Nashville by Heart: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

country music stars and performing at the
best honky-tonk bars in Nashville. She was his sure thing when it came to
clients. Even if some of her recent stardom had gone to her head, her years of
experience in the industry made her a hell of a lot easier to work with than
the boy and girl scouts who tried daily to get an appointment with him.
    He
flipped on the radio. Of course, Audrey never made blood gush to his head like
Gillian Heart had. That reminded him of the CD he’d tossed onto the seat beside
him. He popped it in just for kicks, and about thirty seconds in, slammed on
the breaks, nearly causing an accident. He pulled into the closest parking lot
and turned up the volume.
    Holy
smokes.

Chapter Three
    “What
happened?” Tasha tied the straps of her Sweetest Tea Café apron and handed
Gillian hers. “Did he come on to you? He used to have a reputation, you know. I
would’ve been more than happy if he’d made a pass at me.”
    “No,
not exactly.” But then she thought about how he’d held her hand when he
probably should’ve let go, not that she’d pulled away either, and the lingering
way he’d looked at her.
    “Well,”
she said. “For a minute I thought he might ask me out if I wasn’t there looking
for an agent.”
    “You
drove him crazy in those sexy high heels, didn’t you?”
    Gillian
laughed. Maybe that’s all it was. She might be naïve about some things, having
grown up in a small town, but she wasn’t stupid. Will Adams had been attracted
to her, but it probably was the shoes. And the length of her skirt. And maybe
the shirt too. There’s no way it could’ve simply been because of her
mesmerizing personality. She’d realized too late that dressing in a way that
made some girls look classy made her look like a tart. Obviously he’d been
attracted.
    “I
made a fool of myself,” Gillian said, doubting Will Adams would have a hard
time pulling his eyes away once he saw her dressed like her normal, plain
self—if he ever saw her again at all. Now that she was away from Music Row, the
magical hope that had followed her on the bus trip back had evaporated into
anxiety.
    “A
fool? How?”
    Gillian
pointed at her eyes. “Look at my face.”
    “Not
a good color for you,” Tasha said. “Just being honest.”
    “You
could’ve told me that this morning when you said I looked fancy.”
    “Sorry,
bad lighting in our apartment, but you did look fancy.”
    Gillian
sighed. “So the big question is, does he want to talk about my singing? Or does
he just want to see me in those high heels again?”
    “Maybe
both,” Tasha said.
    Gillian
rolled her eyes.
    “Listen,
honey. Who cares? Right now you don’t really have a horse in the race, do you?”
    “You
know I don’t,” Gillian said, her face softening.
    “Then
onward and upward. Be glad he noticed you at all.”
    Happy-go-lucky
Tasha always knew how to put things in perspective. In the time Gillian had
known her, she’d made a lot of the big worries seem small. They’d been
roommates since Gillian answered an ad in the newspaper: ASPIRING FEMALE MUSIC
ARTIST SEEKING LIKE-MINDED FEMALE ROOMMATE.
    She
wasn’t sure how like-minded they were, besides both being aspiring singers, but
Tasha’s no-holds-barred city girl personality hadn’t clashed with Gillian’s
small-town girl sensibilities as much as one might expect. She couldn’t have
asked for a better roommate. Plus, Tasha had gotten Gillian a job at The
Sweetest Tea Café. She owed her the world for that alone.
    Tasha
plucked a pen from the checkout counter.
    “So,
then what?”
    “So,
then he asked me to meet him for sushi and to talk about music—and I said
maybe.”
    “Who
eats sushi?” Tasha shuddered in her slightly too-snug waitress uniform, making
her curly brown ponytail swish. Apparently dislike of sushi was on their short
list of like-minded ideas, which was a good thing. Neither one of them could
afford sushi anyway.
    “Wait
a minute.” Tasha arched her