“Your mother and Kate’s sister. I’m trusting you to handle her with care, Buddy. I mean it.”

“You have my word.”

Chapter 26

After Reid left for work, Kate saddled up Thunder and took him for a long ride along the creek. She loved Reid’s horse almost as much as she loved him. As they galloped along, Kate marveled at how at home she felt in his world after just a few months with him. He’d changed everything for her. Living with him, talking to him, sleeping next to him, making love with him, everything with him. That’s what mattered to her now, but she was torn, so torn by what Buddy and Taylor were offering. It was what she’d thought she wanted—until it was handed to her, forcing her to choose between the career she’d dreamed of forever and the man who made her life complete.

Slowing Thunder to a walk so he could stop for a drink at the creek, Kate remembered the picnic she’d had there with Reid on the day she first realized how important he would be to her.

When Kate returned to the stables, Derek wasn’t around, so she rubbed Thunder down, refilled his water and feed, and put his saddle away in the tack room.

Back in the house, she went upstairs to Reid’s room to find the business card Buddy had given her. Lying on the bed, she held the card in her hand for a long time, turning it back and forth. Buddy Longstreet, President & CEO, Long Road Records. On the back, Buddy had scrawled their home number. Buddy Longstreet and Taylor Jones had given her their home phone number. The longer she held the card, the more absurd the whole thing became, and suddenly she was giddy. Buddy Longstreet and Taylor Jones want to work with me! Kate Harrington is going to be a star!

She got up from the bed to find her cell phone and called Ashton’s office.

“I need my attorney,” she said when he came on the line.

“Hello to you, too. What can your attorney do for you today?”

Kate was relieved that he seemed happy to hear from her. She hadn’t talked to him since the night at F. Scott’s. “Well, it seems Buddy Longstreet and Taylor Jones want to work with me.”

Dead silence.

“Ashton?”

“How’d you get hooked up with them?”

“They came into Mabel’s last night when the band was playing, and afterward they asked me to have a drink with them. They want me to open for them this summer, and they want to release one of my songs as a single before the tour.”

More silence.

“Ashton? What’s wrong? Isn’t this a good thing?”

“It’s a very good thing. Congratulations. They’re two of the finest people in this town. You can’t go wrong with them.”