Long Road Records was owned by Buddy Longstreet, the reigning king of country music. A year ago, Evan would’ve sold his soul to the devil for this news, but everything was different now.

“Evan? Did you hear me?”

“I heard you. I’m just trying to process it.” Visions of Grace, their incredible life on the island, surrounded by family and friends, the studio he’d poured his heart and soul into, the friend he’d persuaded to come to the island to be his sound engineer, the artists they’d booked through October to record there, the plans to turn their indie studio into a major hit machine… All of it ran through Evan’s mind like film on fast-forward.

“I thought you’d be ecstatic.”

“I am. Of course I am. It’s just that I’m not sure what it all means.”

“It means that Buddy Longstreet is going to get behind your album and your career and make you into a star like we always planned. That’s what you want, right?”

Evan suddenly felt incredibly nauseated as memories of crippling stage fright came back to remind him of one of the reasons he’d been so relieved to watch his career go in an unexpected direction. “Um, I…ah… Listen, could we talk in the morning?”

“Sure.” Jack sounded baffled and rightfully so.

“I’ll talk to you then.” Evan ended the call and sat on the bottom step, his mind racing with implications and scenarios and complications he hadn’t anticipated. He’d considered the recording a lost cause and had tried to let it go during the months when he’d been too busy getting the studio off the ground to think about things he had no control over.

“Ev?” Grace’s sexy, sleepy voice permeated the silence. “Are you down there?”

He stood and started up the stairs. “I’m here, baby.”

Under the light of the moon, he saw her yawn as she tied a silk robe tighter around her waist. “I heard the bike, but then you never came up. I thought something was wrong.”

At the landing, he hooked an arm around her and lifted her. “Nothing’s wrong when I get to come home to you.”

She squeaked with surprise and looped her arms around his neck, holding on tight.

Inside, they landed in a jumbled mess of arms and legs on the bed that was still warm from her body. The heat fired him up and cleared his mind of everything except for her.

“You’re all charged up tonight.” She ran her fingers through his hair in a gesture intended to calm him, but all it did was feed the fire. She knew his moods so well. Often after performing or recording, he was high on adrenaline. Tonight, he was high on her and everything she brought to his life.

“It’s you. You do that to me.”