Find Me Read online

  Find Me

  by

  Afton Locke

  Can a civil rights attorney and a Southern rocker find love at a Confederate statue rally?

  Weary of climbing the corporate ladder to care for her aging hippie parents, Dee Dobson marches in a rally. When violence erupts, Rodney Walker, lead singer of Breeze, comes to her rescue. Their dramatic picture hits the papers, but an interracial relationship is out of the question for both their careers.

  Between a long-distance concert tour, her endless overtime, and his racist brother, Jack, they struggle to build a future from their powerful connection. When a senator pursues Dee and helps her run for political office, things get even more complicated.

  But their biggest obstacle is Jack. As a Southern gentleman, Rodney values family above all else. Due to a long-buried secret, he always gives his brother the benefit of the doubt, a decision that could cost him and Dee everything.

  *Warning: This book contains some racial triggers that may make some readers uncomfortable.*

  Dedication

  This story is dedicated to Barbie, superfan. The muse wasn’t planning on writing a sequel to Follow Me until she asked for it.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Kass for answering my questions and being a sounding board.

  Author Note

  The rally described in Culpeper is purely fictional.

  Table of 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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Afton Locke

  About the Author

  Connect With Me

  FIND ME

  by Afton Locke

  Copyright © 2020 Afton Locke

  FIND ME © 2019 Afton Locke. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part or the whole of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or utilized (other than for reading by the intended reader) in ANY form (now known or hereafter invented) without prior written permission by the author. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal, and punishable by law. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and / or are used fictitiously and are solely the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Edited by: Wizards in Publishing

  Prologue

  Louisiana

  The man groaned and rolled to his side. He found himself on soft ground, seemingly in one piece. More than he could say for the airplane in jagged chunks around him. Trees in its path were broken off like matchsticks.

  His shoulder hurt like a mother. So did his chest.

  Shit, I can hardly move my arm. What the hell…happened?

  The sickening smell of fuel filled his head, making it hard to think, let alone breathe. Snippets of the last concert filled his mind. Next stop, New Orleans. Guess they wouldn’t make it…

  He blinked and pushed long, bloody hair out of his eyes with a shaky hand. Took a look around to see how the rest of the band had fared. A few bodies lay near him. One half in, half out of the plane. Bare bones and blood. Lots of it.

  Nobody made a sound. He merely heard the plane dripping something. Were they all dead, then?

  Holy hell. This can’t be real.

  The plane had just missed going over a bank into the swamp, and he was awfully damn close to the edge.

  He needed to find his brother. The one ultimately responsible for this clusterfuck of tragedy. When he took a closer look at the body closest to his, his heart skipped a beat. It was him.

  “Hey,” he called out, giving him a little shake.

  No answer. Not so much as a moan. He was full of blood and cuts, but that didn’t tell him shit. So was he. Groaning from the movement, he shifted closer so he could lift his brother’s T-shirt and look for injuries. Like his, it was black with the band’s logo on the front.

  The first thing his fingers found was a leather wallet, hanging halfway out of his back pocket. He grabbed it and tugged out his own, forgetting about his pain. After pausing only a split second, he switched them.

  Why had he done that?

  The shock and pain must be messing up his mind because he couldn’t explain why he clambered to the other side of the man.

  And pushed.

  And watched while the black swamp water below sucked his brother down.

  Chapter One

  Wheeling, WV ~ several months earlier

  When Dee Dobson arrived at her old homeplace in Wheeling, Ma was carrying a basket of laundry across the porch. The sound of a train whistle from over the river told her she was home.

  Ma dropped the basket when she saw her. “Hey, baby girl!”

  Dee squeezed the smaller woman and planted a kiss on the silvery hair near her temple. “Can I help?”

  “No, I just took these clothes off the line.”

  After embracing commune life in the late sixties, Dee’s parents still lived off the grid. Although she’d been raised with no electricity, she’d taken too much of a liking to hot showers and the Internet to follow their path.

  “Come on, Ma. Let me buy you a fancy washer and dryer. It’ll even do your nails and hair for you.”

  As a senior associate attorney at Willis and Greene, a civil rights law firm, she could afford some comforts.

  “No way,” said the man who stepped onto the porch. “Nothing but the sun and wind can make our clothes smell so good.”

  “Dad!” she squealed, embracing the bearded man.

  That same sun and wind had buffed his face and hands into fine leather. While Ma’s gray hair was concentrated on the top and sides of her Afro, his dark locks were shot through with silver strands. A perpetual hippie, he still wore it to his shoulders.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” he asked. “Need to escape the rat race for a while?”

  “Actually, I came for some advice.”

  “Now, when have you ever listened to our advice?” he asked with a wink.

  “I want to participate in a protest.”

  Ma’s eyes widened. “Oh Lord. We’d better go inside and sit down.”

  The living room looked much as it always had. Wood floors, rag rugs, light switches that didn’t work no matter how much she’d flipped them for fun as a child. A cheerful fire crackled in the woodstove, warming the spring evening. Dee almost felt out of place in the corporate attire she hadn’t changed out of yet.

  “Something smells good.” She took a seat on the worn sofa while her father carried the laundry basket inside.

  “Homemade vegetable soup and rolls,” Ma said.

  Dee’s stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t stopped to eat much on the drive here from Washington, D.C., where she lived and worked. Her parents took seats around her.

  “A protest, huh?” her father asked. “Well, you’ve come to the experts.”

  “It’s out of the question, Jeremy,” Adele protested. “They’re too dangerous.”

  “You did them,” Dee pointed out.

  “That’s different. They wer
e part of the times.”

  “The times haven’t changed.” Dee tossed a throw pillow into her lap. “People are just protesting different things.”

  Jeremy lifted an eyebrow. “What’s this one about?”

  “The town of Culpeper, Virginia, is having a controversy about a Confederate statue located near a library entrance.”

  “Another one of Robert E. Lee in uniform, sitting on his horse?” he asked.

  “Worse,” Dee said. “It’s Stonewall Jackson with a cape swirling around him. He’s standing in his stirrups with a bloodthirsty look on his face and a sword gripped in his hand. The inscription reads The South shall rise again!”

  Ma frowned and picked at her apron. “That does sound disturbing and not at all appropriate for a public library.”

  “It probably scares the children,” her father surmised, “and encourages hate.”

  “Absolutely,” Dee agreed.

  “Okay, you asked for advice, so here it is,” Jeremy said. “Find out who the players are so you can get a forecast of what’s going to go down. Then, you can figure out where to locate yourself and what weapons to bring.”

  “Weapons!” Adele jumped out of her chair. “Don’t you remember what happened at the statue rally in Charlottesville? She’s not going, and that’s that.”

  “No worries,” Dad said, holding out a calming hand to his wife. “After all, we’ll be there to protect her.”

  Dee blinked. “You, what?”

  “We, what?” Ma echoed as she plopped back into her chair. “We retired from protesting years ago.”

  “As long as there’s breath in my body,” Jeremy said, his voice deeper and rougher with age, “I’ll keep fighting for what’s important, and scaring children really pisses me off. Speaking of which, Adele’s stepfather, Reverend Pervert, finally died in prison.”

  Dee gasped. “Did he?” She’d heard he made a pass at her mother when she turned eighteen, and, later, he got arrested for groping a couple of minors in his congregation.

  He nodded. “If you ask me, prison was too good for him. I would have tied him up by his feet up on the mountain and wrapped a raw steak around his dick so the bears and foxes could have a snack.”

  “I’m just glad he can’t hurt anyone else,” Ma said quietly. “About this rally…”

  “Guys, I’m in my forties,” Dee said. “I don’t have to be told what to do, and I don’t need protection. I only wanted the advice.”

  “Why now?” Ma asked. “You’re an attorney, not a hippie.”

  “I’m tired of staring at paperwork and courtrooms all the time. For once in my life, I want to do something hands-on.” She sighed. “My friend Rhonda is going.”

  It would be a nice break from the endlessly long hours she worked, too.

  “You’re feeling restless, aren’t you?” Dad asked, leaning his arm on the back of the couch.

  “How’d you know?” Dee picked at the cushion in her lap. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  “Maybe you miss being a public defender?”

  She didn’t miss the low pay. After her mother had racked up some hefty medical bills from beating breast cancer, Dee had moved to the big city—Washington, D.C.—for more opportunities and job security.

  “You don’t need a protest. You need a baby,” Ma said, pointing a work-worn finger at her.

  “Say what?” Dee laughed out loud. “That’s the last thing I need.”

  “Well, if you plan on having any, time is running out.”

  “We’d really like a grandchild,” Jeremy added.

  Thanks for the reminder. She’d been too busy with a career to even consider raising a family. And she’d never met the right man. She had no idea what the perfect man would look like. Was he black or white? Being biracial gave her more confusion than choices.

  “Is dinner ready yet?” she asked, desperate to change the subject. “Can I help?”

  “No and no.” Ma stood. “The rolls have risen long enough. I just need to stick them in the woodstove.”

  After Adele went to the kitchen, Dad jumped to his feet with the spryness of a much younger man. “Good. We’ve got enough time for some self-defense lessons.”

  He acted so zealous, Dee dissolved onto the couch, laughing her head off.

  “This is serious, little girl,” he said, gripping her shoulder. “Back in the day, we lost someone on the protest field. We’re not about to lose you, too.”

  Her insides chilled as she remembered what they’d told her about Dennis, or was it Denny? Apparently, her father had totally flipped out after his death because it stirred up his miserable childhood, which he’d mostly spent as an orphan.

  She stood again. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m not used to being a fighter.”

  “Well, we’re not letting you out of this house until you learn.”

  “It’s a good thing I brought a suitcase,” she said with a grin. “Show me that last move again.”

  “Supper’s ready,” Ma called from the kitchen a few minutes later.

  But Dee had lost her appetite. Participating in a protest wouldn’t be like getting her nails painted a different color. It was serious. Would her life be in danger? What if she jeopardized her parents? They’d gotten too old to be fighting anything but the symptoms of old age.

  She would do only this one. Then she’d be able to settle back down to the courtroom without feeling restless. With luck, she and her family would age together in peace, and their bravery would give peace to others.

  That made it all worth it.

  * * *

  Waycross, Georgia

  “You signed us up for what?” Rodney Walker asked his brother.

  Dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants, his long hair still damp from the shower, it felt great to be home, eating breakfast off his kitchen table, for a while. He inhaled the aroma of black coffee, hoping to erase too little sleep and the hangover from last night’s post-performance party.

  Jack dug into his ham and eggs. “It’s just a little rally about a statue.”

  “Just a little rally about a statue?” Rodney repeated as he stared at the picturesque yard of their Georgia estate. “We’re musicians, not protesters. We do concerts—where we get paid for our hard work.”

  “Our biggest fans are Southerners,” Jack pointed out. “Doing these kinds of events will increase our fan base.”

  “We’re popular all over the country and overseas,” Rodney argued. “Showing up at a rally will be like taking sides. We’d probably lose as many fans as we’d gain.”

  A doe ambled across the lawn.

  “No, we won’t.” Jack’s eyes narrowed as if lining it up in his sights. “We’re Southern, aren’t we? We have to stand up for what’s right so our fans know we’re serious. Otherwise, people will think we just swish that red flag around for show.”

  Rodney set down his coffee mug. “We are not displaying the Confederate flag at a rally. It would be like waving a red cape before a bull.”

  “It’s a good thing Daddy isn’t here to hear you say that.”

  “We show the flag because we’re proud to be from the South.” Rodney pushed away his breakfast plate. “Because we’re rebels and don’t like to be told what to do. Because we like the country, huntin’, fishin’, and kicking back at a family barbecue.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Rodney inhaled the tangy aroma of the nearby swamp and a trace of hickory smoke—the smells of home—wishing everything could be so simple.

  “At a racial rally, people will interpret ol’ Dixie as a symbol of hate,” he pointed out. “With all the conflict going on lately, the country is practically on the verge of another Civil War.”

  Jack shrugged, calmly buttering his biscuit while the deer scampered away.

  “Don’t make me sorry I gave you authority to sign us up for gigs,” Rodney said, folding his arms. “Because I can take it away again just as fast.”

  T
he arrangement gave him more time to focus on what he loved most—the music. Besides, his younger brother had a better head for business. He could even be cutthroat when needed. Like the time when that booking agent had tried to cheat them. Crazy Jack had threatened to burn down the whole stadium.

  “You won’t be sorry, bro’. You know how the music industry is these days. We have to keep our brand strong.”

  Rodney couldn’t argue. Competition in the arts had gotten ridiculously fierce. With all the music downloading and sharing, a band was hard put to eke out a living, much less make it big.

  “If violence breaks out, it’ll blemish our precious brand. Have you thought of that?”

  That was the problem with Jack. He didn’t stop to think about anything. Just rushed in like a damn fool. They’d always looked similar to each other, but the resemblance ended there. Growing up, his brother was always the first one to get into trouble. In school, at least, his cunning usually allowed him to weasel out of it.

  He’d even go so far as to say Jack had a dark side.

  “So, when is this little shindig?” Rodney asked with a weary sigh.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Rodney stood so fast, his plate clattered. “What? I thought we were going to rest up before the tour. Do some fishing.”

  “We can fish today.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” he grumbled. “I’ll get the boat ready.”

  As Rodney left the table, wheels turned in his mind. Maybe they could use the rally as a platform for peace. Until, someday, there’d be no more need for rallies. Truth was, the rock-star life was wearing a little thin around the edges. For him, at least. The rest of the band never seemed to tire of the fame, money, and constant excitement of touring. Jack’s harebrained idea had forced him to think about something he rarely paid much mind to—society.

  He’d assumed the intense thrill of hitting it big would last forever, but he was getting tired of it. Hell, he was tired, period. Not bouncing back from the heavy drinking as quickly as he used to. Take this morning’s headache, for instance. The two aspirin he’d popped hadn’t killed it yet, and he’d probably feel sluggish all day.