Finding Home Read online

  Finding Home

  Title Page

  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

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Epilogue

  Finding Home

  A Ladies of Legend Novel

  by

  Janet Eaves Eaves

  Magdalena Scott

  Jan Scarbrough

  Maddie James

  Turquoise Morning Press

  www.turquoisemorningpress.com

  Turquoise Morning Press

  PO Box 43968

  Louisville, KY 40253

  Finding Home

  Copyright © 2011, Janet Eaves, Magdalena Scott, Jan Scarbrough, and Maddie James

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 9781935817611

  Digital ISBN: 9781937389390

  Cover Art Design by Kim Jacobs

  Editor, Wendy Williams

  Trade Paperback release, March, 2011

  Digital Release, August 2011

  Published by Turquoise Morning Press for Smashwords

  Turquoise Morning, LLC

  www.turquoisemorningpress.com

  Turquoise Morning, LLC

  P.O. Box 43958

  Louisville, KY 40253-0958

  Smashwords Edition, License

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the publisher, Turquoise Morning Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author's imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

  This edition is published by agreement with Turquoise Morning Press, a division of Turquoise Morning, LLC.

  LEGEND, TN: Nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, the village of Legend boasts of small town pride and southern elegance. Porches are still for sitting and troubles for one family affect the entire community. A town where four women find purpose, love, and their futures—in a town intent on preserving its past.

  The launch book for the Ladies of Legend series, Finding Home shares four stories, written by four authors, about four women ready to start again.

  Four authors.

  Four women.

  One town.

  One story.

  Lilly Peach is running from something so frightening it takes a whole town to cover her back.

  Lovely Midnight Shelby finds Legend after becoming tired of being one of her ex-husband’s “beautiful things.”

  Suzie Schul finds home only when the fling she had months earlier shows up on her doorstep.

  Plain Jane Smith reunites with lost love by playing a game of bait-and-switch with her famous twin sister.

  Finding Home

  The novel

  by

  Janet Eaves, Magdalena Scott, Jan Scarbrough and Maddie James

  Welcome to Legend.

  www.legendtennessee.com

  Review

  Finding Home

  Janet Eaves sketches two sides to Lilly that gives the reader more insight to her as a person. The layer of expression portrayed on these players is excellent!

  Midnight in Legend by Magdalena Scott is one read I will not forget. This story had me in stitches…the minute the voodoo doll was brought up.

  I love stories by Maddie James. Bed, Breakfast and You is a fast moving read that really hooks the reader. Ms. James makes me want to move to Legend.

  Jan Scarbrough paints convincing characters that reach out and touch the reader in some way. This flowing read is really delightful. I look forward to more stories by Ms. Scarbrough.

  ~5 Cups Coffee Time Romance Reviews

  The novel

  Finding Home

  is a compilation of

  the four currently published eBook novellas

  Claiming the Legend

  by Janet Eaves

  Midnight in Legend, TN

  by Magdalena Scott

  The Reunion Game

  by Jan Scarbrough

  Bed, Breakfast, and You

  by Maddie James

  and may vary slightly from the original versions.

  Prologue

  Jill Post stopped abruptly, pivoted backwards around a sharp corner into the apartment building’s shadows, then slammed against the hard brick wall. Heart-palpitating fear choked her, had her glued to the structure’s rough exterior, scraping tender skin from shoulders to elbows. The route she always took home after work had served its purpose. A purpose she had hoped unnecessary, overly-cautious. But instinct had saved her time and again. As now.

  Had they heard her?

  Seen her?

  Each struggling breath hurt, each knocking heartbeat reverberated from chest to temple. Images, one after another, whirled like a kaleidoscope of horror to clash and collide with other older images. Images thought to be long-buried. Now past and present blended in a motion-picture of terror.

  She closed her eyes, nauseated by those images, those memories.

  Will alone couldn’t push her, couldn’t force her feet to move, to retreat further from the massacre going on just around the corner. Any movement, any stray sound might alert the two men who were screaming names and curses at the homeless man they were beating to death.

  Did they say my name?

  Did they think he knew her? Had she told him her name when she’d dropped him a twenty here and there over the past months?

  No! She was imagining it. She had to separate the old from the new. They couldn’t have found her. Not after all this time. Not after she had been so careful.

  She tried, but failed miserably to close off sounds she remembered too well: the whack of a hard object meeting flesh, screams for mercy turned to moans, the gurgle of choking, and finally, horribly, the thud of an unconscious body hitting asphalt. She clamped teeth onto her bottom lip to lock in an answering scream.

  Run.

  She glanced left, then right, searching f
rantically for a way to escape, but the icy fingers of fear held her frozen in the darkened alleyway. Canyon-carving rivers of blood reverberated through her ears: rolling, crashing, gaining volume with each heartbeat, obliterating all other sound until she could no longer locate the source of danger.

  Blouse and flesh ripped as she slid down the wall. Her head spun as she clasped her bent legs for support, settling her bottom on the cold wet ground. She rocked back and forth with jerky movements, fighting the fear. Waiting.

  Waiting.

  Time meant nothing.

  Seconds? Minutes? An hour? How long had she sat there emotionally lost, clutching her legs, waiting to be found?

  She’d witnessed torture. Murder. Was that to be her fate, too? Ice cold sweat poured from her body, drenching clothes, chilling her skin. She barely registered the taste of iron hitting her tongue but released the tooth-imprinting grip of her now bloodied lip.

  She stayed frozen against the brick wall until the voices and scenes from the past faded completely. Until heartbeats and breathing calmed. Until fear receded enough for logic to kick-in.

  Light replaced darkness as dawn broke. A baby cried from several stories above. A woman’s soothing song responded seconds later. Then silence.

  Sirens from afar.

  The steady beep of a garbage truck in the distance, then moving slowly closer, then moving away until near-silence, then there was nothing but the sounds of an occasional vehicle passing close by.

  Move! Pinpricks shot through both legs and feet as she elbowed her way up the wall, forcing her to remain immobile for a minute more. One tentative step, then two, away from the assault site felt like a major accomplishment. The need to run hovered like a monster at her back but she couldn’t, wouldn’t, make a sound. Who knew where those men had gone? Who knew if the man they had killed was their only intended victim or if they would kill anyone in their path? Especially someone who might identify them.

  Unless she had been their intended victim all along?

  That thought stopped her cold. Then another hit with enough force to make her take a step back. What if the man wasn’t dead, only severely injured? What if this was her fault and he was paying the price?

  How could she leave him?

  How could she not?

  Indecision held her immobile for only seconds before she slumped in defeat. There was only one thing to do. The decent thing.

  She had to go back; had to look around the corner of the building to see if the thugs were gone. There was no choice left but check to see if their victim still lived. She hoped with every ounce of her waning strength that the danger had passed. She wasn’t so sure how she felt about the state of the victim.

  If he had died she could just leave. Anonymously call 911 then disappear from this nightmare altogether. Just carry on with the life she had so carefully constructed. Or run if that was the only option. If he still lived she would have to become involved. Emergency services would be needed. The police would want to question her, but worse, it could make the press and the men who had done this could hear about it and pursue her.

  But no, she couldn’t think that way. There was no choice but to go back, to help if there was still a need. To participate. Anything less would make her as bad as those who’d attacked him.

  Damn, how she hated to participate.

  Participation would de-construct the life she had spent the last four years building. She would have to start over.

  Again.

  A new identity.

  A new profession.

  A new town.

  God help me!

  Chapter One

  Tuesday

  “Mayberry…at last.” Midnight Shelby sighed with relief as she climbed out of her gleaming, silver Mitsubishi Spyder and stretched her aching body. It had been a long drive today and the day before. But a long drive in a convertible was not a hardship. Especially when that very sexy convertible had been purchased with some of the settlement money her jerk of an ex-husband had grudgingly forked over.

  After twenty years of marriage he’d expected her to accept a crumpled note on the kitchen table as his final farewell. And she nearly had, in order to get it over with. Then sanity returned and she hired an excellent attorney who proceeded to make Jeff’s life a living hell, as he’d done to Midnight for much of their marriage. It had finally come down to her tough attorney in stilettos out-haranguing his tough attorney in penny loafers.

  Ah, the thrill of victory!

  But the twenty years of feeling defeated were hard to forget.

  Midnight reached back into the car and picked up the little voodoo doll she’d purchased at a roadside stand. One could find nearly anything at roadside stands in the mountains of Tennessee, she’d been surprised to learn. She had avoided the hand-painted offers of bear wrestling and various other oddities, but hadn’t been able to pass up the stand whose purple sign cried out: MEN ARE SCUM! in hot pink letters. Midnight had paid fifteen dollars for the foot-tall white cloth voodoo doll and complimentary three-inch straight pin with “pearl” tip. The dolls came in red, yellow, black, and white, and one could purchase markers to individualize them. A plain white one did her just fine.

  Because it didn’t only symbolize her ex-husband, but also the man who’d gotten her fired from the job she’d had—and loved—ever since college. Her co-worker had tried to “comfort” her, in a very physical way, after her divorce. She’d refused. So he had retaliated by pulling strings with upper management. Suddenly Midnight was drawing unemployment checks.

  In fact, the doll symbolized men in general to her right now.

  She jabbed the pin into the doll a few times where the penis would have been. Some of the stuffing dropped out, as she had worked on that particular area repeatedly since making the purchase a few hours ago.

  She sighed again, relaxing a bit. That did feel good.

  She tossed the doll back onto the smoky gray leather passenger seat and checked her watch. Just five o’clock. She was early, as usual. She looked around at downtown Legend, a town boasting a population of about six thousand people, according to her realtor’s office. She noted the few people walking along the sidewalk or from car to store, vehicles heading north and south on the unimaginatively named Main Street. In her two days of driving, she’d seen a lot of small towns, some county seats complete with courthouse squares, and some with a single main thoroughfare, very like this one. Before that, small towns existed for her only on television. Mayberry was her favorite, from all those years ago when she’d watched The Andy Griffith Show as a child. It had seemed an idyllic place to live. That’s why when Midnight Shelby’s life had fallen apart, she’d decided to move from big city, big corporate life to the real world—Mayberry—or rather, Legend, Tennessee. She’d found her new town via the Internet. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known it existed. Even with a good magnifying glass, it was barely visible on the atlas.

  Midnight noticed a tall, dark-haired man and a teenager—from the build and hair color, obviously his son—having a discussion in front of a building on the next block. The motion of the red and white barber pole indicated the place was open.

  It was obvious that the boy didn’t want anything to do with it. He could have been the poster child for Surly Teenager Syndrome. Finally he relented—she could see it as his shoulders sagged—and entered the shop. His father turned fully in Midnight’s direction and she tried not to notice how extremely handsome he was. Strong facial features that would have done a Greek statue proud, broad shoulders... Hmm. In spite of herself, she wondered about the rest of him. How would that stand up to the Greek statue test?

  Disgusted with the turn of her thoughts, she reached back into the car for the doll again. She might need to go back to the roadside stand. Maybe buy another voodoo doll and pick up a plate for the front of her car as well. Twenty-five dollars to proclaim MENRSCUM everywhere she drove.

  As she felt the doll in her hand, she also noticed the tall, dark man was walk
ing toward her. She quickly stuffed the doll under the seat, jabbing her own finger with the pin as she did so. The immediate stab of pain helped focus her attention on reality instead of retribution. Squeezing a dark red drop of blood from the wound and quickly sucking it clean, she straightened and tucked a stray lock of silky black hair behind her ear. In the city, one didn’t meet strangers’ eyes. But this man looked directly at her, or rather, from her to the convertible and back to her, and she could hardly avoid his eyes without being rude. Snooty. Citified. Not a good beginning in her new hometown.

  Midnight pasted what she hoped was a friendly smile onto her face, willing him to pass by. A small, bent, gray-haired couple came along from the other direction, also checking out her car and herself. Midnight used the smile on them. They smiled in return and spoke a word of greeting. Okay, now Mr. Greek Statue. She turned the smile his way, watched as his brow furrowed a little. He walked over and stuck out his hand expecting to shake hers.

  “Miz Shelby, right? Martin McClain. I wondered if you might have a change of heart and not come.”

  Oh, great. My realtor is Mr. Greek Statue.