Free Back to Texas by Amanda Renee Page B

hurt as much. Don’t worry, I won’t go off on another customer.”
    Maggie linked her arm in Bridgett’s. “We’ll trade places today. I haven’t worked the front in ages. Are you game?”
    “You want me to be your pastry chef?” Bridgett had shadowed Maggie when time permitted, but hadn’t thought she’d get a chance to work in the kitchen for the entire day.
    “It will be good for me to talk to the customers like I used to. I have faith in you. I’ve seen what you can do. Besides, it will be good training for when you open your own restaurant.”
    Bridgett longed for that day. She refused to settle for anything less than her dream.
    * * *
    “I’ VE MADE MY DECISION . I can’t take this lifestyle anymore. I’m done.” Adam stared out the window of his truck while he waited for the motor-vehicle office to open.
    “I hear you.” Phil was not only his drummer, they were best friends. “Now that I have a kid of my own, I don’t want to tour again.”
    “Have you talked to Roman yet?” Adam asked. He’d listened to no less than twenty-five voicemail messages from their manager.
    “Yeah, basically I told him what we discussed last week, but I left out the finer details. We’re through with the gig and pursuing other interests.”
    “It sounds as if we’re launching solo careers.”
    “I left it open-ended,” Phil said. “I don’t know where I’m going next. I might do something with a local band or maybe I’ll produce. But I can’t continue on the way we’ve been living. I want to be there when my daughter grows up. Not out on the road. I don’t want her to learn about her father from the pages of
Rolling Stone
magazine.”
    While Adam was proud of his Grammy awards and platinum records, he wished he’d done it differently. Too much time had passed. Too many wrongs had gone unnoticed and unforgiven. He’d love to say disbanding the group was his idea, but the reality was they were all ready for a change.
    Adam hung up with Phil when the motor-vehicle office opened. Fortunately, the insurance renewal papers on the house and the bank statements on the account Lizzy never touched would prove his residency since they were all in his name. He was glad Lizzy had insisted he take them along instead of her mailing them as she usually did.
    An hour later, Adam stared at his temporary driver’s license. He had the surreal feeling he’d time-warped back to his teens. Back in Texas, sitting in a pickup truck, excited about a new job on a ranch and a new girl. He waited for an alarm to go off and wake him from his sleep. None of it felt real. Going unnoticed was as addictive as fame had been.
    Arriving back in Ramblewood much later than he had anticipated, Adam slid into the Bed & Biscuit’s dining room seconds before Mazie served dinner. Along the way, he’d gained more of a feel for the area and picked up a new cell phone with a Katy, Texas, number. Feeling a bit more secure in his cover, Adam took a deep breath.
    “There you are.” Bridgett set a stack of plates on the table. “I wanted to call you when I got off work, but I don’t have your number. Where did you run off to today?”
    Adam told her what he didn’t quite think of as a lie, though it wasn’t the complete truth, either. “I wanted a better feel for the area so I took a drive and lost track of time. Give me a minute to wash up first and then I’ll give you the number.”
    Adam bounded up the inn’s staircase to his bedroom and quickly pulled out his phone to double-check the new number. He had attempted to commit it to memory on the way home but his nerves had betrayed him. It was safer to write it down on a piece of paper and hand it to her.
    Adam tried to calm his nerves with a few inhalation breathing exercises he used to run through before a show. Bridgett made him more nervous than playing onstage in front of eighty-thousand screaming fans. Still unable to pinpoint the hold she had over him, Adam decided to go with the