Free Love's Road Home by Lisa Lewis Page A

to be thankful to her parents. The only reason, actually. Harold and Edith Sommersby were definitely not your run-of-the-mill parents. Having inherited a fortune from his father, in addition to making millions more dollars through his own corporation, Harold was not a man to sit around letting life pass him by.
    No, right now her parents were touring Europe and the Far East , probably for at least their third time. They had a globetrotting lifestyle that didn’t bring them back home to Georgia all that often. They usually stayed long enough to attend a few important society gatherings, say hello to their only daughter, and deposit money into her bank account. They wouldn’t be returning to the States for at least two months.
    Which suited her just fine.
    This way no one was around to interfere with her plans for the next month and a half. She was free to attend every single performance of Roadhouse’s premiere tour. With each concert and encounter with Tom, she knew their relationship would become deeper and stronger.
    And by the end of Roadhouse’s tour, Tom Crowley would love her as much as she loved him.

Chapter Six
    Beth was too inexperienced to realize the initial string of concerts had gone too well. Or maybe she’d been having such fun with Tom that she’d mistakenly donned rose-colored glasses toward the whole tour. Regardless, a series of mishaps over the last three performances changed her outlook pretty quick.
    At least Beth felt secure in knowing nothing had gone wrong because of her. It was just bad luck showing its face at inopportune times.
    First, the tractor-trailer hauling Roadhouse’s equipment to Columbia got a flat tire. Well, actually, it was four flat tires. Some jokester had thought it was funny to throw a bucket of three-inch nails across a dark highway to see what would happen.
    The simultaneous leakage of so many tires at once could’ve resulted in tragedy, and only Sal’s many years of driving big rigs saved both his life and the precious cargo he carried.
    As it was, a delay of several hours occurred while police reports were filled out and a service truck arrived to change the tires. Beth and the rest of the crew had to work their asses off to ensure Roadhouse’s performance proceeded on schedule, but they did it.
    Then, in Charlotte , an unexpected late spring storm brought thunder, lightning, and torrential rains. The house lights flickered twice while the crew set up, causing concern of a power outage. Everyone also wondered if the awful weather would deter fans from traveling to the show.
    They needn’t have worried about anything.
    Just as eerily as it had blown in, the storm disappeared about an hour before show time. And the theater was packed with enthusiastic fans who demanded not one but two encores.
    The last bit of misfortune involved the entire band. All five Roadhouse musicians came down with food poisoning after consuming a catered meal from a local Italian restaurant.
    Luckily the crew members had all decided on deli sandwiches that day. Also fortunate was that Marty had scheduled their day off in Richmond , giving the band time to recover before performing at the Carpenter Center .
    Today, Tom sat next to Beth near the rear of the remodeled Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore .
    She’d been working on the final connections of wires to the mixing board. Tom had arrived early to sound check, and he’d sought her out as soon as he’d entered the theatre, stopping only to grab a cold drink for each of them.
    Aside from the time he’d been ill, Tom had spent most of his waking hours with her. Beth realized as the days passed how much she really liked him. He impressed her with his sense of humor and amazing talent. He thrilled her with every touch, which, unfortunately, hadn’t been as numerous as she would’ve liked.
    At the moment he was holding her hand, talking about his childhood hobby of fishing and how much he’d like to get back to it again once his music career