Whiskey Sunrise Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  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

  About the Author

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  Royal Duval is the pride of her grandfather, Duke, from whom she learned all about faith, ambition, and women. After her father passed, Royal inherited his part of the family business: running bootleg whiskey. The back roads of Georgia had been perfect for the dissemination of the much sought after illegal elixir until the local Baptist minister, Abraham Porter, decided to make prohibition his mission, and Royal the target of his evangelical wrath.

  Lovey Porter, Abraham’s daughter, is the living embodiment of chaste beauty, until she meets the charmingly handsome Royal Duval. Their growing attraction for each other challenges every belief that Lovey holds dear and calls into question every truth she felt sure was absolute. Even if she must defy her father, in the end, Lovey has to find her own path to faith and love. She alone must decide whether that path leads to Royal.

  Whiskey Sunrise

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Whiskey Sunrise

  © 2016 By Missouri Vaun. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-520-6

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: February 2016

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

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Character Illustration By Paige Braddock

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  All Things Rise

  The Ground Beneath

  The Time Before Now

  Whiskey Sunrise

  Acknowledgments

  This narrative is by far the most personal story I’ve written. My great-grandfather was a Church of God minister and a moonshiner and saw no conflict between those two pursuits. When I walk the Appalachian Trail in north Georgia today, I can still find the stands of uniform poplars that grew over small gaps between the ridges where he used to raise corn for his still.

  Special thanks go out to those who read early drafts of this book and helped me sharpen certain aspects of the story. Jenny, D. Jackson Leigh, Alena, and Vanessa, the writing process would be so much harder without your insights, feedback, and encouragement. Thank you to my beautiful and supportive wife, Evelyn, who is an ever-patient sounding board for scenes that I can’t quite figure out.

  I’m continually grateful for the team at Bold Strokes Books. Radclyffe, Sandy, Ruth, Cindy, Sheri, the more I work with all of you, the more I like you and the more I appreciate the unique skills each of you brings to the publishing process. The community of writers you’ve fostered are now folks I consider good friends.

  Many details in this book came from true events related to me by my father and grandfather. The demise of certain rural schoolteachers for saying the earth is round being one of them.

  And lastly, I’d like to say thank you to my parents. They were able to move past their Southern Baptist upbringing to accept me fully for the person that I am. It took fifteen years after my initial “coming out,” but love triumphed, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

  For Evelyn

  Chapter One

  Lovey pushed through the screen door onto the somewhat uneven boards of the long front porch. The air, warm and damp, carried the scent of honeysuckle. A chorus of jubilant cicadas cut across the shadows from the dense greenery that surrounded her father’s house. She stepped off the porch, and sharp tips of grass sorely in need of a trim tickled her ankles and the tops of her feet just below the buckled strap of her shoes as she crossed the lush lawn.

  The radio had entertained her for a while, its glowing dial flickering like a lit candle in the darkening room, but even Glenn Miller’s orchestra couldn’t hold Lovey’s attention. Her legs began to ache for movement, like some itch she couldn’t quite scratch. She’d checked the kitchen clock before leaving the house. Ten thirty. Late by some standards, but Lovey decided to take a walk anyway.

  Any autos that traveled the dirt road in front of her father’s place were long gone by this hour. All was quiet except for the tree frogs and cicadas. The complete darkness might have scared some women, but not Lovey. She felt consoled by the darkness, feeling some kinship for the black expanse overhead, as it seemed to echo the darkness she’d been laboring under for the past few months. Darkness felt familiar.

  Her father, Reverend Abraham Edwards, was attending some clandestine Baptist deacon’s meeting the next county over, and she wasn’t sure when he’d return. She’d been alone in the house since early afternoon, moving restlessly from room to room before finally settling in the reading room, near the large oak-encased radio.

  Having only just found herself in a situation where she was forced to once again live in her father’s strictly run household, Lovey chafed to have her freedom back. Not only that, she missed the life she’d found and lost. She missed George terribly. Was it just a year ago that she’d lost him? The autumn that followed the summer of 1938 was a blur of burial arrangements, grieving, adjustments, and transition. And now 1939 had arrived and was half spent before she’d hardly noticed.

  Not only did she mourn for George, she longed for Chicago and the friends she’d made while they were there. They’d huddle for hours debating politics, arguing about communism, socialism, and even democracy. Once they tired of politics, the conversations would turn to poetry and literature. Those moments of elevated discourse were now a faint memory as her life had come crashing down around her and she’d been forced to return to the rural South where the most riveting bit of news seemed to be a shared recipe for peach cobbler or a particularly intricate quilt pattern. With war rampant in Europe, the men in the community seemed to vibrate with the expectation of it. The herald of its coming moved through the air like static
electricity, but Southern women, if they had such concerns, seemed to keep silent on the subject.

  Her father had arranged an appointment as a teacher in a rural, one-room schoolhouse. She would assume her post in early September. Until then, the summer stretched in front of Lovey like an endless loop that promised only heat, humidity, and her father’s long-winded Sunday sermons, followed by covered dish suppers on the church lawn.

  Lovey reached the shoulder of the rural throughway and turned left. The gravel crunching underfoot on the dusty road reverberated in her ears like a percussion section for the chorus of night creatures. Every now and then she kicked a stone off the roadway into the tall grass just to see the grasshoppers take flight.

  She’d escaped after college, through marriage, to the city, but fate had struck down her dreams and delivered her back home. Only this wasn’t a home she’d ever known before. Her father had been called to pastor this rural congregation only six months prior to her return home. She’d forgotten what it was like to live under the glass bubble as a minister’s daughter. Lovey was practiced at saying the right thing, doing the right thing, and knowing when to be seen and not heard, but that didn’t mean she liked it. Out of respect for her father she’d agreed to play the role of dutiful daughter to the best of her abilities. What choice did she have as long as she was under his roof?

  Lovey stopped for a moment to look up at the specks of light piercing the blackness like pinholes from some brighter place just beyond. A shooting star caught her eye as it burned away in the atmosphere. Did she dare make a wish? Wishing would require more faith than she felt she could muster at the moment, but maybe she could conjure a glimmer of hope. Possibilities seemed limited, but she could at least hope.

  She hugged herself tightly and continued her stroll.

  ❖

  The wind from the open window whipped through Royal’s hair. Driving fast with the windows down was one of her favorite summer pastimes. The radio piped “Moonlight Serenade” through the dark interior of the Ford sedan as she pulled the stick down into third. Adrenaline surged through her body as the flathead V-8 hit its stride along the straightaway of the freshly graded county road. The occasional pop of a rock thrown by the tires banged against the steel undercarriage disrespectfully intruding on Glenn Miller’s smooth melody.

  At this late hour, Royal Duval was usually trippin’ a load of moonshine, but not tonight. She’d promised her cousin Ned she’d run the car on a different course. Just to test a new shortcut and the car, before making the run with a full load. Ned wanted a ride-along, but Royal preferred to test drive alone. So far, she liked the modifications he’d made on her stock ’39 Ford. She’d use the word screamer if she didn’t think it’d go straight to his head. The engine had been bored, fitted with three carburetors, and extra helper springs in the suspension for runs when she’d be carrying heavy liquid cargo to Hall County or farther south to Atlanta.

  It was a little past eleven o’clock, and Royal hadn’t seen another car on the road since she left Highway Nine heading back through Dawsonville toward the hills. The night was clear but very dark. The circles of light provided her only visibility preceding the Ford’s breakneck speed down the winding dirt road. Royal downshifted and braked as she rounded a bend, throwing rocks as the two-door sedan crossed the center point in the road. Just as the headlights crested the blind curve, an apparition appeared at the shoulder.

  Damn! She jerked the wheel in an attempt to miss the ghostly figure flash lit by the headlights.

  As the heavy Ford slid through the turn, there was just enough of a rut at the road’s edge to snag the front wheel, hindering Royal’s ability to right the car’s trajectory. Time seemed suspended as the auto skidded, bounced over the shoulder, lost its center of gravity, and rolled down the slight grade on the outside of the curve.

  The throaty combustion of eight pounding cylinders roared as the sedan’s tires left the ground in an airborne spiral. Inside the car, Royal gripped the wheel with one hand and braced her other hand against the high, curved roof, for a moment suspended, weightless.

  Chapter Two

  Lovey saw the glow of headlights just seconds before the sedan bore down on her. She heard a roar followed by a blinding light. She stood frozen for an instant, rooted like a light-struck deer, unable to move as the speeding sedan swerved to miss her. She lunged off the road toward the steep embankment on the inside of the curve just as the car veered away from her and tumbled down the slight grade away from the road.

  Lovey was lying against the damp earth. Her heart beat wildly. It took another moment for her to gather her shocked senses before she ran to the crest of the hill to look for the car. From her vantage point, she could hear the engine sputter and stall. And she could see the large dark sedan, in its upended position, wheels spinning freely in a cloud of dust, the headlights pointed skyward, illuminating nothing but tree branches.

  Deftly and as fast as she could move over the now rutted uneven turf, Lovey ran down to check the driver.

  When she came along the side of the car she could make out the shadowed silhouette of a struggling figure, hanging upside down from the driver’s seat.

  “Are you all right? Are you hurt?” Lovey asked. She was slightly breathless from her quick descent and the fright of almost being run over. Death by auto was certainly not the wish she’d made, nor the possibility she’d been hoping for.

  “I’m okay, but my foot is caught.”

  It was dark in the car’s interior so Lovey couldn’t make out details, but despite masculine clothing, the voice that spoke sounded young, maybe even feminine. Lovey puzzled over this as she jerked at the door handle a few times before getting it to release. Once the door was open, she leaned inside.

  “Let me help you.” It was so dark that Lovey was having a hard time figuring out exactly how the driver was stuck.

  “My boot lace is wrapped around the brake, I think. I’ve got a folding knife in my pocket. If you could get it then you could cut me loose.” The driver was struggling to keep still, balanced between the seat and the roof of the car. “If I let go I might break my ankle from the weight, or worse, my neck.”

  “I’m not reaching into some strange boy’s trousers.”

  “There’s no boy here unless you brought one with you.” The stranger smiled, despite the circumstances, seemingly amused by the mistaken identity.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed based on the way you’re dressed—”

  “How about we debate the finer points of fashion once you cut me loose?”

  Lovey was reluctant to undertake such an intimate task as rummaging in the front pocket of some stranger’s trousers, but she didn’t see any way around it. She thrust her fingers into the driver’s pocket and felt around for the knife.

  “Careful. I’m gettin’ a little excited.”

  “What?” Lovey recoiled, exasperated. “Look, do you want me to leave you hanging there or do you want my help?”

  “I’m sorry, truly. It’s just all the blood is running to my head. It’s making me punchy. Please cut me loose.”

  Lovey reluctantly resumed her search. She found the knife, then practically had to climb inside the car in order to reach the foot pedals to cut the tangled bootlace.

  The instant the tension on the cord was released, the full weight of the driver collapsed against Lovey, and the two of them tumbled out of the car in a heap. Lovey found herself suddenly in contact with the trouser-clad young woman, the hem of her dress askew and the woman’s head in her lap. She peered up at Lovey, a dazed look in her eyes. Lovey felt the woman shiver against her, despite the warm summer night. Obviously, in spite of her bravado, the wreck had shaken her up. They didn’t touch, other than where her head rested in Lovey’s lap, but the direct gaze that passed between them sent a pulsing sensation through Lovey’s chest that caused her to catch her breath.

  The driver scooted back toward the side of the upturned vehicle.

  “Thank you.”
The woman pushed a thick tuft of blond hair back from her forehead. Her hands were trembling even though she appeared to be trying to conceal that fact by rubbing them up and down her thighs.

  “You’re welcome. And I think you’re bleeding.” Lovey watched as the woman touched her brow where blood was seeping from a cut. The car’s headlights were still pointed up into the trees, which offered a small amount of reflected light on the ground below.

  Lovey rose quickly, dusting off her dress, as the stranger stood, swayed, and leaned back against the open car door. “Maybe you hit the steering wheel,” Lovey said.

  “Must have.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “I don’t think so.” She gave Lovey a slightly pained look. “But I think I’m a little shaky on my feet.”

  “Do you feel well enough to walk? I live very close. Why don’t we walk back to my house and see about that cut over your eye? Then we can call someone about your car.” Lovey offered the invitation without really thinking through the possible consequences of inviting a complete stranger back to her house. It dawned on her that her father would likely not be home for another hour, maybe two. But it was too late to recant the invitation now.

  “Thank you again. I’m Royal Duval, by the way.” Royal extended a hand and then realized her palm was covered with blood, which she wiped on her khaki trousers. “Sorry. I think I got blood on your dress.”

  Lovey looked down for the first time at the stain on her dress where Royal’s head had landed. Those smudges along with smears of red clay where she’d hugged the dirt embankment comingled in such a way that a bystander might have surmised she’d been in the crash along with Royal instead of watching it from the roadway.