Free Made in Nashville: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance by Mandy Baggot Page B

mantle holding the photo frames. Pictures, images of friends and loved ones. That’s what made a home. In her place her platinum discs were in the basement and the only photo on display was one of Tim McGraw in a cheap heart-shaped frame she’d won in a raffle at Instrumadness.
    She looked at the first photo. Jared was in it, with an older woman, presumably his mother. She had an arm around Jared, her tawny-colored hair sat in waves on her shoulders and she was smiling. She was the image of how Honor imagined an everyday mom to be. She looked proud of her son, happy and content.
    The next photo was of Jared with two younger people, a boy of about ten and a teenage girl. His siblings? She knew he had a sister but, in truth, she barely knew anything about him.
    In a silver frame was another picture of a man in his fifties. Honor picked it up. Swarthy skin, shoulder-length brown hair that was graying at the temples and a bandana tied around the top of his arm. On first glance he was every inch a redneck. But on his face he wore the most genuine smile. It was an expression that was instantly recognizable. It was pure Jared. This man had to be his father.
    ‘Plates.’ He put them down onto the coffee table with a deliberate bang. The moment she’d picked up the photo of her father he’d stilled, not sure what to do. She’d been looking at the image so intently and his gut had turned.
    She dropped the frame back down to the mantle, color rising in her cheeks.
    ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … ’ she started.
    His heart was beating hard as he approached her.
    ‘It’s OK.’ He picked up the photo, looking into the eyes of his father. ‘That’s my pa.’
    He struggled to keep the emotion out of his voice. It had been so many years and it still felt raw. His dad had been everything to him, still was.
    ‘You look so alike,’ she remarked.
    He steeled himself, took in a breath that filled his body. ‘He passed away.’
    Teeth gritted, he stood still as the gnawing bite of hurt started in his stomach.
    ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea … ’
    Her voice, coated with concern, hit him hard. He didn’t know what to say to her.
    The room was silent, except for the ticking of his grandma’s clock on the back wall.
    ‘At least you had time with him,’ Honor blurted out.
    ‘What?’ He didn’t know what she meant. He’d been sixteen when his father died. It wasn’t long enough by anyone’s reckoning.
    ‘I don’t even know who my parents are.’

Chapter Twelve
    Over enchiladas she’d told him almost everything. She was Baby Blue Bonnet. Left on the porch of the Mayor of Glenville’s home in the dead of night. No one had seen anything. No one had heard anything. But they all knew what to do. She would be looked after by the state. She would have a score of foster homes, share a life with hundreds of other kids and get beaten up in high school because she talked a lot like Miley Cyrus. She had no clue where she came from or who she’d belonged to. She was just Case Number 872405.
    ‘I apologize,’ she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin and looking over to him.
    ‘What for?’
    ‘I’ve completely wasted your entire day. I’ve ruined a recording session, I made you walk around Target …  what was I thinking? And now I’ve told you all this and … ’
    ‘That mirror is gonna look great over the fireplace,’ he interrupted.
    She shook her head, smiling.
    ‘How do you do that?’
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘Deal with everything like it’s nothing?’
    He laughed, took a sip of his Coke. ‘You mean I don’t analyze the crap out of everything? Well, that’d be because I’m not a girl.’
    ‘Whoa, mister, that’s low.’
    ‘But true.’
    She smiled. He did have a point. She spent quite a lot of time talking herself out of things, then talking herself back into them.
    ‘I just take life as it comes at me. It ain’t gonna change, so you need to face it head on and deal with it.’
    She didn’t know