Ann Audrey Mystery, Book 2

When a beautiful Atlanta woman is widowed twice under suspicious
circumstances, Ann Audrey Pickering finds herself drawn—once
again—into someone else’s trouble.

From a stagecoach town in Tennessee to the first railroad towns of the Indian Territory, we delve into the lives of the charismatic and flawed brothers, Matt and Robert. Their sibling dynamic shapes the lives of the entire Brown family, steering them down a road of familial struggles and cultural clashes. 

Matt always idolized his oldest brother, Robert – a smooth-talking charmer who taught him at a young age to live hard and win big. Following in Robert’s footsteps, Matt is drawn into a life of high-stakes games and deception. Then he meets Milla. Sharp-eyed, brave, and unafraid to speak the truth, Milla is a woman rooted in her Choctaw heritage, carrying both strength and sorrow in equal measure. For the first time, Matt imagines a different future. But the past doesn’t let go easily and buried secrets never stay buried for long, clawing their way back to the surface when you least expect it. Now, Matt must choose between what consumes him and the life he wants to build.

Set against the raw beauty of the Choctaw Nation, this is a powerful story of blood ties and hard choices, of the people we love and the ones we betray. Gritty, tender, and unforgettable—this is where redemption begins.

About the Author

With no close relatives nearby, R.G. Stanford turned to online resources in
search of extended family. That search became a twenty-year journey through
genealogy websites, Federal Census records, the National Archives, and old
newspapers. Along the way, R.G. Stanford uncovered incredible stories about
her family and the people who once lived in the Choctaw Nation, Indian
Territory.

Compelled to record the truth of her family in the lore, sprinkled with
imagination, R.G. Stanford is a history lover, a research buff, and a
passionate genealogy enthusiast. She is also a mother, a grandmother, and a
teller of stories, now living near Orlando.

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Dona Nobis Pacem. God Grant Us Peace.

 

Voiceless Donnell and defrocked priest Nathan are outcasts and strangers at
the turn of the century. Despite his handicap, Donnell has made a life for
himself as a businessman and owner of a saloon. His heart goes out to those
whom life has dealt an unhappy hand. When Nathan arrives in this former
gold-rush town, horsewhipped and ill to the point of collapse, Donnell is the
only one to offer help.

Barely ordained before being accused of unnatural desires, Nathan has been
sent to travel a faux road to Damascus as penance. He did not expect to
survive the trek, and longed for the peace he might find when his body gave up
the fight.

He never expected to meet someone like Donnell. Despite his lack of voice,
Donnell is the teacher Nathan has hungered for all his life, and the lover he
never dared seek out. Triumphing over a lifetime’s worth of threatened
damnation will not be easy to overcome, but Donnell’s not giving up. The
passion they share is what both men have always craved, but never found. When
they’re discovered, standing together is the only thing that will save them
both.

 

 

In a fit of optimism, some enterprising settler twenty-odd years ago had named
this patch of land “Shady Grove.” The name hadn’t stuck longer than the first
summer, arid heat scorching the life out of anything the daft fellow had tried
to plant, and carrying away his wife and children.

After that, or so the story went, the settler had cursed his homestead with
the new name of “Hell.”

When gold was found not far west in a puny stream, the name changed yet again
to “El Dorado.” Though that lasted no longer than the rush of miners who
picked, panned and mined away most of the precious metal.

When the gold was mostly gone and civilization caught up with the roughneck
men who’d blazed through in search of riches, there came bankers, lawyers and
doctors, along with their pretty wives and dainty daughters. Amongst
themselves, they’d formed a quaint city council, elected a mayor, nominated a
marshal, and rechristened this hole in the ground as “Nazareth.”

Those whose tongues weren’t corseted by the niceties observed in polite
society still called the former boomtown “Hell.”

As for Donnell, he called it home, and had since the day he was born, a silent
infant who’d opened his mouth to wail, but made almost no sound, not then and
rarely ever afterward. The best he could manage was a sort of scale of
breathing — a whistle, a shush, a sigh. He’d never spoken a proper word. At
least his hearing was top-notch.

Music was Donnell’s voice instead, tickled out through the ivories of the old
upright piano he’d paid a considerable sum in gold dust to have shipped from
Chicago. Within the safe haven of Treighton’s saloon, Donnell had placed that
piano facing the street, where he’d have a fine view through the mosquito
netting over the window when he played.

He could arrange Treighton’s however he wanted, no questions asked. Owner’s
rules and that owner would be him.

Music wasn’t his only skill. He was a favored son of Lady Luck, and the cards
danced to his tune. Those who thought a mute man was simple, and an easy cheat
at faro, often found themselves losing big.

He’d given up the game after winning Treighton’s, though. No sense in pushing
his luck too far.

A man who’d call himself satisfied with his lot in life, Donnell caressed the
piano keys, a jingling tune flowing smooth and sweet as quality whiskey under
his mastery of the music. He let the corner of his mouth quirk upward with dry
humor. Many were they who’d claimed the son of a whore, muteness aside, would
never make anything of his life. They’d been wrong, too.

Did they accept his good fortune with grace? Hell, no. The “proper” folks of
Nazareth scorned him still, and always would. Too good for the likes of him
and his saloon.

Thank God for sinners, eh?

* * *

A sudden clamor rose from the dusty, uneven street outside, usually quiet and
deadly dull during the morning hours while laborers and leftover miners
toiled, polite society occupied themselves with polite works, and gamblers
slept off their night’s fun. Attention captured, Donnell peered through the
mosquito netting over his window.

Soon enough, the source of the commotion came into view. Donnell raised one
eyebrow, intrigued. A tall, lean man, far too thin for his height. He was
dressed in the tattered remnants of a once-respectable shirt, now missing its
collar and cuffs, and formerly sturdy denim trousers, with no hat on his head
nor shoes on his feet nor a coat on his back. Bleached-out hair stringy from
lack of washing and long enough to be caught up in a queue hung over his face
and tangled across his eyes.

Donnell leaned forward, instantly captivated. He’d never seen the equal of
those eyes, their color distinct even at this distance. Aqua blue, the shade
of summer skies, dulled by hunger and pain, but no less remarkable.

In point of fact, were he to be cleaned up and provided with a few good
healthy meals, Donnell guessed this young man would easily steal anyone’s
heart away. Not least of all his.

Not that anyone knew about his preferences. It was safer that way. He came in
for scant questioning about his lack of female companionship, as most thought
if his tongue didn’t work then neither would his cock.

Donnell abandoned those thoughts and focused on the beautiful — yes,
beautiful — young man instead, a far more pleasant diversion. He’d no stubble
on his cheeks or chin, both badly sunburned. Young, then. Tall and gangly
enough that at a guess Donnell would have put him in his late teens, no more
than twenty, not so far Donnell’s junior.

A man could make quite a lot of himself in twenty years plus change. He could
raise himself a fine establishment like Donnell’s, or he could end up
staggering filthy and starving down a dusty, badlands street with children and
bad-tempered dogs jeering him every barefooted step of the way.

Donnell frowned when the young man staggered, swaying alarmingly before
righting himself. That didn’t seem to be clumsiness, but rather weariness.
Perhaps illness?

“Drunk,” Bettina sniffed, peering past Donnell. She might work in a saloon,
but she had no patience with men who behaved badly when they’d had too much of
the grape and grain. She didn’t scold like the holy men, no, she tore strips
off their hides and nailed them to the wall, and they loved her for it.

Barely hearing her, Donnell continued to track the man’s progress. Seeming to
ignore the rabble jeering at him, he came to a stop and stood up as straight
as he could, attempting to brush dust, mud and worse off his clothes,
smoothing them down. He dragged his hair out of his face with hands that shook
minutely and gazed up the length of the street still to go.

The quiet despair in his eyes struck a chord in Donnell’s heart, reverberating
with a sense of hollow misery. Here was a man who’d fallen as far as he could
go, with a trail of heartbreak behind him that stretched out for as many miles
as he’d walked.

Donnell sat back and drummed his fingers on his knees. Poor bastard.

Enough kind souls had helped Donnell in his day. He owed this poor fellow no
less.

 

About the Author

Willa Okati (AKA Will) is made of many things: imagination, coffee, stray cat
hairs, daydreams, more coffee, kitchen experimentation, a passion for winter
weather, a little more coffee, a whole lot of flowering plants and a lifelong
love of storytelling. Will’s definitely one of the quiet ones you have to
watch out for, though he — not she anymore — is a lot less quiet these days.

 

Will on Facebook

Will on Instagram

Will on Goodreads

 

Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok: @changelingpress

 

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Do you hear the voices? Listen if you dare . . . You’ll get both
the heebies and the jeebies in this unsettling new title.

Gail Galotta was raised in Chicago with childhood summers in
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.