Moonshine & Mayhem Read online

  Moonshine & Mayhem

  Moonshine Hollow Series #3

  Kathleen Brooks

  Contents

  Also by Kathleen Brooks

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Also by Kathleen Brooks

  About the Author

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  An original work of Kathleen Brooks. Moonshine and Mayhem copyright @ 2019 by Kathleen Brooks.

  Created with Vellum

  Bluegrass Series

  Bluegrass State of Mind

  Risky Shot

  Dead Heat

  * * *

  Bluegrass Brothers

  Bluegrass Undercover

  Rising Storm

  Secret Santa: A Bluegrass Series Novella

  Acquiring Trouble

  Relentless Pursuit

  Secrets Collide

  Final Vow

  * * *

  Bluegrass Singles

  All Hung Up

  Bluegrass Dawn

  The Perfect Gift

  The Keeneston Roses

  * * *

  Forever Bluegrass Series

  Forever Entangled

  Forever Hidden

  Forever Betrayed

  Forever Driven

  Forever Secret

  Forever Surprised

  Forever Concealed

  Forever Devoted

  Forever Hunted

  Forever Guarded

  Forever Notorious

  Forever Ventured (coming later in 2019)

  * * *

  Shadows Landing Series

  Saving Shadows

  Sunken Shadows (coming May 14, 2019)

  Lasting Shadows (coming later in 2019)

  * * *

  Women of Power Series

  Chosen for Power

  Built for Power

  Fashioned for Power

  Destined for Power

  * * *

  Web of Lies Series

  Whispered Lies

  Rogue Lies

  Shattered Lies

  * * *

  Moonshine Hollow Series

  Moonshine & Murder

  Moonshine & Malice (coming March 26, 2019)

  Moonshine & Mayhem (coming April 16, 2019)

  1

  Zoey was looking down at herself as a little girl of no more than three years old. Her dark reddish-brown hair was in pigtails with a bright white ribbon tied into perfect bows on the tops of each pigtail. She was running through the park near her house in Los Angeles on a perfect warm spring day. Flowers were blooming, big puffy clouds rolled lazily along the sky, and the sound of children screeching with delight rang out.

  Zoey watched as her younger self broke away from her mother and caught sight of her father bending down and opening his arms for her to run into. Young Zoey giggled and ran to her father. He caught her into his arms and twirled her around as they laughed. Zoey’s skirt flew out as her father lifted her from the ground and spun before he placed her back onto the ground.

  “Jellybean, I have to go on a little trip,” he said, kneeling in front of her in the soft grass.

  “No, Daddy. I don’t want you to go,” Zoey pouted.

  Her father tugged playfully on one pigtail as he kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this for you and your mommy. Remember, I love you. Can you remember that forever and ever?”

  Little Zoey nodded, sending her pigtails bobbing. “Of course, Daddy. I’m three years old, not two.”

  “I know you are. You’re such a big girl. Daddy loves you so much. Mommy and Bradley will take good care of you. Remember, I will always love you forever and ever.”

  Her father took a deep breath then hugged Zoey so tightly she thought she might burst. “What are you supposed to remember?” he asked, tapping a finger to the end of her nose.

  Zoey giggled. “That you love me forever and ever.”

  “That’s right.” Her father beamed with a tear in his eye before leaning down and kissing her. “Goodbye, Jellybean. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Daddy. Forever and ever.”

  * * *

  Zoey Mathers dreamed of her family for the first time since leaving Los Angeles and arriving in Moonshine Hollow, Tennessee. When she’d lived in Los Angeles as an up-and-coming entertainment lawyer, she saw her mother only a handful of times a year—her mother’s birthday, Christmas, and maybe a lunch thrown in during the summer. It wasn’t as if her mother was far away either. In fact, her mother had lived in a posh mansion no more than fifteen minutes away from Zoey’s condo. And yet they still only saw each other a few times a year. Sadly, Zoey hadn’t thought of her mother twice since she left. Especially after her own mother hadn’t bailed her out of jail.

  That had been the catalyst for the move, and it summed up the relationship with her mother. Her mother left her in jail while it had been Slade, the pleather-clad strip club bouncer, who bailed her out in the middle of the night after Zoey had been swept up in the maelstrom of the epic stripper versus escort fight. All to save the career of the action movie star client, Scott Westerfield.

  Zoey had been trying to save her drunk, high, and buck naked client from being arrested and thus giving the movie studio a reason to fire him from the new action movie series after she’d just worked her tail off to finalize the contract. Instead, Zoey was arrested, along with her client, and fired by her very prestigious law firm. Her mother and stepfather, a famous plastic surgeon to the stars, had been too busy at some society event to answer their phones and come get her. Instead it had been tall, dark, and mysterious Slade who had escorted her home, gotten her drunk, and told her that fate would decide what her next move was. Blindfolded, with Slade’s wicked looking knife in hand, Fate led Zoey to stick the knife into a map of the United States and ended up in Moonshine Hollow, or Holler as it was often pronounced in the mountains of East Tennessee. And that was only the beginning of the craziness.

  Zoey found a family here in Moonshine Hollow. Maribelle, her best friend, was like her sister and Maribelle’s mountain man fiancé, Dale, was like a brother. Deputy Sheriff Luke Tanner had become a good friend. Finally, there were the two crazy old aunts, Vilma and Agnes. Then, of course, there was the little fact that Vilma and Agnes were witches and Zoey had accidentally become one too. It was scary at first, but then she discovered a whole new world full of sisters, especially her friend, Polly.

  But now the Claritase, female witches placed on earth by the Goddess to help heal the burgeoning human race, were dwindling in numbers because their male counterpart, the Tenebris, was ruled by an evil man named Alexander. Alexander craved power. And when witches wanted more power, the only way they could get it was battling another witch in a death match and taking their powers. When Zoey became an accidental witch she might have also fallen into a prophec
y that made her The One—as in the only one who could defeat Alexander.

  It also just so happened the man who had bailed her out of jail, driven cross-country to see her, and then began courting her, was a Tenebris witch himself. Only he was with the True Tenebris, a small fraction that split from Alexander four hundred years ago and had been on Alexander’s most wanted list for more than a century. Maybe that’s why she was dreaming of her father. Because she’d always been worried that any man she loved would leave her. And here she was, falling in love with Slade.

  * * *

  Zoey opened her eyes and looked at the bare chest of the man she was sleeping on. Slade had been by her side ever since he’d arrived in Moonshine, supporting her while her own mother hadn’t even called. Zoey let out a sigh as she cuddled closer to the man she had quickly fallen in love with as she thought about her dream.

  Zoey felt a tear break free and run down her cheek. She hadn’t thought of her father since she was a young teenager. Her mother and Bradley, her stepfather, had raised her after the plane her father was on crashed just three hours after her father had left the park that morning.

  “Are you okay, Zoey?” Slade’s sleepy voice asked as he shifted under her to bring her closer to him.

  “Just a sad dream,” Zoey said as she wiped the tear from her face. She had enough to worry about besides crying over the father she barely remembered. Instead of happy childhood memories with her family, her mother and Bradley had shipped her off to school the second she was old enough. And while they didn’t mistreat her, she always felt somewhat of a burden to them. Every now and then, they’d trot her to some formal event to appear as the happy family, but her mother had never forgiven Zoey for mourning the death of her father. While Zoey had cried at night for her father, her mother had acted as if her first husband had never existed. Zoey’s father was Bradley, end of discussion. Eventually, Zoey’s memories of her own father faded to be replaced with Bradley visiting the boarding school and Bradley teaching her how to drive.

  Her parents had met in college, gotten married right after graduation, and nine months later Zoey arrived. Zoey didn’t remember what her father did for a living, but she knew they didn’t have much money. There was lots of screaming and crying. Zoey had asked about her father once. Her mother had told her that her father could have been so much more. But her father had told her mother that he was content with who he was. When Zoey was two, her mother met Bradley, filed for divorce, and the rest was history.

  “A dream about what?” Slade asked as his fingers began a soothing trail down her back. Zoey placed her hand on the Goddess stone necklace that Slade had given her and felt soothed by its presence. The Goddess stone was supposed to show you your true love. When Slade had seen it, he’d told her he knew she was his true love.

  “My father.”

  Slade’s hand froze. “You remember your father?”

  “Not much. I just dreamed of the last time I saw him before he was killed in a plane crash.” Her parental history was of the utmost interest to not only Slade, but to the Claritase as well. Zoey let out another sigh.

  “What was that sigh about?” Slade asked.

  “I was just thinking how much my world has changed recently. First I get fired from my job. I leave LA for a small town in the mountains of Tennessee. I open a bakery instead of a law firm. I meet Agnes and Vilma who are like aunts to me. Then I think I’m saving them from a scary man only to interrupt a battle between a very bad witch belonging to the Tenebris hunters and my friends, who are not granny ladies but witches of the Claritase. When I see two little old ladies fighting this man with light and energy shooting from their fingers, I interrupt and the bad witch is killed. His powers fly into me and I accidently become a witch.”

  Slade looked down at her and waited for her to look up into his newly lavender eyes so like her own. “I don’t think it was an accident, and I think you were already a witch.”

  “But I wasn’t,” Zoey said again. “Don’t you think I would have known if I was part witch?’ When she’d inhaled the powers of Victor, the bad witch, she’d gotten full powers of a witch much stronger than witches who had been training for a millennium. And right now everyone thought she might be the key to the battle between good and evil, according to an old prophecy the former Grand Mistress Helena gasped out on her deathbed after Alexander fatally wounded her.

  “I think one of your parents was a witch. You could be a halfling, and as such, your powers would lie dormant. When you got Victor’s powers, you became a full witch and your own powers finally came to life,” Slade told her again. She’d heard it before but she didn’t believe it.

  “Well, I’ve called my mom something that sounds very close to witch before,” Zoey said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I think we should pay her a visit,” Slade suggested.

  Zoey sat up quickly and stared down at him in shock. “No way. Why would I do that? She doesn’t care about me. She hasn’t even called me since I moved. In fact, I don’t know if she’s even realized I have moved and that was five months ago.”

  “I know the Claritase are probably investigating her background, but a quicker way to figure out if your mother is a witch is to go and ask her,” Slade said as if it were no biggie. The Claritase was desperately trying to find out more about Zoey’s past so they could defeat the Tenebris hunters ruled by Alexander. While Slade was a Tenebris, he was part of a rebel group trying to stop Alexander and had begun acting as the go-between for Claritase and True Tenebris. After many sisters were murdered at a meeting during a truce, the current Claritase leader, Grand Mistress Lauren, was a little apprehensive about meeting the True Tenebris in person.

  “You’re crazy.” Zoey shook her head in disbelief. “No way.”

  “How about this—you ask the Claritase if they’ve found out anything about your mother or father. If not, we’ll go see her. If they already have the answer, we won’t have a reason to see your mother.”

  Slade raised an eyebrow in a silent challenge and Zoey groaned. “Deal.”

  2

  “Oh my Goddess,” Agnes and Vilma gasped as Zoey and Slade walked into their house, not far from Zoey’s own little cottage. The two old ladies with permed white hair and matching velour tracksuits looked at each other with surprise.

  “What?” Zoey asked, looking down to see if she remembered her bra or maybe had left her zipper to her jeans open.

  “You’ve . . .” Agnes stuttered as she stared at them.

  “Connected,” Vilma said delicately.

  Zoey blushed. “How did you know we had sex?”

  Slade chuckled next to her. “She’s not talking about us having sex, sweetness. She’s talking about our eyes. When we became each other’s true loves, we became one, and our eyes changed to match. It’s called bonding.”

  “But your eyes are violet . . .” Agnes stuttered. “That’s not possible. Sure, with Zoey’s white power belonging to the fifth element and whatever your power is, your eyes would become a light color. But, it would either be a light blue if you had Water since water powers are dark blue, an ice color if you had Air since air powers are a light blue, a light green if you had Earth, or pink if you had Fire. There’s no power that give you violet.”

  “That’s because Master Slade is as unique as Mistress Zoey.”

  Zoey jumped at the sound of Grand Mistress Lauren. She really needed to learn how to knock instead of just popping in all the time.

  “Grand Mistress,” Slade said with respect as he bowed his head. “Have you discovered my secrets then?”

  The black cat shook her head, though her teal eyes never left Slade’s. During the massacre of the Claritase, Mistress Lauren, then second-in-command to Grand Mistress Helena, had shifted to a cat to escape, but had some of her powers drained before pushing back enough to escape. However, Alexander, the ruthless Grand Master, had taken enough of her power that Lauren had never been able to change back into her human form. “Not yet. Your
history is as elusive as Zoey’s past. What I have discovered is a simple color wheel. For you to have light purple eyes after bonding, three powers need to be in play. Zoey’s is unique in the fact that it’s white power. But then you’re unique because you have two powers. Am I right?”

  Slade smiled and Zoey was trying to remember all the different color combinations from the powers. “That’s right. I have Air and Fire. Red and blue energy.”

  Agnes and Vilma looked surprised, but Zoey wasn’t exactly sure why. “Why is that so surprising?”

  “Having two powers is incredibly rare. Plus Air feeds Fire,” Grand Mistress Lauren explained. “It’s the most powerful combination of powers. And then to have you two as true loves . . . together you’re practically impossible to defeat.”

  “Practically?” Zoey’s legal mind picked up on the word that fell in a gray zone.

  “That’s right. There’s always a way,” Grand Mistress Lauren said cryptically. Zoey bet Alexander knew.

  “Have you found any information on Zoey’s parents?” Slade asked, changing the subject when Zoey wanted to dig deeper into the ways Alexander could kill them.

  “Not yet. We have nothing on the name Christina Mathers.”

  Zoey held up her hand. “Wait. Her last name wouldn’t have been Mathers. That’s my stepdad’s name. My dad died when I was still in preschool and he adopted me right after that.”