Page 1 of Grey (Little River Stallions #2)
I can do hard things.
Tatum Jayce stared at the Little River Library. The quaint brick building with its creeping ivy and worn sidewalk was her first attempt at being truly independent and free.
Everything about this was new and scary.
She’d never lived anywhere but Pennsylvania, but here she was in New Jersey, with a tiny rental cabin in a small farming town in the middle of nowhere.
The air was filled with the scents of earth and sunshine, and if she didn’t get into some air-conditioning quickly, she was going to melt right on the dang sidewalk.
Releasing the death grip she had on her purse strap, she walked up to the glass front doors and pulled, unsure if the librarian’s assistant would have remembered to unlock them.
Mrs. Fielder was a sixty-something eccentric lady, who’d worked at the library for decades but had never wanted to be the head librarian.
She was as charming as the library itself and full of stories about the locals.
Tatum knew the kind gal had seen something in her during the interview because she’d seen the recognition in her gaze.
She’d known without Tatum saying anything that she was leaving something bad.
Fleeing, more like it.
But she could do hard things.
“Good morning, it’s me, Tatum,” she said loudly into the empty library. The windows let in plenty of morning sunshine, and the air-conditioning was a welcome relief from the August heat outside.
“Hi dear, I’m in the back!”
Tatum smiled and walked to the back of the library, where a small breakroom doubled as a storage room. Mrs. Fielder was standing at the microwave, looking at a spinning mug.
“How was your first night in the cabin?” she asked, turning to smile at her.
“Quiet.”
She nodded sagely. “It’s quiet here, unless you live near one of the farms, then you’ll hear nothing but roosters and cows.”
Tatum wouldn’t have minded that, but she’d only heard birds and bugs in the woods that surrounded the cabin she was renting. She’d even done something she’d never done before—had a cup of coffee in a rocking chair on the front porch to watch the sunrise.
It had been cathartic after the last four years of her life.
How the hell had it taken her so long to leave him ?
Shaking the thoughts that were like a dark cloud about to pummel her with big, fat drops of icy rain, she set her bag in the cabinet and waited for Mrs. Fielder to fix her morning tea. Then they headed out to the circulation desk to start Tatum’s training on their system.
“I found some books for you, honey,” Mrs. Fielder said as she pulled a second chair over to the desk. She tapped a hardback book on top of a few paperbacks.
Tatum lifted it and read the title: Mysteries and Legends of New Jersey .
“Oh, thank you!”
Tatum loved reading about local legends. During her interview, when she’d told Mrs. Fielder about her personal interest in researching them, she’d mentioned there was a good collection of books related to the subject.
“You’re welcome,” she said, beaming. “You can search the online catalog as well; we do have access to every library in New Jersey and you can order books to be delivered to us free of charge. In fact, if you poke around the shelves, you might find more that will interest you.”
“I can’t wait, thank you.”
“I also know some pretty interesting things,” she said. “Like, did you know that the original owner of the feed store is rumored to have killed his wife? He ran off with a younger woman and his son took over. His grandson runs it now.”
Tatum shook her head. “I don’t know anything about Little River yet, but I’m more interested in the supernatural legends. Like the Jersey Devil.”
Mrs. Fielder pshawed. “That’s just a crazy little boy who scared people, the poor Leeds family. But Little River has its own share of legends; I think you’ll enjoy getting to know them. Now, I’m not the most techy-techy person, but I’ll do my best to help you with the computer stuff.”
Tatum preferred books to computers herself, but she was sure she’d be able to navigate the computer system easily enough. After a quick rundown of the library’s systems and the building itself, Mrs. Fielder left to reshelve books and Tatum started checking in the returned books.
As the morning stretched on and patrons walked in and out, Tatum found solace in the quiet atmosphere of the library. Books had always been her happy place.
The escape from the harsh reality of her mother’s cancer that took her when Tatum was sixteen and her father’s quick descent into a drug-seeking addict who seemed to delight in taking everything from Tatum.
And especially the last few years, when she’d been in a controlling relationship with a man who belittled her at every turn.
She’d finally found the courage to walk away.
From her father, from her ex, from Pennsylvania.
Starting over had been scary and liberating.
She was finally starting to feel more liberated than scared, now that she was settling into the library. The cabin didn’t feel like home yet, but it would in time, she was sure.
Tatum got out of her car and grabbed her tote and purse from the seat, then closed the door with her hip. As she walked into her little house, she set her things down on the kitchen counter and removed the books from the tote.
Not only did she have the books about the state’s legends from Mrs. Fielder, but she’d poked around the shelves during her lunch break and found a few more that looked interesting, including one about the local legends of Little River.
She put a frozen dinner in the microwave and opened the book about local legends while she sipped on a can of lemon-lime soda.
She perused the table of contents while her meal turned in the microwave, and when it was finished, she carried it to the counter and sat on one of the rickety stools.
She’d been so happy to find a furnished house to rent in town because she’d walked away from her old life with only her clothes and toiletries, and her box of family mementos.
As she flipped through the local legends book, she stopped on a story about the Ghost of Little River.
The story was about a young woman named Eleanor who lived in Little River a hundred years ago.
A man asked her to marry him and she refused, and in his embarrassment, he accused her of being a witch and the townspeople chased her into the woods.
She disappeared, with some saying she’d slipped beneath the waters of the river and others saying she turned into a crow.
Over the years, people have claimed to have seen and heard a mysterious figure in the woods at night, who helped lost hikers and sang the whispered sad song of a woman who just wanted to live her life.
Curious, she asked Mrs. Fielder about it the next morning at the library.
“Oh yes, I’ve heard about her,” she said, patting at a strand of graying hair. “They say that if you hear someone talking to you at night in the woods of Little River that it’s her and she’s trying to help, but if you ignore the voice, you’ll be doomed to wander, lost forever.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Tatum said with a chuckle.
“What’s a legend without a creepy element?”
“Not a particularly good one, I suppose. Have you ever seen or heard her?”
“Honey, I’m too old to go wandering around at night in the woods or anywhere else. I’ll take my mysteries on the television.”
Tatum smiled. “I like the legends, they’re neat.
It’s kind of how people explained things they didn’t understand.
If there really was an Eleanor and she was chased into the woods by the townspeople and disappeared, it would be easier for them to think she actually was a witch and turned into a crow than to admit they chased an innocent woman to her death. ”
“True,” she said. “People sure were terrible to those who were different back then, and I’m not so sure they’re all that kind to them now.”
Tatum agreed. Being considered an oddball herself for her love of all things supernatural and mysterious, she knew first-hand how people could think nothing of saying someone was a freak or an idiot for enjoying something out of the mainstream.
That’s why Tatum loved the library.
There was no judgment in the library, just access to books and information.
“Can you help me find a book?” a woman asked as she approached the front desk. “My daughter is in middle school and is taking on a challenge to read twenty-five books that have won medals, and she asked me to find her a few to get started while she’s at gymnastics practice. Here’s the list.”
Tatum took the list and said, “Oh, how exciting! What an interesting way to find new books to read. Let’s see what we can find. I can always order them for you through our system too.”
She took the list and began marking them with the information on the computer, and then took her to the shelves to locate the ones they had on hand.
When the woman had checked out with an armful of books and several more on order, she said, “Thank you for your help, I’ll be sure to bring my daughter with me next time. ”
“Anytime, that’s what we’re here for,” Tatum said.
Tatum finished up the half day the library was open on Saturdays, her mind on the Ghost of Little River. On her short break, she’d read more about the woman and even looked at a map of the town.
After wishing Mrs. Fielder a pleasant rest of the weekend, she drove to her cabin and decided that it was the perfect time to go on a hike through the woods. She just needed to pack a bag with some supplies and make sure her phone was charged, and then she’d see where the day took her.
She might even find the place where Eleanor had lived near the river.
She packed a few things in a backpack, and then as she changed into tennis shoes—because she didn’t have hiking boots yet—she looked out the window of her bedroom and smiled. She’d see for herself what secrets lay hidden in the woods of Little River.