When the Storm Breaks (Lost Stars) Read online

  When the Storm Breaks

  Emery Rose

  WHEN THE STORM BREAKS

  by Emery Rose

  Copyright © 2021 Emery Rose

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Branding: Lori Jackson

  Cover Design: Najla Qamber

  Photographer: Michelle Lancaster

  Editors: Jennifer Mirabelli (Content Edits); Ellie McLove, My Brother’s Editor

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  For my readers. Thank you so much to each and every one of you who has ever picked up one of my books. With so many amazing books to choose from, I’m honored and grateful that you chose to read mine. It’s because of you that I’m able to live out my dreams and write the stories of my heart. xoxo

  Playlist

  “everything i wanted” – Billie Eilish

  “Dreams” – Fleetwood Mac

  “Down South” – Kings of Leon

  “Comeback Story” – Kings of Leon

  “I Got You” – Amy Shark

  “Iris” – The Goo Goo Dolls

  “Fire Away” – Chris Stapleton

  “Sometimes I Cry” – Chris Stapleton

  “Dust to Dust” – The Civil Wars

  “My Soul I” – Anna Leone

  “Shallow” – Lewis Capaldi

  “Forever” – Lewis Capaldi

  “With or Without You” – U2

  “What Have I Done” – Dermot Kennedy

  “Who Am I” – NEEDTOBREATHE

  “I’m Still Here” – Sia

  “Stand By Me” – Skylar Grey

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Emery Rose

  Prologue

  Shiloh

  “Please, Maw Maw, you promised,” I pleaded. She tugged on the thick rope, pulling in the crawfish trap tied to our dock and emptied the haul into an old blue and white cooler. “It’s the only thing I want for my birthday.”

  “Aw, cher t’bebe.” She threw her hands up in the air and turned to face me. Maw Maw’s face was weathered like old leather and lined with wrinkles, but her eyes were the clearest gray. Like an Arctic lake. Mine were gray too but instead of being clear, they were stormy.

  I gave her my best puppy dog eyes and a sweet smile. She pinched my cheek, none too gently. Her hands smelled like crawfish. “How can I say no to this face?”

  She was going to do it. This was really happening. I was so excited, I nearly threw up. A swarm of hornets had invaded my belly. Today was the day I would finally know what my future had in store for me.

  “I want to know everything.” The wood underneath my feet creaked with every step, the cooler we were carrying banging against my leg as we walked to the side of the house. She turned on the hose and I helped her purge the muddy crawfish. My brother Landry should have been doing this, but he’d taken off with his friends, leaving me behind. As usual. This wasn’t my favorite job but complaining about it wouldn’t get the job done quicker. When the water ran clear and the crawfish were clean, I carried the cooler to the house by myself, eager to hurry this up before Landry came home with his idiot friends and ruined everything.

  Lanterns strung from the wood rafters danced in the winter breeze and a ceramic gator greeted me at the front door. We lived in a swamp shack, the turquoise paint peeling to expose the gray underneath, the tin roof weathered and rusted with age. I side-stepped the drum kit, keyboard, and guitars crowding the front room where we held our practice sessions and carried the cooler to the kitchen, setting it on the avocado green linoleum floor.

  Maw Maw and I took turns washing our hands at the kitchen sink with lemon-scented dish soap. Pale sunlight filtered through the bald cypresses outside the kitchen window and cast a honey glow on the kitchen, making it look warm and inviting instead of shabby. I wiped my wet hands on my Saints hoodie to dry them, my mind racing with possibilities. “I want to know if I’ll be famous. If I’ll fall in love... who will he be? Will he be handsome? Rich? A musician?”

  Maw Maw held up her hand to silence me. “Hush, child. You have to be still. Quiet your mind.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded then took my seat in one of the mismatched wood chairs across from her at the orange Formica kitchen table. “You’re not using the cards?” I asked, my eyes roaming the room for her deck of Tarot cards she used for readings.

  “No. Your vibrations are strong. Now no more talking. Close your eyes,” she said softly.

  I did as she asked, and she took both my hands in her gnarled ones. It was so quiet, I could hear my own heart beating and the hum of the refrigerator. I waited and I waited, and I waited. Losing patience, I cracked one eye open. Maw Maw was staring straight ahead but I could tell she was somewhere else. In a trance.

  Her breathing sounded raspy and she squeezed my hands so tightly it hurt. But I didn’t pull away. When she finally spoke, she didn’t even sound like herself.

  “I see a boy.” I sucked in a breath. A boy. “Your paths will cross many times.”

  I wanted to ask what he looked like and how I would know him when I met him. Was he Dean Bouchon? Dean was my brother’s best friend and the lead guitarist in the rock band we started over the summer. I wanted to ask a million questions, but I stayed quiet, not wanting to ruin her concentration.

  “They’ve already crossed once before but ...”

  My eyes flew open. Her face looked troubled.

  “No.” She shook her head vigorously, her long silver hair flying out around her. “It wasn’t him. It was someone else ... someone who took something precious away from you.”

  Something precious? Like what? My guitar? I didn’t have much in the way of material possessions. Maw Maw and Landry were the most precious ... oh, my mother? Did he take my mother away from me?

  “The boy is a man now. He will save you more than once. And then it will be your turn to save him.”

  Save him from what?

  “There will be many storms in your life, cher. The path you choose will not be an easy
one, but it will bring you to the place you’ve always desired. Don’t mistake it for where you really need to be.” I heard the warning in her tone. A chill raced up my spine.

  I waited for more, but her eyes cleared, and she slumped in her seat, exhausted. Disappointment settled in my gut. She hadn’t told me anything. And what she had told me made zero sense.

  After a few long moments of silence, her gray eyes locked onto mine. Spooky eyes, people said. A lot of folks called her crazy, but they were the non-believers. Like the horrible lady who put a gris-gris on us. After that, we couldn’t use the front door for an entire year. “Shiloh, what is the one thing you want most in the world?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “I want to find my one true love. And I want to be a rock star.”

  “That’s two things. Two very different things. What if you had to choose?”

  I didn’t want to choose but my answer was automatic. “I’d choose music.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down in disappointment. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Why does that make you afraid?”

  A shadow crossed over her face. “Because it’s what your momma chose.”

  “Music didn’t kill her though. It wasn’t music—”

  “I know.” Maw Maw cut me off. She didn’t like to talk about what happened to my mom. She didn’t really like to talk about my mom at all. I wish I’d gotten a chance to know her, but she’d been taken away from us when I was six months old and Landry was three and a half. And neither of us would ever, not in a million years, forgive the man who had killed her.

  “Just promise me one thing.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t chase fame. It’s too fickle and the cost is too great.”

  “I don’t care about being famous. I just want to play my guitar and sing for a living.”

  She pressed her lips together but didn’t comment. Then she abruptly stood up from the table and stuck her head in the refrigerator, blocking my view. She came out with celery, carrots, chicken, and Andouille sausage and set them on the counter. “Come. Help me with the gumbo.”

  It might be my thirteenth birthday, but it was also a game day. When the Saints played, we always had a crawfish boil and gumbo with one chicken heart and a gizzard thrown in the pot for luck.

  “Okay.” I eyed the onions and the stainless-steel knife on the counter. “But it’s my birthday so I’m not chopping the onions.”

  Maw Maw smiled. “Tears are a good thing. They cleanse the soul.”

  I pulled a face. I hated chopping onions. I hated crying too. By now, I probably had the cleanest soul in all of Louisiana. While I chopped the hateful onions, my tears fell freely, cleansing my soul.

  Raucous laughter alerted me to my brother’s presence and I hastily wiped away the tears on the sleeve of my hoodie before the boys caught me crying.

  “Hey little sister.” Dean tugged the end of my braid. The scent of weed clung to his clothes, and he moved his lips a hair’s breadth from the shell of my ear. “I have a birthday surprise for you.”

  I gave him a little shove to give myself some space then turned my head to look at him, my curiosity piqued. Hazel green eyes danced with mischief and he wore a smirk. The boy was trouble. Always had been. Everyone said he’d end up just like his Pops. A drunk and a gambler. I suspected the black eye he was sporting was compliments of Virgil Bouchon. His Pops was a nasty drunk.

  But I knew Dean had a different destiny. Music would save him. Landry and I would make sure of it. I arched a brow, not wanting him to know that I cared. About his well-being. Or about his stupid surprise. Knowing him, he was lying about it. If he’d even gotten me a gift, it was probably stolen. “Oh yeah? What kind of surprise?”

  “Keep your hands off my sister,” Landry growled from the doorway. Dean laughed and sauntered out of the kitchen. Seconds later, he was playing the chords of Happy Birthday on the Stratocaster he’d gotten at a pawn shop. Gus set the rhythm on the bass guitar and Landry kept the beat on the drums. All three of them sang Happy Birthday, even Gus who barely ever opened his mouth to speak let alone sing.

  Someday we’d make all our dreams come true. Me and the band. I’d do what my mom hadn’t gotten a chance to. I’d go out to L.A. and dance among the stars. Write my lyrics on the sky. Blaze a trail straight up to the heavens. I wouldn’t chase the stars like she had. I’d be a star. I didn’t even need Maw Maw to confirm it.

  In my heart of hearts, I knew it was my destiny. Our destiny. Acadian Storm. That was our band’s name and someday we’d be playing sold-out stadium concerts in front of thousands of screaming fans.

  I’d do whatever it took to make it happen. I’d sacrifice anything and everything to make our dreams come true.

  At thirteen, I had no idea how true that would be.

  Chapter One

  Shiloh

  I finished packing up the last of my things and zipped the case. It felt like I spent most of my life living out of a suitcase. Dragging it down the curved staircase, I held onto the wrought iron banister for support.

  When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I glided my bag across the Italian marble foyer and left it by the front door then went in search of Bastian. There were twenty-two rooms in this house and he only used one—the “Blue Room.” It looked like a cross between a boudoir and a French nightclub. I opened the carved oak door and stepped inside. French doors opened to the terrace and the pool, affording a view of the Hollywood Hills but heavy midnight blue curtains were drawn to ward off the sunlight. A jewel-toned chandelier cast light on the man who preferred the darkness to the light.

  “Those cigarettes are going to kill you,” I observed as I moved further into the room, past the low-slung, midnight blue velvet sofas, my boots soundless on the Aubusson rug.

  Bastian was sitting at the black baby grand, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes squinted against the smoke. He was wearing a purple velvet robe and a gray fedora, the ends of his dark hair curling where they hit his collar. “L.A. is sucking the soul out of me.” His hands—insured for millions—played a jaunty medley of the bubblegum pop tunes he claimed to detest. “Through a pixie stick. It’s a slow, arduous process. But the City of Angels won’t rest until it’s consumed every last drop of my liquid black soul.”

  I rolled my eyes—what a drama queen—and leaned my hip against the piano.

  Bastian Cox was a British rock god. A gifted poet. A living legend who was notoriously difficult to interview. He was also my best friend. He’d been there for me through all the ups and downs of the past few years. I adored him. He was so talented. An unhinged genius with madness running through his veins. “You need fresh air and sunshine, Liberace.”

  He shuddered. “I need gray skies and thunderstorms.” He switched gears and played a jazzy, sultry ballad I didn’t recognize. A torch song. It sounded like something that would have been sung in a Parisian nightclub in the 1920’s. “Sing for me, my little chanteuse.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “I can’t. I’m leaving. Hayden’s bringing the car around.” Hayden was Bastian’s driver, bodyguard, and closest male friend. Bastian rarely went anywhere without him. Hayden was the yang to Bastian’s yin. If you asked me, they belonged together.

  Bastian’s hands paused on the keys and the last lonesome note echoed in the room. I grabbed a crystal ashtray from the black lacquer Chinoiserie sideboard under the antique mirror and walked it over to the piano then held the ashtray under his cigarette to catch the ash. He took it from me, ground out his cigarette, and set the ashtray on the piano bench next to him. “You’re going through with it.”

  I nodded.

  Bastian was the only one who knew why I was going to Texas. He was the only person I completely trusted. Not even Landry knew. My brother and I weren’t on the best terms right now.

  “Be careful, yeah?”

  “Careful in what way?”

  “Don’t get too attached. Your life isn’t in Texas.” I
could hear the worry in his tone. It had taken me a few years to wrap my head around the fact that Bastian Cox actually cared. Not about everyone. But about a chosen few. I was lucky to be one of them. After I broke up with Dean and left Acadian Storm last year, he not only offered me a place to stay, he produced my solo album and released it under the record label he set up five years ago.

  “By all means, find yourself a hot cowboy. Ride him hard and put him away wet.” He lit another cigarette and took a drag, his dark eyes studying my face through the blue haze of smoke. “But whatever you do, don’t fall in love.”

  For Bastian, love was a dirty word. He was still dealing with the fallout of a nasty divorce after his Brazilian supermodel wife of six months sold an exclusive story to the tabloids, pleading poverty even though the pre-nup left her $6 million richer. And as for me? Falling in love was the last thing I wanted or needed. History had proven that I had lousy taste in men. Give me a bad boy, preferably one with a tragic backstory and a penchant for self-destruction, and I was all over him like flies on shit. Which was exactly what I always ended up with. A shit sandwich and enough heartache and misery to last a lifetime.

  “I have no intention of falling in love.”

  “Good. But if you do fall madly and irrevocably in love, I want to hear the whole tragic tale. I could use some new material.”