I sat on my suitcase to get it closed, pumping a fist with triumph when I finally got it zipped. Rising to my feet, I dragged the suitcase into the hall and somehow managed to get it down the wide, curving staircase of my new Nashville home. At barely seven a.m., no one was up—my mom was a late sleeper, especially when my father was around—but I winced at the banging noise my bag made as it thumped on every marble step. I wanted to sneak out of here undetected.
After deactivating the house alarm, I opened the front door and slipped out into the damp heat of a late August morning. In the circular drive was the minivan my assistant, Jess, had rented for me in her name. It was a couple years old, gray and nondescript, with a dent in the bumper and a scratch on the driver’s side door. It looked like a vehicle for a harried soccer mom with three young kids rather than a country music star, which was exactly what I wanted.
I rolled my suitcase down the porch steps—thunk, thunk, thunk—and popped the van’s tailgate, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not lift the damn thing into the back. I was debating transferring some stuff to a second bag when a Chevy truck came careening around the curve of the driveway and screeched to a halt. The door opened, and a middle-aged guy wearing jeans and an ancient Willie Nelson tour T-shirt jumped out. My manager, Rick Wagstaff, or Wags, as everyone called him.
“I got your text.” Wags shook his phone in my direction as he strode toward me. “What do you mean, you fired the bodyguard?”
I sighed. “I shouldn’t have even told you.”
“Kelly Jo, come on. You need security, even up there.”
“I don’t want a stranger with me on my vacation, Wags. And after everything I went through with Duke and then the leaks to the paparazzi on the tour, I’m in a serious no-trust zone right now.”
“I don’t blame you for that.” He tucked his phone into his back pocket. “But this is someone your brother chose.”
“I don’t care.” I paused. “You fix that thing with the disgruntled security guard threatening to sue me?”
“I’m working on it. I don’t think he’ll actually sue. He’s sniffing around for a payout. Claims he was wrongly terminated.”
“Is it possible he wasn’t involved? Do I need to feel bad we fired an innocent guy?”
“Look, the photographer who came to me said it was absolutely happening and the entire team knew.”
“Then I don’t feel bad. Fuck him.” I pointed at my giant, overpacked suitcase. “Can you help me with this?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I will not aid and abet.”
Rolling my eyes, I left the suitcase on the ground and went back into the house for my guitar.
Wags trailed me into the living room. “What about taking your mom with you?”
Grabbing my guitar case from next to the piano, I faced him. “You can’t be serious. My mother’s idea of relaxation is mani-pedis and massages, not hikes in the woods. I’d lose my mind, and so would she.”
My manager exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish your brother was around.”
“Me too,” I said, heading outside again. Kevin was the only person on earth I wouldn’t mind being cooped up with for two weeks. No matter how tough things had been when we were kids, growing up had been tolerable because we’d had each other. He was two years older than me, and I’d never cried harder than the day he left for boot camp. “But he’s not.”
Wags stood by while I opened the sliding door on the van’s passenger side and placed my guitar on the floor between the seats. “You need someone there with you,” he insisted. “Can’t you take Jess?”
“She’s going to Colorado with her family while I’m gone.” I went back into the house with Wags at my heels. In the kitchen’s roomy pantry, I scooped up one of the brown paper grocery sacks I’d packed last night and handed it to him. “Here. Make yourself useful.”
Wags followed me out to the van again. “I want it on record, I did not okay this.”
I placed my sack of groceries in the back. “Wags, I have done everything you guys have told me to do over the past five years. I recorded the songs the PMG execs said to record, worked with every chauvinistic male producer in Nashville, did back-to-back tours with no breaks and no complaints, did all the publicity the label requested, and kept my nose out of trouble, even when the haters on the internet made me want to burn shit down. I have been a good girl.”
“You have.”
“So I need this break, Wags, or I’m going to snap.”
He placed his bag next to mine. “I’m not saying you don’t deserve time off, Kelly Jo. You do. But if anything happened to you . . . I’d never forgive myself.”
His words softened the edges of my mood. Wags wasn’t my father—a devilishly handsome, charming alcoholic with a weakness for women and gambling who’d been in and out of our lives since I was six—but he’d been my manager since before I won Nashville Next, and he was unfailingly loyal. “Nothing will happen to me. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Kevin doesn’t think so.”
“Well, he’s an overprotective big brother who still sees me as a kid.” I went around to the back of the van and tried again to lift my suitcase, but no matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get it into the cargo space. “Wags, can you please help me with this?”
His lips pursed beneath his bushy brown mustache. “If I do, will you say yes to security?”
I bent over and attempted to pick up the suitcase by the wheels, groaning with the effort.
“For god’s sake, stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Wags gently pushed me aside, then heaved the suitcase into the van. “What the hell is in there that’s making it so heavy?”
“Clothes,” I said. “Hair products. Books.”
And a few toys that vibrated, but he didn’t need to know that.
He slammed the tailgate and walked me to the driver’s side, opening the door. “Does this thing have a full tank? You’re better off not stopping until you get way outside Nashville. Chances of you being spotted might decrease the farther you get out of town. Do you even know how to pump your own gas?”
“No,” I deadpanned. “But I’m sure there will be someone there I can blow to pump it for me.” I poked his chest and hopped behind the wheel. “Yes, I know how to pump gas! Lord almighty, I need to get out of here. Goodbye, Wags. I’ll call you when I get there. Tell my mom I said bye and not to worry about me!”
Reaching into my purse, I pulled out oversized sunglasses and slipped them on. Then I grabbed the baseball cap on the passenger seat and placed it on my head, hiding all my red hair beneath it. After starting the engine, I rolled down the window and smiled at my manager, who still stood on the driveway with his arms crossed, looking unhappy. “See? You can’t even recognize me.”
He shook his head. “This is a bad idea.”
“I’ll take all the blame,” I said as I put the window up.
Then I put my old gray minivan in gear and headed for freedom.
I was about an hour into the drive when my mother called me. I really wanted to let it go to voicemail, but I knew she would probably just keep calling, and I didn’t want her to panic and call the highway patrol. The last thing I needed was photos hitting the internet of Pixie Hart being pulled over by a state trooper.