Laura Trentham, the author of The Military Wife, is back with an
emotionally charged novel about redemption and second chances. In the vein of
Josie Silver’s One Day in December, An Everyday Hero, explores the challenges of a relationship and
ultimately discovering that love…and joy is worth fighting for.
At thirty, Greer Hadley never
expected to be forced home to Madison, Tennessee with her life and dreams of
being a songwriter up in flames. To make matters worse, a series of bad
decisions and even crappier luck lands her community service hours at a
nonprofit organization that aids veterans and their families. Greer cannot
fathom how she’s supposed to use music to help anyone deal with their trauma
and loss when the one thing that brought her joy has failed her.
Then there's Emmett Lawson, the
golden boy who followed his family’s legacy. Greer shows up one day with his
old guitar, and meets Emmett’s rage head on with her stubbornness. A dire
situation pushes these two into a team to save a young teenager, but maybe they
will save themselves too. . .
BUY LINKS
Chapter 1
“Disorderly conduct. Public intoxication. Resisting arrest.”
Judge Duckett put down the paper, linked his hands, and stared over his reading
glasses from his perch behind the bench with a combination of exasperation and
fatherly disapproval.
Greer Hadley shifted in her sensible heels and smoothed the
skirt of the light pink suit she’d borrowed from her mama for the occasion.
“I’ll give you the first two, Uncle Bill—” The judge cleared his throat and
narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me—Judge Duckett—but I did not resist arrest.”
“That you recall.” Deputy Wayne Peeler drawled the words out
in the most sarcastic, unprofessional manner possible.
She fisted her hands and took a deep breath. The impulse to
punch Wayne in the face simmered below the surface like a volcano no longer at
rest. But ten o’clock on a Monday morning during her arraignment was not the
smartest time to lose her temper, and she’d promised herself not to add to her
string of bad decisions.
She sweetened her voice and bared her teeth at Wayne in the
facsimile of a smile. “I recall plenty, thank you very much.”
Truth was she didn’t recall the minute details, but the
shock of Wayne’s whispered offer on Saturday night to make her troubles go away
for a price had done more to sober her up than the couple of hours spent in
lockup waiting for her parents.
Dressed in his tan uniform, Wayne adjusted his heavy gun
belt so often she imagined he got off every night by rubbing his gun. Giving
him a badge had only empowered the part of him desperate for respect and
approval. His nickname in high school, “the Weasel,” had been well earned.
Unfortunately, she was the unreliable narrator of her life
at the moment and no one would trust her recollections. Judge Duckett, her
uncle Bill by marriage until he and her aunt Tonya had divorced, rustled papers
from his desk.
The ethics of her former uncle acting as her judge were
questionable, especially considering they had remained close even after he’d
remarried, but if nepotism is what it took to make this nightmare go away, then
she wouldn’t be the one to lodge a complaint.
“A witness claimed you were sitting quietly at the end of
the bar until a song played on the jukebox. What was the song?” Her uncle
glanced at her over his glasses again, which made him look like a stern
teacher.
“‘Before He Cheats’ by Carrie Underwood.” She forced her
chin up.
His mouth opened, closed, and he dropped his gaze back to
the paper. A murmur broke out behind her.
She would not cry. She wouldn’t. She blinked like her life
depended on a tear not falling. Later, in the privacy of her childhood bedroom,
she would bury her face in the eyelet-covered pillow and let loose.
Beau Williams, her cheating ex-boyfriend, was only partially
to blame for her embarrassing behavior. It was a confluence of setbacks that
had had her holding down the end of the bar. Hearing Carrie’s revenge anthem
had hit a nerve exposed by the shots of Jack. Rage had quickened the effects of
the alcohol, and that’s when things got fuzzy.
“Yes, well. That is a rather … Let’s move on, shall we? The
witness also claims after a heartfelt, albeit slurred speech about the vagaries
of relationships and how the moral fiber of the Junior League of Madison was
frayed, you fed five dollars into the jukebox and played the same song for over
an hour. ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline, was it?”
Ugh. She didn’t recall how much money she’d fed the machine,
but it sounded like something she would do. “Crazy” was one of her favorite
songs. A master class in conveying emotion through simple lyrics. She was just
sorry she’d wasted five dollars on Beau. He didn’t deserve her money, her
heart, or Patsy.
“No one can fault my taste in the classics.” Greer tried a
smile, but her lips quivered and she pressed them together.
Her uncle continued to read from the witness statement, “You
proceeded to throw two glasses on the floor, shattering them, and attempted to
break a chair across the jukebox.”
She swallowed hard. A vague picture of a frustratingly
sturdy chair surfaced. The fact the chair remained intact while she was falling
apart had sent her anger soaring higher and hotter. A glance from her uncle
Bill over the paper had her giving him a nod. She couldn’t deny it.
He continued, “A patron called 911. When Deputy Peeler arrived,
he pulled you away from the jukebox and forced you outside. That’s where, he
claims, you kicked him … well, you know where.”
“Wayne dragged me down the stairs—”
“Deputy Peeler, if you please.” Wayne sniffed loudly.
“As Deputy Peeler escorted me down the stairs, I lost my
balance and fell. The heel of my shoe jabbed into his crotch. Sorry.” Greer
didn’t make an attempt to mask her not-sorry voice with fake respect.
If she accused Wayne of misbehavior on the job, he would
deny it and spin it somehow to make her look even more irresponsible. Lord
knows, she’d embarrassed her parents enough for a lifetime. Anyway, seeing him
rolling on the ground and cupping his crotch had been sweet payback.
“I sustained an injury where that spike you call a heel caught
me.” Wayne half turned toward her.
Instead of playing it smart and soothing his delicate male
ego, she batted her eyes at him. “I’m sure that’s left the ladies of Madison
real upset.”
Wayne took a step toward her. “You are such a—”
The gavel knocked against the bench and her uncle stood,
looming over them. “I’ve heard enough, Deputy. Sit down.”
Wayne turned on his heel and left Greer to face her uncle
Bill. This was where she would promise such a thing would never happen again,
and he would give her a stern warning before dismissing all charges.
“I’m striking the resisting arrest charge. It was an
accident.”
Greer forced herself not to look over her shoulder and stick
her tongue out at Wayne. That left only two misdemeanors, which her uncle could
expunge with a swipe of his pen.
He settled behind the bench and picked up his pen, his gaze
on the papers. “You will pay for any damages.”
“I’ve already reimbursed Becky.” Technically, she’d had to
use her parents’ money, considering she’d crawled home from Nashville broke.
“And apologized profusely. You can be assured there will not be a repeat performance.
I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Good. As for the other charges…”
Her deep breath cleansed a portion of the tension across her
shoulders, and a smile born of relief appeared.
“You will perform fifty hours of community service.”
Her smile froze on her face. It sounded like a lot, but
she’d been stupid and immature and deserved punishment. “I understand. Clean
roads are important.”
“Litter pickup? Goodness no.” He took his glasses off and
smiled at her for the first time, but it wasn’t the jolly-uncle smile she was
familiar with. “You have talents that would be wasted on the side of the road
picking up trash, Ms. Hadley. You will spend your fifty hours working at the
Music Tree Foundation.”
“I’m not familiar with it.” She swallowed. The mention of
music set her stomach roiling. “Highway 45 was in terrible shape on my drive in
last week.”
“The foundation is a nonprofit music program that focuses on
helping military veterans and their families cope with the trauma they’ve
endured serving our country. They’re in need of volunteer songwriters and
musicians.”
“I can’t write or play anymore.” Her dream of hearing one of
her songs on the radio had died. Not in a blaze of glory but from a slow,
torturous starvation of hope. At thirty, she was resigned to finding a real job
and cobbling together a normal life in the place she’d tried to leave behind.
“My decision is final. As far as I can determine, your
brain—despite this lapse in judgment—is in fine working order. You can and will
help these men and women heal through your gift of music. Unless you’d rather
spend thirty days in county lockup?”
Would her uncle actually throw her in jail? For a month?
“No, Your Honor, I don’t want to go to county lockup.”
“Good. Once you turn in your log with all your hours signed
off by the foundation’s manager, your record with this court will be cleared.”
He handed her file to a clerk. “Case closed. Next up is docket number
fourteen.”
She stood there until he met her gaze with his unflinching
one. “Go home, Greer.”
Her parents were waiting at the door to the courtroom. While
they’d faced the horror of having to bail their only child out of jail
stoically, her mother’s embarrassment and disappointment were ripe and all-encompassing.
Greer wilted and trailed her parents out of the courthouse.
She felt like a child. An incompetent, needy child living in
her old bedroom and dependent on her parents for emotional and financial
support. She thought she’d hit rock bottom many times over the years, but her
situation now had revealed new lows.
The silence in the car built into a painful crescendo.
“The tiger lilies are lovely this year, don’t you think?”
Her mother’s attempt at normalcy was strained but welcome.
Her father’s hands squeaked along the steering wheel as an
answer.
Greer huddled in the backseat and stared out the window, the
clumps of flowers on the side of the road an orange blur. As a teenager, she’d
chafed at her parents’ protectiveness and had wanted nothing more than to
escape to Nashville, where she’d been convinced glory and fame awaited. Now she
was home and a disappointment not only to her parents but to herself. Even
worse, she hadn’t come up with a plan to turn her life around.
“Ira Jenkins is back in the hospital. I thought I’d run by
and check on him. Since Sarah passed, he seems a shell of the man he once was.”
Her mother turned to face the backseat. “Would you like to come with me? I’m
sure he’d be happy to see you.”
“He won’t remember me, Mama.”
“I’m sure he will.”
Greer scrunched farther down in the seat. The last thing she
wanted was to make small talk with a man she hadn’t seen in years.
“You’ll have to get out eventually and face the music.” Her
mother’s smile wavered and threatened to turn into tears. “So to speak.”
Her mother was trying, which was more than could be said for
Greer at the moment. Her parents deserved a better daughter. Someone successful
they could brag on at the Wednesday-night potlucks at church. Not a daughter
they had to bail out of jail.
“I will. I promise. Just not to see Mr. Jenkins.” Greer
leaned forward and squeezed her mother’s hand over the seat, needing to give
her something to hope for even if Greer wasn’t sure what that might be.
Her father cleared his throat. “You need to think about the
future.”
He ignored her mother’s whispered, “Not now, Frank.”
“A job. Or back to school. We’ll put you through nursing or
accounting or something useful.” He shifted to meet her gaze in the rearview
mirror. “But you can’t keep on like you’re doing. You need a purpose.”
“I’ll start looking for a job tomorrow.” School had never
been her wheelhouse. She’d been sure she’d make it in Nashville and had never
formulated a backup plan.
They pulled up to her childhood home, a two-story brick
Colonial on the main street of Madison, Tennessee. Oaks had been planted down a
middle island like a line of soldiers at attention. They had grown to shade
both sides of the street. It was picturesque and cast the imagination back to a
time when ladies lounged on porches with their iced tea and gossiped with their
neighbors to escape the heat of summer. Air-conditioning had altered that way
of life.
At one time, as a kid, she’d known every family up and down
the street well enough to knock on their door for help or run through their
backyard in epic games of tag. Now, though, the houses were being bought up by
people who used Madison to escape the bustle of an expanding Nashville. They
built pools in the backyards and fences and weren’t outside except to walk
their trendy dogs.
The march of progress through Madison added to her
melancholy sadness. There was a reason not being able to go home again was a
recurring theme in books and songs.
“We love you, Greer. You know that, don’t you?” Her mother’s
voice was tight with emotion, but she didn’t turn around, thank goodness.
Her mother never cried and if Greer witnessed tears, she
would burst into sobs herself and embarrass everyone.
“I know. Thanks for everything. I’m going to do better. Be
better.” It seemed a wholly inadequate promise she wasn’t even sure she could
keep, but it was all she could manage. She ducked out of the car and skipped
around to a side door of the house that was always unlocked.
Her room was both a haven and a mocking reminder of the
state of her life. Posters of album covers papered the wall behind her bed, the
colors faded from the sun and the edges curling with age.
In high school, she’d gravitated toward indie folk artists
and away from the commercially driven country-music machine located a few miles
south. Joan Baez was flanked by Patty Griffin and Dolly Parton. Even though
Dolly veered more country than Greer, no one could deny the legend’s
songwriting chops. The guitar Greer had hocked for rent money had borne Dolly’s
signature like a talisman. Sometimes Greer ached for her guitar like a missing
limb.
The flashing glimpse of a woman in a pale pink suit stopped
her in the middle of the floor. She turned to face the full-length mirror glued
to the back of the closet door. God, it was like glimpsing her mom through a
time warp.
Greer touched the delicate pearls that had been passed down
to her on her eighteenth birthday. They were old-fashioned and traditional and
stereotypical of a Southern “good girl.” Not her style. She’d left them in her
dresser drawer when she’d left home the day after high school graduation.
A tug of recognition of the women who had come before her
had her clutching the strand in her hand as if something lost were now found.
Was it her circumstances or her age growing her nostalgia like a tree setting
roots?
She turned around to break the connection with the stranger
in the mirror, stripped off the pink suit, and pulled on jeans and a cotton
oxford. Her mother would appreciate seeing her in something besides the frayed
shorts and grungy concert T-shirts she’d lounged around in the last week. She
reached behind her neck for the clasp of the necklace, but her hands stilled,
then dropped to her sides, leaving the pearls in place.
She stepped out of her room and was enveloped in silence.
Her father had returned to his insurance office and her mother must have set
off for her hospital visit. The house took on an expectant quality, as if
waiting for its true owners to return. She was no longer a fundamental part of
this world. Not unwelcome, perhaps, but a loose cog in her parents’ lives.
She tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen and made herself a ham
sandwich. May was too early for fresh tomatoes, but in another month or two her
mother’s garden would make tomato sandwiches an everyday treat.
Craving an escape, Greer grabbed a book and settled in her favorite
window seat. The rest of the afternoon passed in the same expectant silence.
The chime of the doorbell made her start and drop her book. If she pretended no
one was home, maybe whoever was on the front porch would go away. The last
thing she wanted was to face one of Madison’s gossips masquerading as a
do-gooder.
The creak of the door opening had her bolting to her feet.
“Greer? I know you’re home. Are you decent?” Her uncle
Bill’s booming voice echoed in the two-story foyer.
She propped her shoulder in the doorway of the sunroom.
“Letting yourself in people’s houses is a good way of getting shot around
here.”
“While your mama would have liked to have shot me during the
divorce with her sister, I hope we’ve made our peace.” He closed the door behind
him and Greer did what she’d wanted to do in the courtroom—she threw herself at
him for a hug.
He lifted her off her feet and spun her once around. Her
laugh hit her ears like a foreign language. It had been too long since she’d
laughed from a place of happiness.
“You could have just come out to the house. You didn’t have
to get arrested to see me.” Bill let her go, and she led him into the sunroom.
“Do you want something to drink?” Greer asked, already
turning for the kitchen and the fresh brewed pitcher of sweet iced tea.
“No, thanks. Mary has fried chicken ready to go in the pan,
so I can’t stay long.”
Bill had divorced her aunt Tonya more than a decade earlier
and married the choir director of the biggest black church in town. A scandal
had ensued not because he’d married a black woman, but because he, a
long-standing deacon in the Church of Christ, had converted to a heathen
Methodist.
“How is Mary?”
“Always singing.” He shook his head, an indulgent smile on
his face, as they settled into their seats.
His comment sprinkled salt on an open wound. She’d begged
off going to church with her parents because of the questions she was sure to
face and the hymns she couldn’t bring herself to sing. Some of her earlier
happiness at seeing him leaked out. “Good for her.”
“I came to make sure you weren’t mad at me.”
“Why would I be mad?”
“I got the impression you expected me to dismiss the
charges.” His smile turned into a wince.
“I wouldn’t have been upset if you had, but I get it. I was
an idiot and deserve punishment.” She picked at the fringe on a decades-old
needlepoint pillow and cast him a pleading glance. “I’d rather pick up trash,
though, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s not the same to me.” He crossed his long legs and
tapped a finger on the cherry armrest of the antique chair that looked ready to
surrender at any moment to his bulk. “Do you remember Amelia Shelton?”
“Mary’s daughter? She was a couple of years ahead of me in
school. We didn’t hang out or anything, but she seemed nice.” Greer couldn’t
remember the last time she’d seen Amelia. Greer’s side of the family had
skipped Bill and Mary’s small wedding ceremony; the acrimony between him and her
aunt Tonya hadn’t faded at that point.
“Amelia is the founder and director of the Music Tree
Foundation and is desperate for qualified volunteers. You’ve been playing and
singing and writing music since you were knee high. It was meant to be.”
“It’s not meant to be. I’ve got to get a real job.”
Her uncle made a scoffing sound. “You’re too much like my
Mary. You could never leave music behind.”
“Music dumped me on the side of the road, gave me the
finger, and peeled out.” Greer shook her head and touched the string of pearls,
her gaze on his polished black dress shoes. “I’m a mess, Uncle Bill. I have
nothing to offer. In fact, I’ll probably make things worse for whatever poor
soul I get paired with.”
She expected him to argue, but he seemed to be weighing the
truth in her words like the scales of justice. His shrug wasn’t in the least
reassuring. “Amelia has done something really special with her foundation. It
might do you a world of good to focus on someone besides yourself.”
“Dang, that’s harsh.”
He patted her knee. “I’ve seen all kinds come through my
courtroom. The ones who turn it around are the ones who quit feeling sorry for
themselves.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Beau is an asshole. Not the first or the last
you’re likely to encounter. Don’t you deserve better than him?”
“Yes?” She wished she’d been able to put more conviction
into the word.
Beau was successful, nice-looking—even though a bald spot
was conquering his hair day by day—and respected in their town. They’d known
each other since high school, but had only started dating in the last year.
He was solid and steady and comfortable. Three things
lacking from her life. Catching him cheating with the president of the Junior
League had been another seismic shift in her world, leaving her unsure and off
balance.
“If you can’t believe in yourself yet, then believe me. You
are talented, Greer, and you have the ability to help people find their voice.”
He slipped a card out of his wallet. When she didn’t reach for it, he waved it
in her face until she took it.
A tree styled with musical symbols of all different colors
decorated one side of the card. She ran her thumb over the raised black ink of
Amelia’s name and an address on the outskirts of Nashville. “I don’t have much
choice, do I?”
“Not if you want to stay in my—and the court’s—good graces.
She’s expecting you tomorrow at three.”
“No rest for the wicked, huh?” Her smile was born of
sarcasm.
Bill rose and ruffled her hair like he had when she was
little. “Not wicked. Lost.”
Greer walked him out, brushed a kiss on his cheek, and
murmured her thanks. She leaned on the porch rail and waved until he
disappeared down the street.
I once was lost, and now I’m found. She’d sung “Amazing
Grace” so many times that the lyrics had ceased to have an impact. But,
standing on her childhood front porch, having come full circle, a shiver went
down her spine, and goose bumps broke over her arms despite the heat that
wavered over the pavement like a mirage. Her granny would have said that
someone had walked over her grave. Maybe so. Or maybe change was a-coming
whether she wanted to face up to it or not.
Copyright © 2020 by
Laura Trentham
About the Author
Laura Trentham is an award winning romance author.
The Military Wife is her debut
women’s fiction novel. A chemical engineer by training and a lover of books by
nature, she lives in South Carolina.
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