seem to be trying to do with all these complaints.” He finally set his pen down and sat back. “This isn’t the way to move ahead. You should know that.”