Page 2 of Hero on the Road
I was just about to dig into the freezer and get my emergency carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream out when my phone started ringing. I grabbed for it, shocked at all the noise, and glanced at the screen to see who was calling.
Taylor James, not-so-secret witch, the caller ID read.
I smirked, the same way I always did. Taylor was one of the most serious people I’d ever met, and would nevereverconsider doing anything like witchcraft in real life. But she was such a miracle worker that I’d started asking her what sort of spells she was casting and she’d fallen right into it like she was already in on the joke.
I hoped she was calling me to tell me about her latest and greatest spell crafting, because I needed some good news.
“Tell me you’ve performed some miracles,” I said, instead of using the tried-and-true greeting of ‘hello.’
She snorted. “Girl, you only wish you could do spells like me.”
“That’s actually true,” I said. “I’d love to be able to perform magic. I’d start with casting a spell on the execs at Atomic. What do you have, Taylor?”
“A miracle. Are you sitting down?”
“Why do people always ask that? Will sitting down make it any easier to take? I don’t think so.”
I dropped into a chair anyhow, and waited.
“It’s more like sitting down will support you when your knees go all weak,” she said, and I could hear her grinning right through the phone. “Because Atomic wants a meeting.”
All the air rushed out of the house, leaving a vacuum so strong that I couldn’t get a breath into my lungs. Atomic wanted a meeting. I’d been waiting months to hear those words.
Years, even.
“Does that mean I get my contract?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“I think it just might. But there’s a catch. The meeting isn’t only with us.”
I cocked my head, confused. “What, they need lawyers there as well? Another manager? Because Parker’s not in town.”
“Nothing that tame, unfortunately.”
Okay, now I was starting to worry. “What the hell does that mean? They’re going to bring wild tigers in and make me handle them to win the contract they already promised me?”
There was a pause, and then: “Nothing that easy.”
“Taylor,” I snapped. “Stop beating around the bush and just say it. What do they want? Who else are they bringing in?”
“Right. Okay. They know you worked with a partner before. They’ve heard plenty about how good you are with someone else singing right next to you, and that’s what they want. They want to give you a contract, Liv, but they want to put you with someone else. They want you in a duo.”
My heart shrank three sizes. A duo. Of course they wanted me in a duo. I’d been in one before—with the ex who then stole my contract—and they’d seen me perform as part of a duo at that Christmas festival. Sure, they’d heard me alone about a billion times since I got back to Nashville, but evidently they’d decided they liked me better with someone else.
I still wasn’t going to get to stand on my own.
And if they’d already decided they liked my voice accompanied by someone else’s, I was guessing they had someone in mind. If I thought as a business person—maybe a music exec—there were two obvious choices.
Dean Summers, the ex.
And Connor Wheating.
CHAPTER2
Connor
It was a dream, and some small part of my mind knew that it must be. That small part remembered that I wasn’t in Arberry anymore. I was in Nashville, sleeping in a hotel that didn’t have enough towels or very good sheets. I was working my butt off trying to get the contract I’d been awarded by Atomic Records. And I was lonelier than I’d ever been.
But this right here, this soft lighting and the glorious sheets and warm, curvy body laying next to me...
