Whiskey Lullaby

by Keren Hughes

  Whiskey Lullaby

  Keren Hughes

  ISBN 978-1-912768-98-1

  Published 2020

  Published by Black Velvet Seductions Publishing at Smashwords

  Whiskey Lullaby Copyright 2020 Keren Hughes

  Cover design Copyright 2020 Jessica Greeley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  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 recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All characters in this book are completely fictional. They exist only in the imagination of the author. Any similarity to any actual person or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Dedication

  This book is for you, nan. You gave me my love of music from a very young age, and though I have eclectic tastes, I am a country girl at heart. You taught me to love Garth Brooks right from when I knew what music was. You told me he was the ‘King of Country’ and I’d have to agree with you.

  Acknowledgements

  To my nan; thank you for always being my inspiration. I love you from the bottom of my heart. It feels strange living in a world where you’re no longer here. Your passing hit me hard and I didn’t want to read, let alone write. But then after a while, I realised you wouldn’t want me to give up, so I poured myself into my work and now I’ve written fourteen books. Can you believe it? Actually, you would believe it. You never doubted me.

  Thank you for always being my biggest cheerleader. I owe so much to you. A debt I’ll never be able to repay. You were my mum, my rock, my everything. I still feel your love surrounding me every day. You are my North Star. I love you. <3

  To my son, Calum; thank you for always being you. You’re funny, witty, smart and I love the bones of you. You are the very best part of me. Being your mum is the best thing I could ever do. Thank you for cheering me on in my writing all the time. I am humbled every time you say you’re proud of me. Love you, kiddo. <3

  To Jodie, the daughter I never had; thank you for being my best friend, my sounding board, the Coraline to my Other Mother. You’re beautiful, funny, intelligent and sassy. I love your sarcasm and that it seems to be our second language. Whether we’re talking in Friends quotes, or you’re sending me memes—as seems to be your hobby—I’m always happy when I’m talking to you. Thank you for being my BETA reader, my constant companion and my moral support. I love you. <3

  To my BETA girls: Anne, Melinda, Kara & Shawna; thank you for reading and loving this book. Your support means the world to me. In a world where I am sometimes unsure what I am doing, your love for my work is what keeps me sane. <3

  To Ric, my boss-man; thank you for always taking a chance on my writing. For every contract I’ve signed with you. I’ve not only gained a publisher; I’ve gained a friend. Thank you for everything.

  To Jessica, my cover designer; thank you, as always, for another amazing cover.

  To readers, bloggers and everyone else; thank you for choosing to read my books. Without amazing readers, authors wouldn’t be able to do what we love most. We’d have stories in our heads but no-one to tell them to.

  Thank you for your continued support. It means the world to me every time someone takes a chance on my books. It means the world to get reviews that talk about what you guys loved. I am humbled by every review—both positive and negative, because without the negative ones, how would I grow as an author? I wouldn’t!

  Whether you’ve been here since my journey began in 2013 or only just picked up a book by me, thank you for everything. You rock!

  I hope you all enjoy Caleigh and Brent as much as I enjoyed creating them. <3

  Keren xoxo

  Love is like playing music;

  First you must learn to play by the rules,

  Then you must forget the rules

  And play from your heart.

  ~Unknown~

  Prologue

  Once upon a time a girl met a boy, looked at him and BAM! She instantly fell in love. Isn’t that how all fairy tales start? Well not mine. Let me tell you my story. It goes a little like this…

  I’m sitting in the airport, and because of my obsessive need to be early for just about everything I am far too early to board my flight. I’m obviously less obsessive about my need to charge my Kindle because that darn thing won’t turn on, so I know I’ll have to wait a long-ass time to finish reading my deliciously dirty new obsession.

  I am so bored it’s untrue. I’d go to the gift shop and look for a book, but if the weight of my luggage is anything to judge by, it would only take one tiny book to make me incur excess-weight charges. No thank you. I paid enough for this darn flight as it is. I’m not paying one penny more. Especially not for a cheap book.

  My mum always tells me I’m too tight. Her favourite thing to do is tell me I have short arms and long pockets, aka I’m a penny pincher. But I have to be on the meagre wages I earn as part-time barmaid. That’s one of the reasons I flew here in the first place—I’ve had an interview for a new job. Lord knows whether it went well or not. I’ll just have to hope.

  Anyway, I digress. Back to my unending boredom.

  I pick up my phone to look at my social media, and as I do, Tinder sits there looking at me, daring me to finally swipe right.

  I open the app and swipe left so many times I fear I might actually get RSI. Suddenly a voice pipes up from behind me.

  “Ouch. That’s a hard no for that guy then?!”

  I don’t answer right away, so he speaks again, sending shivers through me with the sound of his gravelly voice.

  “Seriously, what was it about that dude that made you swipe left so hard?”

  “Nothing in particular, I just—”

  And that’s when I turn around to get a good look at who I’m talking to.

  My heart feels like it’s going to fall out of my ass. I didn’t take a very good look at the guy on the screen, but now I’m staring at the guy behind me, I just know it’s the same guy I just swiped past.

  “I-I … I just don’t swipe right,” I finish awkwardly.

  I feel my skin flush profusely. I don’t know what else to say, so I’m sure I look like a goldfish as my mouth opens and closes.

  “Then may I inquire as to the point of being on such a dating site?” he asks, a puzzled look crossing his face.

  “Oh, umm … well … my mother. She constantly moans at me about finding a nice guy. But I hate internet dating. It doesn’t give you much of an impression of the guys. They umm … well, they mostly just want to hook up and I’m not that kind of girl.”

  I’m babbling and I know it, but he’s got me flustered and that expression on his face tells me he knows as much.

  Suddenly the tannoy booms with a boarding call for a flight. I have no idea where it’s going, but wherever it is, that’s where I’m going too.

  “Oh, umm … if you’ll excuse me, that’s my flight,” I say as I hastily grab my bag and slide my phone into my pocket.

  “No worries,” he says with a smile.

  My palms are sweaty as I race to get away from him. The annoying click-clack of my heels rings in my ears as I rush towards the door of the ladies’ room.

  Once I’m in the stall, I close the door and sit on the lid of the toilet. Normally I would hesitate to use public toilets—jus
t the thought of them normally makes me shudder—but right now, I need somewhere to hide.

  I pull my phone out and close the dating app. Pulling up my best friend’s number, I hit call and wait for her to pick up. At the message on her answerphone, I hang up and shoot her a text instead, telling her I was only calling to say I’d made the journey to the airport safely and would call her when I get home.

  Looking at the time on my phone, I see I still have over ninety minutes left to wait until I can board my plane. The question is what to do in the meantime. I can’t very well walk back out and risk him still being there. Instead I decide not to move an inch. I just sit up straighter and pull up the Kindle app on my phone, which is what I should have done in the first place. If I had just done that, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  When I finish the book, I check the time again. Thank goodness I didn’t miss my flight due to the highly combustible book I was engrossed in. Seriously, any hotter and it would have melted my phone.

  Walking out of the ladies’ room with my head held high, I race to the lounge. Thankfully, there’s no sign of Mr. Tinder.

  Breathing easily, I take a seat and wait for the tannoy to announce it’s time to board.

  Chapter One

  Caleigh

  I can’t believe my rotten bloody luck. I’m stuck in a window seat. That’s what you get for waiting until last minute to book a ticket. You get the shitty seat next to the guy with overpowering body odour. But at least there’s nobody sitting next to me yet, so I inhale the clean smelling air while I can.

  I really wish I could ask the flight attendant for a whiskey to calm my nerves. I hate flying. I hate being shoved into ridiculously tight spaces like I am crammed into right now. And it’s only set to get a lot worse when someone sits down next to me.

  There’s never enough room in these seats.

  I close the blind on the window, not wanting to look out when we eventually take off. I know, statistically speaking, I’m actually safer on a plane than in a car, but right now I’d give anything to be in my little red Miata, or better yet, home in bed. The job, if I get it, isn’t even far from home, but their headquarters is a couple of hours away by plane, longer by car. Though I did almost convince myself to drive instead of being stuck in a flying tin can. The only reason I didn’t is because I hate long journeys in the car. I feel almost claustrophobic. That might sound silly to others, but I’ve always been a person who needs space and fresh air.

  Flying was the lesser of two evils only because it was faster. So here I am, like it or not.

  We’ve been waiting what seems like forever for all the passengers to get on board, but in reality, it’s probably only been minutes. I keep looking at my watch, but you know what they say about a watched pot never boiling. So, I sit back and try to get comfortable. I pull my sleep mask out of my bag, wriggle it over my eyes and focus on my breathing. In for three seconds, out for three seconds, just like I was taught to try and combat my anxiety. When that doesn’t work, I try tapping it out. It doesn’t work for everybody, but it seems to do the trick for me. However, I’m not at the point of needing that. Not right now.

  “Your seat is just there, sir,” the bubbly flight attendant says from somewhere close.

  I almost take my mask off to take a peek, but I can’t find the energy. I’m trying my best to be chilled here, after all.

  “Excuse me, miss,” a voice says. “Your bag seems to be on my seat.”

  Wait one gosh-darned minute. I know that gravelly voice.

  No, no, no. A thousand times no. It can’t be him. It just can’t.

  Pulling my mask off, I move to grab my bag from the seat next to me and look up right into the chocolate brown eyes of Mr. Tinder. Well, knock me down with a feather. What in the ever-loving fuck is he doing on my flight?

  “Oh,” he says as he stares at me. “It’s you. I thought you caught a flight to Barcelona?”

  A mischievous smile lights up his features. Features that I am now noticing to be rather handsome. Why did I swipe left on him again? I can’t fathom how I’d do that to someone with such enticing eyes and that chiselled jaw covered with a scruffy but sexy beard.

  “I … umm … I …” I can’t think of a convincing lie.

  Someone shoot me. Shoot me now. Please, someone have mercy on me. I can’t think what to say, and he knows he has me cornered. His eyes twinkle with mirth as he takes his seat next to me.

  Oh my god, he’s so close. And to think I was worried about a man with overpowering body odour. I should have been worried about a man with come-to-bed eyes and a delicious smell of rich aftershave. Something woodsy. I can’t put my finger on what.

  “Go on,” he urges with a playful smile.

  “Well … look, I-I won’t lie. Well, not again, anyway.” I try to stifle a giggle as he laughs at me, knowingly. “I just … Oh, I’m not making much sense.”

  “Would you like to start again?”

  “Yeah, okay. Umm … truth is, I was just flustered earlier. I shouldn’t have lied, but you caught me swiping left on you. What else was I supposed to do? I’m sorry. I actually should have just told you the truth. But the truth is, I just don’t know what I would have said.”

  “I meant would you like to start again as in start over from meeting, like, you know, start a clean slate. But thanks for the apology.”

  “Oh.”

  My voice squeaks out high-pitched and almost painful.

  Mr. Tinder bursts out laughing, and I can’t help but join in with him.

  ***

  The rest of the journey is spent making idle chit-chat. He introduces himself as Rhett. Yes, after Rhett Butler in Gone with The Wind. It was his mum’s favourite film, and their surname is Butler, so he has—in his opinion—a rather clichéd name.

  He tells me about his siblings—two brothers and a sister. He says Eliza has always been like his shadow, always choosing to follow her eldest brother around as a kid. It makes me laugh when he says that she’s a feisty young thing, which in his opinion is just like me.

  I know I’m feisty. I won’t lie. But I guess I’ve had to be. I’ve grown up fighting my own battles. No siblings to protect me. I had to grow a thick skin and wear it as my armour every time someone had a problem with me. Which in high school was pretty often.

  I guess I come off as feisty to people that don’t know me very well, much like Rhett, because I have long pink hair, tattoos on my arms and multiple piercings, including the most recent addition of something called an Ashley—a piercing in the middle of my lower lip. I look … different to most people, always choosing to have my own style rather than being a sheep who follows the latest trends. I’m not a goth, but a lot of my wardrobe is black. I dress for comfort over style.

  People that spend time with me know that I’m a big softie at heart. I think I keep most people at arm’s length and act like a bitch because that way I don’t get used.

  I’ve always been the type to wear my heart on my sleeve, but all that’s ever earned me is heartache and pain. So I’ve learned to disguise that about myself.

  Rhett keeps me entertained with stories of his siblings and what it was like to grow up being the eldest of four. He seems sweet and genuine. I realise somewhere along the way that I shouldn’t have swiped left on him, but his Tinder pic and bio didn’t give much insight into who he is. I wasn’t to know he was actually pretty cute under that rugged beard, as well as funny and down to earth. Just goes to show my mother was right when she said never to judge a book by its cover.

  He buys me a much-needed whiskey and I relish the slow burn as it travels down my throat. It also calms my nerves about flying. Or is that more to do with Rhett himself?

  As I hail a taxi outside the airport, Rhett helps me wheel my bags and loads them into the boot of the car. Who said chivalry was dead? It almost has me swooning. Almost. I’m not some dewy-eyed teenager after all.

  My taxi pulls away from the kerb and I’m left wondering who Rhett is and what he�
�s doing in River’s Edge. It’s a quiet little town, not some suburban concrete jungle, the likes of which I imagine he’s used to. When I say little, I mean remote and with not much to do.

  We have a population of only a couple of hundred people. There’s a post office, a small school and a corner shop. For food, we have to either survive on what the shop has in stock or go further afield for a supermarket. There’s also a pub, Da Vinci’s Lock. Or as the locals call it, The Lock. It was so named because Leonardo Da Vinci invented the locks we see on rivers and canals today. That ends my knowledge on the subject. I only know that much because I work there part-time. Then there’s the bed and breakfast and that’s about it really.

  I love it here. The people are friendly and the rent is reasonable. Yes, everyone knows everyone’s business, but it’s not like we’re a bunch of gossips or anything. It’s just hard not to know everything about everyone when you’re so tight knit.

  I ponder what Rhett could be here for. A holiday? Maybe, but we’re hardly a tourist trap.

  As we pull up outside my little cottage, the front door opens, and Hardin runs down the garden path and pulls my door open. I smile as my baby hugs me so tightly you’d think I’d been gone for a month, not a couple of days.

  Managing to move to the boot of the car with a small human being clinging to me is a feat in itself. I grab my bags and pay the driver before wheeling my case up the path to the front door where my mum is waiting for me.