Page 20 of Christmas Music
The moment I thought it, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I’d withdraw from the contest and leave the winnings to him. No, he might never know what I’d done, but that didn’t matter.
Every time I drove by him or that ranch, I’d know that I’d helped him save it. And if I was serious about staying here and putting down roots for a little bit...
Well, who knew what the future might hold. I only knew that stepping back from the contest and leaving it for Connor to win felt like the best thing I’d done in years.
The buzzing of my phone jerked me out of my daydream and I looked down to see that my agent had texted me. Had she already listened to the song? That was amazingly fast.
When I read the message, though, I saw that she wasn’t texting about the song. She said she’d received it but hadn’t listened to it yet, and that she had other news that required my immediate attention. She said that papers had been filed this morning in a local court in Nashville this morning. A legal matter, she said, though it wasn’t a law suit.
Yet.
Dean, it appeared, had decided to try to force me to give up on the music contract we had together. He’d filed some sort of cease and desist to try to get me to step down from the contract, which he was claiming belonged to him, and him alone.
He was pretending I was some sort of interloper, trying to steal what he saw as rightfully his.
Which was hilarious, really, when he was the one literally stealing it out from under me.
Still... Hadn’t I just been thinking that I’d like to stay here and rest for a bit? Hadn’t I just decided that I liked my writing style here at home better than the style I used when I was in Nashville?
And one step further: Hadn’t I realized, two days ago, that I did better work when Connor was next to me than I did when I was alone?
I shut my phone off without answering the text, knowing that it didn’t really matter what I said, anyhow, and grabbed my shoes. I had thoughts—lots of them—and I wanted to hear what Connor had to say about them. For a boy who’d never even been a part of my life, he’d suddenly become incredibly important, and I wanted to know whether he thought we might be able to form a partnership.
Or not.
I dashed through the door and toward the truck my dad was letting me borrow, my heart full of songs and my head full of dreams. I just hoped Connor was at home instead of in town on some sort of banking business again.
CHAPTER13
Olivia
Iswerved into the driveway I’d never even known about until this week for the… what, third?—fourth?—time this week and slid to a stop, my breath short in my lungs and my eyes wet with emotion. Notbademotion, but hope and excitement. The drive over had been full of planning and extensions of my previous thoughts. Confirmation of the idea that I did better writing at home than I did in Nashville—with one and one half songs to prove it—and confirmation that something about Connor had freed up a joy in writing that I hadn’t felt for years.
I was positive that we needed to work together for the contest. Dead set on helping him win it. I didn’t want to enter it myself, but if I’d discovered some sort of writing superpower courtesy of our partnership, I might as well use it for good.
Connor needed that contract to save his family’s legacy, and I was going to help him get it.
Did I sound insane? Yes.
Was it also insane to jump out of the car and go running into the house without bothering to knock, too excited to pause?
Definitely.
I slid through the hallway I sort of knew and headed for the kitchen, assuming that this was the sort of family that hung out there if they were all together. It was early enough that I thought they might still be at breakfast, or lingering over coffee while they planned the day.
In fact, now that I listened, I realized I could hear conversation coming from up ahead. There was someone in the kitchen. My heart jumped up into my throat at the thought that it might be Connor, and I increased my speed
By the time I got to the kitchen I was nearly running. Which meant I barged right into a meeting that was the opposite of friendly banter over coffee.
“The problem is, the ranch isn’t worth as much as you think it is without your family,” a man in a suit was saying, pointing down to a sheet of paper on the kitchen table. “Sure, the land and the building and the livestock are valuable, but the real value has always come from the program itself, and that doesn’t exist without you and your husband.”
I took three rapid steps backward and hid behind the door, praying that they hadn’t seen me. And then I ducked down and started to listen.
“Are you saying no one would buy it?” This was Mrs. Wheating, and her voice was trembling in a way I hoped I’d never have to hear my own mother’s voice tremble. A woman who’d tried everything and was desperate.
A woman on the edge of giving up everything to save her husband.
“We’ll get as much as we can for it,” the man, who I now realized must be a real estate agent or assessor or something, said quietly. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. I know you have bills to pay and your husband is—”
