Turning Home (A Small Town Novel) Read online

  Turning Home

  A Small Town Novel

  Stephanie Nelson

  Copyright © 2014

  All Rights Reserved.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Playlist

  Other Books by the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One from All for Hope by Olivia Hardin

  Prologue from Best Served Cold by Tawdra Kandle

  August

  Everybody has a secret crush, someone he or she desires but is too embarrassed to admit it. Mine is Dylan Crawford, the local bad boy. I didn’t know what it was about him that drew me to him. He didn’t have any redeemable qualities other than his looks. The shallow part of my brain said that was enough, but the logical side knew better. He graduated three years before me and hadn’t gone off to college. He was the type of boy who would die in the small town he had been born in, just like his daddy and his daddy’s daddy before him. Other than a few conversations here and there, Dylan and I had never really talked. I had caught him watching me a few times at school, and vice versa. My friends always commented that he was an STD waiting to happen because he slept with so many girls. "That boy is an STD waiting to happen," my best friend Lily told me once, "he's cute, but he's so crude, it cancels out the good looks." I kept quiet and nodded. If Lily knew how much I thought about Dylan, she'd look at me differently, think I was crazy. Maybe I was.

  He was everything I was taught to avoid, but as I watched him from across the room, all those teachings went out the window. He had his arm slung around a girl a year older than me. Dylan’s Dana’s brother. I had known her since we were in diapers, though we hung out in very different circles. When she invited me to her going-away party, I had smiled sweetly and accepted with hidden excitement. The shock in her eyes at my acceptance wasn’t hard to miss. Having the head cheerleader at your party was sort of a big deal. If Dana knew her brother was the reason for my acceptance … well, she couldn’t find out.

  As the daughter of the leading lawyer in Roseville, Alabama, I had a persona to uphold. My parents expected me to end up with someone like James Henderson, which was why I was dating him. He was from old money, like me, and had a football scholarship to the University of Alabama. Our future was already planned out. I could see my death before I even lived. We would have three children, live in a fancy Antebellum, and pretend we were happy—just like my parents did. My life would be full of fake smiles, fake laughs, and fake love.

  “Here’s your drink,” James said, extending his arm toward me. I withdrew my gaze from Dylan and the tart he was currently whispering to and looked at my boyfriend. His hair was perfectly parted—so opposite from Dylan’s edgy faux-hawk—and his khakis and blue polo shirt screamed ‘preppy.’ Dylan often wore jeans with grease stains and a t-shirt that was snug enough to hint at the muscles beneath.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the red cup from James. “Did you use Diet Coke?” I lifted the cup to my nose and sniffed. The scent of rum burned my nostrils. Of course James would have put extra alcohol in it; he’d been hinting that he wanted to claim my v-card for quite some time now. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the thought of getting naked with him repulsed me. If my life went how it was supposed to, I would have an entire lifetime of uninteresting sex with James. I did not want to start at only eighteen.

  “Yep, just like you asked,” James said, lifting his cup to take a drink. His eyes wandered to the center of the floor where two girls were dancing with each other. They either had too much to drink, or they batted for the other team. The way they groped each other looked like a porno had broken out in the middle of the living room.

  I eyed my boyfriend of a year, seeing the interest on his face as he watched the slutty dancers. I had seen my daddy and other men like him check out other women. Some of those men even had secret lovers on the side. It was one of the consequences of marrying for social status rather than love.

  “James,” I said, drawing his attention to me. His head swiveled in my direction, his eyes moving a second later as though magnetized to the dancers. “What are we doing?”

  A crease formed between his eyes. “Celebrating before heading off to college.”

  Such a simple and boring answer. I hadn’t meant the question in the literal sense. His eyes flitted back to the girls when cheers erupted. One of them had climbed onto the coffee table and was swinging her hips to Luke Bryan’s, “Country Girl (Shake it for Me).” I sucked in a deep breath and leaned against the wall, holding my cup to my chest. Getting James’s attention now was useless. He was a hormonal eighteen-year-old boy who thought more with his dick than his brain. A small part of me was relieved his attention was off me. How screwed up was that?

  I observed the crowded house and the smiles on everyone’s faces. I wish I could find that sense of excitement—the kind that wasn’t weighed down with expectations. Losing control and acting like a fool would embarrass my parents, as they reminded me every single time I did anything.

  “Good choices, Brooke,” my daddy would say before I left the house. “Every decision you make reflects the Kingsley name.” It was his subtle way of telling me he wouldn’t stand for anything less than perfection. I had been doomed from the moment Brooke Kingsley was typed on my birth certificate.

  “I’m going to get some air,” I told James. I don’t even think he heard me. I pushed through the crowd and headed toward the door I knew led to t
he garage. I had seen Dylan open it to bring in the beer when we arrived. Everyone was too busy with the party to notice me sneaking off. I closed the door behind me, sat down on the small stairs, and hung my head in my hands. I had wanted to break up with James for the past month and always chickened out at the last minute. My parents loved him, and our dads played golf together. If they found out I broke up with the golden boy, I would be harassed with one question after another. I couldn’t use going off to college as an excuse either; James and I had chosen the same school. My daddy would be livid if he found out I gave up the chance to be with a boy who had the potential to be drafted into the NFL. It didn’t matter that I hated football.

  I was just about to call Lily, when the garage door swung open and banged me in the shoulder.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, grabbing my shoulder and standing up. “You better not have ripped my top,” I snapped. When I looked up, I swallowed all the other insults lingering on my lips.

  “Sorry, Princess,” Dylan said, coming down the stairs. “You shouldn’t be sitting right in front of the door.” He walked over to a refrigerator and opened the door, leaning down to look inside.

  “I didn’t expect anyone to come out here,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to inspect my two hundred dollar blouse.

  A soft chuckle left his lips and filled my ears, awakening something inside of me. I brought my eyes back to his and noticed he was looking at me with derisive amusement.

  “What’s so funny?” I made sure my voice was crass. I had perfected it over the years as part of my snobby persona. I had no idea if it was my real personality or just my way of fooling people into believing I was strong and more important than they were.

  “Girls like you,” Dylan said, his eyes caressing my face before snapping back to the contents of the fridge. “You’re more worried about materialistic shit than anything else.”

  My shock at being so close to my secret crush was replaced with anger. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  A smirk lifted one side of his mouth. He grabbed a bottle of Southern Comfort and shut the refrigerator door, taking a couple steps toward me. His green eyes raked over my entire body, lingering on the ‘V’ of my sweater. I stood stock still, entrapped by the warmth searing me from the inside out. James had never gotten this response out of me.

  “Oh, I know you, Brooke Kingsley: head cheerleader, daughter of a lawyer, drives around in a Mercedes S-Class, and dates the star quarterback—even though he was eye-fucking those two girls out there. You’re a cliché.”

  You’re a cliché. Those words hurt more than him throwing James’s horniness in my face. I swallowed around the lump in my throat, summoning my inner bitch. I would not let Dylan Crawford know he upset me. The only reason he knew what car I drove was because I had purposely flattened my tire just so I could take it into the mechanics shop where he worked. My daddy wasn’t the only one who was subtle about things. I had secretly watched him loosen the lug nuts on my car, appreciating the flex of the muscles in his arms. Now that I knew what he really thought about me, I felt like a loser for all those times I had checked him out.

  “Tell me, Brooke,” Dylan said, taking another step toward me. “Do Mama and Daddy know you’re here, slumming it with us common folk?”

  “You have no right to talk to me like that,” I said. “You’re the one hanging out at your little sister’s going away party. I may be a cliché, but you’re pathetic.”

  His smirk widened into a full-blown smile. I steeled my features instead of reacting to how gorgeous he was when he smiled. My eyes fell to the side of his neck, and I grimaced at the tacky hickey decorating his tanned skin. Did people still give each other hickeys?

  “I’m here because I know how eighteen-year-old boys get when there are girls and alcohol in the same room. Things get dropped into drinks, and I have no intention of letting that happen to my little sister. Too bad you don’t have someone awesome like me watching out for you. Then again, your boyfriend’s plan didn’t pan out the way he wanted it to, did it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ask golden boy what else was in that drink of yours other than rum and coke.”

  My lips parted in shock. “You’re lying. James would not slip me something.”

  Dylan moved so close that I could see the flecks of blue in his eyes. “Why, because he’s rich and popular? Only guys like me do those sorts of things, right?” He rolled his tongue across his lips, his eyes tracing mine. I held back the shiver ricocheting through my body.

  “You must be terrified to be alone with me, huh?”

  Exactly the opposite, I thought. “You don’t scare me, Dylan Crawford, and whatever you think you know about me or James, you don’t.

  “Okay, then prove me wrong, Princess.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I snapped.

  “Do you prefer Your Majesty?”

  I was angry and turned on at the same time—the two emotions contradicting each other so harshly, my hands shook. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to smack him or fist my fingers in his hair and kiss him. I decided leaving was my best option. With a glare, I spun on my heel and headed toward the door.

  “I didn’t think you would give up that easily,” Dylan said behind me. “Aren’t Kingsleys known for their competitiveness?”

  “I am competing,” I said. “With myself as to whether I should smack you or walk away. You see which option won out.” I held my hands out to signal the distance I had put between us.”

  “You want to change my opinion of you? Then I suggest a test.”

  “I don’t care what you think about me.”

  Dylan unscrewed the cap to the Southern Comfort and lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a long swallow. His eyes stayed on me while his throat worked the alcohol down. Everything else disappeared; all I could focus on was the glint in his eyes and the way it made me feel. How many times had I seen him give girls that look and wished it were directed at me? I had to admit, it was pretty powerful.

  “That’s just not true, is it, Brooke?”

  God, the sound of my name coming from his lips stoked heat between my legs. The fact that a conversation could turn me on was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help the way my body reacted to him, even if he was being a jerk. He was right; I did care what he thought about me, but not for the reasons he believed. My interest in his opinion didn’t revolve around my popularity.

  “Fine,” I said. “What’s the test?”

  A satisfied smirk lifted one side of his mouth. “First, go throw away that drink James got you so no one else drinks it, and then meet me in the kitchen.”

  “All right, but I know James wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes and shoved past me, opening the garage door. “Yes, we all know how honorable men with money are.”

  The sound from the party filled the garage as Dylan walked away. I was still ticked at his arrogant attitude, but this was the most alive I’ve felt since … ever.

  Four days ago

  “What are you doing?” I asked my sister, after stopping by to grab a couple car parts I had stored in the garage. My apartment building didn’t offer much storage so I had to keep a lot of my stuff at my dad’s house.

  “Making invites for a graduation party,” Dana said, lifting her head and stilling the movement of her glitter pen.

  I picked up one of the invitations, smiling at my excited sister. “And what does Dad think about you hosting a rager?”

  She snatched the card out of my hand and started decorating more. “He’ll be out of town this weekend. He’s visiting Grandma.” She looked up at me, a threatening glare in her blue eyes. “And you’re not going to say a word to him. I covered for your ass so many times growing up, you owe me.”

  I walked around the kitchen island, leaning on the counter. “Who am I to stand in the way of a party?” I smiled at her surprised expression. “Tell you what, if you get Brooke Kingsley to come, I’ll even buy th
e alcohol.”

  “Brooke Kingsley?” Dana asked with skepticism. “You know the probability of her accepting is the same as you winning the Pulitzer. Why do you want her to come?”

  I shrugged, picking up an apple from the fruit basket. “I have my reasons, and she’ll come.”

  “Care to make it interesting?”

  “What do you have in mind, little sister?”

  Dana smiled, her eyes widening with her eagerness. “If I’m right, and she doesn’t come, you have to walk down Main Street in a dress.”

  I snorted. “That’s the best you got? Amateur. When she shows up and proves me right, you have to stand up in the middle of the party and sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot.’”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “I can’t do that; everyone will make fun of me.”

  “Why the fuck do you care what people think about you? You’re leaving for school in a week, and if you’re smart, you won’t come back to this shithole.”

  “Fine,” Dana said, flipping her brown hair over her shoulder. “It’s not like it’s going to happen. Brooke Kingsley doesn’t hang out with the crowd I’m inviting.”

  I smiled, knowing she would come, and I was the reason why. “We’ll see.”

  I watched Brooke cut through the crowd and snatch up the cup she had set down. She spun around, finding my eyes through the hordes of people. She held up the cup and tipped it back and forth, her eyes widening as if to say ‘happy?’ I knew she was trying not to let her amusement show, but the sparkle in her eyes said otherwise.

  I leaned against the counter with my hands in my pockets, watching her move toward me. Her wavy, honey-colored hair framed her beautiful face, and her blue eyes burned whenever she looked at me. Her attraction to me couldn’t be more obvious if she screamed it to the entire town. She didn’t even know that I had had my friend, Jase, escort her boyfriend out of the party over half an hour ago. Her focus was locked on me like a bird dog’s.

  A girl I had been messing around with sidled up against me, her hands sneaking underneath my shirt. Brooke’s eyes thinned the slightest bit as she observed the girl’s flirtations. I didn’t hide my amusement as she approached. She walked over to the sink and dumped the alcohol down the drain, setting the cup down on the counter.