Tales from Shady Grove: Stories from the Trailerverse, Volume One Read online

  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.