Page 19 of Christmas Music
And I didn’t think there was any comparing those two things.
CHAPTER11
Connor
Ipulled to the side of the road and stopped, turning off the engine and staring into the distance. I was only ten minutes from home, but I wasn’t ready to go back yet. I’d walk into the house and have to tell my mom what I’d just heard, and if I was really unlucky, I’d also have to tell my dad.
The man who was already carrying a world of guilt on his shoulders for having gotten sick in the first place, and who definitely didn’t need any more guilt on his plate.
What the hell was I going to do? We had several weeks until the mortgage payment was due, but I had no options for any more money. I’d gone through my own credit already, getting short-term loans at ridiculous rates to try to pay the bills, and I knew my parents had exhausted their resources already.
We were out of choices.
My mind went back to the meeting at the bank and walked through it again, searching for any loopholes that I might have missed. I saw the banker telling me that they were going to take the ranch if we kept missing payments, saw the lack of emotion on the face of the man I’d known since I was a kid. I saw myself walking out of the bank... and right into Olivia Johns, with her laughing face and sunny easiness. Her sister with her, both of them looking as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
I didn’t know what I was going to do to save the ranch, but I knew what Iwasn’tgoing to do. I wasn’t going to spend any more time mooning over the girl I’d been mooning over since I was a kid. Yeah, she was in town at Christmas and had offered to help me with the song for the contest, but that didn’t make it a good idea. She was a musician and she had a contract already—or was close to getting one. She’d be going back to Nashville soon, and then traveling. It was what musicians did.
She wasn’t going to stick around here, waiting for me to be able to go with her. She’d be gone at the first chance. And I couldn’t afford for her to take my heart with her. I had to nip that in the bud. Protect myself. I definitely couldn’t have her back around. No matter how much I’d liked working with her.
Did this present a problem? Yes. That contest was still my best and really only chance at making the money I’d need to save the ranch, and to do that I would need a really great song. A song I didn’t have. I’d tried writing on my own for the last two days and hadn’t come up with anything half as good as what Olivia and I had created together.
But I’d be damned if I was going to use what we wrote together. I didn’t want to owe her anything, and I didn’t want her to think she’d helped me. I could see that becoming a nightmare of its own.
Besides, I wanted to do this on my own. I wanted to save my parents and the ranch all by myself. I didn’t want to do it with some girl who’d suddenly decided I was worthwhile when she’d spent all of high school ignoring me.
I turned the truck on and pulled back out onto the road. It might not be a good plan, and it might have a lot of holes in in it, but writing a new song for myself and then winning that contest was my best shot at saving the day.
So as far as I could see, that was exactly what I needed to do.
CHAPTER12
Olivia
Ilet the echoes of the last chord die away, feeling the music deep down into my bones, and then hit the button to stop recording. For a second, my finger hovered over the button for playback, and I considered listening to it before I finalized everything.
Then I hit the button to finalize the track and set up the function that would send the track immediately via email. I typed in my agent’s address—and then my own—and hit enter.
There. The first song I’d recorded in months, the first song I’d done entirely by myself, and if the feeling in my stomach was right, the best song I’d ever produced. I didn’t want to hear it again so soon because I didn’t want to spoil that feeling. I did, however, want my agent to have it. I wanted her to know that I was still producing stuff, and I wanted her to hear how it sounded so she could give my feedback.
I looked around the small studio, grinning. I’d come home from Connor’s house—and the chat with his mom—to find that my dad had rebuilt my studio in record time, and had even made some improvements to it.
I’d made a joke about how nice it was to be so closely connected to the hardware store—which my parents owned-and then I’d walked right into the studio, sat down, and started writing how I was feeling about Connor and his situation. The song had flowed out of me like water, so smooth and perfect that I’d known immediately that it was good. The feeling had just grown as I recorded it, and now, as I sat here remembering the experience, I wished every song could happen like that. I’d done so many, and they almost always took months, between the melody and the lyrics and the recording.
This one had taken me hours.
Maybe... I bit my lip, wondering. Maybe I wrote more freely here, away from Nashville. Maybe being home and around family and friends, and away from the industry itself, was good for my heart.
I didn’t know whether that was true or not, but it brought other ideas floating up in my mind. Thoughts about staying here in town rather than going back to Nashville, and taking some time to write and really find my own style. Maybe I should let that contract go to Dean so I could fine my own sound. Spend some time writing again, not only music but also in my journals. Maybe I should just let myself breathe for a bit.
I’d been running in one direction for so long that i’d lost track of whether I even wanted to go that way anymore. What if I slowed down and let myself just be for a bit? Would I figure out what I really wanted, and who I really wanted to be?
The idea seemed too wonderful to pass up.
It would mean withdrawing from the music contest. Taking a step back from the competition and race of the music industry and letting myself recover. But that didn’t seem like the worst thing. Even better, it would leave the contest securely in Connor’s hands. I knew the other talent around here and wht they were capable of, and I’d heard Connor in that recording studio at his house.
I knew how much better he was than anyone else. He’d take the contest, hands down. If I wasn’t there to challenge his win, that contract would be all his
I felt a slow, gentle smile spread across my face at the thought. The contract would be all his, and so would the prize money, and he could use that money to pay whatever bills he and his family were facing. He’d be able to save his ranch. Pay for his dad’s treatments. Maybe he’d even be able to smile again, and lose the tension I’d seen across his shoulders.
