That Night in Nashville (Ticket to True Love)

  That Night in Nashville

  Ticket to True Love

  Savannah Kade

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Why this story?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  Hailey Watkins had been having the time of her life when she saw him.

  Her whole body froze and flash-heated at the same time. Her eyes went wide, and the world narrowed down to the cut of his shoulders, the color of his hair, the feelings that surged through her. She might just hyperventilate.

  Maybe it wasn’t him. She told herself it wasn’t, that it couldn’t be.

  In her memory he was still sitting on the edge of her bed, in that little trailer in Carroll Hollow. Neither of them had enough money to even get to Knoxville.

  She hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again. Certainly not here in Nashville and certainly not in that suit, looking like the man she’d always known he’d grow into.

  What would he even be doing at the festival anyway?

  At first, she’d caught sight of the back of him and her heart had stuttered. Hard. Her brain had quickly shut that down. It didn’t make sense that Adam would be here, so clearly it couldn’t be him.

  She’d climbed onto the temporary stage assembled for the Nashville Brewer’s Festival, her boots treading on the hot black surface. The squares were joined together and felt sturdy enough right now, but tomorrow? If the band started jumping? It would yield and sway a bit under her feet. She’d learned to roll with it and just keep singing.

  Her label, Heart Beats, had her running around and singing every joint and fest they could get her booked at. It was hot, sweaty work for crowds who mostly hadn’t heard of her. Hailey figured it was paying her dues, and she was willing to pay them. What most people hadn’t figured out was that her tour bus—the one without her picture or name on the side, not yet—was nicer than the trailer she’d grown up in. The singing gig paid her actual money, and though it wasn’t much, it beat working in the local factory.

  Adam had gone to work in the factory. That’s what he’d told her he was going to do, not that she’d stuck around to see.

  The night she’d walked away, he’d yelled at her to just go and leave it all behind, including him. She’d been so hurt and so mad, that was exactly what she’d done. Now, with his words ringing in her head again, she put her vocal chords on auto pilot and kept singing even though no one was really listening except her sound guy.

  He wasn’t even her sound guy—Chad was there for all the performers. She was just the singer for the fifth slot as the festival changed from afternoon to night the next day. She hoped the attendees would have enough beer in them to give an unknown girl from outside Knoxville a chance—though she was hardly a girl anymore.

  She’d been at this for eight years, waiting tables, performing at every open mic night, and opening for friends at clubs every chance she got. Now, she had the act down. Timing her breathing and watching where she planted her feet, Hailey sucked in a breath and went up for one of her high notes. She held it and fought a smile as a few of the workers stopped to listen and watch. She could do this.

  Then the man in the suit turned around and the note cut off abruptly.

  It was Adam.

  The look on his face, though kind and clearly in charge, told her he’d been expecting to see her.

  It wasn’t fair. If he was here in a suit, then he would have seen the program. He would have seen her name in that fifth time slot, the one between the bigger acts than she.

  Clearly, he’d had time to prepare for this non-reunion. She’d been blindsided by old memories running wild at just the thought that it might be him. Now, she was smacked again by grief, the kind she’d felt the whole first year she’d been gone. Hit by the feeling of the air being different just because he was close by—that feeling apparently hadn’t gone away though she’d believed she was over him.

  Nope. She wasn’t.

  She’d been so wrong about him.

  He wasn’t in the factory. He wasn’t in Carroll Hollow. He wasn’t stuck in the back hills of Tennessee, never having gone any further. He was here, in a damn suit that looked far too good.

  The clothing was clearly tailored to fit him. It fit the new version of the man. He’d been just a boy when she left, when he refused to come with her. Clearly, everything was different for him now. Her, too.

  She was standing on stage, doing lighting checks on her slinky top and swishy skirt and cowboy boots for tomorrow’s show. She was doing sound check, so her high notes carried to the back of the crowd tomorrow. She’d come a long, long way. So she forced a smile onto her face, the same kind she used on stage, the one her manager called the “Megawatt Hailey.” Pushing the grin up into her eyes and creating an expression she didn’t feel, she made eye contact and gushed, “Adam!”

  2

  “Hey, Hailey!” Adam smiled around the name that used to roll off his tongue like honey and the promise of a future.

  Thank God, he’d seen her name in the listings yesterday and stood stock still, the proverbial deer in headlights then, rather than now. Even so, he was confident he was staring at this blast from his past, despite the fact that he’d had time to practice smiling as though he was happy to see an old friend.

  He was grateful now that he saw her for the first time while she was standing on stage, singing her heart out the same way she used to. Only, in the past, the stage had been in a high school auditorium. Her audience had been captive fellow classmates.

  Now, she’d cut an album. She had an agent and she was on stage in a public place and getting paid to sing. She was no longer just a girl with dreams; she was a woman with a plan and a contract.

  Adam turned his attention back to his work but there was no way to tune out the voice he once knew so well. She hit a high note, one that instantly took him back to her room. He’d sit cross legged on her bed while she would play her guitar and sing to him. Hailey would lean against a pillow shoved into the space where the bed was pushed against the wall—there was no headboard. Not in the tiny trailer with flimsy walls and flimsier doors. Surely the whole trailer park had heard her, but the sound was gorgeous.

  As he looked up at the trusses and examined the projectors and rigging his workers had spent the morning assembling and checking, he could still hear her telling him all her plans. He remembered agreeing.

  “One of the projectors went down, Boss.” Tommy's voice interrupted his flashback.

  Probably a good thing, Adam thought. He needed the distraction.

  “Which one?” he asked as he followed his youn
gest tech across the open lawn to where the scaffolding was constructed at the back. Adam listened while the man explained that he wanted to replace the unit.

  “Cables? Lens? Bulb?” Adam went down the checklist, unsurprised as Tommy nodded that he’d checked each of these already. Tommy was a high school dropout, but dedicated and smart. The only thing Adam had on Tommy was a diploma—not worth much—and a few years. Tommy could go far in the business. “You’re right. It sounds like the motherboard. Well, better today than tomorrow.”

  Adam hopped on his phone, calling for a backup. Tommy didn’t need instructions, just the go ahead. Adam gave him a thumbs-up before even hanging up the call. “It’s on the way. Take care of it.”

  “Sure thing, Boss.”

  The “Boss” part was relatively new, and Adam had not yet grown tired of it.

  Once it was confirmed the backup projector was on the way from the shop and Tommy was all set to install it, Adam looked up to the stage. Hailey no longer stood in the center under the spotlight. In her place stood four young men, guitars and basses haphazardly slung across their shoulders. One looked a little more cocky than the rest and he stood toward the front, hands clasped around the mic stand as though he were already singing.

  Flipping through his paperwork, Adam saw that the group up after Hailey was a band called Wilder. They were also with Heart Beats, the production company that filled most of the afternoon gigs. Unable to help himself, Adam turned and examined the lead singer from the back of the lawn.

  He had a megawatt smile and an I'm-here-for-the-ladies attitude. They hadn’t yet started singing and it appeared someone had called Hailey back out on stage for a moment. She shielded her eyes and talked to the sound guy before turning back to the singer.

  This time her smile wasn’t the stage one. It was real. Her hand arched out and rested against the singer’s bicep for a moment.

  The twist of betrayal was sharp and sudden as he wondered if Hailey had gotten involved with this guy. But that wasn’t right. He shouldn’t feel anything, it wasn’t his business whether she had or hadn’t. There was no betrayal when they’d broken up years ago.

  Once again, Adam forced himself to turn back to the task at hand. He’d just bought this company outright and he had to keep it profitable. He’d expected the stress, he just hadn’t expected his own self-pressure to be quite as high as it was. Adam admitted to himself—probably for the fiftieth time—that he had something to prove, even if no one was paying any attention except him.

  When the original owner started talking about retirement, he’d said he wanted to sell it to someone he trusted. That had been three years ago. Adam had made sure he became someone Clayton trusted. He and the old man had grown close and Adam had been the natural choice when Clayton finally retired and sold the shop last year. Adam now owned the company, and with it the title, the job, and the debt of the buy-out.

  Even though Clayton Images and Sound was now his, everyone knew this was Clayton's company. So despite the fact that he’d bought the name and the building, he still had to prove himself.

  Adam managed to keep his head in the game for one song, but when the band on stage opened up their second number—something about makeup sex, going to bed mad and all that—he gave up.

  Turning and looking up the truss to where Tommy now perched at the top, Adam rattled off a handful of instructions and then acted as though there was something he needed to do. There was, it just wasn't work related.

  He headed around the side of the venue where he'd seen Hailey disappear a handful of minutes before.

  3

  “Am I good?” Holding her hand up to shield her eyes from the summer glare, Hailey had looked around for her manager.

  Hailey had been expecting Brenda, the woman who signed her, to be here. Instead, she found Ginger. It made sense, Brenda was a co-owner, she would likely not be out at the sound check for the Brewery Fest even if she did live in town.

  “You’re good to go!” Ginger gave her a thumbs up that passed blink-and-you-miss-it speed. Ginger was usually friendly, she was someone Hailey would call a friend outside of work, but during work? Both women weren’t friends. They were here to get a job done.

  Someone had tapped Ginger on the shoulder and the stage manager’s attention had necessarily turned. Which was a shame, Hailey needed a friend far more than she needed a manager right now. But Ginger was gone, off in a zip, and Hailey was still alone with no one to tell that her stomach was in knots and the man at the back of the crowd was the one she’d once thought she’d spend her life with.

  Faking nonchalance, Hailey waved to the stagehands around her and headed toward the back, trying to ignore Adam the way he’d so easily ignored her. His back had been turned since their initial surprise at seeing each other and they’d both gone about their separate business.

  Across another expanse of well-tended green grass, Hailey headed to a string of white tents fully covered by tough plastic “canvas.” This was supposedly “backstage” where none existed. These fests were starting to get to her.

  Her boots squished in the overly watered grass, heels sinking a little as she passed through the tent flap. A bead of sweat rolled down her back and she felt her shoulders hitch in an involuntary cringe. Sweating was fine, if she was doing something sweaty—say, hiking on a hot day, running, or having sex. This was not supposed to be sweaty—it was just sound check—and yet here she was, out in the sun and the heat. What was she even going to do tomorrow when she was on stage, singing her heart out, and sweltering in the late afternoon Nashville sun?

  “Pay your dues, girl,” she reminded herself under her breath as she slipped through another tent flap that separated several small areas designated as “dressing rooms.” Names had been printed out on regular printer paper and stuck into place with gaffing tape by some assistant. Not very Classy. But she wasn’t at “classy” yet.

  Hailey finally found the small sectioned off area of the tent that bore a piece of printer paper with her name on it and suppressed a grin. It might be a crappy printout, poorly taped up, but it meant she was a performer at the fest, and meant she was getting paid, and that she got to hold center stage for a short piece of the afternoon.

  Brenda’s instructions about tomorrow had been clear. “Smile big. Win them over. Sell as many CDs, downloads, and autographed posters afterwards as you can. Make them fall in love with you.”

  Simple enough. Though her thoughts were sarcastic, she’d do her best.

  Slipping through the tent flaps into her own personal space, Hailey reached over and turned on the mega-size fan that had been set in the corner. It only took a few moments to realize it did nothing but blow the hot air around, but at least it felt marginally better.

  Note to self, she thought Walk into the venue tomorrow ready to go. Hair, makeup, probably even clothing—and only come in here after the show.

  As a mid-afternoon performer, it wasn't going to be any cooler tomorrow. Despite the heat and the non-ideal location for changing, she needed to get out of this outfit right away. She would need to wear it all again tomorrow. Her friend Shay Leland was hand-sewing everything Hailey wore on stage, and Hailey was not going to ruin it.

  She still wasn’t paying Shay what she was worth. But their friendship went back to elementary school and they were both working on moving up, each helping the other where she could. The band on stage after her—Wilder—was also wearing Shay's creations. She’d tailored four sleek, matching vests that looked like a cross between a bridal party and a wild country band. Coppery silk ties gave them an air of class and maybe even a little bit of punk irreverence. Yeah, Shay knew what she was doing, and Hailey would not ruin Shay's hard work, so she rapidly began unbuttoning the slinky shirt.

  She’d carefully hang up the outfit that said, Yes, I'm country, but not so country that you can't play me on the big radio stations.

  Someday.

  Hailey was tucking that thought away for later as she heard a rustle beh
ind her. She blinked and thought, Strange. Wasn’t she the only one in the whole tent right now?

  Here she was with her shirt half off. Not very professional. Pulling the fabric back together and clutching it in one hand, she turned around to be surprised all over again. She hadn't felt threatened at all—only concerned that someone was lost. But as she made eye contact, she realized he wasn't lost at all. He had come here specifically for her.

  Adam.

  4

  “Hailey.”

  He whispered it and she caught the notes in his voice. She’d always loved that sound, but what she could never get a handle on was how he could make her melt with only her own name.

  He’d ditched the suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, something about the gesture more intimate than it should be. She was opening her mouth to ask him…what? Anything. Why he was here…in this tent? In Nashville? Or Everything. Why hadn’t he come away with her? Had a minimum wage job at the factory and a mother who leaned too hard on him been a better choice than being with her?

  None of those thoughts made it past her throat. What she said instead was just, “Adam.”

  She breathed it out like a one-word song, or maybe it was a prayer.

  When she got lonely, she thought about Adam. When she broke up with yet another man who wasn’t really a man, she thought about Adam. When she went home after a concert and didn’t even have a cat, she thought about what it might be like if he’d been there waiting for her. They’d all been little prayers, she realized it now.