Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92749 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Darian Mercer's fifteen-year career just imploded. His best friend and business partner betrayed him, leaving Darian with nothing but a legal mess and a one-way ticket to Nashville. Trading rock arenas for intimate songwriter rounds feels like starting over at thirty-four—if he can convince the skeptical venue manager to give him a chance.
When Darian performs, his raw honesty and authentic songs catch Rye off guard. Despite her better judgment, she offers him a regular slot. He's nothing like the selfish musician who abandoned her.
As their professional collaboration deepens, Darian's vengeful ex-partner arrives in Nashville with lawyers and a plan for revenge. Industry pressure mounts, custody of Lily becomes threatened, and Rye must choose between the life she's built and the risky promise of love.
Can a woman who's sworn off musicians trust her heart to a man whose ex-partner will stop at nothing to destroy him?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
darian
. . .
Nashville needs to be added to the list of cities that never sleep. It’s three in the morning, and the streets are alive–literally with the sound of music–and it doesn’t look like anyone is heading home soon.
I wait at the stoplight with my blinker on and my new–and hopefully temporary–home looming to my left. Rattlesnake Guitars is home to one of the best guitar teachers ever, according to my brother-in-law, Levi. Upstairs, there are two apartments. One for said teacher, Benny, and the other for wayward lost souls like myself.
A song . . . my song . . . A Reverend Sister song comes on the radio. The melody of “Broken Satellite” plays through the speakers of my car. It’s a song I wrote after watching my sister go through the most hellish experience of her life. We recorded it because I thought it would be cathartic for her. It wasn’t. The label screwed her over and made her choose between the band and her new boyfriend.
Love won out. As it always should.
A horn sounds behind me, so I take my foot off the brake and make the turn, and then turn into the back parking lot where Benny instructed me to park. It’s dark, desolate, and the type of place your parents warned you about. I swear, if I hear a bottle skid across the pavement or shatter, I’m out of here.
Shutting the car off, I sit there and stare at the darkened building. Off in the distance, streetlights flicker, and I can see the distinct glow of neon lights. I grab my duffel bag from the backseat and step out into the humid Nashville air. The metal fire escape clangs under my boots as I climb to the second-floor apartment that’s supposed to be my fresh start. I toe the doormat aside and bend to pick up the key left by Benny.
The key sticks in the lock, then turns with a grudging click. The door swings open to reveal a space that could charitably be called cozy. One room serves as a living area, bedroom, and office. A narrow galley kitchen connects to a bathroom barely large enough for a shower. But two massive windows face east, and when I flip the light switch, warm yellow bulbs illuminate hardwood floors that have seen decades of wear.
Zara has already moved most of my stuff in. Boxes labeled in her neat handwriting stack against one wall: Kitchen, Books, Darian’s Emotional Baggage (trust my sister to use humor as a coping mechanism). My guitar, the one I couldn’t fit in my car, leans against the far wall where the morning light will hit it in a few hours.
I set my bag down and pull out my phone, scrolling through seventeen missed calls from numbers I don’t recognize. Music blogs want to interview me about my next adventure. A&R reps sniffing around to see if I’m available for session work.
I unpack my 1972 Martin D-28 first, running my fingers along the worn finish where my arm has rubbed against the body for fifteen years. She’s traveled from dive bars in Bakersfield to sold-out amphitheaters, survived every single tour and more late-night writing sessions than I can count. The guitar holds the weight of every song I’ve ever written, every melody that kept me sane when the music industry tried to grind me down. I sit down in the chair, ignoring everything around me, and begin strumming.
Heavy footsteps echo through the hallway, and then there’s a loud thumping. I check my phone: 615. How did I lose almost three hours? I go to the door and lean against it, much like Zara and I used to do when we were younger and wanted to hear what our parents had to say about us. The thumping stops, but keys jingle, and then there’s the faint sound of a mechanical beeping, which I’m guessing is an alarm system.
I feel in my pocket for my key and head downstairs, each step creaking a different note on the narrow staircase. At the bottom, a glass door marked Private gives way into the guitar shop. I knock, wave, and wait for who I’m assuming is Benny to give me the okay to enter.
The guitar shop spreads out like a musician’s fever dream—vintage Martins and Gibsons hanging from every available wall space, mandolins clustered together like family reunions, a 1965 Fender Telecaster that probably costs more than most people’s cars.
“Morning.” Benny emerges from behind the counter, coffee mug already in hand despite the early hour, and extends his hand to shake mine. He’s maybe sixty, with silver hair and the kind of weathered hands that come from decades of restringing guitars and adjusting neck tension. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
“Just got here,” I tell him. I wasn’t supposed to arrive until later, but sleep evaded me at all the hotels Zara booked along the route. Driving calmed me, even though it gave me way too much time to think.