The Rest Of Me: A Contemporary Country Romance

  The Rest of Me

  Ashley Munoz

  Copyright © 2019 by Ashley Munoz & ZetaLife LLC

  ISBN: 978-1-7337919-1-5

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book whether in electronic form or physical book form, may be reproduced, copied, or sold or distributed in any way. That includes electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other form of information sharing, storage or retrieval system without the clear, lawful permission of the author. Except for limited, sharable quotes on social media, or for the sake of a review. There is absolutely no lawful permission permitted to upload a purchased electronic copy of this book to any free book sites. Screen shots of book text or kindle passages are not allowed to be shared on any public social media site without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of total and complete fiction. The story was thought up from the authors curious and thoughtful brain. Any names, places, characters, businesses, events, brands, media, situations or incidents are all made up. Anything resemblances to a real, similar, or duplicated persons or situations is purely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication or use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Cover Design: Jeanette Emerson- Net Hook & Line Design

  Editing by C. Marie

  Proofreader: Love Infinity Proofreading

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Untitled

  Spotify

  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

  Epilogue

  Also by Ashley Munoz

  Coming Soon:

  A Note About The Book

  Thanks:

  Follow Ashley:

  About Ashley:

  Dedication:

  For Dad: I miss you every day.

  Fifty-five was too damn young and not enough time for you to finish all your jokes or pass along your malt shake recipe.

  Since I can’t fight with the glass and asphalt that took you from me, I’ll fight with fate- I’ll create a new ending and give the people left behind a happily ever after.

  Spotify

  Goodbye John Smith- Barns Courtney

  Some Kind of Lonely- Harbor & Home

  How Not To- Dan & Shay

  Known- Tauren Wells

  No Saint- Lauren Jenkins

  Grave- Thomas Rhett

  Think & Drive- Seth Ennis

  Wannabe- Dylan Schnider

  Woulda Left Me Too- Ryan Griffin

  Happier- Keith Urban

  Click here for Entire Playlist

  1

  They say the devil is in the details.

  Maybe that’s why I decided to make a deal with him.

  It was nothing terrible, nothing horrible enough to keep me out of the pearly gates…at least I didn’t think so. I merely asked to ignore all the details of my life for the past year. He could keep all the juicy specifics to himself and I wouldn’t ask a thing.

  I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to face or deal with any of the particulars.

  I couldn’t face them, not then anyway.

  But now…

  Now, my time was up.

  The sound of incessant beeping woke me, dragging me from a restless night of sleep. I quickly threw my arm forward, groping for the beloved snooze button, hoping and praying my children wouldn’t wake up. I blinked open a blurry eye and squinted at the red numbers shining from my bedside table, but I was too blind to make them out.

  “Come on,” I groaned as I scooted toward the edge of my mattress. I moved my hand around the table until I found my glasses and shoved them on. Six fifteen in the morning, on a Tuesday. I looked around my room, ignoring how bare the walls still were after living here for six months, and wondered who’d set my alarm. I sure as hell hadn’t.

  After double-checking that my alarm clock was turned off, I tossed my glasses back on the end table and slumped back into my pillows. They’d hold me and hopefully keep me a little longer while I avoided what I needed to face.

  I was nearly asleep when the sound of a rooster woke me. Not a real one from a nearby farm—no, this was a digitized, demonic fowl right there in my room. I sat up swiftly, reaching forward for my damn glasses again, knocking the alarm clock and a half-full glass of water onto the carpet in the process.

  “Shit,” I whispered, searching the room for my cell phone. The evil rooster was waking up every single one of my kids; I was sure of it. I fumbled forward until I was off the bed and crouching down on the floor, where the phone had fallen but was still attached to the charger. I swiped my thumb furiously over the snooze button and wondered again who the hell had set my alarms. “Very funny, Travis,” I muttered to myself and stood, giving up on the idea of sleep.

  I had promised myself this would be the day I’d face the things I’d been avoiding for the past year. It would be the day I started living again. I decided it’d be somewhat like riding a bike: slow, steady movements until they were consistent and familiar.

  I moved away from the bed and, out of habit, pulled the collar of my t-shirt up, pressing the threadbare fabric to my nose, inhaling deeply. I paused, waiting for my memories to wake up and tell me I’d triggered something…but nothing came.

  My stomach twisted into a painful knot as I stood barefoot on the tile of my bathroom floor. With my fingers pressed firmly to the black fabric at my nose, I took a shallow breath and inhaled again. I silently pleaded with the inanimate object not to do this to me, not today.

  Eyes shut tight and fingers trembling, I slowly let the shirt drop back to my neck. Hot tears began to break through the dam I’d been haphazardly building for twelve months. I wasn’t supposed to cry today. That was the plan. But this wasn’t supposed to happen either…not so soon.

  I angrily swiped at my face, discarded the t-shirt like it was on fire, and moved to my closet. I threw my hair up, pulled on some leggings and a tank top, and then shoved my running shoes on. My fingers shook as I tied the laces and, as much as I wanted to ignore it, my breathing was chaotic. This was why I avoided this shit, why I avoided details—because the truth hurts. It cuts deeper than a knife and hits harder than any fist.

  I stood and glared at myself in the full-length mirror. My long blonde hair was pulled tight into a high ponytail, my freckled face was pale, and bags decorated the space under my eyes. I looked like hell, which was pretty fitting for facing the devil that lurked in all the details I had abandoned all year. I glanced at the discarded black t-shirt on my floor and felt a buzzing in my head.

  Not today. Not yet.

  I stalked out of my bedroom and jogged downstairs, no longer caring if anyone heard me. I secured the door behind me and eyed my long gravel driveway. I hadn’t run in a long time. Maybe I should stretch?

  My legs moved like they were on autopilot. I had no destination, no ideas of where I could go. I just needed to push the knowledge that Travis’ shirts didn’t smell like him anymore out of my mind, out of my broken heart. I had been sleeping in his shirts for the past year, rotating them, smelling him, keeping him. It just felt cruel that it’d been ripped away the day I needed it the most.

  The yellow grass in the pasture on my right swayed in the morning breeze, which felt nice against my skin. Slick sweat had already started building at my temple, providing another uncomfortable detail I needed to confront.

  I’d ignored my health over the past year. I’d traded jogging for chugging coffee, couch camping, and Netflix bingeing; they were my survival tools. Besides, running took energy, and for the past year, I hadn’t had any.

  I pushed my legs harder as a nearby farm crept up along the gravel road. I had no idea whose property it was or who lived there. So, when the woman in the large floppy hat waved at me, I cringed at the next detail that was surfacing.

  I hadn’t met a single person in this new town since moving to Wyoming six months ago.

  Heavy breathing rattled my chest as I continued down the road without any direction. Images flashed through my head, tugging and demanding I stop and pay tribute to a ghost who still held my heart in his cold fingers. But I refused, because I’d been running from him and this day. I’d been running from what it meant for me and my grieving heart.

  Namely, that it was time to mo
ve on.

  My watch said I’d run a mile before I finally collapsed into a patch of dead weeds on the side of the road. My mind served up the shit I had been dodging on a shiny platter. If I could have seen the devil, I was sure he’d have been rubbing his hands together or eating popcorn while he cashed in on the debt I owed.

  I lay on my back with weeds and cheatgrass jabbing into my shirt as I watched the sun shine against the blue sky. Tears mixed with sweat and frustration as I dropped my guard and allowed my mind to drift.

  Back to the moment our lives ended.

  To the stuffy, overfilled room, black suits, dresses, and too many red flowers.

  To the silver casket that cradled my husband’s body.

  Images of Travis’ life had flashed up on a screen against the pale white wall, making him seem like an already distant memory. Every time it shifted to a new one, my little four-year-old son would shake his tiny shoulders and cry into my side. His sobs would echo through the cramped room and I’d eye the hearse parked outside, and somehow, in that moment, I died a little more than I had when I’d been notified of his accident.

  The preacher droned on and on about salvation and repentance, adding nothing about what an amazing man my husband was or how he’d been out late because of the city council meeting that went longer due to Margie complaining about her new pot-smoking neighbors. No one talked about how it was a fucking telephone pole that took his life. I suppose that’s not entirely correct either, but that was one detail I wasn’t ready to face.

  I blinked, coming back to the dirt patch I was currently stalled on, and tightly shut my eyes, forcing the tears away, forcing my mind to readjust to the numbing sensation that came when I chose to forget and ignore.

  The one-year anniversary of my husband’s death…

  I got to my feet and started the jog back home, feeling proud that I’d allowed myself to think about his funeral as long as I had. Usually, I capped it at about thirty seconds.

  The jog back was easier. The sun was higher, the August heat enveloping me like an unwanted hug. Moisture coated my skin as I pushed toward my driveway, and shaky, uneven breaths caught in my chest as I slowed my pace and began walking. My side ached, my shins hurt, and my lungs burned, but it felt good. I used to run all the time, back when my husband was alive, when we were a cute little cookie-cutter family living in a two-story dream house just outside Portland, Oregon.

  We had wanted a safer school district for our kids, so we’d planted ourselves in a small town, so tiny they’d all felt the need to talk to me whenever I left the house.

  “Travis was such a good father,” they’d say. “Such a shame about the accident,” others would quip while I bought ice cream, pizza, and fish sticks. Our tiny town had a front-row seat to my avoidance of grieving properly. My kids didn’t get a homecooked meal unless my sister or mother came over to make it. I just didn’t have it in me. I was tired of the town talking about my sad loss like it wasn’t really happening to me. I was tired of their constant desire to bring up what I wanted to forget.

  My sister suggested I move closer to her, in Wyoming, and when I received a tip about a ranch for sale at a decent price, we did it. We moved to another small town called Douglas. We weren’t exactly happy…we just were, but at least no one there would talk to me about the telephone pole or the other thing I wasn’t ready to face.

  My mother didn’t approve of me moving. She’d have preferred I stayed closer to her, but I couldn’t do that either. I didn’t want to face the details she felt the need to shove down my throat or the “moving on” she said I needed to start doing.

  No thanks.

  I slammed the door shut behind me as I padded toward my kitchen in search of water. Jovi was up, chugging a glass of milk with the fridge still open. Her crazy blonde hair was sticking up and full of static, her brown eyes shifting until they landed on me. Her light eyebrows shot up in surprise as I filled a tall glass with water and threw it back.

  “You went for a run?”

  Her small voice caught on the tattered strings of my heart, the ones I had been ignoring. My words got stuck in my throat as I regulated my heart rate, so I nodded instead.

  “That’s good…” she whispered.

  Somewhere inside of me was the mother I’d been before, the happy one, the one who would wake up early to make pancakes or French toast for my four children. That version of me hadn’t shown up in a long time, but I missed her, and I was damn sure my kids did too. I wondered if they felt like they’d lost two parents that day, not just one.

  Today, with the ugly truth I faced and knew I needed to keep facing, I decided I would start trying to find the mother my children deserved. I would start living again.

  “Want to help me make some pancakes?” I hesitantly asked my daughter. I turned toward the cupboards and pulled out a glass bowl.

  “Seriously?” Jovi asked, excitement tingeing her voice, betraying how eager she was. Details.

  “Yeah, let’s do it. Grab me the eggs and milk.” I found the flour and other items we’d need. She stood next to me, her nine-year-old self only coming to just above my waist but clearing the counter just fine. She cracked the eggs then mixed in the butter and vanilla while I added the dry ingredients. I saw a tiny smile break out on her face, and whether the devil was in the details or not, that little lift of her lips was from Jesus himself.

  “Are you sure?” My sister Michelle asked from her spot next to my son’s horse, Thor. She was patting his neck and feeding him some kind of treat. Something like petty jealousy sparked to life in me as I watched her with him. Thor and I had a strained relationship. He didn’t listen to me, and I didn’t like him.

  We both tolerated each other, but beyond that, we really didn’t care for one another.

  “I have to, Shell…it’s the entire reason I bought this place and these horses,” I explained, exasperated by my situation. I’d purchased five acres of farmland and filled the barn with three expensive horses. No one should have agreed to my request for one horse, let alone three. I had no idea what I was doing. Michelle was a veterinarian and helped when she could, but she lived an hour away so, for the most part, I was on my own.

  “I know, but are they ready?” Michelle asked, toying with Thor’s mane. I eyed the floor of the barn in frustration. I had no idea if my kids were ready for lessons; I just knew some of the details I’d been avoiding revolved around getting them through their grief. I’d read an article about a horse ranch in Oregon that rescued horses and paired them with troubled kids or kids who’d dealt with trauma. They had testimonials from children who had grown up in foster care or been injured in an accident; they talked about how working with and riding the horses changed them, how it healed them. So, I’d purchased horses for my children, to heal, but they wouldn’t ride them. Hadn’t for six months. They cared for them, but they refused to sit in a saddle.

  “I think they’re ready. I just need to find an instructor,” I lied, grabbing a bucket of oats.

  My sister scrunched her nose, which caused her thick, black-rimmed glasses to droop. She pushed them back into place with her finger. “I just hope you aren’t suddenly rushing it. I know today is your big day. You gave yourself one year of being sad, one year to ignore everything…but I don’t think grief works like that, sis.” Michelle walked out of Thor’s stall and clicked the door shut.