Page 20 of New Day at the Beach House

Trina took a breath and looked at her laptop. That was true. Maybe she’d look for a less expensive line than what she’d been considering.

“Nope,” Mimi said.

She looked at her grandmother again. “Nope what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking about cheaping out on, don’t. You buy exactly what you want, you hear me?”

“But Mimi—”

“I mean it, Katrina.”

Trina smiled. Her grandmother only used her full name when she meant serious business, which wasn’t often. “Okay, Mimi. Whatever you say.”

Jules strummed the last few notes of the outro. As the sound died away, she finally looked at her tablet again, where her agent, Billy Grimm, was her audience of one via video chat. “And that’s Dixie’s Got Her Boots On.”

Billy, who was sometimes called Wild Bill because of his long salt-and-pepper goatee and bushy eyebrows, sat staring through the screen, eyes narrowed behind his oval wire-rimmed glasses. “I’ve never heard you do anything like that.”

She nodded, a twinge of trepidation creeping into her belly. “I know, I know. It’s really different for me.” She glanced down at the strings of her guitar. “Maybe I should just sell the song.”

“You will not.”

She looked up again.

“It might not be something you’ve done before but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it now. And now is exactly the right time.” He pointed at her through the screen. “There’s a place in the market for this. It’s new and fresh but it’s exactly what’s starting to rise up in country at the moment.”

Jules smiled. “That’s what my son said. I guess I should be listening to more current music, because that was news to me.”

“It’s flipping brilliant is what it is.” He grinned, his mustache hiding most of his upper lip, and rubbed his hands together. “Jules, this is going to be big for you. I mean big. How soon can you cut a demo?”

“You want to release this as a single?”

He nodded. “I do. We’ll still put it on the album, of course, but we need to get this out soon. Create some buzz and get people talking. That alone will raise the sales of your catalog. So how soon can you get it recorded?”

In Landry, she had a recording studio in her house. Here, she had nothing. She stalled for time. “I’m still polishing. And I still need to put the backups together. This is really new, Billy. You’re only the second person to have heard it.”

“Well, do whatever you need to do but get it done. You’re sitting on something that could potentially be a career-changer.”

“You really believe in it that much?” He hadn’t been this keen about her work in a while. Always complimentary, but this was new.

“I do. But that’s because of how much I believe in you. You’ve always been good, Jules. Solid as they come. But you’ve never had the kind of breakout you deserve.” He tapped the desk in front of him. “This is that song.”

A shiver went through her, a good one. Billy had never been wrong before. She nodded. “I’ll see what I can do to get it recorded.”

“Good. Then you get it to me, and we’ll get it released. I hope you’re working on the rest of the songs for this album, because I’d like to get that out as soon as we can, too.”

She had a few ideas for other songs, but nothing she’d gotten serious about. Obviously, the time to do that was now. “I’m…working.” Not as much as she should be, but that would change today.

“That’s what I want to hear. Keep in touch, now.”

“I will. Thanks, Billy. Bye.” She tapped the screen to end the call and sat back.

Cash had gone to the beach for a little while and taken Toby with him. She’d promised to come down as soon as the call was over. Cash would want to be in the water, and he couldn’t do that while he was watching Toby.

She left her guitar on the couch and went down the outside steps to the second floor, so she could change into shorts and a tank top, her mind swirling with all she needed to do. Not just the songs she needed to write, but how she was going to get a demo made without going back to Landry. Which she just might have to do.

“Hey there,” Claire said as Jules came through the sliders. “How’s it going?”

Jules nodded, not sure how to answer that. “It’s…going. I have a lot to do. All good, though.” She smiled to underline that point. “What are you up to?”

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