[Nicademus 01] • The Wild Ones

Annabelle’s a free woman. Her only desire is to become a healer like her dead father once was and to protect the people she loves. Life is sweet. That is until an outlaw by the name of Jeremiah ‘One Finger’ Polk was found unconscious on her land. Annabelle’s initial curiosity over his presence and desire to heal him from his serious wounds blooms into a forbidden encounter that will threaten the towns’ very existence and even her own.

Jeremiah Polk is a wanted man. Driven by the need for vengeance and retribution, he barely escapes the hangman’s noose and gun. When he wakes and finds a beautiful brown skin woman nursing him back to health, he thinks it’s a dream. He soon learns of the free people of color and the hidden town at the foot of the mountain that could be his sanctuary. He also finds himself drawn to the promise of redemption. But will his demons, both real and imagined, rob him of the chance? Can love survive the racial tensions between Annabelle and him post-civil war?

Miss Kitty is what they call her. However, her Christian name is Cora, and she runs the saloon and whores of Nicademus. Escaping New Orleans and the chains of a placage, she has founded a home and thriving business in Nicademus. However, the unwanted desires of the town’s sheriff, her passionate affair with her Chickasaw lover, and the new threat of the dangerous man who hunts her from her past all collide in Nicademus and threaten to destroy her.

Red Sun, Chickasaw, and the lone survivor of his tribe out of White Rock Mountain, trusts no one. He brings the orphaned Annabelle and himself to the town of Nicademus for a chance to start again. Ten years later the bitter memory of his slain people keeps him locked in the past. However, his new love affair for his ‘soiled dove’, Cora, keeps him sane. Nicademus is his home. He will risk it all to protect the town and the woman he loves.

In 1866, a town run by freed slaves, called Nicademus, is the promise of the future. The story of the town and the passionate, dangerous, and infamous exploits of its citizens are still whispered from the lips of people today. This fictionalized tale reflects some of their story. You will search for truth in it.