Table of Contents
Legal Page
Title Page
Book Description
Trademarks Acknowledgement
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
New Excerpt
About the Author
Publisher Page
All of the Voices
ISBN # 978-1-78430-770-7
©Copyright Bailey Bradford 2015
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright September 2015
Edited by Claire Siemaszkiewicz and Rebecca Scott
Pride Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Pride Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Pride Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2015 by Pride Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Pride Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
Southern Spirits
ALL OF THE VOICES
Bailey Bradford
Book three in the Southern Spirits series
The body might be reluctant, but there’s more than one spirit willing to step in and keep two stubborn men from walking away from each other forever…
Deputy Matt Nixon has had a rough time of it lately. He’s put up with the spirit of his boss’s dead lover, been stabbed, and had his fledgling interest in another man cruelly flung back in his face. His only close friend is an elderly woman who gets her kicks from calling in false prowler reports then greeting the responding deputies with a lewd proposition and little clothes.
When he finds her dead, Matt grieves for the old woman so many people snickered at—and he fumes at the idea of her snooty nephew from New York who never bothered to visit her. Matt is going to give Carlin Douglas a piece of his mind if he does show up.
Carlin Douglas hates the small town of McKinton, Texas. The only other time he’d been there was years ago when Zeke Mathers was almost killed in a gay bashing. Now Carlin has obligations that keep him tied to New York, but he doesn’t mind.
Until he clashes with Deputy Matt Nixon, a man who seems determined to hate him. But McKinton is a different place, and there’s always a spirit or two lingering, just waiting for an opportunity…to meddle.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
SyFy: NBC Universal
Sears: Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Styrofoam: The Dow Chemical Company
Google: Google Inc.
Vaseline: Unilever
iPad: Apple, Inc.
Chapter One
The call from dispatch had Deputy Matt Nixon groaning and rolling his eyes even as he tossed aside his half-eaten burger and started up the cruiser. Ten-fourteens occurred regularly at Mrs. Hawkins’ place, and Matt, like every other employee at the Sheriff’s department, dreaded being on the receiving end of the call. All the times he had been unlucky enough to be on duty when old widow Hawkins claimed a prowler was on her property, not once had there been anyone other than the woman herself waiting for him when he arrived.
And on every single one of those calls, Matt had cringed when he’d knocked on Mrs. Hawkins’ door. Well, maybe not the first time. He’d been inexperienced and idealistic and kind of thought the other deputies were full of shit and trying to pull one over on him. It wasn’t until he’d heard the raspy-voiced widow hollering for him to ‘come on in’ that Matt had faced the slowly dawning, horrific reality. After all, who, if there was a prowler about, would leave the damn door unlocked?
He still shuddered with the memory of that first call, because he’d been so sure the gossip had been just that—gossip and not truth—until he’d started turning that unlocked door knob. Matt had scrambled frantically to recall the rest of the crap the other deputies had teased him about when he was sent to Mrs. Hawkins’, and remembering his fellow officers’ warnings was about the only reason he hadn’t pulled his gun when he’d finally opened the door and been promptly attacked by about two hundred pounds of nearly nude old woman.
“Better watch yourself, boy,” Deputy Sparks had sneered, “that crazy ol’ bitch will be on you the second you get in the door. She’ll be humping you like a dog in heat and—”
Matt had walked away, his stomach quivery over the sheer amount of disdain in the former deputy’s voice.
“The man was a bigoted fuckwad anyway,” Matt muttered, pushing aside the anger thinking of Sparks always brought. As for Mrs. Hawkins, the old woman was just lonely, and granted, her means of getting attention were more than a little startling, but in the past few months, Mrs. Hawkins and Matt had come to a sort of truce. She still called in complaints about prowlers, but she no longer dressed in frilly lingerie when she greeted Matt.
Most of the time she had a plate full of cookies and a glass of milk waiting for him. Matt had offered to stop in and check on her when he wasn’t working, but Mrs. Hawkins had declined. She had her routine, and he wasn’t the only deputy who got called out to her place. He was just the only one who got cookies. The only one who’d befriended the old widow instead of mocking her. The only one who saw the lonely, scared, elderly woman hiding under the façade Mrs. Hawkins presented to everyone else.
It hadn’t been that way between them before Matt had nearly died, but that traumatic event seemed to have made Mrs. Hawkins see past the laid-back persona Matt usually affected. And so between them, they’d forged an
