Love Song [Instrumental] (Hidden Springs #1)

24. Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-four

“I received your resignation letter today. You can’t be serious.”

Callie could feel the lash of Brian’s voice through the phone line, and it cracked all the pleasure out of the day for her. She had picked up the freshly-pressed copies of her demo CD this morning and floated home filled with hope, ready to conquer the world. Gib had stopped her before she left the studio, asking if he could have the honor of breaking one of her songs on the radio—whenever she was ready.

She could have kissed him.

“Callie, are you listening?” Brian snapped.

“I’m here,” she sighed. She stepped outside, Roscoe at her heels. He stuck close, protective, as if he knew who was at the other end of the line.

“We agreed that you would return to the band next week. We have concerts coming up. You made a commitment,” he spat out the word, “and now you pull a stunt like this.”

Callie struggled to remember Kat’s coaching. Stay calm. Breathe. He can’t force you to stay. She paced back and forth on the lawn, kicking the grass every now and then. Roscoe paced with her, inspecting each of the divots she made with her foot.

“It’s not a stunt, Brian. I’m leaving the band.”

“Like hell you are.”

“You don’t need to like it, Brian, but you need to accept it. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind.” Thank God Kat had prepared her for this conversation. Without rehearsal, she would never have found the words on her own.

“If this is a play for a bigger percentage, it’s not going to work. We can do this without you, but what can you do without us? Are you planning to move in with one of your sisters and play coffee houses? Or even better, move back home and teach music lessons?”

His sarcasm came all too close to her daydreams of domestic bliss with Adam. Her eyes pricked with tears and she squeezed them shut, wondering what the hell was wrong with giving music lessons. Or, more to the point, what was wrong with her for not wanting to teach music lessons.

She didn’t bother to respond to Brian’s questions, and he laughed.

“Don’t worry. I already know your plan. Little birdie wants to fly solo.”

Callie didn’t comment, but he knew her well enough to make his barbs sting. The sarcasm hurt. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

“Oh, please,” he sneered. “Well, if you want to give that a try, be my guest. But,” and his voice got dangerous, “if you even think of playing the band’s music, of stealing those songs, I’ll bury you.”

Callie gasped. They were her songs. Hers. She had written every one of them.

She tried to calm her racing heart. He was pushing her buttons, and she was letting him do it. She needed to stick to the script .

“Brian, my reasons for leaving the band don’t matter. My future plans don’t matter. What matters is that I’m leaving, and the best thing for all of us is to handle the situation professionally.”

Callie held her breath, waiting for him to respond. This was it. If he believed that she truly was leaving, then she had a very short window of time to get her demo in front of the right people before Brian could sink her. She would need to move fast.

“You’ll regret this.” Brian’s voice was quiet, dangerous.

“I doubt that.” She had already decided that there would be no more regrets.

“I guess we’ll see soon enough who’s right—and whose career is over,” he threatened.

“Fine,” she responded calmly.

“Fine,” he threw the word back at her like a five-year-old.

“Fine.” She laughed, and hung up. For once in her life, she would have the last word.

“Arrrffff,” barked Roscoe, and Callie laughed harder. Apparently it was Roscoe’s turn to have the last word.

Adam watched, fascinated, as Callie prepared the sailboat. Somehow, in all the summers he had spent at the lake, he had never gone sailing. He’d been water-skiing, canoeing, kayaking, even paddle-boarding, but never sailing. From time to time she gave him orders, using unfamiliar technical terms, but he generally got the idea. Put the sticks—battens—into the little pockets on the sails. Put the hook through the grommet on the top of the sail and then feed the edge of the sail into the channel on the mast. Callie hauled on a rope and the sail climbed to the top. She tied all the knots, saying it would take too long to teach him how to do it right .

Before he knew it, they were pushing off, catching the wind and heading toward the middle of the lake. He had never traveled so fast over the surface of the water without the roar of a motor. The relative silence took his breath away. It was magical. So magical, in fact, that he stopped paying attention to Callie and her orders. Big mistake. If not for her shout of warning, he would have been knocked overboard by the boom when she turned the boat. From that point forward, he paid more attention to his captain, and to his job holding the rope that controlled the little sail. The jib sheet. Why a rope was called a sheet he had no idea.

The wind died down in the middle of their run, leaving them adrift in the middle of the lake. He could see the newly installed dock in the distance, but they would need a lot more wind before they could make their way back. This, then, was the downside to sailing. Adam felt no need to break the silence with meaningless chatter. He was content simply to soak up the sun and listen to the lapping of the water against the hull.

“I resigned from the band.”

Adam turned around so fast to look at Callie that he almost fell in the water.

“You’re serious?” he asked, his mind swimming with all the new possibilities this presented.

“Absolutely,” she answered, her focus still out on the water.

“Congratulations,” he said, throttling back his enthusiasm. He didn’t want to scare her off. “So what happens next? Do you still need to tour with the band this summer?”

She shook her head. “The backup singers are already covering for me, so they’re set for the tour. All I needed to do was send my official letter of resignation and I’m free to pursue my career on my own terms.”

“It’s that simple, even with the recording contract?” Adam asked. It seemed odd to him that the record company wouldn’t have any objections, but maybe the music business played by different rules than the rest of the business world.

“It’s not like I’m walking away with anything of value. All the money, and all the songs, stay with the band. Brian isn’t happy about it, but there isn’t anything he can do to stop me.”

The look of calm determination on her face made him pause. He didn’t want to be a buzz-kill, but he didn’t want her to get hurt either.

“Are you sure Brian won’t do anything? Sometimes people do stupid things—vicious things—when they’re angry.”

“That sounds like Brian,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t know what exactly he could do, but if he can find a way to prevent me from being successful on my own, he’ll do it.”

“Do you have any leverage?” he asked.

She cocked her head for a moment, considering the question, then outlined the terms of her separation in more detail. It certainly sounded like a clean break, but he thought about what he would do if he were involved in the deal and wanted to derail it.

“He might sue you, even if he has no real grounds to do it. That would be one way for him to generate bad publicity and create the perception that you’re not a good bet for investment by another record company.”

She shrugged, and he regretted dampening her spirits.

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she said. “He’d do it just to wipe out my savings, so that I don’t have any seed money.”

“Have you got anything on him?” asked Adam.

She thought about that as the wind picked up and they started moving again. He found it amazing that they were moving forward even though the wind blew in their faces. Something about the angle of the sails and the strength of the centerboard allowed them to race toward the wind.

“I’ve already taken away the thing he wants most, which is my songwriting. I’m the one who writes—wrote—all the songs for the band. Now he’s going to need to pay someone else to do it, and it’s likely they won’t sign the copyright over to the band the way I did.”

“Does the record company know that you’re the only actual songwriter in the band?” asked Adam, intrigued. This could be the leverage that she needed.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. They had a lot of questions about the copyright on existing songs, but they didn’t dig into the specifics of who wrote what. Mostly they wanted to make sure nobody was going to come along later demanding money.”

“That’s it then,” said Adam, feeling a little more smug than he probably should.

“That’s what?” asked Callie.

“Your leverage.”

“How do you mean?”

“First of all,” began Adam, “you can threaten to tell the record company that the only songwriter is leaving the band. Brian could say you’re lying, but the truth would become obvious at some point, and he knows it.”

“True,” said Callie, her expression brightening.

“And second,” he continued, “you could threaten to sue the band to regain control of the songs.”

She laughed at that. “That would never work,” she protested. “Brian would know it’s a hollow threat. I don’t have the money to sue, and even if I did, I have no case.”

“Maybe,” Adam agreed, “but the point is not to win. It’s not even to sue. The point is to make a credible threat. If Brian believes you’re crazy enough to sue, if only to publicize the fact that you are an amazing songwriter, then you’ve got your leverage. He doesn’t want to jeopardize this summer’s tour or the possibility of a second album.”

“Interesting…,” she murmured, her attention back to the water and the wind. He let her mull over his suggestion while th ey turned the boat again, this time heading away from the wind, back toward home.

Taking the boat in a new direction required a change in tactics. They let the sails out wide, taking full advantage of the wind at their backs. As they sliced through the chop, jolted from time to time with a spray of icy water, Adam admitted to himself that he was more than ready for a change in the direction of his own life. Maybe Callie, newly free of her obligations, could be persuaded to stay. He already knew he didn’t want to let her go again.

“So how does this affect your plans?” he asked. “Is there any need to go back to Nashville?” He glanced back at her but couldn’t read her expression. Her eyes were on the waves and the water. He wasn’t even sure she had heard him, but after a minute or two, she finally answered.

“I need to get back soon,” she said flatly. “There will be a brief burst of publicity about me leaving the band, and then people will start to forget. I need to make my move now, while I’m in the spotlight.”

“Make your move to what?” He needed to know more about her plan before he could hope to change it.

“A deal of my own. I want to write and record my music on my own terms. I’ve cut a demo and this is my chance to get people to listen to it.” She shrugged. “Besides, all my stuff is still at the loft. If I wait too long to clear it out, Brian will change the locks, or get rid of it. I need to close out that chapter of my life. No loose ends.”

Callie abruptly shifted gears, calling instructions to him as they approached the dock. In the flurry of activity that followed, further conversation was impossible. Adam did not want to end up in the lake, so he paid attention, but in the back of his mind he was already planning his campaign to get Callie to stay. All he needed to do was persuade her to follow a new dream instead of an old one.