Free Made in Nashville: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance by Mandy Baggot

next, she had no idea. Not for this moment, not for the next or any time after that.
    ‘I…’ She started to engage her mouth into speech but gave up. What could she say? She had just pulled out a clump of her hair because being back at the studio was freaking her out. How lame and pathetic was she? That wasn’t who she was. She didn’t run away from situations. She hadn’t even backed up when Simeon Stewart had pulled out the knife.
    ‘Hey, you’re shakin’. What were they makin’ you do? Sing Vince Gill?’
    He had taken her hand, was holding it in his. The sensation was tipping the balance. Fear was flooding out of her and being replaced by warmth, a steady stream of grounding emotion. She entwined her fingers in between the rings on his.
    ‘You want to get out of here?’ he suggested. ‘I have a studio at home. No one says you have to do this here. OK, so Micro Records might
think
you need to do this here but…I actually have better equipment.’
    She turned away from him, redirected her focus on the men from the room who were opening the door behind her. They would want an explanation. She didn’t have one. They would say everything was cool. It wasn’t. They would suggest she took five, had a coffee then tried again. She couldn’t do it.
    ‘Can we go to Target?’
    She’d not said a word since they’d left the studios. She hadn’t commented on his pick-up truck, just got into the passenger seat and waited for him to drive. Now she was leading the way down the aisles in Target, stopping to pick up random items. Right now she was scrutinizing a porcelain owl priced at $2.99.
    ‘Do you collect ‘em?’
    She flinched as if she’d forgotten he was even there. She was still so spooked. He should have got to the studios earlier, been there when she arrived. Whatever those pressurizing jerks had said or done it had sent her internally freefalling.
    ‘His eyes ain’t straight.’ He took the owl from her and pointed between its beak.
    ‘See, here? This one’s higher than the other and … ’
    She raised her eyes to meet his and the look there stopped him talking.
    ‘So what, I shouldn’t buy it ‘cause it’s not perfect? Is that what you think?’
    Her voice was cold and he realized straightaway what an error he’d made.
    ‘What should happen to it, Jared? Should we tell the cashier? Get it removed?’
    He shook his head. He was in a no-win situation here. She was mad and sad and he needed to shut his mouth.
    She snatched the ornament out of his hands and thumped it back down on the shelf. She moved on down the aisle and he followed a few paces behind wondering how to fix it.
    Smoothing her fingers down the frame of an ornate whitewood mirror, she looked at her reflection. That was the weird thing about her ‘condition’. While other people with facial scarring avoided looking at themselves, she didn’t. Each time she took in the vision staring back it was affirmation. It wasn’t a hopeful glance - she didn’t expect to look and miraculously be cured - she just needed a reminder of how things were. Because, even now, in her mind’s eye she was still the flawless eighteen-year-old she used to be.
    What was she doing? She’d run away. She’d pulled out a handful of hair and fled the recording studios even before Garth from Micro Records had got there. And now she was back here, in Target. Her church, her sanctuary, the discount store safe haven. She never really needed anything in it but the browsing calmed her, the time and the careful selection helped her process.
    But this time she wasn’t alone. Jed Marshall was here. Was she crazy? Why was she leaning on him for support? They barely knew one another and he had an agenda. He’d told her in no uncertain terms he wasn’t going to stop asking her to be the opening act on his tour. She only hoped he’d see from each unhinged episode that she was an inappropriate choice.
    ‘Let’s buy it,’ Jared stated. His voice broke her