Famous in a Small Town Read online

  Lifestyles of the small-town famous

  Forced to leave Nashville after a scandal, Savannah Walters has come home to Slippery Rock, Missouri, with a bruised ego and her singing career in jeopardy. As if that isn’t humiliating enough, on her way into town she’s rescued by her swoon-worthy childhood crush, Collin Tyler.

  His hands are full running the family orchard and dealing with his delinquent teen sister, so Collin doesn’t need to get involved with someone as fiery and unpredictable as Savannah. But the intense attraction between them can’t be denied. And when disaster strikes, they’ll both be surprised by who’s still standing when the dust settles.

  “Should I start another song, or should we...?”

  Start another song, he wanted to say, but didn’t.

  He had the orchard to build.

  He had Gran and Amanda to support and, despite her reluctance to return to Slippery Rock, their other sister, Mara.

  He wasn’t about to mess up the plans he had for a night with Savannah Walters, no matter how tempted he was to continue caressing her curves.

  Reluctantly, Collin loosened Savannah’s hands from his neck and stepped back.

  “Thanks for the dance. I’ll see you around,” he said and quickly left the bar, calling himself all kinds of a coward for doing so.

  It shouldn’t matter who she was. It should only matter that she was a willing woman, he was a willing man and it had been nearly a full year since he’d...

  But it did matter.

  Savannah Walters was not the kind of woman to mess around with.

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoy this first book in my new Slippery Rock series, Famous in a Small Town. Slippery Rock is a place that was born out of my past—I grew up in a small town near Truman Lake in Missouri. There are many man-made lakes in Missouri—most were made to help farmers and ranchers with irrigation, and most have been turned into tourist attractions. Despite the growth of these towns, they still have that mom-and-pop feel, with town squares and main streets, and where people still wave at one another as they pass by in their cars.

  Famous in a Small Town is special to me because of the setting, but also because I wanted to write about a family like mine. My husband and I adopted our daughter through the foster care system, and while she doesn’t have the attachment issues that Savannah does, we’ve faced other hurdles, and those hurdles drew us closer together. An adoption quote that’s very special goes: “Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.” That is the kind of family that both Savannah and Collin find...and it is the kind of love and family that I hope all of you find, too.

  Have a great read!

  Kristina Knight

  KRISTINA

  KNIGHT

  Famous in a Small Town

  Kristina Knight decided she wanted to be a writer, like her favorite soap opera heroine, Felicia Gallant, one cold day when she was home sick from school. She took a detour into radio and television journalism but never forgot her first love of romance novels, or her favorite character from her favorite soap. In 2012 she got The Call from an editor who wanted to buy her book. Kristina lives in Ohio with her handsome husband, incredibly cute daughter and two dogs.

  Books by Kristina Knight

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  The Daughter He Wanted

  First Love Again

  Protecting the Quarterback

  A Slippery Rock Novel

  Famous in a Small Town

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  For my Brainstormers: Connie, Jill, Jenna, Sloan, Katelynn, Shay. You inspire so much laughter, you offer such unreserved friendship, and I appreciate you all to the moon and back. xoxo ~ K

  Acknowledgment

  Special thanks to Julie Kyer, who answered question after question about reactive attachment disorder (RAD), the foster care system, family counseling and adoptive family dynamics. It takes a special kind of person to be a social worker, and Julie is one of those special people. I am forever thankful for her friendship, and for her willingness to be an advocate for children everywhere.

  Contents

  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

  EXCERPT FROM STRANDED WITH THE CAPTAIN BY SHARON HARTLEY

  CHAPTER ONE

  DECISION TIME.

  Savannah Walters sat staring at the faded red stop sign at a crossroads—one would lead her into complete anonymity and the other back to a place where everyone knew who she was.

  Anonymity beckoned, slick and sweet. A simple left-hand turn onto the southbound lane of a rural highway in southwestern Missouri. She would roll the windows down in her old Honda, smell the freshly mowed highway grass and maybe pass a tractor or twelve before she hit the next town, a town with a bigger road leading to an interstate that would lead her...anywhere.

  She hit the turn signal even though there were no other cars on this stretch of blacktop and listened to the click-click-click of it for a long moment. All she had to do was make the turn. This was her chance. A bigger chance than the one she’d taken when she’d elected to go to Nashville. A bigger chance than the one she’d taken to get onto the reality talent show that had made the Nashville move possible. No one would ever have to know she was that Savannah Walters again.

  Hell, if she wanted, she could change her name completely and maybe cut off the signature micro-braids she’d spent three days installing, then no one would even make a tiny connection between her and about-to-fall-from-grace, one-hit-wonder Savannah Walters. She could be anything and anyone she wanted. The thought made her giddy. If she could, she would choose to be smart, strong and capable, rather than the dumb, weak and dependent person she’d been since she’d landed in Slippery Rock, Missouri, at the age of seven.

  Her second-chance self would have a name like Nancy Smith because there had to be a million Nancy Smiths in the world. Nancy Smith would only sing in the shower or in the car with her windows rolled up. She would work as a bank teller and wear normal clothes without a single rhinestone, and maybe once she was settled she’d go to dental hygienist school. She would eventually buy a small house in a quiet neighborhood, and maybe she would meet a nice guy—not in a bar—and have a real relationship for the first time in her twenty-seven years.

  Savannah’s heart a beat a little faster. Nancy Smith wouldn’t care what people thought of her. She would be stronger than that. Stronger than Savannah Walters, who had been afraid of what people thought of her for...most of her life.

  Nancy Smith would not be afraid, but she also wouldn’t be reckless. There would be no judgmental dinner conversations, no too-high expectations and no comparisons to a brother who always did the right thing. She would be th
e opposite of Savanna Walters of Slippery Rock.

  There would also be no midnight walks along the lakeshore with that boy—man, now—who couldn’t help being practically perfect; it was simply his way. No whispered conversations through their bedroom windows on hot summer nights. No smell of Mama Hazel’s coffee cake on lazy Sunday mornings and no comforting hugs or encouraging words from the only father she had ever known.

  No disappointed looks when the three people who had saved her so very long ago learned that she, once again, had made every possible wrong decision.

  God, she wanted to turn left. Take the easy road. They wouldn’t really miss her. It might even be easier for them if she just kept driving out of their lives. Choosing to adopt her didn’t mean they had to be stuck with her screwed-up self for the rest of their lives.

  The turn signal kept clicking. Savannah checked the rearview, but there were still no other vehicles on the narrow country road, and so she continued to weigh her options. This might be the last chance she had to make a right decision, and it needed to be right not only for her but also for the people around her.

  She hadn’t had a choice about coming to Slippery Rock before, but it was her choice whether or not she returned now.

  Maybe if she stopped running away from Savannah Walters she would finally stop mucking up this life she’d been given. Savannah clicked off the turn signal and rested her forehead against the steering wheel. Maybe it was time to stop being afraid of who she might have been, and time to start figuring out who she wanted to be now. She couldn’t do that by running away.

  It was worth a shot.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, Savannah turned right. She rolled the window down and caught the faint scent of new grass. Tall trees lined both sides of the road. Maybe oak; she’d never bothered to learn the names of trees or the grasses along the road, or the vegetables whose baby stems were just beginning to show through the pencil-straight rows of tilled soil. Naming everything from the crops to the trees seemed too personal. She’d been waiting for her new family to send her away, to decide they didn’t want her, either. Now she wished she’d paid at least a little attention to Bennett and Levi, her adoptive father and brother, while they’d talked at all those family dinners.

  The city limits sign, with its welcome message from the local chapters of fraternal organizations, churches and veteran’s groups came into view just as the engine coughed once, twice, and the car rolled to a stop.

  Savannah clicked the key to the off position and then back on. Pressed the gas a couple of times and tried again. Nothing. Not even the clicking sound of a dead battery. She glared at the illuminated red check-engine light that had been on since she’d bought the car with her tip money from the Slope, where she’d chosen to clean up and wait tables instead of take a scholarship at a nearby college. Because she convinced herself she wasn’t good enough for college. Of course, if she’d done the college thing, she’d have never tried the talent show and wouldn’t have had a song on country radio.

  Wouldn’t be running from scandal now.

  The blinking engine light she’d ignored for nearly four years mocked her. One more checkmark in the Savannah the Screwup column.

  If she’d only turned left, the stupid car would have run without so much as a twinge, she was positive about that. Lord, sometimes doing the right thing just sucked.

  Anyone else would arrive back in her hometown driving an Escalade and find a parade in her honor. Savannah had a broken-down Honda with more than two hundred thousand miles on it. And she’d have to call her parents just to make it into town.

  She thunked her head against the steering wheel a few times, but that didn’t make the check-engine light flicker off or the car miraculously start back up. The last thing she wanted to do was to call her parents. Maybe some of that car talk—Bennett helped Levi build his first car from parts found at the local salvage yard—at the dinner table had sunk in by osmosis or something.

  Heaving out a sigh, Savannah popped the hood of her car and then stepped onto the pavement. The light wind was brisk—she should have remembered early May in Missouri was touch-and-go weather-wise—so she grabbed her neon-yellow hoodie from the passenger seat and shoved her arms through the sleeves.

  At the front of the car, she pulled on the cherry-red hood but it didn’t budge. She tugged on it again and then bent to see the hook still caught in the hood latch. She hit the hood, trying to jar the hook loose, but no matter what she did the hook remained safely in the latch. There must be a mechanism in there somewhere that released it. Savannah bent to look between the narrow spaces of the grille, but didn’t see anything that looked like it might release the latch.

  Crap, crap, crap.

  Turning, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the hood.

  There were two options: walk the five or so miles to her childhood home or call the house so someone could come pick her up.

  A responsible person would probably walk it, but Savannah had already done the responsible thing by not turning left and look where that had gotten her: stranded on the side of the road at six thirty in the evening. She sighed.

  Call home. Like she’d done a hundred times in the past. Well, better now than in the middle of the night.

  She grabbed her phone from her bag on the passenger seat and scrolled until she found the word home, clicked the button and stopped. The sound of an engine caught her ear. Maybe she wouldn’t have to make that call, after all.

  A dusty, blue truck rolled to a stop behind the old Honda and a broad-shouldered man sat behind the wheel, looking at her for a long minute. Savannah stiffened under his scrutiny. It was unlikely she had ever spoken to whoever was behind the wheel. When she’d lived in Slippery Rock she’d only had a handful of friends, and most of them had hung out with her just hoping to get to her brother. She tilted her head to the side, still studying the big truck. Not a single one of them would be caught dead in a big farm truck like the one taking up space behind her little car.

  Dread crept down her spine.

  It was likely, however, that whoever was behind the wheel knew her brother. Or her father. For all she knew, he was now making the call she should’ve swallowed her pride to make as soon as the engine gave out, instead of pretending she knew anything about general car repair. Or maintenance. Her knowledge of the car began and ended with how to put gas in the tank.

  Well, this wasn’t going to get better if she didn’t get the man out of the truck. Savannah swallowed and offered a halfhearted wave.

  “Hey,” she began as the man opened the door of his truck and stepped down to the pavement.

  Dusty boots to match the dusty truck, along with the frayed end of a pair of faded jeans appeared below the open door. Then he slammed it shut and the rest of him came into view.

  Well-worn jeans covered a pair of nicely shaped legs. A red T-shirt with a grease stain near the hem hinted at a nice set of abs, and the tight sleeves highlighted a set of biceps that made her mouth go a little dry. Which was just silly. Savannah didn’t go for athletes.

  She liked gangly guys who knew how to work their instruments, and not the double-entendre instrument. Their guitars or drums or, a couple of times, keyboards.

  He started toward her and it was as if her body went on point. Savannah stood a little straighter, every muscle seemed to clench and a warm heat sizzled to life deep in her belly.

  Apparently gangly musician wasn’t her only type.

  Finally her gaze arrived at the man’s face and her mouth went from dry to Sahara. This wasn’t a stranger. And he wasn’t a friend.

  “Savannah Walters. I heard you were living it up in Nashville.” Collin Tyler, her brother’s best friend, shook his head at her. His voice was deeper than she remembered, and she thought he might even be taller. He was definitely rangier, and there was no way his
arms had been that built in high school.

  Not that she was looking, now or then.

  Savannah ordered her gaze to fix on the truck behind Collin.

  “Collin Tyler,” she said, thankful that her voice was working despite her raging thirst. “Still a Good Samaritan, I see.”

  He shrugged, and the motion brought her focus right back to his body. Damn it.

  “What seems to be the problem?” he asked, walking over to the car. His hands slipped between the hood and the grille and before she could warn him it was stuck, he had it unlatched and resting on the thin rod that held the hood aloft. Collin put his hands on the grille and leaned in as if he might spot the problem. Probably, he could. He fiddled with a couple of wires. “What are you doing driving this old thing still? Figured you have traded up by now.”

  “I love this car.”

  Collin shook his head and scoffed. “Nobody loves a 1997 Honda hatchback, Van,” he said, using the nickname that Levi had christened her within five minutes of her arrival at Walters Ranch.

  “I worked hard for this car. I love this car,” Savannah said, probably a little too stridently. But she did love the car. Even if she wanted something newer and trendier and...road-worthy. This car had taken her out of Missouri to Los Angeles then Nashville. And back again.

  “Slinging beers at the Slope isn’t exactly working hard.” He fiddled with a few more wires but, to Savannah, everything looked fine.

  “And watching apple trees grow is hard work?” Savannah knew there was more to Collin’s family orchard than watching trees grow, but she couldn’t just stand there while he insulted her car. She might know it was decrepit, but allowing someone to disparage it just felt wrong. They’d been down a lot of roads together.

  “Actually it’s apples and pears and peaches now. And in addition to watching them grow I like to prune from time to time, fertilize, and every now and again we actually pick the fruit, too.” He motioned her to the driver’s seat. “Why don’t you try turning it over now?”