Free Meant for Love by Marie Force

ready to launch his own record label, right from his home on Gansett Island. Life was as good as it got, and Grace was the reason for most of his contentment these days.
    High off the successful recording session, he wanted to see her and be with her and breathe in her intoxicating scent, even if she was sound asleep. He’d take her any way he could get her, he thought as he rode his brother Mac’s ancient motorcycle home to her. Another bike went by in a blur on the other side of the road, passing him at high speed on the island’s winding roads. Evan hoped the driver was someone local who knew the twists and turns, or he might end up wrapped around a tree if he didn’t slow down.
    Evan’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket, but he left it there until he pulled into the parking lot at the pharmacy Grace owned in town and parked the bike at the foot of the stairs that led to their place behind the store. He pulled the phone from the front pocket of his jeans, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw a text from his manager, Jack Beaumont. He hadn’t heard from Jack in months, since his once-promising recording career blew up in a mess of bankruptcy filings, leaving his debut album locked in a court battle.
    Are you up? Jack’s message said. If so, call me. Urgent .
    Evan glanced at the stairs, longing to be with Grace after sixteen hours at the studio, but he knew he’d never sleep until he found out what was so important that Jack had to text him in the middle of the night. He found Jack’s number in his contacts and placed the call.
    “Hey, Evan. Sorry to reach out in the middle of the night, but I just got the most incredible call, and I didn’t want to wait to get in touch.”
    The unusually effusive tone to Jack’s voice put Evan immediately on guard against whatever he might say.
    “Are you there?”
    “Yeah,” Evan said. “I’m here. What’s up?”
    “I heard from reliable sources that the judge is going to issue some rulings tomorrow in the Starlight Records bankruptcy case. One of the rulings is about your album. He’s going to allow it to be acquired by Long Road Records.”
    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