I snorted softly and sat up, shaking my head. I should have listened to my instincts instead of opening up to her. I’d always known exactly what she was and that she didn’t have any time for me. Everything else had been nothing more than wishful thinking.

  But I put my finger to my lips, remembering how much more I’d felt when we were together. There was that afternoon in the hayloft when we’d been tossing hay down for the horses and she’d turned to me, all big gray/blue eyes and flushed cheeks, her hair practically standing on end. The air had been golden with sunshine and dust motes and she’d looked like some sort of goddess, come down to my farm on a sunbeam.

  The world around us had slowed to a standstill and she’d been the only thing that existed for me.

  And when we kissed...

  Hell, I could still feel the magic of it rushing through my blood, and I didn’t think that would ever change.

  “Story of my life,” I grunted. I’d always wanted the girl and I probably always would.

  No matter how many times she showed me that she didn’t need me back.

  I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood, stretching the stiffness out of my muscles. This hotel wasn’t anything great and the bed was even worse, but I wasn’t sorry. I’d won the contract with Atomic Records the night Olivia and I performed and they’d given me an advance that should have kept me for months. A year, even. I’d given most of the money to my parents, though, hoping it would help them get my dad in with one of the better doctors in town.

  It had worked, too. My dad was actually in remission now and living back on the ranch in Arberry, which my best friend had bought from them. Mom and Dad were officially ‘consultants’ on the ranch and I couldn’t have been happier. I’d gone home at Christmas to help them figure out how to make everything work after my dad’s initial diagnosis, and though I hadn’t planned for any of it, it turned out I’d found the answer right there in town.

  A contract with Atomic.

  Thanks in large part to Olivia Johns, the bane of my existence.

  This brought a smile to my face and I stumbled over to get the coffee maker started. The thing was almost shot and I was going to have to see about getting another one, but that could wait for later. Right now, I wanted a hot shower. I stumbled toward the bathroom—just as broken down as the bed—and tried to calculate how much money I had left. Atomic hadn’t come through with that contract yet and I’d spent almost the whole advance. I was playing shows but they almost never paid, and pretty soon I was going to have to find another way to make money.

  This was not how I’d seen all of this going. I’d thought I finally made it. I’d hoped that things would get simple and straightforward once I had a contract and that there’d be a specific plan for me.

  Evidently I’d been wrong.

  I got into the bathroom and turned on the shower, then let my mind go back to that dream again. The feel of writing with Olivia, the memory of her laugh and how easily music came to her...

  It hit me like the legendary lightning bolt. One moment I was thinking about how Olivia had written and the next my mind was full of melody and lyrics, like they’d just come into being at the thought of her. I fought to tie them down, to get them to organize themselves into the song they wanted to be, but it was no good. They were all over the place, the music a cacophony in my head. And the lyrics were slipping right through my fingers.

  I had to get them down on paper.

  I darted back into the room, grabbed my guitar out of its case, and sat down on the bed with a notebook. Seconds later, I was playing and finding the right notes. Putting them in order and massaging them until they become a melody. And then a better melody. And then a song.

  Once I had it down, I started putting the words I’d written to it, finding where they fit and making them live for me. Before long I was closing my eyes and playing it by memory, feeling it out and finding where the sweet spot was.

  When I opened my eyes again, I realized I’d just written one of the best songs in my catalogue. It was beautiful and sweet and tragic and almost impossible to reach. It was a song that would make you laugh and cry at the same time, and that you’d go back to again and again, always needing it one more time.

  It was, in short, a song about Olivia Johns.

  My phone rang, jerking me out of the thought, and I grabbed at it in that way you do when something loud has interrupted you when you were doing something you shouldn’t be.

  “Yes?” I barked.

  “Wow, good morning to you too,” a voice said.

  Danny Reynolds. My agent. Right.

  “Danny,” I said, glancing at the clock. It was only 7 in the morning. “Sorry, you caught me still half-asleep. What are you doing calling so early? Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s great. Get up, get dressed, and get some breakfast. We’ve got a meeting with Atomic today. They’re finally ready to move on your contract.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Olivia

  “You ready for this?” Taylor asked, grabbing my hand and squeezing.

  I gave her the look she deserved. “Are you? You’re the one who’s going to be in charge of making sure they don’t walk all over me in there.”

  She snorted and returned the look times ten. “Girl. Don’t question my abilities. I’m the witch here, remember?”

  “You better be,” I said, turning to face the door again. “Because I’m not walking out of there without my contract.”

  We were in the Atomic offices getting ready to walk into a conference room, where we’d be facing nameless execs with the power to make or break my career. Men who thought they knew best and who probably didn’t care what I wanted.

  These weren’t the men who’s offered me the contract back at Christmas. They were the ones in charge of making it happen. And I wasn’t entirely sure they believed in their mission. I’d been trying to prove my worth to them since I got here in December and they had barely even looked my way.

  Now we were going to march in there and tell them I needed my contract, or else.

  No problem.

  I wasn’t nervous at all.

  I had total faith that Taylor could pull it off.

  “Ready?” she breathed.

  “Not even close,” I replied. “But let’s get this over with.”

  We walked through the door hand in hand, both of us doing our best to stand taller than we really were and look more impressive than we’d ever been. This was our moment. This was when we finally got this deal inked so I could move on with my career and Taylor could spend her time obsessing over some other struggling artist.

  This was when my dreams finally started coming true.

  There was no one else in the conference room.

  We stopped and stared around, neither of us saying anything for long moments, and I didn’t know about Taylor but I was thinking one thing: They’d stood us up. They’d called us in here and gotten my hopes up for nothing, and now they were going to no-show on me again. I was going to have to go back to playing in the tiniest bars in town hoping someone paid attention. Making my already-perfect songs even more perfect as I played them again and again for the tiniest crowds known to man.

  I was going to cry.

  Taylor, of course, had no intention of giving up that easily. Because she was a witch.

  “Sit down,” she said, dropping my hand. “I’m going to go find out what the hell is going on and where the hell they are.”

  She whirled around and left the room, all clicking heels and furious glares, and I dropped into a chair, glad that it was her job to go out there and cast the curses rather than me. I hoped she had some good magic on hand.

  I looked around the space, taking in the large table and the walls covered in tour posters. Every poster featured a bigger artist than the last, and it didn’t take me long to realize that this wasn’t just a conference room. It was a bragging room. The place they brought all the outsiders so those outsiders could appreciate how many artists this studio had brought to fame. And not only in country music, either. Sure, the company was mostly country. But there were a lot of rock bands up there, too, and I guessed that made sense. At the end of the day, rock and roll and country had started in the same place. They’d just traveled different roads from there. I was guessing producing them took mostly the same process, though, and as long as the company itself was split into divisions that understood how to market a certain type of music, it would all work out.

  The array of success on the walls was dizzying. Most of those artists and bands had won awards and appeared in big tours. And this was the company that wanted to sign me.

  Me. The girl who’d stumbled through high school spending most of her time trying to protect her best friend from the father that beat her and the boy who’d decided to do the same. The girl who’d had to work weekends at the hardware shop her parents owned and share a room with her snotty little sister.

  The girl who’d always felt like she’d been born into a world that didn’t quite appreciate her.

  I smiled at the thought, and then allowed that smile to become a full grin. Atomic wanted me. They’d seen me up on that stage at Christmas and had liked it enough to offer me a contract, and that was no small thing. Sure, I’d been up there with Connor Wheating.

  But that song had been half mine.

  The grin died at the thought, though, as I remembered that I was here to discuss a contract that would pair me up with someone else. The record label evidently thought I’d been better with a guy at my side, and though I did like singing with someone else the idea that they wanted to put me with a partner was like a pin in the balloon of my self-confidence. They didn’t think I could do it on my own—probably because that was what Dean had told everyone when he decided to steal my record contract. He’d gone around telling anyone who would listen that he’d written all the music we performed and that he was the real talent in the duo.

  Almost all of the music we’d performed was mine. But no one had wanted to listen to me when I told them so. Dean had already done so much damage to my reputation that I hadn’t been able to repair it.

  I wondered suddenly if that was what this all came down to. Did Atomic believe that I didn’t have any value on my own? Were they regretting the decision to give me a contract at all? Or had they given me the contract already knowing that they were going to force me into a partnership?

  Suddenly the door behind me opened and I turned to see Taylor coming in, all red hair and flushed cheeks. A couple of execs followed her—men in suits who looked exactly like all the other men in suits I’d met over the months—and in their hands, folders.

  Folders with papers in them.

  Taylor took a seat next to me, squeezed my hand again in what I was sure was supposed to be a gesture of confidence, and started talking. She told the execs across the table how much I’d been doing since I got back to town and how many songs I’d written. She listed all the places I’d performed and the crowds I’d sung in front of. She told them how long it had been since I was offered a contract and how Atomic had done exactly nothing to make good on that promise.

  “This girl left her family and her home town, her best friends and plans, to come back to Nashville on the word of your reps that there would be a contract waiting, and for what?” she finally said. “For you to push her around and act like you’re not actually going to give her one? We’re tired of waiting, gentlemen. Today’s your day. It’s time to get something down on paper, or we’re walking.”

  I almost choked. Had she actually just threatened Atomic Records with us walking out of here if we didn’t get a contract?

  Was she insane?

  It turned out she wasn’t.

  “No need for anything like that,” Suit #1 said, leaning forward and giving us what he must have thought was a charming smile. “We know how hard you’ve been working, and we absolutely intend to honor our promises. We want you with the label, Olivia, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

  Suit #2 leaned forward now. “Of course we are. The thing is, we’ve listened to your stuff and we all agree that we love you with a partner. Your voice is so good when it’s blended with a guy’s voice. We want to see you succeed, and we think that’s the way to go. You and a singing partner, not just a band standing around behind you. Someone to really play off. Someone to vibe with. What do you think?”

  I didn’t think any sane person used the phrase ‘someone to vibe with.’ But I also didn’t think they actually wanted my opinion. Sounded to me like they’d already made up their minds, regardless of what I thought.

  “What are you saying?” Taylor asked sharply.

  Suit #3 slid a contract forward. “We’re saying,” he said quietly, “that your contract is right here. We’re ready to sign it. But it’s contingent on her doing a one-month tour with a partner. We want to see how it goes. See whether that’s the direction we want to take her in.”

  I stared at the contract in front of me, feeling the world falling down around my ears. This couldn’t be happening. That was my contract right there, just waiting to be signed, and yet it wasn’t my contract. It belonged to an ‘us.’ Me and someone else. Me and some guy who might insist that the whole show be about him, and who might tell everyone that he was the real talent.

  I wanted to stand on my own. I wanted to prove that I could do all of this without any help, and that I was good enough to carry the whole thing on my shoulders. And instead my entire contract was riding on me agreeing to be part of a partnership.

  With someone I probably didn’t even know.

  I heard Taylor arguing with the Suits in the background, heard her telling them exactly why this didn’t work and what we wanted. And then I heard her pushing for more money and rights within the contract, which she’d probably already read. I heard her starting to make progress and get concessions from them.

  Then the door behind us opened with a creak and one of the Suits said something about wanting to me to meet someone and figure out whether I could play with them.

  And when I turned around with the horrible feeling that I already knew exactly how this was going to go, I saw a man I didn’t know walking through the door and smiling brightly at the Suits.

  And right behind him, I saw Connor Wheating.

  CHAPTER 4

  Connor

  Flabbergasted.

  That was the only word for how I felt the moment I looked through the room in front of me and found a familiar pair of enormous blue/gray eyes staring back at me.

  At least they looked equally shocked, I guessed. She wasn’t any happier to see me than I was to see her.

  Those eyes narrowed then, and I could practically hear her going through idea after idea in her head, trying to figure out what I was doing here and how she was going to get out of whatever situation this was.

  Because at the end of the day, that was what Olivia Johns did. She got herself into messy situations and then figured out how to get back out of them before she got hurt. She’d run from Arberry the moment she could afford to, without ever looking back. And she’d done the same thing the morning after the contest, when she’d woken up in my bed and then left without so much as a ‘Hey Connor, I have other plans. Gotta run.’

  I’d like to say she ran before anyone got hurt, but that would have been a lie. I’d thought in high school that she was only out to take care of herself and though I’d put a pause on that assumption a couple of times—like when I found out she’d actually been trying to get Parker away from her abusive dad during high school—the idea was in full effect since she’d walked out on me back in Arberry.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, directing my question right at her.

  Sure, there were other people in the room who might have been able to answer that question better. But as far as I was concerned, this was between me and her. No one else had the history we did. No one else here had gone out of their way to use me and then leave me.

  And if they had, at least I didn’t know about it.

  But this girl... she’d grabbed my heart, made it hers, and then stomped all over it.

  Look, I was man enough to admit that part of my frustration—part of my anger—was that I had feelings for the girl. I always had. I’d been half in love with her throughout high school, always trying to find ways to run into her in the hallway or help her up the stairs at the football games. I didn’t have much money but I would have paid very good money for a smile from her.

  On any day. For any reason.

  Unfortunately, she’d spent most of her time acting like she was better than me. She’d been at the center of a group of town kids and they hadn’t had any time for ranch brats like me. I would have paid for a smile, but she didn’t have more than two seconds for me. I saved her once from a group of kids who were bullying her and you would have thought that would have at least made us acquaintances, capable of daily greetings or something.

  You would have been wrong.

  When she and Parker disappeared the day after our graduation, I wrote her off as a lost cause. Then I moved to Nashville to try to start a music career and she’d been everywhere. Performing at the bars next to the ones where I was performing. Walking down the street laughing with Avery Dawson and Parker Pelton. Popping up in cafés where I was drinking coffee and trying to write.

  I moved home to help my parents run the ranch before we had any awkward run-ins. And she’d been there, too. Not on purpose, I didn’t think, but that didn’t change the fact that I hadn’t been able to get away from her. When the contest came up, she asked for access to my music studio for writing.

  I’d said yes.

  We’d ended up writing together, and I’d lost my heart to her again.

  Then she’d run. Again.

  As far as I was concerned, that had been her last chance. I didn’t want anything to do with her. And I certainly didn’t want her sitting in on my long-awaited meeting with Atomic about my contract.