Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

MELODY

I stared at myself in the mirror. I saw every single imperfection of my body. However, I didn’t hate the way I looked because I was confident in who I was. But you couldn’t tell the people of my small North Carolina town. Living in a small town, people often offered their opinions, like ‘Look how much weight Melody has gained’. I wonder if she’s pregnant. That was just a few of the things people would say behind my back. Strangers would ask how far along I was. I was just fat, not pregnant.

It was the age-old you have such a pretty face. You would be really pretty if you lost weight. Don’t even get me started about my mom and her opinions. I hated it. I grew up here in Lockridge, population 1,447, and I knew almost everyone. And everyone knew everyone else’s business, too. I always tried to mind my own business.

I was thankful that at twenty-four I could rent a little cottage just outside of town. When I say outside of town, it’s literally five minutes from town, where everyone went when they needed to eat, drink, or shop. If you wanted to get to the big city, such as Asheville, that was over an hour away.

I grabbed my blue wrap dress off the hanger and put it on, then paired it with small heels. Once I was set, I grabbed my car keys from my purse and headed out the door. Looking at the clock, I cursed myself. Now I was running late. Wonderful.

I rushed out to my car and hurriedly pulled out of my driveway. Then I heard a thud; it was loud and rocked my car. I pulled up to the curb and got out to get a look.

“Don’t you look where you’re going when you pull out?” A man yelled as he exited his car.

“Excuse me. You hit me. Maybe you shouldn’t have been driving so fast.”

The guy looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties. And I might even think he was cute if he wouldn’t be yelling at me and being a dick. He had light brown hair that was short on the sides and longer on the top. He had light brown eyes, and a beard and mustache. The guy looked familiar, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.

“You were pulling out, and you hit me,” he said. “We need to call the police to report it.”

“Look, I can give you my insurance information, and we can privately deal with this,” I offered. I really just wanted to get to work. I didn’t want to get fired for being so late again. I needed that job, especially with Christmas being over, people were coming in to redeem their gift cards, so it was still a busy time for the store.

Unfortunately, he was already dialing the number on his phone. I stood there dumbfounded. The police department was small in our town, and I was sure they had better things to do than to deal with this. But I let the guy call them because I knew how the police in this town worked. In this town, you worked out your own issues among yourselves without involving the police.

Pulling my phone out, I called into work at the library I worked at.

“Thank you for calling The Book Spot, how may I help you?” Janet answered.

“Janet. It’s me, Melody. I kind of ran into a snafu so I am going to be a little late. Can you cover for me?”

“Melody, we have talked about this.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry. It’s really out of my control.”

“Fine. You have thirty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

Adam, one of the police patrolmen, pulled up to the scene. The guy immediately heads over and starts yelling at him about me. Adam looks up at me, and I roll my eyes.

I hear Adam ask the guy if he has insurance. The man says he does and grabs his insurance information from his car. And I go ahead and grab mine as well.

I don’t know who this man was, because I have never seen him around town. So he must be new. Adam takes his info and then comes over to me. I immediately hand him my info. “Sorry you had to come out for this,” I said.

“Oh, it’s no bother. Obviously, this guy is from out of town.”

“Obviously.” We laughed together.

Adam settles with the guy and gets him on his way. He then came over, handing me the man’s information.

I looked at it, and the name read Aiden Mills. I said that name in my head a few times because it sounded familiar. Oh no, that was not the lead singer of Royal Whiskey. It couldn’t be.

I couldn’t stop to think about that now. I had to get to work.