by Lyla Payne
My agent, Kathleen Rushall, is such a support and source of motivation, even for the books she’s less involved in—knowing she’s on my side gives me mountains of confidence. My developmental and line editor, Danielle Poiesz, who should charge me not only for editorial services, but for psychological support and cheerleading services, as well. I count her as an editor but also a friend, and each are priceless to me. My copy editor, Lauren Hougen, my proofreaders Cynthia Moyer and Mary Ziegenhorn, my cover designer Eisley Jacobs, the wonderful photographer who staged the cover image, Iona Nicole, and my formatter, Lucinda Campbell—this book would be nothing, really, without the combination of your immense talents, creative and otherwise.
My family, who has put up with me for years—including my own beloved grandfather, who inspired much of the character of Gramps in this novel. It seems like he’s been gone forever, but everything he was and all of the moments we shared, the knowledge passed on, is never far from my heart. To my boyfriend, Paul, for putting up with my deadlines, the not-too-often showers, and the nights he falls asleep to the sound of the clicking keyboard—I appreciate the way you make it okay to be myself and to still be with you, too.
To everyone who has ever lived in a small town, tried moonshine, stepped out of your comfort zone, or found the strength of will to believe in yourself and a future again and lived to tell the tale, I salute you.
Copyright 2015 by Lyla Payne
Cover Photography by Iona Nicole Photography
Cover by Eisley Jacobs at Complete Pixels
Developmental and Line Editing: Danielle Poiesz
Copyediting: Lauren Hougen
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used factiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
For the tour guide at Old Charleston Tours who first told me about Henry Woodward: I appreciate your passion for the un-mined treasures of the past.
Chapter One
It’s a good thing Heron Creek’s cemetery is outside, because the news of my boyfriend’s federal indictment makes the world feel as though it’s closing in.
My cousin, Amelia, and I had been there visiting the people who’ve left us—both recently and not so much—when our old friend Mel called with the news.
The tone of her voice when she delivered the blow weighs on my mind as I leave Amelia in order to hurry into town, my worry sliding toward dread. It’s almost as though Mel anticipated having to make this call long before now, had maybe been rehearsing the gravity and concern and right wording for days. Weeks.
Since I started dating Beau soon after I returned to Heron Creek last June?
The feeling that people know something I don’t about Beau, the mayor of their little town, tightens my stomach. I chew on my bottom lip as my stinky old Honda sputters and coughs its way to the police station. We don’t have a courthouse in Heron Creek. Or much of anything official, really—Beau and his staff, along with the one judge in town, all work out of a small, unimpressive town hall a few blocks away.
Our little South Carolina town does have charm spilling out its ears, but this afternoon the quaint storefronts along Main Street, the familiar faces tossing halfhearted waves my direction, and the smell of the nearby saltwater rivers don’t have their usual calming effect on me.
Thoughts rattle around in my head, each one more jittery and panicked than the last. Beauregard Drayton, mayor of Heron Creek, descendant of what amounts to Charleston royalty, just got indicted. Mel hadn’t managed to give me any details before the crappy reception in the cemetery dropped the call, but my mind isn’t focused on anything other than getting to him, anyway. Being there in a time of need, the way he has been for me—through the ghosts and Gramps’ death and people thinking I’m crazy for seeing said ghosts. He didn’t even bolt when a crazy voodoo witch disguised as my librarian boss tried to murder me, my first love, and my unborn nephew. He might be crazy, but he’s loyal. So am I.
My tires screech as I pull into one of two visitors’ parking spaces at the police station. The rest of the lot is mostly empty. It’s not surprising, considering our whole force consists of the mysterious—and annoying—Dylan Travis, and Ted and Tom Ryan, twin brothers I grew up with who had somehow gone from lovable town terrors to still-fairly-lovable lawmen.
The boisterous duo aren’t at their shared desk inside the stuffy, cluttered station when I slam through the door, out of breath more from fear than from the short sprint inside, although getting in shape keeps falling farther down on my to-do list. I don’t think the kind of calisthenics Beau and I have been engaging in lately burn as many calories as people like to think.
Or maybe we just need to be more imaginative.
The officer in the station is the one person who gets under my skin in this town without trying—the enigmatic detective Dylan Travis—and the sight of him shakes every last dirty thought from my mind. He looks up from the stained rim of a coffee mug, eyebrows raised as he takes a sip. Being here reminds me that we need to talk about the little voodoo bags that keep showing up at my house and about what’s being done to find crazy old Ms. LaBadie, who has been missing since July, but that will have to wait.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Who?” A smile toys at the corner of Detective Travis’s lips, suggesting a heretofore hidden sense of humor.
My teeth grind loud enough that he swings his feet to the floor and sets his mug on the desk, as though readying himself for a confrontation. A twitch finds his lips.
He’s definitely smiling.
“The Mayor, Detective. I want to … to bail him out or whatever.”
“Hmm. Well, bond was set at half a million dollars. How much are they paying at the library these days?”
“You’re an ass, Travis, and I don’t know why you think this is an appropriate time for jokes. Do you need help interpreting human emotion or reading social situations? Because that can be arranged, but right now, I’d just like to see my boyfriend. Please.” Despite, or maybe due to, the anger and fear coursing through my blood, tears spring to my eyes.
The amusement falls away from his posture; he digs in his pocket and offers me a handkerchief, as though he’s Humphrey Bogart. “Sorry. I’m not … I apologize. Mayor Drayton was bailed out exactly five minutes after the judge set the amount. I would assume he went home.”
“By who?” I jut out my chin, daring him to refuse to tell me.
“His brother, I think. Some sort of family.” He puts out a hand to stop me when I turn to go. “Graciela … I mean, Miss Harper. You know how we discussed you staying out of trouble from here on out?”
Detective Travis and I got off on the wrong foot when he accused me of murdering Glinda, the town’s longtime butcherer of haircuts, within a day of arriving in Heron Creek. He’d been wrong, obviously, but he hadn’t apologized. And I hadn’t forgiven him.
I give him a tight-lipped nod now, half mortified and half pissed at being lectured about my semi-legal antics at a time like this.
He presses his own lips into a thin line before continuing. “Be careful.”
An unfamiliar BMW sits in Beau’s driveway, but given that I’ve only met one member of his family—for less than five minutes—in the few months we’ve known each other, I can’t guess who owns it. A slight but persistent worry snags in my mind, refusing to dislodge no matter how hard I try to ignore it: Beau hasn’t called me. My cell phone is in my sticky cup holder showing no missed calls, no missed texts. Then again, he’s a lawyer who comes from a family of lawyers. I’m just a washed-up archivist who hangs out with more dead people than living ones.
I kick open the car door and stand on the cement for a moment trying to remember how to breathe water, which is pretty much all the air consists of in South Carolina on days li
ke this. It’s after Labor Day and the temperature should be lower, but fall isn’t yet a smudge on the horizon.
Sweat molds my thin gray T-shirt to my shoulder blades and rib cage before I make it up to the porch, and my hand shakes as it reaches out to ring the bell. Beau’s house never ceases to impress me, which is exactly what the builders had in mind when they erected the damn thing back in the early eighteen hundreds. It’s antebellum in structure and mass, a relic from before the war that tore the country apart and left the South in tatters. The house is a relic from a dark time, a reminder of the cruelty people are capable of, but it’s beautiful all the same.
The mayor’s slice of the old South comes in crisp white paint, stark black shutters, and professional landscaping that explodes in lush green hedges, silky white hydrangea, bright pink peonies, and a smattering of yellows and blues my untrained eye can’t identify. The sweetness of their snarled fragrances wraps around me like a thick fog, penetrating my nose to leave behind a slightly dazed feeling in my mind, as though it’s been doused with summer’s very own wine.
The silence on the other side of the door goes on so long that my nerves start humming. If he’s not home, where would he be? Why hasn’t he called me? I’m his girlfriend. I’m supposed to be there for him and be supportive and all that shit, and while I haven’t figured out what I can say to make things better, he’d better let me try, dammit.
I give up on the front door after another sixty seconds of silence, but not on finding Beau. If he’s with his family, he may need rescuing, and since my ghosts insist on leading me smack into trouble, I have some experience in that area as of late. A couple more opportunities and I’ll be able to audition for the role of the next Disney prince.
The dry grass crackles under my feet—it’s been more than a week since it last rained—and the tall, moss-draped live oaks along the river come into view as I hear the rumble of male voices around the back of the house. I slow down, maybe on instinct after my latest Nancy Drew escapades or maybe because there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m welcome here. Beau’s voice is as familiar to me as anyone’s, having heard it shout, coax, and whisper sexy suggestions into my ear. The other is less so, but the night of Beau’s birthday party last month comes back to me, and even before I force my feet forward and around the corner, I’ve guessed that the person who bailed Beau out is his younger brother, Brick.
He didn’t make the best first impression at that party, tricking me into joining a conversation that quickly devolved into gossip about my questionable mental state and enjoying every moment of it, so seeing him here now doesn’t make me feel any better about bursting in.
He sees me come around the corner the way I suspect he sees everything—straightaway, with hawk like eyes that are too loaded with suspicion to ever resemble his brother’s. The smile that finds his generous mouth looks forced, and Beau turns to see what’s caught his brother’s attention. The brief, potent happiness that drips into his gaze and down his face erases most of my anxiety and I just want to hug him.
“Gracie.” He steps down from the deck onto the lawn. The relief that loosens the tight lines around his eyes and mouth relaxes my shoulders, even if his green-gold eyes harbor some of the strain. Then Beau’s arms are around me, the scent of sweet syrup and man and salty skin keeping the cloying perfume of the flowers at bay.
I tighten my arms around his waist, trying to pass my horror and support through them so he knows I’m not here for support. “Hi. Mel called me and I went to the jail but you were already gone. How are you?”
Beau gives me one last squeeze before turning me loose, and my hands drop from his firm, familiar frame with reluctance. Brick Drayton stares at me, our eyes meeting over his brother’s broad shoulders, as though daring me to disapprove of or feel embarrassed by his gawking. So I do neither, simply staring back at him until he looks away.
My gaze turns to my boyfriend, a man trying to hold his shit together so hard and barely making it work that the sight of him breaks my heart.
“What happened?” I manage, determined to be strong.
“Come up to the porch and have some tea. You remember Brick?” I nod and he gives me a rueful smile. “My brother is a better lawyer than I ever was. He had that judge eating out of his hand inside five minutes.”
“That’s good.” Even that noncommittal positive statement about his brother has to be forced past my lips with the memory lingering in my head of the conversation he’d orchestrated—the one that involved several influential members of Heron Creek learning about my ghost … problem.
The deck feels good under my feet when I step onto it. Solid and supportive, like an extension of Beau’s arms. A sweating pitcher of sweet tea, the ice long since melted into a translucent layer near the top and a pile of sugar sunk to the bottom, sits on the table and tells me how long the two of them have been out here talking.
I walk over and pick up the wooden spoon at the pitcher’s side, giving the lukewarm liquid a swift stir and then pouring it into a glass. My hands are still trembling, but not as much as they were at the front door, and even though sweet tea and I aren’t great friends, it helps to hold on to something.
I turn around, drink in hand, ignoring Brick in favor of focusing on my boyfriend. “So, what’s this all about and how do we beat it?”
He sinks into a chair as though his legs have given out, one big hand rubbing at the lines on his forehead. He flicks a finger toward his brother, forcing me to look at the guy after all.
Brick looks unruffled by my obvious discomfort, a thin smile on his lips. “It’s nice to see you again, Graciela, even under these ridiculous circumstances.”
“Which are?” I ask, avoiding his niceties.
Forgetting my manners isn’t the right thing to do. Amelia would give me a lecture; my grandmother would shoot me an impressive frown. Brick is Beau’s family, and if this thing between us is going to continue, I might want them to not hate me.
I try harder, smiling back as best as I can. “What’s he been indicted for?”
Even the word tastes bad. Indicted. Grand juries don’t fling indictments around willy-nilly, and district attorneys don’t bring charges without proof, so the hope that it’s frivolous and easily beaten is a remote one. It doesn’t stop me from having trouble reconciling the kind of man who gets indicted for wrongdoing with the man in front of me, who makes me smile on days when it seems impossible and gives 100 percent to his job as mayor.
“It’s about a case that the prosecutor’s office tried in Charleston County when Beau was the DA. They gave a woman on trial for a significant drug charge the maximum sentence. Her attorneys have always claimed the office was aware that she was a small part of a much larger operation, and now they supposedly have evidence that will get her a retrial.”
“So, I don’t want to sound like an idiot, but what does that have to do with an indictment?”
“They’re saying Beau knew she was small potatoes,” Brick explains, “but since they couldn’t get anyone bigger, they threw the book at her out of frustration, or maybe to send a message. Abuse of power.”
“That’s the whole office, though. Did you prosecute the case yourself?” I look at Beau, worrying my bottom lip with my teeth as he shakes his head. “Why are you being indicted, then?”
“They’re claiming I needed the conclusive win to support my ambitions of running for office. That if I’d lost the case or been lenient, it could have cost me with voters so I pushed the assistant DA and the judge to go with the harshest charges and sentencing possible.” The dismissive resentment in my boyfriend’s voice takes me aback.
They’re talking about a woman’s life here, someone who claims to have been oversentenced, and discomfort lines my concern for Beau. A lightbulb flickers to life inside my head and my eyes pop wide. “Are you talking about Lindsay Boone?”
Both brothers squint at me, and now they don’t look so different after all.
“Yes. How do you know tha
t?” Brick’s gaze narrows farther, as though he’s wondering whether I set this whole thing up, seducing his brother just to have this moment of glory or something.
“She’s friends with her brother. Leo.” Beau’s watching me as though I’m an animal that might snap, and something tells me his even tone is chosen with care. The bad blood between the men has been obvious since I arrived back in town, and Leo has made no secret of the fact that he blames Beau for his sister winding up behind bars—at least for so long. Other people in town agree with him.
Like Mel.
“We’ve been friends since we were kids,” I supply, my mouth taking over like it always does when I’m uncomfortable. “He told me about what happened to his sister. He takes care of her daughter, Marcella.”
I clamp my lips shut, aware that I’m babbling.
“Small fucking towns,” Brick mutters, rolling up his sleeves. “Beau, tell me you’ve got something stronger in the house than this tea, because it’s going to be a long night.”
“In the kitchen.”
Brick goes inside and I take the opportunity to gauge Beau’s reaction to all this without his brother’s presence tainting the bubble we’ve built around us. He reaches out a hand, and I set my glass on the deck’s railing before taking it, letting him tug me onto his lap. I put my arms around his neck and wait until he looks up at me.
“Hey.” I smooth his hair back and plant a swift kiss on his lips, still a little awed that I can do that whenever I want. “It’s going to be okay.”
His expression is the definition of turmoil, flickering between anger and doubt and guilt too fast for me to try to decide which one is the biggest concern. After a moment, he wipes them all away with a blank slate meant to keep me—and everyone else—out of his innermost thoughts.
“I doubt that, darlin.’ Even if we win this case, its repercussions will never go away. Every election I enter, my opponent will drag it up. Question my morals.”
