Whiskey Girl

  Contents

  TITLE

  RIGHTS

  DESCRIPTION

  ALERTS

  REBEL SAINT

  MORE FROM ADRIANE

  ABOUT ADRIANE

  W H I S K E Y

  G I R L

  ADRIANE LEIGH

  W H I S K E Y

  G I R L

  Copyright 2018 by Adriane Leigh

  Editing: Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  Photographer: Wander Aguir

  Model: Victorio Piva

  Beta Reader: Karen Lawson

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  FIRST EDITION

  She was the one thing holding him together. Until she was gone.

  And then there was whiskey.

  Fallon Gentry has spent the last decade reliving one dark night in his head. The moment he lost the woman he loved when a single blink cascaded into a series of events that stole both of their lives. Now his nights are spent playing music in southern honky-tonks and nursing the memory of her the only way he knows how—at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

  A brief stint in Nashville, a hit song, and a brush with Hollywood couldn't bring him closer to God, but when the ghost of Augusta Belle Branson appears in his corner of another lonely dive bar well after dark, he's forced to confront everything he thought he knew about that fateful night…and a few things he didn't.

  He’s her contradiction. She’s his salvation.

  A firestorm of emotion consumes them when they come together after ten lost years, every moment more revealing, more unpredictable, more intoxicating than the next. Until the only reckoning left for Fallon is the one he must make with himself. But this time, fate may have left an afterburn too bitter to swallow. This time, he may lose his whiskey girl for good.

  Dearest Reader & Rebel Heart,

  There are exactly three sex scenes in this book.

  THREE out of more than FIFTY.

  I say this because many of you, my gorgeous book babes, are used to reading Adriane Leigh (and Aria Cole) books that are brimming with glorious and gratuitous sexytimes.

  I love those books.

  They’re as much a part of me as this one.

  But this one isn’t those.

  My hope is you’ll spend the next 300 pages so consumed by the raw, complicated, messy beauty that is Fallon and Augusta’s love that you won’t even notice the difference.

  Or maybe you will.

  This book isn’t different for me because there’s less sexy, (although I would totally argue that this slow-burn thing they have going is even MORE SEXY!) it’s different in ALL the ways for me.

  Because you, book babes, are my tribe, I feel compelled to tell you that it’s been a wild, life-changing journey in the nearly six years I’ve been publishing, but it’s been a whirlwind in just the last six months.

  Truly.

  Firstly…

  White Heat.

  It’s been written for two years. I have only to finish the edits, completely rewrite the ending because, guys, I’m a totally different writer now than I was two years ago (shocker, right?) and hopefully get it released by the end of 2018.

  White Heat was the book I sat down to edit in April.

  Instead, Whiskey Girl happened.

  Rewind to all the years of unhealthy habits leaving me worn-out and feeling more under pressure than ever. I had to trim my life to the bare bones and introduce some better habits, or I would continue to live in the negative headspace and spiral of anxiety and guilt. Wife. Mother. Daughter. Friend. Reader. Woman. Traveler. Writer. Where was I in all of this?

  I had to give myself a minute.

  Like a time-out. With wine.

  The one thing I knew for sure was that I needed to write more stories that fed my soul. Writing has been my passion for as long as I’ve been reading, I knew that, whatever else I did, I’d need to write more. A lot more. Books that challenged me in new ways, stories that spoke to me on levels I didn’t even understand.

  I’d already started the habit of daily yoga and meditation, and one lesson out of so many that it’s taught me is the practice of giving myself grace.

  No more striving to be the best. I’m only striving to be the best me.

  So come April, I was primed and ready.

  I wrote the majority of Whiskey Girl in three weeks around my 35th birthday. First at 2,500 word-a-day sprints, and then 4,000 words a day when the story really got cookin’! I couldn’t stop!

  So why do I tell you this?

  Because I think of you each like my girlfriends, and I felt like I had some ’splainin’ to do! It’s taken me a longgg damn time to find out who I am. Down on the way deep inside, not my mother’s voice criticizing every detail, my own self-fulfilling prophecies looking to confirm the sense of unworthiness and failure. It took me a minute to learn that voice is bullshit. A stone-cold LIAR!

  What matters is doing the work in front of me, connecting to the passion and serious creative flow of the universe as I do it. Those two things come together, and magic happens.

  It took me more than TWO YEARS to release a book! Thank you for hanging in there, I couldn’t even attempt to write a sentence without your love, support, cheerleading, smiles, funny gifs, and inspiring photography (wink).

  I love you each, more than I thought my heart could hold.

  And finally, I don’t know about anyone else, but the Royal Wedding is still giving me life. SO MUCH INSPIRATION!

  If you like overly styled amateur photos, I’d love to connect with more of you on the ’Gram! When I’m not writing or reading books, I’m taking pictures of them like an epic nerd and living the good life on Instagram under adriane.leigh.writer!

  And if you’re really feeling the love and want to get alllll the book news before anyone else, search “Adriane’s Rebel Hearts” on Facebook to join my reader group. Drop in, grab a book, share a story, we’d love to have you!

  Before my rambling gets away from me (that’s what Instagram is for, y’all), thank you for being a part of my #goodvibetribe.

  You’re the best.

  The cream of the crop.

  Top-shelf, all the way.

  This book is for you.

  I hope you love it as much as Fallon loves his whiskey girl.

  xo Adriane

  ONE

  Fallon

  The first time I met Augusta Belle Branson, she was fixin’ on killin’ herself.

  Said the minute I’d walked up, she was tryin’ to decide if jumpin’ off the bridge in the center—where the water was deep and the current stronger—would be a swifter end, or if she should jump near the edge, where jagged limestone slabs anchored the slow-moving current.

  Certain death for sure.

  I replayed the split second when the Indian summer sun burst through the orange oak leaves, a halo of warmth enveloping her.

  Like an angel. Stardust sparkling straight from heaven, ploppin’ her in my path.

  And then she turned, the most startling shade of liquid amber eyes breathing something real and alive, like fire, into my soul.

  That same something I’d been runnin’ from—or chasin’, dependin’ on how you looked at it—just about every day since.

  I settled myself on the lone wooden stool that awaited at center stage, my thoughts drawing back to the present. My head swam, but the old familiar chords floated on through the current of whiskey in my blood, and I strummed the first few notes of a song I wrote a lot of nights ago by an act of sheer muscle memory.

  Old acoustic guitar resting on my knee, my first and third fingers in position on the strings, the
opening chords of “Whiskey Girl” bled from my fingers.

  Every chord, another dagger.

  Every whispered lyric, my undoing.

  I still ’didn’t know what the fuck had overtaken me the night I’d written this song in a fevered rush.

  Well, the booze might have played a part, but I happened to think my best shit came out of uninhibited states.

  I’d just had a fuckton of uninhibited states recently.

  And the harder the liquor, the more she haunted me.

  Whiskey Girl.

  My poisoned lullaby.

  The crowd of a few hundred erupted into a standing ovation when I ended with the final, emotion-charged words.

  The irony of this song was it was the one that’d launched my career. The first single to hit radio waves and then the top spot on the Billboard charts, and brought reporters, music executives, long-lost family members I wasn’t even really sure I was related to, and too much other scum with an end game that carried dollar signs to my front doorstep.

  I’d moved to Nashville a rising star and left two years later, middle finger in the air as I tossed my once-promising music career out with last night’s liquor bottles in favor of the open road.

  Chasing something.

  Not finding the one thing I needed.

  Playing local honky-tonks for a fraction of the money I could have made.

  But the truth was, the road was the only place I could find my happy.

  A familiar ball of pain formed in my throat as I stood, pushing my guitar over one shoulder and bowing deeply. I couldn’t see a single face behind the glaring stage lights, but still, some part of me pretended she could be out there, that I was singing to her.

  That she would hear her song and find her way back to me.

  After hundreds of faceless crowds and too many bottles of Tennessee whiskey to bother counting, I still felt the pull inside me to travel to every town in America if that’s what it took to find her.

  Hell, maybe she was happily married with a few kids, a dog, and a fucking minivan by now.

  I nodded my head, giving one last wave to the crowd in the dark beyond, then left the stage, taking the steps two at a time and angling past the curtains to head for the tiny-ass dressing room this dive bar provided. Heading for another chug of amber gold before packing my shit into my truck and hitting the road.

  I pushed a hand through my hair, thinking maybe a shower would be in order before I bailed, when a curvy little thing backed right up into me.

  My palms landed on her shoulders, warm blond waves falling in a cascade over one side. The heady scent of peaches and honey filled my nostrils. My eyes slammed closed and brought me back to summer nights under a giant oak, fireflies melding together with the stars above like a painting.

  “Sorry, I just dropped my phone.” The sweet-scented creature spun, brilliant smile falling from her face when our eyes made contact for the first time.

  Every coldhearted memory slammed into my chest like a pallet of bricks.

  I narrowed my eyes, gaze tracing the familiar yet unfamiliar angles of her porcelain face.

  She was thinner now, cheeks sharp slashes of bone that highlighted her always-devastating round eyes and full lips. It was her, all right. I’d know this woman anywhere.

  “Hi, Fallon.” I’d been dreamin’ of this moment for the better part of a decade, and still, my heart wasn’t prepared for those two words. My name on her lips left me with a toxic reaction.

  My whiskey girl.

  My damnation and my salvation.

  “I need a fucking minute.” I dropped my hands from her shoulders, her skin still haunting my fingertips, and walked straight down the narrow hallway, pushing the rusted back door open so hard the hinges protested.

  Warm night air filled my lungs, replacing the empty feeling seeing her again had left.

  “Fallon…” Hell, she’d followed me out.

  And hell if wanted her to, but I didn’t not want her to either.

  The emotions bombarding my mind were just a-fucking-bout unbearable.

  “I said I need a fucking minute.” The sentence came out as more of a growl than I intended. Before she could reply, I stomped across the potholed parking lot, aiming for my heavy-duty Ford.

  I yanked the door open, digging behind the driver’s seat for a fresh bottle of my favorite recipe.

  I couldn’t be bothered to retrieve the half-full bottle I’d left in my dressing room. I had to get as far the fuck away from her just to clear my head and process what her being here even meant.

  My hands circled the neck of the bottle, and I opened it in a flash, chugging back the first warm bite of pleasure I’d been craving.

  I tossed the cap on my dash and fished the keys out of my pocket, about to climb into the cab and make hay, when fingertips painted a dark navy filtered into my vision and back out again, my goddamn truck keys hanging from one finger.

  “Fuck,” I bit out, crawling out of the cab and swiping for the keys.

  My reactions were a helluva lot slower than I thought they were. How much of that bottle had I drunk before the show? I shook the thought from my head, realizing this was probably about close to my average state of play on any given day. Runnin’ away from the life Augusta Belle and I’d had took something out of me. Something only whiskey could fill.

  “I don’t care what your stupid ass does on your own time, but you’re not dying on mine, Fallon Gentry.”

  My head pounded then. A whole fucking sentence out of her pretty pink lips, and my body’s old dependable reaction to her infuriating every cell of me.

  I’d never been in control when it came to Augusta. Shouldn’t have been surprised it was no different now.

  “As irritating as ever, I see,” I said, swiping for my keys one more time and missing before I stumbled off around her, whiskey bottle clutched in my hand and hell on my mind.

  Augusta was back, and there wasn’t enough whiskey in the state of Tennessee to help me deal.

  TWO

  Fallon

  A pile driver found its way inside my chest, cleaving my heart in fucking two as I walked out of the dusty parking lot, eyes lost in the darkness far out ahead of me. The girl of my dreams waitin’ next to my truck behind me.

  I slugged another mouthful of the hot whiskey, the fire burnin’ down my throat and leavin’ a trail of raw fucking pain, just like Augusta Belle had done.

  Where in the fuck had she been?

  My brain tried to wrap itself around the pain of her leavin’, her comin’ back, fucking with my life in ways I didn’t understand.

  I kicked at a rock, watching it tumble over the gray asphalt before I veered left, deciding I wanted to be off this road if Augusta Belle took a mind to hop into my truck and chase me down. I didn’t really care if she drove it, though I’d never let anyone else, but the idea of her sittin’ behind that big wheel made a half smile turn my lips.

  Augusta Belle Branson was back, after all these years. I’ll be damned.

  And here I was running away from her because I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to do that moment justice. I’d turned her pretty smile over in my head so many times, remembered the way she used to lock her fingers with mine whenever we watched a movie. She wasn’t just most of my good memories—she was all of them. Every other part of my past was tainted with pain. But not her. She didn’t know it then, but she kept me breathing all those nights when it felt like the end of the world was just around the corner.

  Blades of stubborn wheatgrass whipped against the rough denim of my jeans as I lifted the bottle over my head, swallowing deep as the lovely liquid burned away the pain of seeing her face again. The sweet contours even prettier than I remembered, full lips that’d taunted me so many nights begging for a taste. Whiskey-laced irises haunting my dreams.

  I cussed when my boots hit mud, the soft sound of the sucking like a playlist for how this entire night had gone. Water lapping a shoreline lifted my gaze to a small lake,
dark shadows playing off moonlight. The thud of my back hitting the old wooden bench was deaf on my ears as Augusta Belle danced around my thoughts, twisting with a whiskey bottle, fogging my head until the only thing I could do was take another drink.

  The first night I ever tasted what would soon become my constant companion, she was lifting a half-empty bottle to my lips, urging me to taste.

  “It won’t hurt,” she promised, “too much.” Her eyes glinted in the darkness of her upstairs bedroom, her breath already heavy with the scent of rebellion.

  “Your mom would never let me in this house again if she found us both drunk,” I warned, always the cautious one between us.

  “She’d never let you see me again if she found you up here in my room.” That defiant twinkle again. If I was sure of anything else, it was that this girl was born to be a rebel. “Scared?”

  Hell yes, I’d been scared then, but not of the liquid in that bottle. Scared of the hellfire and brimstone that was her.

  I groaned, the memory fading as fast as it’d come.

  What in the fuck was Augusta Belle doing back in my life, walking up one day like a ghost? The very ghost that’d sheared my heart wide open and then found its way on to the radio for everyone to feel.

  I groaned, throwing back the last of the amber whiskey and dropping the bottle at my feet.

  Some fucking foresight that I hadn’t brought a backup bottle.

  I’d also had the bitter taste of regret in my mouth about that single I’d signed off on with the music execs in Nashville.

  I remembered the meeting only in chunks.

  The bitter smell of the chain coffee shop. The green tie loosened at head-douchebag’s collar.