Nashville Lights (Music City Lovers #4)

Chapter 1

1

“Have fun, Rox, and stay out of trouble.” My oldest brother Kade’s familiar drawl sounds as tired as I feel.

My phone is perched on its holder on the dashboard and I can see on the video call that Kade is back at his house downtown. He has a few houses in Nashville and he keeps a spare apartment for me at the one that’s just off Broadway. I know he’s got a gig tonight at the Lucky Seven. Not a solo gig, but he’s agreed to be a guest for a couple of friends who are performing.

We’ve had a grueling few months of touring. My three brothers are the Tucker Brothers Band, and currently have songs at number one, two, four, seven, eight and ten on the Billboard charts. As manager of the band, I’m as exhausted as they are. We hit thirty-eight cities and did forty-eight sold-out shows over ninety-nine days. It was by far the biggest tour the band has done and it’s taken their fame into overdrive.

“I will, KJ. You have fun too. And please get some rest.” I can’t help adding, “Finally.” He knows I’m not referring to the tour with that last comment. I’m talking about the recent breakup with his hellish girlfriend Carmen. None of us could stand her, mainly because she made Kade’s life miserable for the entire five months they were together. He told us he broke up with her but there was something cagey about the way he’d said it. I’m starting to wonder if he’s actually done the deed yet. I’m pretty sure it’s a sure thing, I just don’t know if he’s telling us what we want to hear until he cowboys up and lets her down gently. She was never going to go without a nightmarish meltdown. “I hope you’re okay.”

“Don’t you worry about me, darlin’. You just make sure you’re getting some good R & R at the Boones’ place. Don’t let them wrangle you into doing any farm work.”

“Nope, I’m going to be sitting on that wraparound porch enjoying the view of Sugar Lake with my feet up and my phone on silent mode.”

“Good girl.”

“I’ll talk to you in a few days.”

“Say hi to the Boones for me.”

“I will. Later, KJ.”

I end the call and crank the radio up. Miles of open highway stretch out before me as I cruise along in my faithful old pickup truck with the windows down. My brothers tried to insist I let one of their drivers take me or at least take one of the new cars they bought me that are sitting in the huge garage underneath the band’s Nashville warehouse. But if I’m going back to the farm, there’s no way I’m doing it with a chauffeur or in a fancy sports car. The Boones would laugh me straight back down the dusty dirt road.

After months of being cooped up in crowded tour buses and arena green rooms, the warm summer breeze feels like heaven on my skin.

I drive past cornfields, barns, and the occasional rundown gas station. For once, my phone isn’t buzzing with concert schedules, press releases, or my brothers’ bickering in the family group chat. I finally have a moment to breathe.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being the manager of my brothers’ band. And I’m good at it, they keep telling me. With forty-eight sold out shows and six of the new album’s tracks currently in the Billboard Top Ten, I’m hardly going to argue with them. The band is riding a high and we’re making more money than we know what to do with. But I’m twenty-three years old and bone tired.

Three solid months of packed stadiums, screaming fans and non-stop life on the road takes its toll. I might not be the one singing or playing my heart out every night, but it’s just as demanding keeping everything behind the scenes running smoothly. Corralling the rabid crowds, making sure security is air-tight, staying in touch with the label and organizing all the publicity is just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s also a lot of work keeping Kade, Travis and most of all Vaughn steady and focused on what they need to focus on. Kade has been dealing with his awful relationship. Travis is head over heels with our new opening act, Ruby Hayes—who’s insanely talented and who I’m also managing. And Vaughn is just…Vaughn. As wild as always, and even more so now that he also thinks he’s in love. With Ruby’s sister, no less. Which of course Travis isn’t happy about at all.

I can always trust Vaughn to stir things up.

It’s safe to say that for the first time in my life, I’m ready for a real break. Three blissful days in the country to clear my head and catch up with my best friend is just what the doctor ordered.

As if on cue, my phone rings.

Dakota flashes up on the screen and I hit the accept button. “Hey, Dee.”

“How long until you get here?”

“I’m only around fifteen minutes away.”

“I can’t wait to see you, Rox! I have the biggest surprise.”

“What surprise?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.” Dakota almost lost her mind when I called her a week or so ago and asked her if she wanted a visitor for the weekend. “It’s been way too long since you came out to Sugar Mountain, Rox. I have a lot to fill you in on. Hurry up and get here already. I just made iced tea and put a bottle of white wine in the fridge. And of course Betty-Ann and Tobias are in the kitchen making your favorite fried chicken with cornbread and all the fixings.”

“You have no idea how heavenly that sounds. I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in I don’t know how long. I’m in need of some serious R&R that involves having none of my brothers within a fifty mile radius.”

“You get my brothers instead,” she says. “But we can avoid them as much as possible.”

“You and your brothers—and of course Betty-Ann, Louise and Earl—are the reason I’m staying in Tennessee and not spending a week on a sun lounger in Cabo. I can’t wait to see all of you.”

“Well, if I’d known Cabo was an option, I’d have packed my bags,” Dakota laughs. “The farm won’t be anywhere near as luxurious.”

She thinks I’m exaggerating when I say there’s nowhere I’d rather be, but it’s true. Sugar Mountain Farm has always felt like my second home. It’s not really a mountain. It’s more of a series of sloping hills and picturesque farmland—and the closest thing to a real home that I’ve got.

The Nashville warehouse and the various apartments my brothers have bought for me don’t really count. I have plenty of money to buy my own houses, but they keep buying buildings or compounds with lots of living spaces. Which they insist I live in. To keep an eye on me, they say .

My brothers are my home, in a sense, especially since we spend so much time together. And also because our parents died young and they’ve always felt responsible for me. But on the back end of a tour as intense as this one was, we all need some space.

I’ve spent every summer from the moment I was born, right up until I left to work with my brothers, visiting my Aunt Louise and Uncle Earl. Uncle Earl is my father’s brother, even though it’s safe to say the two men couldn’t have more different personalities. Earl is a cheerful teddy bear of a man. My father was much more complicated, and those dark complications ended up cutting both his and my mother’s lives short—something I don’t want to revisit in my thoughts right now. I’m too happy.

So I let my memories drift back to Aunt Lou and Uncle Earl. They never had children of their own, but Aunt Lou’s second cousin and lifelong best friend Betty-Ann, her husband Gus, and their five children live right next door. Sugar Mountain Farm is theirs. And it was their house that was literally bursting at the seams with love and laughter and all the best things about family and home.

The smells of apple pie and fresh-baked bread.

The sounds of laughter and good-hearted bickering.

Pots clanging with the promise of our next home-cooked meal.

They welcomed my brothers and me with open arms right into the middle of all that, from before my memories even begin. They became our family in the truest sense of the word.

The two houses sit side by side, with a joined driveway. Aunt Lou and Uncle Earl’s farm and house are smaller, the house always neater because they didn’t have five children running wild. Aunt Lou always made up beds for the four of us, but we hardly ever spent a night in them. We were having too much fun having sleepovers with the Boones, camping in tents, building blanket forts to sleep in and generally living our best lives.

So it’s the Boones’ house I remember most fondly. Half the memories of my life are in that house—and all the best ones.

I know every inch of this road. And with each landmark—the old red barn where I learned to dance, the Country Store where we used to go for triple-scoop ice cream cones that would drip over our fingers in the summer heat, and the familiar road signs that mean I’m getting closer—I feel another layer of the tour-hardened manager I’ve become peel back, and I’m ten again, bursting with the fizzy excitement of summer.

It’s the one place I can guarantee will make me feel like myself again. The blinding stage lights are suddenly a million miles away, and I’m surrounded by nothing but cornfields and the warm Tennessee sun.

“What are your brothers up to this weekend?” Dakota asks. “Don’t they all fall to pieces when you’re not there?”

“Pretty much. ”

Most of the time, I’m cursing the fact that three grown men rely on me as much as they do, but I know I’d miss the buzz of excitement that surrounds them if I wasn’t doing this job. Not to mention the fact I don’t trust anyone else to have their best interests at heart, especially now that they’ve gone stratospheric.

I sort of stumbled into being their manager by default. They weren’t getting along with their former manager and, since I’ve taken care of the three of them my whole life anyway, I stepped up and started organizing their schedules and making their phone calls. One thing led to another and when Vaughn fired their former manager out of the blue after an argument, it made sense for me to take on the role. I’ve been doing it ever since, learning on the job and mostly loving every minute of it.

All three of my brothers are insufferable at times but, even so, I couldn’t love them more if I tried.

“You know I saw Kade when he came to see Nate, not too long ago,” Dakota says, “but I haven’t seen Travis or Vaughn in ages. They haven’t been back here since before they became superstars.”

“Well, they’re no longer the ragtag Tucker boys you grew up with, that’s for sure.” I’m not sure she’d be able to reconcile those ragamuffin kids she remembers with the rockstars who now have the world at their feet—and every possible temptation thrown at them on a daily basis.

“Anyway,” I say, “I’m only going to be gone for a few days. Even the Tucker brothers can survive that. And besides, Travis and Vaughn are so loved-up with their new girlfriends, they won’t even notice I’m gone. One thing about my brothers, once they fall, they fall hard .”

“I think my brothers will be the same. I’m not sure why I say that since none of them are in steady relationships right now, but they’re all secretly romantics at heart.”

“Maybe it’s something in the Sugar Mountain water,” I laugh. “Anyway, all four of us need a break. You know how it is working with family.”

“Oh, trust me, I get it.” Dakota has four brothers and they all still live and—mostly, at least—work on Sugar Mountain. “Luke and Leo still spend half their time bickering and fighting like they’re still eight years old. They drive me crazy.”

I picture the twins wrestling with each other non-stop when they were kids. Those nights when we all camped out under the stars or slept in a row on the big front porch, they were always rolling around like two little hell-raisers.

It feels strange to imagine my brothers back here now that their lives are so vastly different. Once upon a time we were sun-kissed kids running wild. We didn’t care about our skinned knees or our thrift store clothes. We loved the simplicity and the contentedness of the country life, which felt so charmed to us. It was a welcome respite from the rougher edges of our “real” life in the city, where our parents’ lives were slowly but surely imploding.

“So, when’s the wedding?” Dakota asks. “I can’t believe Travis is engaged. ”

It was big news when Travis proposed to Ruby on stage on the last night of the tour. The internet blew up with replays of the big event and Dakota called me immediately after it happened.

“They haven’t set a date yet. But I don’t think Travis will want to wait too long. He’s absolutely besotted. So’s Vaughn. And that’s something I never saw coming: Vaughn in love. But I must say it makes both of them a lot easier to keep in line. All I have to do is threaten to tell their girlfriends how obnoxious they’re being and immediately they’re all contrite. Works like a charm.”

I’m mostly joking, but there’s an edge to it I hope Dakota doesn’t hear. I’m thrilled that Vaughn has found love with a nice girl. Gigi is a country bumpkin and a sweetheart. I’ve gotten to know her a little and I’m really not sure if she’s ever had a mean-spirited thought in her life. She has a purity of spirit that’s almost saintly. For Vaughn to fall for someone like that is a wild relief. He’s a changed man, and for the better. I no longer have to sweep groupies out of his dressing room every morning or stop strangers slipping pills into his pockets. For Gigi, Vaughn is willing to do literally anything. Even reform.

I just hope it lasts.

“What about Kade? Is he still with that girl none of you liked?”

“No, thank God. He just recently ditched her. We’re all so relieved. ”

“Well, it’s good he got rid of her, then. But it sounds like you like Travis and Vaughn’s girlfriends? You approve?”

“Not that they consult me on these things,” I laugh, “but yes. They’re both beautiful, inside and out. Even if I have to yell at the boys for being late all the time because they spend so much time in bed, I have to admit they’re writing the best songs of their careers. Gigi is really good for Vaughn. Then there’s Ruby of course, my newest artist and now sister-in-law-to-be. She’s a major talent.”

Dakota’s silent for a beat. “That must be so busy for you, Rox. Managing both the band and Ruby. How do you juggle it all?”

“It’s busy,” I admit. “It requires a lot of patience and even more caffeine. Plus I’m thinking of taking on two other new artists.” I sigh, stretching my neck out and hearing it crack. “I swear I feel like I’ve aged ten years on this tour.”

“Sounds like you definitely need a break. Do you ever get any time for yourself? I mean, when’s the last time you went on a date?”

I have to think for a minute, it’s been so long. “Um...maybe, like, over a year ago? I went out with that drummer from Austin once, but then we hit the road again. Oh, and there was that sound engineer who basically stalked me but he wasn’t my type at all. Kade ended up firing him and threatening to kill him. Anyway, I don’t really have time, Dee.” It’s true. I absolutely do not have time for dating. “There’s also the small matter of spending 24/7 with my three extremely overprotective older brothers. ”

“I hear that.” Dakota definitely gets it.

Even before I started managing the band, I’d always avoided getting serious with anyone. Not that I could ever tell Dakota the reason why.

“Well, I know you think of them as surrogate brothers,” Dakota says, “but in fact my boys are not related to you at all, and three of them are eligible bachelors. None of them—aside from Tobias and he doesn’t count in that way—are in a relationship right now. So you can take your pick.”

“Stop.” But my stomach flips. I do not want to talk about Dakota’s single brothers. “Seriously, I love Luke and Leo, you know I do, but they are not going to settle down any time soon. They have new girls every time I talk to you.”

“It’s true.” I can practically hear Dakota’s frown. “They both seem allergic to commitment. Plus, whoever one of them dates is going to have to put up with the other one. The two of them are practically inseparable.”

Luke and Leo are identical twins who used to speak their own secret language when they were tiny boys. “Yeah, maybe they could date two girls who are identical twins. That might be the only solution.”

“Poor girls, is all I can say.” Dakota exhales a pained laugh. “So, I guess that just leaves Nate.”

Heat creeps up my neck and warms my cheeks. I’ve never been able to bring myself to tell her about my secret kiss with her oldest brother all those years ago. I figured it was just a teenage crush and the torch would burn itself out over time.

I guess I’m about to find out.

“Things are complicated for Nate right now,” she says. “He’s got a lot going on.”

I know what she’s talking about. Kade and Nate have always been close and they check in on each other regularly. When we were kids, they were best friends. They’re the same age, almost exactly. Kade is three days older. Kade has filled me in on some of what’s going on in Nate’s life and, even though I don’t know all the details, it sounds like a lot.

I don’t push Dakota on the details now. I know I’ll get the entire lowdown over the weekend. “It must be nice having him back home again.”

Kade and Dakota have both kept me up to date with Nate’s house on the farm, which he built himself. It took him a long time to do it, but he moved in a while ago and now lives there full-time. “Oh my god, Rox, it’s such a cool house. It was good timing, too, considering he’s now got full custody of Daisy.”

“I heard about what happened from Kade. He went to the funeral. It’s so awful, Dee.”

Around six months ago, Nate’s best friends and business partners, whose names were Jed and Laney O’Leary, died in a head-on car crash on a rainy night. They were both killed instantly. The only thing that made the whole story a little less tragic is that their six-year-old daughter Daisy was at home that night with a babysitter. Kade told me Jed and Laney had been out to dinner on a date night, their first in almost a year.

They named Nate in their will as the legal guardian of Daisy. So Daisy’s been living out on the farm with Nate and the whole Boone clan ever since the accident happened.

“Nate’s so good with her,” Dakota says. “Daisy adores him. They’re really cute together. You’ll see when you get here.” My stomach does another one of those light flips. “And Ma of course loves having Daisy around. Your Aunt Lou, too. But it’s still hard, as you can imagine. Nate’s trying to process everything and make sure Daisy is okay, while also working on his business—without his business partners— and he’s also overseeing a lot of the workings of the farm. I’m not sure how he’s holding it all together, but you know how Nate is.”

“Yeah.” I do know how Nate is. Stoic, steady, always trying to do the right thing by everyone else. He’s been a workaholic ever since his dad died of a heart attack when Nate was seventeen. As the oldest of five kids and the son of a devastated widow who needed him to step up and take control, Nate did exactly that.

It’s why he left the farm for a while, to build his property development company. After his father’s heart attack, it was up to Nate to make sure they didn’t lose the house and the land. The farm was struggling back then. He had to somehow make enough money to ensure his mother could stay in her family home and that everyone got fed.

I see the sign for Sugar Mountain Farm Road and take the turn. I know from my memories that the dirt road is 1.2 miles long. “How’s the farm going?”

“The farm’s great. Nate’s been pouring money into the place, which obviously helps. And with Nate’s help, Luke and Leo have really been working some magic. They’ve both really stepped up and they’re both really good farmers, as it turns out. The farm is more profitable than ever. They’re diversifying the land and getting into some new areas. You’ll see when you get here. And Tobias and I…well, we’ve been busy too. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

“See what?”

Dakota’s words come out in an excited gush. “Okay, I can’t keep the secret any longer. I’ve been bursting to tell you. But I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Tell me what, Dee?”

“Well, remember how Tobias wanted to start up his own restaurant?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know how I’ve always kind of loved the idea of starting an event planning business?”

“Yeah.”

“We know it’s a long way to come all the way out here just for dinner, so we’ve set up a small boutique B&B. It’s also a wedding and event venue. Think farm-luxe chic. We’ve been run off our feet with bookings and we’re not even officially open yet. Can you believe it, Rox?”

“Dee! Why didn’t you tell me any of this? That sounds amazing. ”

Dakota laughs. “I didn't tell you because you were on tour. I know I can reach you for emergencies, but you don’t have much time to just jump on a video call and chat for an hour. And besides, Tobias and I kind of wanted to surprise you when you finally got out here. We knew you would eventually and we hoped it wouldn’t be too long.”

Guilt pangs in my stomach. I know I’m not the easiest person to have as a best friend when most of the time I’m too busy to reply to texts, let alone schedule chats or actual real-life meet-ups.

“I can’t wait to see it.” When we were kids, Dakota was always the one who was planning our little tea parties and decorating our picnic tables with wildflower bouquets. And even from a young age, Tobias was in the kitchen creating elaborate delicacies. He hand-squeezed our lemonade and not only frosted the cupcakes but created little sugar fondant decorations to sit on the tops of them. “We have so much to catch up on, Dee. I’m almost here. I can see the house.”

“I can see your truck! We’re all so excited, Rox. Okay, I’m hanging up so I can tell all the others you’re here.”

“See you in a minute.”

As we disconnect the call, my heart feels like it might burst with happiness to be back here. I’m also attempting to tone down the butterflies erupting in my stomach now that I know there’s a very good chance I’ll run into Nate Boone during my stay. And I really don’t know how to feel about that.

My Aunt Lou and Uncle Earl, Betty-Ann, Dakota and the boys were all such a staple of my summers, they feel ingrained in my bones. They’re a part of who I am and I realize I’ve left it way too long to come back to them.

As for Nate, I remember so well his crooked grin, the way his eyes would shine when he laughed, and how I would catch sight of him walking across the lawn to the farmhouse in his low-slung jeans and his t-shirt slung over one suntanned, gracefully-muscular shoulder.

A lot has happened since I’ve been back, in both our lives.

As I pull up in front of the house, the welcoming farmhouse brings back a thousand golden memories.

I park my truck and take a deep breath. I’m not just coming back to a place. I’m returning to a family and a world I left behind, one that holds pieces of my heart I didn’t even realize I’d kept locked away until right now.