CHAPTER ONE
CASH

I didn’t know how homesick I’d been until I stepped off the plane and met my father at the entrance of the airport. It seemed like all the air had been sucked out of the room and my chest felt tight as I caught sight of him, standing there, beaming with pride. I hadn’t been home in five years and it wasn’t until I saw him that the passing of time became something real to me.

“It’s good to see you, Dad,” I murmured as he embraced me, something thick and tight in my throat as I felt the warmth of his embrace.

“It’s good to see you too, son. You got everything?” Dad asked in his simple way, a man of few words.

I thought I heard someone shouting my name and looked over my shoulder. I knew I’d see someone with a camera, ready to snap a picture of me before they rushed up to talk to me like we were old friends. I cringed at my own behavior when all I saw were two people embracing as though they’d been apart for years. Fame came with a price.

“Son? You okay?” Dad asked, worry in his voice.

I looked around the busy airport and nodded, glad that there were no reporters or fans nearby to ruin this reunion. I’d managed to stay low-profile in the airports, despite my world-wide fame as a country music star. I hadn’t wanted to subject my family to the nonsense that plagued me in Los Angeles and other places, so I’d had my personal assistant book me a flight under the name of my company, not my personal name.

“Let’s get you home then. Your mom’s waiting for you,” Dad grabbed the suitcase I’d brought with built-in wheels and pushed it out for me. He ushered me to the car and we drove in silence for a while. I thought about all the changes that had happened, all the time that had passed since I had last been home. I had never met my sisters’ kids, I had only talked to them on messenger calls, or through text. I wonder if Mom had changed more than I realized, too?

I studied Dad as we left the airport, noting that there was gray in his hair now, a lot of it too. That hadn’t been there when I’d left Tender Hills. I noticed as we pulled out of the airport in Crossroads that a lot had changed since I was here last.

I wasn’t the same person I’d been five years ago when Larry Sanders, a hotshot producer, discovered me singing in a bar in Crossroads. My entire life had changed since that day, and that was one of the reasons I was home.

I had a serious case of imposter syndrome going on, despite the tour, despite the fans, despite my big fat bank account. I felt like my success was a fluke, and something that I couldn’t repeat, despite the contract I’d signed that said I would.

Sure, I’d come home to see my family, but one of the main reasons I was back was that I couldn’t write anything in LA. Between the constant overtures to party and to promote myself as an artist, the atmosphere out there just wasn’t right for a country music star.

Tender Hills and Colorado itself might just be the cure for that. Or I hoped it would be. Maybe some time with my family, in the place where I had roots would inspire me to write some new material. Tender Hills was a safe place, in my mind, a place with a real Main Street with all the little shops and one grocery store. With a population of around 4,796 people, it really was a small town.

“That’s new, what is it?” I asked as Dad drove through Main Street, pointing at a glitzy glass and metal building that hadn’t been there when I left Colorado to become a star.

“It’s some lawyer’s office. Defense lawyers I think. Ambulance chasers, maybe.” Dad shrugged as he put on the indicator to turn left at the light, five minutes away from the house I’d grown up in.

“Oh, I see,” I hummed a little over that and then saw something I hadn’t expected, a huge neon sign. “Is that a fast food place?”

“Yeah, it opened a couple of months back. It’s not bad if you want to clog your arteries.” Dad didn’t sound impressed. Maybe I’d give the place a miss.

“Even though it’s all familiar, it seems like everything has changed,” I said, the quiet inside the car getting to me.

“That’s what happens when you leave for five years,” Dad answered, his voice gruff with emotion. “But you look just the same. Wearing fancier duds, maybe, and that hat is new, but still my boy.”

We both laughed softly, and I looked in the glass of the window on my side of the car. My dark blond hair had grown a little too long, but I’d been too busy to get it cut before my flight. The cowboy hat I wore cost more than my first car had run me, but it shaded my face and, pulled low, concealed my identity.

My dad could sense my emotions and he reached over and put his hand on my shoulder.

“It’ll be alright, son,” he said, his voice full of hope.

I nodded, not sure what to say and feeling a little too out of place when I shouldn’t.

We arrived at the house and I was overwhelmed with how much I had missed the place. It was just as I remembered it on the outside, down to the smallest detail. I was hit with the reminder of all the memories I had made here, the highs and the lows, the family dinners and the nights of playing board games with the family or watching movies together.

Mom stood in the wide concrete driveway to the two story brick house that my parents bought when they first got married. I saw her blond hair gleaming in the sunlight, a lot shorter than it once was, and grinned when I caught the smile on her face. She nearly tore the door off the car to get to me and launched herself into my arms just as I stood up.

“Mom!” I gasped as she squeezed my ribs so hard I nearly squeaked. “I’ve got plenty of hugs for you, you don’t have to get them all in at once.”

“There’s never enough hugs for me, young man,” Mom said with mock severity, but I saw the sparkle of tears of joy in her eyes.

“I’ve always got hugs for you, Mom,” I told her and hugged her close again. She seemed…smaller, more fragile than she had when I’d left, not knowing that it would be years before I saw her again. Her eyes drifted down to the necklace I wore, a gold guitar charm she’d bought me before I left to go live in Crossroads.

“You’ve still got it?” She asked, her voice thick with tears.

“I wear it every day, Mom. Every day.” I hugged her tight again before I let her go.

“Come on in the house, I’ve made your favorite,” Mom said, gently guiding me into the house that bore a lot of memories for me. Could any of those memories become a song, I wondered as I stepped into the front door?

It smelled the same inside, of the green apple scented candles Mom preferred, but there were changes. The walls of the spacious living room were papered in emerald green now, rather than the white with blue-bonnet wearing ducks marching along the walls that I remember. The kitchen was exactly the same, there were just new pictures of babies on every wall in the room.

I felt like I was an outsider looking in, so much it made my head spin.

“We thought you’d want a quiet night tonight, so we’ll have a barbecue this weekend, and the girls will be over with the kids then.” Dad said as he walked up behind me, his footsteps so quiet I hadn’t known he was there.

“A lot of our friends, and yours, want to come over too, so we thought a barbecue would be the best thing to do.” Mom said, going to the stove.

Great, more nosy people judging me and trying to find out my secrets to post on TikTok or sell to the media. I’d learned some hard lessons about who my real friends were in the last five years and the thought of meeting new people, and even some of my family, put me on edge. Not exactly the quiet time at home I’d imagined, but I’d do it, for Mom and Dad’s sake.

“Oh, cool,” I murmured, though it wasn’t. Dad and I sat at the table quietly while Mom stirred something in a pot.

I couldn’t for the life of me think of what Mom thought my favorite meal was. Back in my world, my staff would produce oysters or lobsters for me but I doubted Mom would do that. I’d missed simple, home cooked meals the last few years, so anything she’d made would be great, really.

The pot of homemade tomato soup and the plate loaded down with toasted cheese sandwiches was exactly what I didn’t know I wanted most. “Oh man, Mom, that looks so good.”

Mom beamed over my compliment and looked at her own bowl of soup with pride. It was nice, that moment between us, and I regretted that I’d missed similar moments with both of them over the last few years.

The hours passed as we all talked about the places I’d been, the people I’d met, and what life was like in LA. I preferred Nashville, but my record label wanted me in LA, so that’s where I lived most of the year, when I wasn’t touring. I didn’t mind showing Mom my pictures that I didn’t post to my social media, or telling Dad about how awesome Scotland and Japan were, they didn’t judge me as anything more than their successful son.

It was the rest of the world that made me feel like a failure as they waited for my next album. That feeling grew worse an hour later. I got a call just as I was dropping into bed in my old room, at last.

“Rhonda? What’s up?” I asked as I answered the call from my manager.

“You’ve gone home?” She asked, sounding tense.

“Yeah, I need some downtime, why?” I rolled my eyes and stared up at the familiar, yet somehow strange, stucco ceiling.

“Well, you have a month to finish your next album, Cash. It was in the contract that it’s due in exactly 30 days and you haven’t even been in a recording studio. If you don’t get it finished in time, you’ll breach the contract and you can’t work with anyone else. That’s in the fine print I bet you didn’t read.”

Dangit, she had me there. I didn’t read the fine print. “A month? I’ll see what I can do.”

I thought I had months to get that album done. Suddenly, the weight of the world settled on my shoulders and I almost wished I’d never set eyes on Larry Sanders. Almost.