Read the First Two Chapters of When We Were Legends!
a woman with amnesia and a brokenhearted ex-country music star
Happy release week When We Were Legends!
To celebrate the debut of my Ghost Mountain series I am letting you get a sneak peek at the first two chapters. Yay!
I hope you enjoy meeting Marigold (the woman with amnesia) and Levi (the brokenhearted ex-country music star)
You can find the Kindle, Paperback, and Kindle Unlimited editions of When We Were Legends HERE.
Prologue
Marigold
The origins of many legends are unknown. But not the legend of me.
Perhaps I’m being presumptuous in describing myself as a legend, or perhaps I’m telling the truth of things. I’ll leave that for you to decide.
My story began when I forced my eyes open.
Darkness as black as a womb surrounded me. I bolted upright at the sensation of flutters across my skin. My touch sent leaves dancing to the black ground.
I swiveled my head, trying to peer into the darkness.
A vision—no, a dream—hung at the edges of my consciousness. Two men atop a cliff. Their silhouettes facing one another before one figure fell over the side.
Not wishing to dwell on the terrifying image, I used my fingers to assess what I couldn’t see.
Grit marred my face. Was it dirt or something else? Twigs tangled my hair while sweat seeped through my thin T-shirt. My bare feet poked through dried leaves.
Where was I? How did I get here?
Squinting, I braced my hands on the ground to push myself up. My vision adjusted to the faint glow of the moonlight filtering through the canopy of tree branches overhead.
The haunting cries of a Great Horned Owl echoed through the stillness of the night while a soft rustling of leaves sounded behind me.
What hidden dangers lurked in these woods? Was it a massive bear? A stealthy wolf? Or perhaps a silent mountain lion?
Despite my intense scrutiny, all that met my gaze were the dull trunks of trees.
Run, Marigold. Run.
Wait … I knew my name!
Marigold.
And yet the path that led me here remained shrouded in mystery, a puzzle begging to be solved.
Branches reached out like skeletal fingers, scraping across my face as I clambered to my feet and sprinted. No sounds stalked me. I slowed my sprint to a steady jog, then eventually a cautious walk.
Was I moving deeper into the woods or inching closer to civilization?
My foot snagged on something uneven, causing me to stumble. Pain seared through my leg as I fell, smashing my knee upon a jagged rock. Warm blood trickled from the wound, tracing its way down my leg and bare foot.
I gritted my teeth to stifle a cry. With no choice, I forced myself upright and continued.
Minutes passed as I hobbled forward, agony pulsating through every movement. The bark of swaying trees sounded like the eerie creak of an opening door, and the rustling leaves above me whispered secrets of the darkness I had yet to uncover.
My head throbbed. I tentatively probed the tender spot, biting back a scream. This wound must be the origin of my memory loss. I needed a doctor or a first aid kit.
Without warning, the dense woods gave way to a clearing, and my wounded foot hit a flat surface. My arms windmilled to keep me upright. When I regained my footing, I took another step onto a dirt road.
A thin sliver of moonlight illuminated a thicker route stretching from left to right, and a smaller one continuing straight ahead.
A driveway.
I stumbled down its trail and found a house with a truck parked out front.
What hour was it? Should I knock?
Yes, I needed help. My head throbbed from an unknown injury, my knee burned from my fall, and my cheeks pulsed with open cuts from wayward branches.
I knocked on the door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
No response.
I knocked harder.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Still met with silence, I fumbled along the doorframe until I found a doorbell to ring. The chime pierced through the night, prompting shuffling footsteps and an overhead light flickering to life.
“Who’s there?” It was a young man’s voice. Good. At least I didn’t give an old man a heart attack.
“I need help.” Squinting at the sudden brightness, I shuffled backward as the door swung open.
A man in his early thirties stood before me, purple bruises marching up the left side of his face. One of his eyes swelled shut, and his clothes appeared ruffled. His hair stuck up in all different directions.
“Who are you?” he said, holding himself upright against the doorframe with his forearm, eyes squinting.
“M-Marigold,” I stammered.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The sensation of dripping blood warmed my arms, legs, and face. What must he think of the bloodied woman on his doorstep? “Can you help me?” I asked. “Please?”
“Come closer. I can’t see you.”
Safe men didn’t wear bruises like beards, did they? He appeared too inebriated to make any sudden moves. I inched forward until the porch light illuminated me once again, exposing the extent of my injuries.
He frowned at the sight of me. “Come in. There’s gotta be a first aid kit around here somewhere.”
The man slurred his words and his breath stank of alcohol. He was drunk and battered. But I got the impression that he wouldn’t harm me.
“Are you sure?” I asked. In reality, I wasn't sure if I wanted to follow this man into his house. While he might not hurt me, he didn't appear to be in good enough condition to help me.
He clutched his head, blinked, and then gestured for me to enter.
If he passed out I could leave. Or use a phone. Something.
Our shoulders brushed as I wiggled past him and stepped into the house. “I don’t want to get your home dirty.”
He barked a laughed. “This dump? No way. Follow me.”
I tiptoed behind him. Hardwood floors and carpet cooled my scratched feet like ointment as he led me to a bedroom with rumpled bedsheets. Beyond was a bathroom suite with a tub and sink. After rifling through a cabinet, he dumped two musty towels onto the countertop. Our footprints stood out on the dusty linoleum tiles.
The man swore after setting the cloth on the counter. “I gotta turn on the hot water. Give me a sec before you run a bath.”
No water? Who was he, and why did his house look like it was unlived in?
I halted him with a gentle touch on his arm. “What’s your name?”
Breaking away from my grasp without meeting my gaze directly, the man mumbled over his shoulder as he vanished into another room: “Levi.”
Chapter 1
Levi
I discovered the body on Lillian’s wedding day.
The welcoming fragrance of decaying leaves, mossy rocks, and bark enveloped me as I hiked Ghost Mountain, a ridge in southern Tennessee. I was minutes from the trailhead when I deviated toward the edge of legendary Skeleton Cliff out of habit, a ritual ingrained in me since my father’s tragic demise at its base three years prior.
I neared the ledge, my boots inching closer to the fabled precipice, causing a pebble to break free from the cliff and bounce out of sight. The weight of my pack shifted dangerously as I leaned forward.
Shock sent me scrambling backward until the weight of my hiking backpack pulled me onto my backside.
The vivid blue sky stared down at me as I lay there, wondering if I hallucinated the body. After all, I had been hiking on the mountain for a week without any human interaction. Maybe I imagined it.
Crawling to my feet, I took a hesitant step forward. Another step. Then one more.
Yes. An unmoving form with a mane of hair splayed around her head rested on the rocks below.
This side of Ghost Mountain—the side with the three-hundred-foot rock face called Skeleton Cliff—wasn’t popular.
Legend claimed that bones of Civil War soldiers were found at the foot of the rock. As the story goes, the dead haunted the mountain and its hollers. Hence the mountain’s name—Ghost Mountain.
I checked my watch and swore. Only four hours until the wedding, and I still needed a shower. The pungent smell of my own body odor made me cringe. My truck was parked a five-minute hike away, followed by a challenging twenty-minute drive down the winding switchbacks to the valley floor.
My gaze fell upon the tragic scene below, and another curse escaped my lips. Momma would slap my ear if she heard me. She’d raised a fine southern gentleman who knew better, but etiquette was hard to uphold when there was a dead woman three hundred feet below.
Muscles tensing, I contemplated my two impossible choices. Hike to the dead woman or rush to Lillian’s wedding.
As a groomsman. Not a groom.
My number one goal in life, besides trying to erase Lillian from my heart, was trying to prove that my dad didn’t commit suicide. If I hiked to the woman, I might discover a clue. Maybe their deaths were connected somehow. This might be my only chance to prove to the townsfolk that my dad, Duncan Shaw, was murdered.
Leaving her didn’t seem right. Sutton was a small town, after all. I may have gone to school with her. Her death would likely stir up gossip like dust behind a tractor.
Cell service on the mountain was sporadic, which meant I couldn’t call the police until I reached the valley.
A name popped into my head.
Jackson Miller.
Sheriff of Sutton.
He would be at the farm right now, preparing to wed the woman I loved. He had the power to make the arrest I’d been craving since the day my daddy died.
Yes. Reporting directly to Jackson was the right choice.
I scanned the foliage. A bunch of red cardinal flowers with velvety petals caught my attention. I pinched their stems to create a small bouquet, and then I dropped them over the edge as a sign of respect. “Rest in peace,” I said.
I clutched my backpack straps tighter, leaving behind the picturesque vision of the soybean, hay, corn, and cattle farms that dotting the valley. The forest enveloped me in its cool shade as my boots crunched over roots and rocks.
Five minutes later, I gripped the handle of my truck. It creaked as I pulled it open. I hadn’t locked it for two reasons: One, this was Ghost Mountain, Tennessee, where hardly a soul locked their vehicles. And two. People didn’t venture to Skeleton Cliff.
But someone evidently had.
The woman and the man who pushed her must have seen my truck as they hiked to the cliff.
Dirt and leaves flung forward as I shifted into reverse and kicked the accelerator. Jerking the wheel, I avoided a tree and then threw the engine into drive before swerving onto the main road. Some might call the move reckless, but I was more familiar with this mountain than the curves of Lillian’s body.
My tires slid around switchbacks like water around bends in a creek as I drove toward the farm.
Sutton sat at the base of Ghost Mountain.
I was performing my customary rolling stop at the sign in the valley when the song “Sunflower Dress” played on the radio. My tires left marks on the asphalt as I jammed my foot against the accelerator to drown out the chords I knew by heart. A burning rubber smell filled the open cab windows.
Why were the radio stations still playing this song? It should have been retired from rotation years ago. "Sunflower Dress" was my first hit in Nashville, and of course I wrote it for Lillian.
Before she left me.
Before Daddy died.
And before I gave up everything to prove that he was murdered.
I swerved a right onto Ghost Mountain Farm Road. This road wound its way through the heart of the sprawling three-hundred-and-fifty-acre farm, connecting every corner with a dusty embrace. I was born and raised on this land, and I knew every inch of it. The land was a quilt of cow pasture and growing land. Years had stitched it into my skin, a blanket of my past, present, and undoubtedly future.
This place was home. A warm compress for my cracked-open soul.
I passed the fence my daddy and I built together, and a pang resounded in my chest. His ghost lingered in most places I looked. I saw his shape in the woman who died on the rocks and his heart in the weathered white picket.
The jolt of hitting a familiar pothole sent my head lurching against the truck’s ceiling, momentarily distracting me from thoughts of the body, my father, and Lillian. I’d hoped that hitting the pothole at full speed might knock the memory of them from my brain, but it didn't.
Swerving around an oncoming white GMC Sierra, I approached the cluster of four farmhouses that lined the road ahead. Most days, the farm road carried tractors and equipment. But in a few hours, it would become a parking lot for the nuptials. Lillian intended to get hitched in the old red barn, the place we’d planned to get married.
Turning onto what I dubbed Farmhouse Row—a name unofficial but deeply personal—I traced the path leading to the homes erected by my father and Samuel King when they first laid claim to this land. Each structure held echoes of their labor and love, standing as monuments to their shared vision for this farmstead.
I passed the first farmhouse that held the Ghost Mountain Farm Store. Momma and Mrs. King sold homemade jams there, along with hand-stitched quilts and everything in between.
The next farmhouse I approached belonged to Mrs. King and Lillian. Yes, my ex. She was the literal girl next door.
Momma and I lived in the third farmhouse.
And Ezra King—Lillian’s big brother, my former best-friend-turned-enemy—called the fourth and final house his home.
Our relationship with the Kings—the very people we lived feet apart from—used to resemble a black-and-white sitcom. But now it mirrored a crime drama. Ghost Mountain Farm, initially established by my dad, Duncan Shaw, and Samuel King, had been the genesis of all these homes standing before me. But then everything fell apart.
As I sat in my truck parked outside our farmhouse, Momma emerged from the front door clad in a vibrant rooster-patterned apron over her dress. A string of pearls swayed on her neck as she hurried toward me.
One week ago, I hiked into the shadow of Ghost Mountain for solitude, much like Jesus did when He went camping in the wilderness. I didn’t tell Momma where I was going. I had simply vanished.
The lemon-yellow hem of her dress danced at her ankles as she rushed toward my truck.
I cut the engine.
“Where’s Jackson?” I asked, slamming the door.
She halted, a flour stain covering the giblet of a rooster on her apron. “Why do you need to see him?”
Taking hold of her elbows firmly, I confessed, “It happened again.”
She leaned in and sniffed my breath. “You haven’t been drinking.” Her eyes widened in approval.
“No. I was on the mountain. I had to get away.” I couldn’t stand to watch Lillian put the finishing touches on her wedding.
Momma’s hands, spackled with batter, brushed my cheeks gently, her expression softening with concern. “Levi . . .”
A knot formed in my throat. I couldn’t talk about Lillian. Not now.
I gently guided her hands back to her sides. “When I was coming back, I hiked by the cliff. Momma, I found a dead body there. A woman. I gotta report it to Jackson. He did it again. Ezra killed someone else.”
She gripped my forearm, her brows furrowing. “Don’t start this, Levi Shaw. Ezra didn’t kill your daddy. You know how he died.”
She couldn’t say the words. She didn’t believe what the whole town of Sutton believed any more than I did. But it was easier to trust a computer-generated suicide note than to face the truth. “Dad was murdered.”
“Levi, you didn’t know your dad the way I did. Ezra didn’t—”
“Where’s Jackson?”
“Whoever you saw must have jumped. You know the history of the cliff.”
I did. Numerous people had stepped off the edge of Skeleton Cliff and into the afterlife. But not my dad. He would never do that.
I gave up my life, my career, and my fame to discover how he had died, and this was my first lead in three years.
“Where’s Jackson?” I repeated.
Momma sighed. “You promise you won’t hurt him?”
As if I could. Jackson Miller was over six feet tall, a former member of the military. He’d press my face into the dirt before I could lift a hand. “I have to tell him about the girl.”
She nodded at Ezra’s home. “He’s there.”
That’s all she had to say. I jogged across the yard toward Ezra’s house, a charming white structure with pristine leafy-green colored shutters and a flawlessly maintained porch. Ever since his daddy went to jail and mine died, Ezra had taken over the farm as its foreman.
Voices hollered and laughed from beyond the door. I barreled inside, ran thought the living room and into the back of the house. Four men in impeccably pressed pants resembling hay, crisp white dress shirts paired with suspenders and ties in shades of evergreen, clustered around the kitchen island.
My identical outfit awaited me in my room next door. The colors and attire were all things Lillian and I had talked about when we planned our wedding. Seeing our vision displayed like this reminded me of what a foolish idea it had been to agree to be a groomsman.
It was Jackson who caught sight of me first; his close-shaven wheat-colored hair accentuated his clean-cut appearance with not a hint of stubble on his defined jawline. “Jackson, can I talk to you?”
The chatter quieted as they swiveled in my direction. I focused on the tallest man present.
He nodded once and then came to stand in front of me, saying nothing.
I avoided Ezra’s piercing stare from the other end of the kitchen. “Can we talk outside? Alone?”
Jackson scrutinized me, still silent.
“I have something to report.”
He straightened his tie, all business. “Of course.” He followed me onto the porch, letting the screen door slap shut behind him. “What’s this about?”
Jackson Miller was the tall, brooding type. At least I assumed he was brooding. He rarely spoke.
“I found a body,” I blurted out. The gentle melody of a distant stringed instrument wafted through the air, mingling with the scents of cow pastures, hayfields, and vast stretches of corn and soybean fields.
His unwavering brown eyes bore into me, his brows raised curiously.
Steady. That’s the thing he had that I lacked. This man was predictable, reliable, and unshaken. “Where?” he asked. Straight to the point.
“At the cliff. Just now. You have to arrest Ezra.”
He sighed. “Levi, Ezra has been with us the whole time. He didn’t—”
“He could have left in the night.”
“Who was it?”
Jackson and I grew up in Sutton. Small towns were nice and country. Small towns were also just that—small. Everybody knew everybody, or at least someone in their family. “A woman. I didn’t have time to hike to the bottom to identify her.”
“I’ll call the station and have them retrieve the body.”
“And you’ll arrest Ezra?”
Then he said the most words I’d ever heard from him: “Levi, I know your families have history, but this isn’t the time to work out old grievances. Thank you for telling me about the girl. I’ll make sure her death is investigated. Rest assured, we will find out what happened.”
“But—”
“Do you want to ruin Lillian’s wedding by arresting her brother? Besides, if there isn’t any concrete evidence, then I have no right to make an arrest.”
He was right. I didn’t have any real proof. I could only hope the deputies would collect something that could be traced back to him.
“Levi?” Jackson’s voice broke through my thoughts.
Startled by his continued presence beside me, I responded, “Yeah?”
“Go get ready.”
Want to read more? Check out When We Were Legends on Amazon.
And don’t forget to subscribe for more book news!