by Magan Vernon
Rumor Has It
Friendship, Texas #2
Magan Vernon
Text copyright© 2016 by Magan Vernon
All rights reserved
www.maganvernon.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form by or any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
For information visit www.maganvernon.com
Summary: “Rhonda? Psst, Rhonda, is that the Carrington girl? The writer who was at the bakery with that country singer Eddie Justice? I thought she was in Austin?” one of the old church ladies not-so-subtly asked the woman next to her.
I rolled my eyes, and Clay looked at me with a mischievous grin. Slowly, I stretched my arms over my head and leaned toward my brother, not so quietly whispering, “I can’t wait to get out of church, so I can go home and get some Eddie Justice man meat.”
The old ladies gasped and started whispering. They didn’t need to know that Eddie and I had only ever been next-door neighbors and friends. Well, until we spent the night breaking a tree branch, if that counted for anything.
First Edition, October 2016
Cover Design by Pink Ink Designs
Edited by Editing for Indies
Proofreading by Alissa Glenn PA
For more information about the author:
Website: www.maganvernon.com
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Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/authormaganvernon
Twitter: www.twitter.com/maganvernon
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Dedicated to my Bunco ladies…
Even though Dorothy wouldn’t let me have the Christmas ornament that I wanted
Thanks for making life in Texas so much more entertaining.
Prologue
Eddie
“Oh, yeah, harder.”
The slapping sound of my girlfriend sandwiched between two of New York’s finest played on repeat in my mind.
At least the online video was getting blurrier with the more whiskey I downed. I ran my hands through my hair and closed my laptop before turning on the radio and stumbling to the bathroom.
The familiar last chords strummed through the speakers.
“And that was Eddie Justice’s latest hit ‘Brokenhearted’,” the announcer bellowed in a terribly fake Southern accent.
“I bet he’s singing that right now. Did you see the video of his longtime honey, Mary James?” another announcer piped in with a laugh.
“Who hasn’t? What a way to break up with someone. Streaming your sex tape all over the Internet. It already has over three million views the last I checked.”
I turned the radio off. I was the butt of everyone’s jokes. A PR nightmare. Now, I was the guy drowning my sorrows in a bottle, like half of my songs started. I was the brokenhearted cowboy cliché.
The last time I was this drunk was the night I left Friendship, Texas—the small hometown I vowed I’d always leave when I hit it big.
All it took was for me to drive into Dallas and sing for a radio competition. After that, I headed to Nashville, and soon, I had dozens of hits under my belt.
Staring down at the bottom of that bottle, I remembered the girl I left behind. Technically, she wasn’t my girl but my best friend. She never knew I wanted something more or that half my songs were about her.
I wondered what Brooke Carrington was up to now. She was probably married to some theater guy and living a life outside our small town. She’d laugh in my face now if I tried to contact her after all these years. That or punch me.
Now that I’d hit rock bottom, I couldn’t crawl back and see if she’d take me. I had to live with my misery. It was time to pack my bags and take a break from the music industry—the place I thought was my solace. Now, it was time to go back home.
Chapter 1
After ten years of being gone, Eddie Justice was finally home and staring me in the face.
Okay, so it was actually a tweet from TNC saying that Eddie Justice was spotted back in his small hometown. I hadn’t actually seen him yet.
“Brooke, stop with the twatting,” Mom hissed.
My brother, Clay, laughed, shaking his head. “Mom, it’s called Twitter.”
“Twatter, Twitter, whatever. This isn’t the place to be staring at your phone,” Mom said, pushing my phone down and out of my vision.
I rolled my eyes and slid my phone back into my pocket.
All four of us stood at the front of the Watkins Family Funeral Home in Friendship, Texas. My mother stood in her black dress, Clay was in a suit—he’d tamed his bright blond Mohawk down for the occasion—and my youngest sister, Violet, who at twenty years my junior, was a surprise to all of us. Almost more of a surprise than my dad’s sudden death.
He was barely sixty and had just retired from his high-profile sales job five years ago. I thought he was healthy and thriving, so I didn’t expect the middle of the night phone call from Clay or the sound of the ambulance in the background.
“Don’t worry, this town isn’t that big. After an hour tops, we’ll be out of this visitation, and you can get back to your phone,” Clay whispered.
“Shut up,” I snapped, the only comeback I had.
I’d been back in Friendship for an entire two days, and I was already ready to leave. But really, at this point, I had nowhere else to go. Okay, I mean I could go back to my boyfriend’s place in Austin, but I didn’t exactly leave on the best terms.
“Your dad died? Oh, babe, I’m sorry. Let me just call work, and we can take off in the morning.”
I shook my head, not looking up from my suitcase. “No. It’s fine. I’ll just go. You don’t need to take off work for me.”
Drake put his hand on mine. “You’re my fiancée. I’m going to be here for you.”
Jerking my hand away, I zipped up my bag. “I haven’t said yes.”
“Are you going to?” His bright blue eyes met mine.
Drake and I had been together since college, where we met while both working in campus dining. I was a theater major, and he was an accounting major with a lackluster social life. I was it for him. When he got the great job out of college in Austin, he took me on expensive trips and supported me when I started a writing career. Even though I was a published author today, I was still failing at the making money part. Drake had been supporting me emotionally and financially. He deserved a girl who could commit and wasn’t still holding out for her best friend, and forever crush, to come back for her.
Mr. Watkins, the funeral director, buttoned the last button of his suit coat then unbuttoned it again. “We’re ready to open the doors, Mrs. Carrington.”
Mom grabbed my hand and squeezed it before nodding at Mr. Watkins. We’d never been close. There were girls in my high school whose moms did their hair for every dance or spent weekends with them riding horses. I was never that kind of girl. I usually spent my time with my nose in a book or hanging out with my best friend and neighbor, Eddie.
Eddie and I vowed to get out of Friendship together. He would make it big in music, and I’d be a big actress in L.A. Our plan was to head out as soon as we graduated, but then he won a contest on the local radio show. When he left, a big part of me left with him. What remained lost the fight with my mom to finally apply to colleges and go to Baylor the
following fall.
That was ten years ago. A lot had changed in ten years. For one, I now had a little sister. My brother had joined the Army and came back home even more distant than he was before. And now, I was standing beside my father’s casket, holding my mother’s hand, as the people of Friendship walked in to pay their respects.
It felt like I spent hours shaking hands and listening to someone talk about how great of a guy my dad was, and then moving onto the next person. Everyone was starting to blend until a Middle Eastern accent hit my ears.
Tameem Jahid came to Texas to get his college degree over thirty years ago. He met Lydia Edwards and fell in love with her, and her parents’ ranch. The ranch that was next door to my parents’ house. Edward Tameem Jahid was their only son, born just days before I was. Our mothers bonded and became fast friends when they were both stuck in the house on maternity leave.
“Eryn,” Tameem said, kissing my mother’s cheek before he turned to me.
“Brooke. I didn’t know you were back in town. Even under these circumstances, it’s good to see you,” Tameem whispered before embracing me in a hug.
Lydia followed suit with the same kiss on the cheek and hug. While it was nice to have the old family friends here, someone was missing from their trio. Someone I couldn’t help but look for in line.
“You know if your mom wouldn’t kill me, I’d take you to Nashville with me,” Eddie said, taking a swig from the Friendship High School water bottle that I’d filled with Dad’s whiskey and lemonade.
“Sure you would. I’m sure every country music star wants to take his neighbor with him for their first recording,” I muttered, snatching the water bottle.
“You know you’re more than just a neighbor to me, B. You’re my best friend. Hell, if you hadn’t driven me to Dallas, I wouldn’t have even gotten this audition.”
I shook my head. “I’m sure you would have gotten there sooner or later. Everyone knows you have talent.”
He laughed slightly. “Yeah, but when you’re the only boy in the choir and not on the football team, it doesn’t say much for high school talent.”
“And now, you get a pass on your senior year, leaving me with the cowboys and beauty queens,” I muttered.
Eddie hopped off the tree branch we were sitting on. The low-hanging desert willow, and the pond at the end of both of our properties, had become our hangout spot. At one point, we talked about building a treehouse, but neither of us were very handy with tools. We settled for sitting in the tree and watching the longhorns roam over his property. Sometimes, they poked their head over the fence to get the grass on my family’s measly two acres.
“How about I make a deal with you, Brooke?” he asked, stuffing his hands into the back pockets of his Levi’s.
“What’s that?” I arched an eyebrow.
He took a step closer so I could practically feel his warm breath on my lips. I’d been waiting for Eddie to admit that he’d had feelings for me for years. He’d had his fair share of girls and gone on a few dates, but none of them stuck. Part of me wondered if it was because we were meant to be together. Like we were soul mates. But neither one of us acted on it, and I wasn’t going to make the first move.
Eddie smirked as he pulled out a small white guitar pick and held it between us.
“Your guitar pick?”
He laughed. “Not just any guitar pick. This is my lucky guitar pick. I had this in my pocket when we won State in chorus, when I passed my driver’s test, and when we went to that radio audition.”
“Okay?”
Eddie took my hand and placed the guitar pick in my palm. He wrapped my fingers around it and put his hand on mine. The warmth from the alcohol was already burning in my stomach, but Eddie’s touch made butterflies flutter all around it.
“I’m giving it to you. So that you know I’ll always come back. If things fail in Nashville, then I have to come back and get the pick, and you.”
“And what if they don’t?” I whispered.
He smiled, squeezing my hand before he let go and took the seat next to me. “Then I guess you’ll have to come and bring it to me.”
I thumbed the guitar pick in the pocket of my dress. I never went anywhere without it, hoping he would come back for it. He wasn’t back yet, but maybe, just maybe, I’d see him soon.
***
The last time I was at the Friendship Cemetery, Eddie dared me to pee on the old chorus teacher’s grave. That was also the last time I was arrested, and my parents never let me live that down.
Now, as I sat between my mother and Clay, I kept my hand in my pocket, running my fingers over the guitar pick as I’d done so many times before.
I had no idea what the hell I was going to do now without my dad. My mom was still teaching, and Clay was in town, but as much as I thought my mother needed me, I needed her too. I had nowhere else to go.
That thought left my brain as soon as it entered when Noah Riley approached the casket, strumming some notes on an acoustic guitar. My breath caught in my throat as soon as I heard the melodious voice of a person I never thought I’d hear again in person.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” Eddie bellowed.
My heart beat wildly in my chest, and I could hear my own shallow breathing. As soon as I saw the bottom of his brown boots hitting the grass below, my eyes followed up the line of his dark pants and the suit that molded to him. The Eddie I remembered was a tall, lanky guy with shaggy hair that hid his brown eyes. Now, Eddie, the country music superstar, had obviously spent a lot of time in the gym. He had the ass and arms to prove that one—not that I was checking him out at my father’s funeral. He’d also cut his hair, and a slight stubble adorned his cheeks. Time had been good to Eddie’s looks and his voice.
No one sitting around me had a dry eye as everyone stared up at Eddie, his voice carrying through the cemetery as he stood next to Noah.
Every single emotion ran through me, and I didn’t know which one to feel. I was supposed to be mourning my father, not thinking about how good my former best friend looked or how mad I was that he left me and never looked back.
As the funeral ended and I walked with my mom to the car, my heel caught in an armadillo hole, and I went tumbling face first toward the grass.
I thought I was going to die. Well, die or eat a ton of grass.
Instead, arms wrapped around my waist and stopped my face mere inches from the ground. I stumbled to a standing position with my cheap heel broken off in the grass.
“Are you okay?” a sweet Southern twang bellowed.
I turned slowly to Eddie, who still had his arm around my waist.
I didn’t know what he wanted me to say to him. Did he want me to hug him? To say how much I’d missed him, and that I hadn’t been able to fully commit to another guy because I’d been in love with him forever?
Nope, I didn’t do any of those. Instead, I pulled my heel out of the ground and scowled. “You ruined my shoe.”
Then before he could get another word in edgewise, I turned and hobbled on my uneven feet to my mom’s car.
Chapter 2
After the cemetery, I didn’t hear from Eddie. My phone number hadn’t changed since high school, but if he hadn’t called it in ten years, then there was no way he was going to call after I yelled at him about my shoe.
Mom was already back at school teaching, and Clay started working at the Q Ranch.
I could have sat alone in my parents’ large house and tried to work, but something was utterly creepy about it. Plus, I wasn’t a suspense writer, so I packed up my laptop and headed for downtown.
Okay, so really, I wasn’t much of a writer at all. I had a few romance books that I self-published, but truth be told, they all kind of sucked.
I’d started writing my own screenplays when the only parts I landed in college were ones that didn’t have lines. I thought maybe I could write my own stuff and actually get a leading role, but I wasn’t much of a screenwriter either, and abandoned e
verything I started. After four years at Baylor and a degree in theater, I couldn’t get a job, so I went to cosmetology school and moved in with Drake. We’d been together almost four years, so it seemed like that was the next step. That, and I didn’t have money to move anywhere else unless I wanted to live with my parents and their new baby.
After a year of trying to do hair, I quit that as well when Drake got a job offer in Austin. I ended up bouncing from job to job for the next few years while he worked long hours and I entertained myself with cheap books. After about the fiftieth stepbrother book I read, I decided to dust off my old screenwriting and self-publish my own books.
I made back the money back spent on a cover, editing, and promo for my first book within the first month. The second through fifth books still had yet to make enough to cover their covers. Reviewers said my plots were “overdone” and “unrealistic.” I thought they were just a bunch of trolls who made me drink. But deep down in my writer’s gut, I knew they were right.
I needed to make money if I wanted to stay in Friendship or really stay anywhere. I had no idea of anything else I would do with my life. I genuinely enjoyed writing; I just kind of hated the whole publishing and having the book tank thing. Most authors I followed on social media had some local coffee shop where they hung out and wrote with their fancy coffee. Friendship didn’t have a fancy coffee shop, so I thought a trip to the Forever Sweet Bakery, sitting all day in the corner with my coffee and cupcakes, would maybe bring some better inspiration for my books or at least a good picture.
“Is there a Wi-Fi password?” I asked the Arabic princess behind the counter. I’d never seen her before in Friendship, and if I had, she’d probably been under one of the local cowboys. She was the most beautiful woman in the world and now had me thinking that maybe I couldn’t commit to Drake because I wasn’t interested. Maybe I was more into staring at hot girls like her.
