by Kimbra Swain
Tales from Shady Grove
Stories from the Trailerverse
Kimbra Swain
Contents
Books by Kimbra Swain
I. Wild Goose Chase
Note from the Author
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
II. Whiskey in a Teacup
Note from the Author
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
III. Swappin’ Gravy
Note from the Author
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
IV. A Month of Sundays
Note from the Author
Introduction
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
V. Jingle in Your Jangle
Note from the Author
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Cast of Characters
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Kimbra Swain
Tales from Shady Grove: Stories from the Trailerverse, Volume One
Kimbra Swain / Crimson Sun Press, LLC 2021
[email protected]
[email protected]
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
Ebook Cover by: Crimson Sun Graphics
Paperback Cover by: Crimson Sun Graphics
Formatting by: Crimson Sun Graphics
Editing by: Carol Tietsworth
Books by Kimbra Swain
FAIRY TALES OF A TRAILER PARK QUEEN
Urban Fantasy
BLESS YOUR HEART
TINSEL IN A TANGLE
SNAKE IN THE GRASS
COMIN’ UP A CLOUD
GULLY WASHER
MOONSHINE IN A MASON JAR
HOTTER THAN BLUE BLAZES
SIGHT FOR SORE EYES
HAINT BLUE
FULLER THAN A TICK
BRIGHT-EYED & BUSHY-TAILED
SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP!
FIT TO BE TIED
PITCHIN’ A HISSY FIT
AMAZING GRACE
STORIES OF FROST AND FIRE
Urban Fantasy (New Adult)
ZERO HOUR - PREQUEL
FIRST FLAME
SECOND SIGHT
NEVER TO WONDER: A TRAILERVERSE NOVEL
TRIPLE THREAT
QUARTET OF QUEENS
FINAL FLIGHT
DOG RIVER WOLFPACK
Urban Fantasy
WAYWARD SON - PREQUEL
BAD MOON RISING
MIDNIGHT RIDER
FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
BORN ON THE BAYOU
SIMPLE MAN
ONE OF THE PACK: A TRAILERVERSE NOVEL
THE ODDITIES EMPORIUM
Urban Fantasy
SHADOW ATHAME (preorder)
BONE DICE
DREAM STONE
MOURING BROOCH
DEATH MASK
CHANTILLY LACE
Urban Fantasy (New Adult)
FRIVOLOUS MAGIC
AMBITIOUS PRODIGY
VICIOUS SPELLS
DANGEROUS TRICK
LEGEND OF A VAMPIRE REJECT
Urban Fantasy
HARD KNOCK VAMP - PREQUEL
VAMPIN’ AIN’T EASY
GET YOUR VAMP ON
VAMP IT LIKE IT’S HOT
VAMPIRE STATE OF MIND
PATH TO REDEMPTION
Urban Fantasy
ABOMINATION
INTUITION
REINCARNATION
TEMPTATION
PATH TO REDEMPTION HISTORICAL NOVELLAS
Historical Urban Fantasy
FOUNDATION
RESTORATION
DECEPTION & DEVOTION
TRANSFORMATION
KIMBRA SWAIN STORE
T-SHIRTS FROM TEE PUBLIC
KIMBRA SWAIN SWAG STORE
Note from the Author
WILD GOOSE CHASE
IS THE PREQUEL TO
FAIRY TALES OF A TRAILER PARK QUEEN
Introduction
WILD GOOSE CHASE
A doomed relationship. A fated choice. A fairy queen in a trailer park.
Grace Ann Bryant, the exiled daughter of Oberon, signs her life away to the Sanhedrin. A group of zealots who had hunted her all of her life. She connects with a local lawyer in a small town in Alabama only to find out that he’s lied to her from the moment they met.
As the story of her life has always gone, Grace runs to a new home in Shady Grove, Alabama. For the first time, she puts down roots. Roots deeper than the trees that connect to her father’s realm. There is a child who needs care. A dog to keep her company. And a handsome sheriff to keep her out of trouble.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
1
GRACE
Sitting in our booth while sipping a whiskey neat in a rocks glass, I watched the door waiting for my lover to arrive. When the ice rattled, I decided I’d had enough. Enough to drink. Enough of him. I’d discovered that he was lying to me. It was even worse that his wife was the one that told me.
As a Unseelie fairy, I didn’t really care about who I rolled around with in the sheets. However, the contract on my head dictated that I keep my activities to the supernaturals of this world. The Sanhedrin, who weren’t like the ones in the Bible, nor were they religious, would skin me alive if they caught me with a mundane human. I’d recently made a deal to get them off my back after they had hunted me for hundreds of years.
Remington Blake was the answer to a deprived fairy’s prayer. If I prayed. Which I didn’t. He was a member of the First People’s Star Folk. Gorgeous and debonair. I’d fallen for him the moment that New Orleans twang rolled off his sexy and very useful tongue. He gave off the air of a refined gentleman with his expensive suits and cars. He was a lawye
r by trade in the real world, and he looked the part. In the bedroom, it was a different story.
He had a penchant for fine suits and custom leather shoes. He always smelled wonderful. He was a high profile lawyer in Louisiana with a few clients in Alabama. I wasn’t sure how all of that worked, but I knew that he practiced law in both places.
It was hard enough finding a fairy to fuck, but finding one that you really liked, was a rare occasion for someone like myself. Remy and I were made for each other in bed. It had been too many years since I’d found someone that could keep up with me. Partially because I had been on the run for most of my life.
“Fuck all of them,” I muttered in my frustration.
Remy swaggered in the door, saying something sweet to the bartender to make her blush. He turned to me and his eyes lit up like they always did when I saw him. Or when he saw me. However, they quickly darkened, and he slowed his approach.
“Gracie, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“Sit down, Remy,” I replied.
He sat down as the bartender brought him a glass of cognac. “Thank you, Judy,” he said politely to her. Immediately he turned his attention back to me. Remy was a flirt, but I knew, rather I thought that he only had eyes for me. I was completely wrong.
At the moment, I couldn’t stand the sight of him, but I wasn’t allowed to make a scene. Stupid rules. Stupid Sanhedrin.
“I’ve never seen you look so dark, Grace. Talk to me, honey,” he said. Usually he sat down beside me, but his instincts were on point. He looked at me across the table with questioning eyes. I also saw fear in them.
“Don’t honey me. You sorry, good-for-nothin,’ son of biscuit eater,” I growled.
“My momma was never fond of biscuits. Tell me what’s got you all riled up,” he said, trying to humor his way through my wrath.
“You are a liar through and through. I thought because you weren’t exactly one of us that I could trust you. Boy, was I wrong?” I said. I almost got choked up. I didn’t know why this bothered me so much. I’d loved ‘em and left ‘em before. Remy was no different.
Only he was. The prospect of having to stay in one place was rough, but without someone to work on certain frustrations sounded like torture. I should have known better.
“Alright now. I’m not playing games anymore, Grace Ann Bryant. What has happened?” he asked.
“It was bad enough finding out that you are married, but it’s so much worse when your own wife was the one who told me. I felt like a dirty, trashy whore,” I hissed at him across the table.
His handsome face fell as he leaned back in the booth. But a spark of fire burned in his eyes. “If you would allow me to explain,” he started to say.
“There is no explainin’, Remy! You’re married! You can’t pull some slick talking lawyer shit on me,” I said, jumping up from my seat. “I don’t want to ever see you again. Do you understand me? You keep your lying self out of my business from now on.” I marched out of the bar, and he followed quickly on my heels.
I hit the door to the parking lot as he folded out cash for the bartender. I noticed because I was watching him over my shoulder. His reaction meant something to me. Lies are lies, but what I felt was real. I was almost in my truck when he managed to stop me.
“Grace, you will hear me out,” he demanded.
“I don’t have to hear anything. I should have known better than to trust anyone, but myself. After so many years, I thought maybe, just maybe, I could fall for someone like me.” I spoke mostly to myself, because he was intent on getting his word in edgewise.
“What? Fall for me? Grace, are you in love with me?” he asked astonished.
“I didn’t say that. I said, maybe. Now let me go,” I huffed through my hissy fit.
“No, my wife and I have been separated for over fifty years. She won’t divorce me. She’s a damn witch, and I’m stuck with her for now. I have never, ever been in love with her much less slept with her. I got myself in a bad way, and she bailed me out. The price was marriage. Grace, honey, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. We click. It’s good with us, because we are good together. You see that right?” he said.
“No, I see a liar,” I said. “If she meant nothing to you, then you should have just told me the truth.”
“Most women don’t like to hear that the man they have designs on is married,” he said. “Much less to a witch. She only shows up to run off any potential I have for happiness.”
“There were no designs. It was sex. It was good. It’s over,” I clipped off at him as I climbed into the truck. “I can get good sex anywhere. I don’t need to get it from you.”
“It was more than just sex. Grace, I swear, you are all I’ve ever wanted since I laid eyes on you. Look in your heart. You know it is true,” he said.
“Too bad for you, I don’t have a heart,” I growled. It hurt so much. Perhaps I did have a heart. “I guess you should have thought about that when you were lying to me.”
“Please. I’ll prove it to you,” he begged.
“Beggin’ is not attractive, Remy. I meant what I said. Leave me alone,” I said with force.
He stepped back from me with wide eyes. I looked down at the tattoo on my right arm. It was a ruby heart shaped jewel surrounded by a sexy filigree. I lifted the ink from the Sanhedrin, and it had it’s own magical properties. The heart pulsed with power that I kept stored in it from the Otherworld. I wasn’t allowed to go there, but I could borrow power from trees with deep roots which touched the edges of that realm. My father’s realm.
I watched Remy standing in the parking lot in my rear-view mirror. The dust from my truck surrounded him. Even in pain, he looked handsome.
2
REMY
Leave it to me to fall in love with the most insufferable fairy this side of the Mason-Dixon line. I shoulda stayed home in N’awlins with all the sweet tushes ripe for the pickin’. But nope, I had to get tangled up with a fairy queen.
Grace wasn’t just any fairy queen either. Her father, Oberon, ruled the Otherworld. At least, the Unseelie side of it. Here in the human realm, the Sanhedrin policed the exiled fairies. Most of them couldn’t keep their noses clean long enough to keep from being executed by the bastards. I hoped that Grace wouldn’t do anything to draw their ire now.
I stood in the parking lot watching her roll away in that monstrosity of a truck and tried to think of a way to make things right with her. Her stubborn streak that I once found attractive got in my craw and started itchin’.
“Bless your heart, Grace Ann Bryant,” I muttered, as I dug out my keys to get in my car. The thought crossed mine mind to go inside and pick out some sweet thing to take home, but if I wanted any chance with Grace, I needed to leave this bar.
“Evenin’, Remy,” an older male’s voice said behind me.
Turning around I locked eyes with one of the rat bastards in the flesh. “Hello, Jeremiah,” I grumbled.
“A little trouble with your lady friend?” he asked.
“Jerry, I’m not going to pretend that you don’t know what the hell is going on, so why don’t you cut to the chase?” I prompted.
He chucked as he rubbed his greying beard. “Remy, she’s a difficult woman. Surely you knew this wouldn’t last with her.”
“You are the one that told me not to discuss my wife with her. Don’t stand here and treat me like a fool. I don’t have a contract with you,” I reminded him.
“No, you don’t. But she does, and I don’t want her riled up. I’ve got some ducks to get in order before I make my next move with her,” he admitted.
“What move?” I asked.
“Since you are no longer a speck on her horizon, I figure you don’t need to know.”
“Asshole.”
“That’s not very nice,” he said with a smile.
“I don’t care to be nice to you. You’ve roped her into one of your damn contracts. I hate contracts unless I draw them up,” I replied.
“
Well, what would you do to get her back?” he asked.
I started to say anything, but that was exactly what he wanted me to say. “Depends on your terms, Sanhedrin.“
“I just need you to keep her entertained until I can move her to Shady Grove,” he said.
“No! Why are you taking her there?” I said. I knew of the city nearby where the Sanhedrin kept their misfits. I didn’t understand why some were allowed to live while others were executed. It was a death sentence to move there.
“He wants her there.”
“He?”
“Her father,” he said.
Leaning back on my car door, I contemplated the reasons why the King of the Unseelie would want his daughter in Shady Grove. The place had been cursed since it was formed. It used to reside in a forest in France, but when the New World began to settle, the Sanhedrin had the cursed city moved here. For the life of me, I had no idea why they wanted a bunch of fairies living in the middle of Alabama. If I had been smart, I would have gotten in my car and hauled ass back to New Orleans.