Pecan Pie and Deadly Lies (An Adams Grove Novel) Read Online Free Page A

himself a little restless. Yearning for something else. Not really for more, just something different.
    He reached inside the oversize shower to turn on the steam. He had more showerheads and jets in his bus shower than he did at home. Cody let the steam fill the glass enclosure as he stripped down. He stepped inside and turned on the rain shower and closed his eyes for a second. He lathered up and scrubbed the sticky sweat from his body, thinking about what it would be like if he wasn’t on the road over half of the year. It was nearly impossible to imagine. He loved every minute, every venue, big or small, and even his worst days were pretty damn good.
It would be even better if I had someone to share it with.
But it wasn’t an easy life, and not one that just anyone could handle.
    He dried off and threw his towel over the shower stall to dry, then changed into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.
    Pete rapped twice on the door. “Hey, man. Just wanted to let you know we’re stopping at the next exit to refuel and get some stuff at Walmart.”
    “Okay.”
    “We’ve got a couple tagalongs.”
    “Thanks for the heads-up.” Cody opened the door, then lay across the bed. It wasn’t all that unusual to have carloads of women follow the bus after a concert. Less likely at the small events, and they usually gave up after a few miles asthey sobered up, but there’d been some who had followed them for a whole twelve-hour drive.
    He felt the bus slow to a stop just as his phone vibrated on the nightstand. He thumbed through the messages. There was one from Lou from earlier in the day saying she’d seen the schedule update that they’d be in West Virginia.
    He rolled over and typed a response. O N THE ROAD NOW . W E WON ’ T BE TOO FAR FROM YOU . Y OU SHOULD COME .
    The phone beeped. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly four in the morning. Her response read, I T ’ S BEEN A WHILE .
    W HAT ARE YOU DOING AWAKE ?
    She texted back that she couldn’t sleep, and she wished she could make the show but she had to work.
    It
had
been a while since they’d gotten together. No fault of hers. He’d invited her out to a few shows and it had been fun to talk about the old days although they’d tiptoed around the fact that she’d dumped him all those years ago. His relationship with Lou, short for “Bettie Lou,” had been hot and heavy at one time. In fact, he’d always figured she’d be the one he married, but when his career got going, the relationship sank, and she hadn’t even given him the chance to choose—instead she’d dumped him. Too big for his own almost-a-star britches at the time, he hadn’t even tried to get her back.
    Now that his career was in a much different place, he had the time and flexibility to have more in his life, but the two times he’d sent her tickets to shows, the sparks just hadn’t rekindled like he’d hoped.
    I’ LL CHECK IN WHILE WE ’ RE IN YOUR NECK OF THE WOODS , he typed. Only he didn’t know if he should even bother. If shewas interested she’d have found a way to work in the trip to West Virginia.
    His thoughts turned to Kasey Phillips. He hadn’t been able to get her off his mind since, well, hell, since the day he first laid eyes on her at the photo shoot at Arty’s estate. His celebrity hadn’t seemed to impress her at all, and that impressed him a lot. She was crazy about her husband and kid and that had been nice to hear too. Maybe that’s why he’d felt inclined to stay in touch with her after her husband’s death.
Why can’t I meet someone like her?
    He used to love the attention from all the women, but the lies got old. Women were always talking down their husbands in front of him. If he went by what they said, there wasn’t a happy marriage left. But he knew better. These women just wanted to play in his VIP world for a little while, but that made it too damn easy to not even bother getting to know their names. The fun in that had died a long time ago.
    Cody