Mist

By Emily Mims

SEEING CLEAR

Someone is distributing drugs out of the nightclub Acoustics, and undercover DEA operative Reynolds Navarro has come to Bristol, Tennessee, to find out who. His prime suspect? The beautiful and deceitful dulcimer player Kylie Barstow Richards, whose drug-dealing husband was gunned down and who now has illicit funds feeding into an offshore account in her name. To complete his investigation, Ren must gain her trust and access to her home. What better way than with a kiss?

Kylie hates liars. She has been lied to all her life, and Ren Campbell seems too good to be true. Handsome, sexy and talented, the bluegrass guitar player is everything she’d wished of her first husband. And suddenly he’s her protector, too. But as danger encroaches like the morning mists of the Smokey Mountains, Kylie must soon learn whom she can trust—and whom she can love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781944262402

Emily Mims

The author of over thirty romance novels, Emily Mims combined her writing career with a career in public education until leaving the classroom to write full time. The mother of two sons, she and her husband split their time between central Texas, eastern Tennessee, and Georgia visiting their kids and grandchildren. For relaxation Emily plays the piano, organ, dulcimer, and ukulele for two different performing groups, and even sings a little. She says, “I love to write romances because I believe in them. Romance happened to me and it can happen to any woman—if she’ll just let it.”

Book preview

THE SMOKEY BLUES

Mountains, music, love.

SEEING CLEAR

Someone is distributing drugs out of the nightclub Acoustics, and undercover DEA operative Reynolds Navarro has come to Bristol, Tennessee, to find out who. His prime suspect? The beautiful and deceitful dulcimer player Kylie Barstow Richards, whose drug-dealing husband was gunned down and who now has illicit funds feeding into an offshore account in her name. To complete his investigation, Ren must gain her trust and access to her home. What better way than with a kiss?

Kylie hates liars. She has been lied to all her life, and Ren Campbell seems too good to be true. Handsome, sexy and talented, the bluegrass guitar player is everything she’d wished of her first husband. And suddenly he’s her protector, too. But as danger encroaches like the morning mists of the Smokey Mountains, Kylie must soon learn whom she can trust—and whom she can love.

MIST

A Smokey Blues Romance

Emily Mims

www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.

MIST

Copyright © 2016 Emily Wright Mims

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Boroughs Publishing Group. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of Boroughs Publishing Group is illegal and punishable by law. Participation in the piracy of copyrighted materials violates the author’s rights.

ISBN 978-1-944262-40-2

E-book formatting by Maureen Cutajar

www.gopublished.com

To the San Antonio Riverpickers

An extraordinary group of musicians keeping the dulcimer tradition alive

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to Michelle, Chris, JoAnne, and Tanya—the Boroughs team is the best in the business!

Special thanks to Stacey Boutte Purcell for a marvelous beta read.

I would also like to thank the members of the San Antonio Riverpickers. They took me under their wing, taught me all the old mountain songs, and didn’t cringe too much when I added my ukulele to the mix!

CONTENTS

Prologue

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

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Emily Mims

MIST

Prologue

July 2015

The hot July sun beat down on the picturesque hillside cemetery and widow Kylie Barstow Richards as she stood ramrod straight with her thirteen-year-old son Danny. Together they watched as six sweating pallbearers carried her husband’s casket from the hearse and placed it on the platform beside his freshly dug grave. She stared straight ahead, her face as expressionless as she could make it. If she’d been by herself, she would have laid down on the ground, kicking and screaming in outraged hurt and anger, but half the town had turned out for Tommy’s funeral and she would be damned if she made a spectacle of herself. The gossip was already bad enough: Tommy Richards, husband, father, and head deacon of Pine Hill Community Church, had been gunned down along with his girlfriend outside one of Johnson City, Tennessee’s many intimate shops while holding a bag of lotions, toys and sexy videos. No, that was quite enough fuel for the wagging tongues of Kingsport, Tennessee. She didn’t need to have a graveside meltdown to add to that.

And that wasn’t even half of what her late husband had done to her.

Kylie felt movement beside her and glanced down as her mother took her hand. Not much longer, hon, Lexi Barstow whispered in her smoky alto. And then you can go home.

Kylie nodded. Yes, she could go home, but the nightmare would follow.

The pallbearers stood behind the casket and her cousin Jake Barstow stepped forward. The young minister had done a masterful job with the funeral sermon, condemning the sin while eulogizing the sinner. Kylie couldn’t help but wonder how Jake, who was also the fiddler for their family bluegrass band, was going to feel when he found out that Tommy had managed to gamble away every dime she was supposed to contribute to opening Acoustics next month. The club the family had dreamed of for two generations was going up in smoke.

She glanced away from Jake and toward her brother Cooper standing beside his daughters. What was he going to think? Cooper had already raided his savings to pony up the start-up funds with the understanding that she and Tommy would take care of the monthly shortfall until the club made a profit. And now the money to cover that shortfall was gone and Cooper would probably lose his investment as well.

Mercifully, Jake kept his graveside remarks short. He finished off with a prayer and she and Danny each laid a red rose on the casket. Kylie stared down at the spray-covered casket and willed herself not to break down until she was safely in the car. Tommy, how could you? she screamed inwardly as Lexi gently turned her around and guided her toward the vehicle. How could you let us all down so badly?

Lexi motioned and Cooper’s older daughter, Brittany, came over. Kylie, I think it would be a good idea if Danny went home with Cooper and the girls, she said in the no-nonsense voice that Kylie knew better than to argue with. They can hang out and watch a movie.

Or Danny can teach me his latest clog-dance steps, Brittany said. And maybe we can go for a little ride. The irrepressible seventeen-year-old gently shook a set of car keys in front of Danny’s nose.

Mom? Danny asked hopefully.

Of course. Kylie pulled Danny over for a hug before turning to Brittany. Be careful. You’re both precious cargo.

The kids took off toward Cooper and Kylie turned to her mother. God knows I don’t mind, but what was that all about?

Not here. We’ll talk in the car.

Kylie followed her mother to her car. They were silent until Lexi was out of the cemetery and winding down the steep mountain two-lane that would take them back to Kingsport. We need to have a conversation and Danny doesn’t need to hear it.

So what are we going to talk about? How I’m going to tell the rest of the band that Acoustics is history? With only her mother, Kylie didn’t even try to hide her bitterness. I wish you’d let me tell them last night after the viewing. I could have had it over with by now.

Because I needed last night and today to save your dream. A faint smile touched Lexi’s lips. And I think I’ve done it.

Kylie stared at her mother. "You’ve what?"

I’ve saved your dream. Just be patient, she said, holding up her hand when Kylie started to speak. I think the answer will be waiting for us when we get back to your place.

Her mind racing, Kylie stared out the window of the car at the mist-shrouded mountains in the distance as they drove down the twisty road and onto the state highway that would take them into Kingsport. Had Lexi really done it? Had she found a way to restore the money Tommy had gambled away? And if she had, then how? Lexi was widowed and Johnny Barstow hadn’t been rich, and her Uncle Joe and his current wife Camille had even less. So where was the money coming from?

Lexi pulled off the highway into the comfortable older community where Tommy and Kylie had moved as newlyweds. I told him where you keep the spare key and that he could put his car in your garage, she said as she parked beside Kylie’s Pathfinder. We felt a little discretion was called for.

Him? We? Discretion? Kylie got out of the car and followed her mother into her spacious, split-foyer home and up the steps to her living room. A tall, vaguely familiar-looking man rose from the sofa and crossed the room, where he gave Lexi a gentle kiss on the cheek. It’s been a long time, Lexi.

Yes, it has, Collins. Thank you for talking to me.

I’m glad you called me. Very glad. Lexi turned him in Kylie’s direction and she stared in shock at a head of hair as blond as hers, cheekbones that looked a whole lot like the ones that graced her face, and a pair of sapphire blue eyes that exactly matched her own. Collins, this is Kylie. Kylie, this is Collins Wentworth.

S-Senator Collins Wentworth?

The man smiled. One and the same. Now sit down, Kylie, and let’s talk about saving your dream.

Chapter One

June 2016

Reynolds Campbell Navarro sat at a back table in an old, dark, down-at-the-heels music club-cum-pub on the Virginia side of State Street in Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia, nursing a beer and munching on a basket of buffalo wings and wondering what the hell he was doing here. His deliberately bored expression and casual pose were in direct contradiction to the tension that coiled inside him, tension that had not left him for the past month, ever since he’d fled Texas in the night with a price on his head and El Espectro’s goons looking for him. He’d driven away from San Antonio like the devil was on his tail, taking back roads and not breathing easy until he had put two states and twelve hundred miles between him and the devil’s minions out to kill him. He had been hiding out for the last month with his mother’s people deep in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. He’d spent the entire month ruing the day that he ever let San Antonio detective and old friend Sawyer Ellison talk him into going undercover with known drug dealers in a mariachi band and wondering how long it would be before he could go home to his life in San Antonio. Yet here he was again, about to do the same damn thing for the second time. Only this time he was on the DEA’s payroll, and he was supposed to investigate, of all things, a bluegrass and folk music club in Bristol, the tiny town that straddled the Tennessee-Virginia state line, and the Barstow family that owned it. Somebody at Acoustics is as guilty as the Saucedas were, Sawyer, now officially on loan to the DEA, had wheedled day before yesterday over his aunt’s secure landline. One of those Barstows is dirty. I want you to go in there and find out which Barstow, and identify their source if you can.

How am I supposed to do that? Ren had argued.

Same way you did before. Your Granny Campbell taught you to make their kind of music—go make music with them.

And why do I want to?

Come on, Ren. You’re good at this kind of thing. If your cousin and his sweetie hadn’t blundered into the setup, you’d have fingered El Espectro for us. And you need something to do. You can’t come back to San Antonio, anyway, at least not until we catch up with El Espectro.

Well, hell. Why not? It beat sitting idle beneath his aunt and uncle’s feet for months on end.

Once he’d agreed, Sawyer had filled him in, and now he was about to go in and get himself hired as replacement guitar for Tommy Richards, whose murder last year outside a sex shop had been made to look random by the killers but that the DEA suspected was anything but. The DEA was concerned that, not only was there a pattern of drug distribution that followed the musicians’ travel schedule and a spike in use locally, but they had recently determined that Tommy’s widow, Kylie Barstow Richards, had an unexplained source of money feeding faithfully into an offshore bank account, money that she was in turn using to keep Acoustics in the black. They wanted Ren to work at the club and join the band, and hopefully identify the dealer or dealers and gather the same kind of evidence on them that he had the scumbags in San Antonio.

So here he sat, his fingers sore from the two days he’d spent brushing up on his skills on Granny Campbell’s old mountain dulcimer and his Granddaddy Campbell’s mandolin. Thankfully the old mountain tunes learned as a child on long summer evenings on the front porch of his grandparents’ mountain cabin had never faded completely from his memory, and the mountain cadence in his speech—that he mostly lost in San Antonio—had come back as well. With a spiffy set of false IDs under the name Reynolds Joshua Campbell and subtle highlights that took his light brown hair to a dark blond and eliminated any hint of his Hispanic heritage, he was ready for tonight’s nine o’clock interview and audition. Hopefully it would land him a job, as it was the perfect vantage point from which to finger another set of dealers. In the meantime, Kylie Richards was due to take the stage any minute for a forty-five-minute set on her mountain dulcimer before the bluegrass music began, and he wanted to hear her. According to the articles and pictures Ren had Googled, Kylie was not only beautiful, but one of the most talented mountain dulcimer players in the United States, a very big fish in a small pond—and if Sawyer was to be believed, a skilled smuggler and drug dealer as well. Ren’s curiosity burned. Why would a woman of her talent get involved in the drug trade? And how could he go about smoking her out?

The lights dimmed and the audience quieted. There was an expectant atmosphere in the room, and then a burst of applause as Kylie, taller and finer-boned than Ren had expected her to be, stepped onto the stage and over to a spotlighted barstool with a double microphone in front of it. She wore a simple, blue ankle-length dress and carried an hourglass-shaped mountain dulcimer, and as she turned to the audience with a shy, sweet smile, Ren felt his breath catch in his throat. The internet pictures had not done her justice. In person, her beauty was almost ethereal, with straight, white-blonde hair parted simply in the middle and hanging to her waist, the face of a Botticelli angel and the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. He stared, mesmerized, as she hopped up on the stool and strapped on the dulcimer and, without greeting or introduction, launched into the haunting melody Midnight on the Water, the fingers of her left hand flying over the dulcimer fretboard as her right strummed the rhythm. The rich tones of the small instrument filled the room as she held her audience captive with her magic.

She finished the number and the audience erupted into applause. Smiling shyly, she again without introduction began Wild Mountain Flowers for Mary. Ren shivered as her vibrant, almost bell-like soprano voice filled the room as she sang of devoted love denied. In the luxury of the dark he studied her, the thin, delicate arms and fingers that played so beautifully, the voice that came down from Heaven, the face of an angel, and he had to wonder.

Was Kylie Richards dealing drugs out of her nightclub? Had she ordered the murder of her husband? Was she a cold-blooded killer?

Did this sweet, seemingly innocent woman really have ice water running through her veins?

It was his job to find out.

It didn’t seem to add up—not really. But then, he was reacting to her on an emotional level, and he couldn’t let himself do that if he was going to find out what was going on.

Kylie finished singing and played another instrumental that had the audience, Ren included, tapping their feet. And then for a change of pace, she explained to the audience after thanking them all for being there, she played a classical piece, making the point that the dulcimer was not limited to playing simple folk songs. In the hands of the right player it could be used to make any kind of music. Ren watched with bemused admiration as she wove a spell in that dingy little club, charming and mesmerizing her audience as she made magic on the small instrument. But the Saucedas had made beautiful music too, he reminded himself as she hopped off the stool and took a bow, smiling from ear to ear as the audience clapped their appreciation. And the Saucedas had been as guilty as sin. He couldn’t let this angelic face distract him from his investigation.

Ren swallowed the last of his beer and followed at a distance as Kylie disappeared backstage. No one stopped him or even questioned him as he ducked into the hall beside the bar and walked past the restrooms into an area marked Private. He went past the small restaurant kitchen to the back of the old building. To one side in what looked like a break room, a young woman was tuning a banjo and a young man was warming up on a fiddle. Down the hall on the opposite side there was an open door to a fairly good-sized combination office and storage room, with shelves housing instrument cases and amplification equipment. Kylie was putting her dulcimer in a case and a fortyish-looking man with dark blonde hair and wearing a prosthetic left arm sat scowling down at what appeared to be a bank statement. They both looked up when he knocked on the doorframe. Ms. Richards? Sir? I’m Reynolds Campbell. I heard at a jam session in Blountville that you’re looking for a guitarist for The Barstows, and I’d like to talk to you about the job. Or do you have time right now? Should we wait until after you’ve gone on tonight?

Kylie and the man looked at one another. Yes, we’re looking for a musician, the man said slowly as they both looked him up and down. He glanced down at the watch on his right wrist. There’s one more set by Jake and Timberlynn before we all have to go on. Come on in.

Ren stepped in and extended his hand to the man. Cooper Barstow, the man said as he gripped Ren’s hand firmly. Have you and Kylie already met?

No, we haven’t, they said in unison. Laughing, Ren clasped her hand in his, the calluses on the ends of her fingers erotic to the bare skin of his palm, and her handshake surprisingly firm.

Reynolds Campbell. I go by Ren.

Kylie Richards. Won’t you have a seat and tell us a bit about yourself and your musical background?

Cooper sat back down in his desk chair and Ren and Kylie took the two facing him. He launched into his prepared cover story. He was new to the area, and he designed websites and worked from home, leaving him time for a second career a musician. While he talked, he surreptitiously studied the woman seated next to him. Up close, she looked older than she had on stage, closer to the thirty-four he knew her to be, but still young and somehow fresh and innocent and good, which was completely at odds with what the DEA suspected.

Yet, at the same time, she was all woman. Kylie stood just a couple of inches shorter than his own six feet with the kind of slender curves he had always loved. Her breasts were high and firm and her hips flared gently from a nipped-in waist. Her lips were full and it was all he could do not to lean down and steal a taste from them. And judging by the way she was sneaking looks in his direction, she might not mind if he did.

He could use that. He could use that mutual attraction to get closer to her and find out what he needed to know, even if it did mean walking a tightrope between his head and his libido.

He finished his cover story, saying that he’d grown up in Eastern Kentucky and learned his mountain and bluegrass music there, which wasn’t far from the truth. As a child he’d spent most every summer, even after his mother died, with his maternal grandparents, who were regulars on the jam session scene. I play both the old-timey folk music from the nineteenth century and the traditional bluegrass like Del McCoury and Bill Monroe. And of course the more modern bluegrass like Nickel Creek and Allison Krauss.

Cooper and Kylie looked at one another. That’s good, very good, Kylie said thoughtfully. "When we’re playing as The Barstows we play pretty much all bluegrass, but as you could tell from my set we do a