UNSUNG
A Country Roads Novel
Shannon Richard
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To Jessica Lemmon,
It just goes to show that sometimes this weird and wonderful life knows exactly what it’s doing,
especially when it gives me extraordinary friends like you.
Thank you for being a constant sounding board in both this fictional land of writing and in the real world.
Acknowledgments
I remember the days when friends of mine would read what I wrote and I couldn’t be in the same room because I was so terrified of what they thought. Never once did any of them give me anything but support and love in this crazy dream of mine. It’s because of their words of encouragement and support that this dream became a reality and these stories have been written.
Thank you to all of my very first Beta readers: Kaitie Hotard, Gloria Berry, Diana Quintero, Katie Crandall, Catie Humphreys, Jenna Robinson, Jennifer Pezzuto, Jennifer Ewing, Kelly Filippini, Marina McCue, Sarah Pennell, Katie Waldow, Tyler Sojourner, Kerrie Alexander, Molly Kane, Heather Seeman, Mike Widener, Chris Widener, Amanda Blanchard, Michelle Blanchard, Ronald Richard, my parents, and to everyone else who ever took the time to read for me. I appreciate you all more than you know.
Then there are all of the lovely Beta readers who I’ve acquired since then, especially Nikki Rushbrook. You are a wealth of information and insight. Thank you for always offering up your invaluable knowledge. Also, thank you to Amy Lipford for your dry wit and real-time talk.
And finally, thank you to my agent Sarah E. Younger, my editor Megha Parekh, my publicist Julie Paulauski, and everyone at Grand Central Publishing for all of the hard work you do day in and day out.
Forever
Love at first sight was something I’d never seen
but you walked in and became every single one of my dreams
Violet eyes and the lips of a goddess
I knew I’d want more than just one kiss
A day, a week, a month, a year
It would never be enough
I want forever
Forever, honey
Forever with you
A million simple things that aren’t so simple at all
Your hand in mine
The taste of your tongue
Your head on my chest
You stealing my heart
A day, a week, a month, a year
It would never be enough
I want forever
Forever, honey
Forever with you
You were something I never knew I always wanted
Something I never knew I always needed
And now that I know, I can’t let go
I need forever, honey
Forever with you
Prologue
Found
June 20th
The crowd of people in the ballroom of the Brogan-Meyers Hotel was only getting thicker as the minutes passed. The space was packed with men in tuxes and women in designer dresses of varying lengths. Some gowns trailed along the floor, perilously close to getting trampled on, while others had barely enough fabric to cover the women wearing them.
Harper Laurence’s dress was somewhere in the middle. The midnight blue fabric clung to every single curve of her body, the neckline dipping just low enough to show her very impressive cleavage without being too immodest. Add to that the fact that it made her violet eyes pop, and looked pretty spectacular with her long black hair if she did say so herself.
Or she would’ve said so if it had been a few months ago.
She’d grabbed the dress when she’d been packing. It had been a magic dress before tonight and she’d always been able to rock it with every ounce of her confidence.
But said confidence was gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
She’d had it before. Before she’d been left by her fiancé. Before she’d taken a trip to Tennessee to get away. Before she’d fallen in love with a stranger.
But was he really a stranger?
No. Not by the end. Not when everything was all said and done. Not when she’d turned tail and ran scared. But he’d broken the rules…and so had she.
The rules had been so simple. Well, rule really. There’d just been the one: nothing personal.
But she’d been fooling herself from the moment she’d met him. Everything about their time together had been personal. Every moment she’d spent with him. How was it that she’d fallen faster and harder for him in two days, felt more for him in those hours than she ever had for her ex? How was that even possible?
And now everything was five thousand times more complicated.
What had she been thinking coming here?
Her stomach rolled and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose and counting her breaths until the nausea subsided to a tolerable level. When she opened her eyes it was to find Mel making her way over, a champagne glass in each hand.
Melanie Hart was one of Harper’s best friends and the reason she was at the party in the first place. A party of beyond attractive athletes, celebrities within elbow rubbing distance no matter where she stood, a handful of very important politicians, and even a Nobel Peace Prize winner. But as the Jacksonville Stampede had just won the Stanley Cup, it was a reason to celebrate. A distraction as Mel had put it.
A distraction from Harper’s current predicament? Impossible. There wasn’t anything that could detract from what was occupying her brain.
Harper raised an eyebrow as Mel passed her a glass.
“It’s ginger ale. Maybe that will calm your stomach,” Mel said as she brushed one of her short blond curls behind her ear.
“Maybe.” Harper nodded, not feeling confident in that prospect at all.
“Come on. Let’s go find my husband and the boys before they get into trouble.” Mel grabbed Harper’s hand and led her across the room. Good thing, too, because the crowd of people was thick and it wouldn’t take a lot to get lost among them.
Her eyes caught on a couple in the corner, the woman obviously pregnant and the man resting his hand on her belly as he whispered in her ear, grinning. The sight made her both sad and envious beyond reason.
She tipped the glass of soda back, wishing it were something much stronger. The bubbles popped against her nose and lips as the cold liquid hit her tongue.
Mel’s pace slowed and her grip on Harper’s hand loosened. Mel was talking and Harper turned her head at the sound of her own name being said.
Her eyes landed on the man directly across from her and she choked on her sip of soda, coughing uncontrollably.
He was here. The rule-breaking stranger was standing right in front of her, the green-gold gaze that she knew so well focused on her.
Yup, there was nothing in the world that could calm her stomach now. No more hiding from the reality she was going to have to face head on in this moment. No more running away.
It was Liam. He’d found her.
Chapter One
Love at First Sight
May 8th…six weeks earlier
Sometimes in life, there are moments of grief that are so deep and thick that a person can’t possibly see the other side. Moments where it
seems impossible that the future could hold something even a fraction better than the past.
And in those moments there was only one thing that could help.
Tequila.
At least that was Harper’s philosophy on the matter and how she had every intention of spending the weekend that would’ve been her wedding. Because really, what else was a person supposed to do when they’d been jilted at the altar?
Okay, maybe not literally at the altar…but three months to the altar, and that was close enough by her calculations. Especially as she and her fiancé Brad Nelson had been planning the wedding for seven months.
Seven. Fucking. Months.
Locations had been confirmed, deposits had been paid, save the dates sent out, and her two-thousand-dollar dream wedding dress customer ordered to perfection.
Per-fec-tion.
Not that it mattered anymore. The dress had been sold to the highest bidder on eBay, a whopping five hundred dollars. But whatever, it was no longer in her apartment staring her down every time she walked by.
Brad had been kind enough to leave everything for Harper to take care of in the cancellation department. Such a gem. But at least he’d left Mirabelle, packed up his stuff and taken a job in Louisiana so she didn’t have to worry about running into him at the grocery store. Because if she did she just might run him over.
Or at the very least clip him with her car.
She’d worked past the grieving stage of things—for the most part—and now she was just angry about it. Really angry. But it was hard to move on when just about everyone in her town of Mirabelle, Florida, knew what had happened.
With a population of a little more than five thousand, there were very few degrees of separation between anyone. Someone knew someone who knew someone. And courtesy of the ever-awful—and Mirabelle’s resident gossip hag—Bethelda Grimshaw, Harper’s jilting had been sensationalized to a point that was hard for anyone to ignore.
Bethelda had once worked for the local newspaper, and when her human-interest pieces morphed into a nasty tell-all about the residents’ less than savory business, she’d been fired. Now she had a blog where she spread her poison, and though she changed the names—which in no way protected the innocent—everyone always knew exactly who she was talking about.
It hadn’t even been forty-eight hours when Harper and Brad’s breakup hit the blog page, and the story had haunted Harper for the last three months.
THE GRIM TRUTH
DISSED AND DISMISSED
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, no one is going to buy the cow if they can get the milk for free. And my words of wisdom have yet again proven true with the case of Voluptuous V. and her hightailing ex-fiancé Human Ken Doll.
Voluptuous V. (or VV for short, which is probably the girl’s bra size) was given the old heave-ho. Ho being the operative word here. And I feel bad for the girl, really I do, but what did she expect? Ken was out of her league to begin with.
I mean when it comes right down to it, a civil engineer with three degrees under his belt isn’t going to settle down or settle with a woman whose talents are purely physical. Now I’m not saying that VV used her “massage” skills to seduce him, but I’m not not saying it, either.
I would imagine that VV’s skills must be extensive, because it took Ken a year and a half to see the light of day. And as soon as he did he packed up his things and headed out for different horizons.
And as to the incident that ignited his speedy getaway? I’m not exactly sure what happened to make the man remove his blinders. But what I can tell you is that it happened right after her bridal shower.
Maybe it was the china pattern that set him off, or the color of the bathroom towels, or the idea of waking up in floral sheets next to the same woman for the rest of his life. Who knows?
But what we do know is that come May 9th, VV will not be walking down the aisle to marry the man of her dreams…nor will she be walking down the aisle to marry the man who almost settled for her.
The real kicker? Bethelda’s article hadn’t been too far from the reality of the “incident.” It had in fact been right after Harper’s bridal shower. But it hadn’t been china, or bedding, or towels that had set him off.
Nope. It had been a potato masher.
They’d been loading up his car with all of the gifts from her shower when he grabbed it out of a bag. He held the utensil in the air, his brow furrowed quizzically.
“What is this?”
To be fair to the guy—something she was in no way inclined to be—the shape was odd. A handle connected to a weird metal wave that somewhat resembled a heartbeat on a monitor.
“You use it to mash potatoes.”
“Oh.” He nodded before he’d put it back in the bag, and that furrowed look on his brow only got more pronounced.
It was a five-minute drive from where the bridal shower had been to Harper’s apartment. They hadn’t even gone a mile when they were stopped at a red light.
She asked him what he wanted for dinner.
He told her he didn’t want to get married.
How did he get from Point A to Point B? Apparently the potato masher made him think about the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas with family all gathered around a table, turkey and stuffing and stupid mashed potatoes all piled high. He’d pictured it all quite clearly…and Harper hadn’t been a part of it.
As they’d never officially moved in together—her mother would’ve had a fit—it didn’t take him very long to get his stuff out of her apartment. He left Mirabelle two weeks later. She might not have to deal with him living in the same town anymore, but she did have to deal with the pity from just about everyone she knew.
And that was why Harper was currently in Nashville, Tennessee, free from her mostly well-intentioned friends and family—complete with hovering/overbearing mother—and their looks of concern. She loved them all dearly, but she just couldn’t deal with it. And to be honest it was hard to be around them.
Her friends were all settled and popping out babies like it was their business. And she was happy for them. Really she was. She’d just wanted all of that with Brad. He’d been part of her dream…she just hadn’t been part of his.
And that was why tequila was on the agenda for the evening that would’ve been her rehearsal dinner. She was meeting up with her aunt at the Second Hand Guitar, Harper’s go-to bar in Nashville.
Celeste Angelo was not only Harper’s favorite aunt—and current sanctuary provider—but she was also a renowned obstetrician who specialized in high-risk pregnancies. Women from all over the United States came to her to save not only their babies’ lives, but sometimes their own.
Celeste was the only woman in Harper’s life who was happily unmarried. She and her longtime boyfriend Reed were more than satisfied with their separate houses and bank accounts.
Maybe there was something to be said about that.
But she wasn’t going to think about any of that tonight. Nope, tonight was about forgetting.
It was a little before ten o’clock when Harper walked into the building. She made her way through the crowd and to the square bar that sat at the back of the room. A couple got up from two seats on the side corner and made their way over to the dance floor where a live band played from the stage. A girl was belting out a fast-paced song while she strummed on her guitar, a guy sang backup and played base, while another guy beat out a steady rhythm on the drums behind them.
The Second Hand Guitar was one of Harper’s favorite places to come when she was in Nashville, with its exposed brick walls, hardwood floors, and constant stream of occupants that made people-watching thoroughly entertaining. Not to mention the selection of alcohol was excellent. There were about thirty taps lined up behind the bar, and shelves of more assorted hard liquor than she could count.
It was her second favorite bar after her local watering hole the Sleepy Sheep, owned and run by one of her close friends, Nathanial Shepherd. He was like the
alcohol whisperer, could tell someone what they wanted before they even opened their mouth. And his ability would be nice in this moment because Harper wasn’t sure what to get. Though tequila was on the agenda for the evening, she figured she and her aunt should start with something lighter.
By the time the bartender made his way over to her, she settled on a mild beer with vanilla and orange undertones and ordered two. The second he turned around to go get the drinks her phone vibrated on the bar in front of her. She grabbed it and looked at the screen to see a message from her aunt, her heart sinking somewhere around her navel as she read.
Emergency surgery on patient. Can’t make it. So sorry. I WILL see you tomorrow and we will drink in style and excess my sweet niece. Love you, Cee.
Harper didn’t even get a second to process the fact that she was now going to be spending the evening alone when someone came up next to her. She turned to find a guy with unkempt blond hair, a faded flannel shirt over a dirty white tank top, and a neck tattoo that said Bubba blocking her view. He was leaning against the bar and looking right at Harper.
Fantastic…not only had she been stood up but she had to deal with this on top of it? Don’t get her wrong, she was a fan of tattoos in certain locations, but neck tattoos of this caliber required a special level of I-ain’t-ever-gonna-be-a-functioning-member-of-the-workforce crazy.
“I was so distracted by that banging body of yours that I ran into that wall over there,” he said as he pointed to the wall behind him. “So I’m gonna need that name and number of yours for insurance reasons.”
Oh. Dear. God. No. Just no.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to claim a hit and run,” a deep voice drawled from behind her.
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