Gone Country

CHAPTER 1

JAMIE

“ W hat the fuck, Shorty?” Jamie asked her manager, jabbing a finger at the shiny poster stuck to the back of her dressing room door.

The absolute nerve of Clayton Langley trying to steal her spotlight when she was headlining the damn concert.

“Why is Clayton’s name next to mine? He was a last-minute addition to the show. I mean, look at the size of that font!”

Scott “Shorty” Shorthouse, mid-fifties, strolled toward her unfazed, his black ten-gallon hat resting comfortably atop his silver hair. He was always calm and measured, qualities she usually found comforting. But right now she wanted to shake him.

“Your name comes first,” he reassured her, as if that solved everything.

He’d been managing artists for over thirty years and was skilled at handling musicians and their egos—including hers.

“Look at the poster. It says Jamie Keaton before Clayton Langley. And it’s a benefit concert for the children’s hospital. ”

Jamie crossed her arms. Oh, great. Now I’m the asshole complaining about font size.

But still. Why was Clayton’s name screaming at the audience when hers was only slightly louder than a whisper? She knew exactly why: Clayton Langley was the golden boy of country music and everyone bent over backward to keep his ego polished to a high shine.

Her stomach twisted with annoyance but she forced herself to unclench her jaw. She would not let him get under her skin. This time.

She exhaled through her nose to calm down, but it was futile. She hated Clayton Langley and had wished death upon him more than once.

After a brief pause she said, “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Shorty nodded. “You’re doing a good thing here, Jamie.”

“Just keep Clayton out of my sight.” She sat in front of the room’s illuminated mirror and shooed away a makeup artist trying to sponge her face with pressed powder.

Unable to let it go, spun in her chair and squinted, scrutinizing the poster from top to bottom and left to right.

“That picture doesn’t even look like me.

My hair isn’t black, it’s dark brown . .

. my eyes are cornflower blue, not baby blue.

And my boobs are definitely not that big.

You know I hate photo editing with a passion. ”

Shorty, who was actually tall, spun Jamie back around, leaned on the back of her chair and stared into the mirror. “You’re a classic beauty, Jamie. I don’t understand why you’re always trying to fight it.”

“Rock ’n’ roll isn’t fuck me , it’s fuck you .

” She flicked her wrist dismissively. “Just ask Chrissie Hynde.” The Pretenders’ singer had said as much in an interview.

“What does ‘classic beauty’ even mean other than someone who’s white?

” Shorty’s mouth twisted as if he were about to say something but he remained silent as she continued, “They didn’t change a goddamned thing on Clayton’s stupid face.

He looks smug in that picture, like he thinks he’s hot shit. ”

The door swung open and a young blond woman with curly hair rushed in. “Sorry, James! Hi, Shorty. ”

“Hey, Ruth!” Shorty greeted Jamie’s assistant with a friendly wave. Ruth Abbott was sunshine personified, the best person ever created.

Ruth closed the door behind her and held out a bottle. “They only had this.” She handed Jamie the bottom-shelf vodka.

“Jesus, I had one thing on my rider,” Jamie complained, glaring at her manager as she cracked the bottle.

“I can see if Clayton has a bottle in his dressing room?” Ruth offered, chewing a piece of Juicy Fruit gum. The unmistakable scent of bananas, pineapples, papayas, and something you couldn’t quite put your finger on gave it away from across the room.

Jamie rolled her eyes at her assistant, offended that she would suggest such a thing.

“I’d rather die than ask him for anything.

” She was still furious with Clayton for fucking her over five years ago by refusing to let her open on his tour.

Something about her being “too rock” for his audience.

She almost didn’t sign with Shorty’s management company because of it; he’d been Clayton’s manager since time immemorial.

“On the bright side you’ve got enough whiskey for the Zac Brown Band!” Ruth laughed.

“The what-who band?” Jamie cranked her neck and pointed at the poster. “Do you think that looks like me? Be honest.”

Ruth studied the picture as if it were hanging in the Louvre. “Well, your hair isn’t that dark, your eyes aren’t that shade of blue, and you don’t have a tan. And your chest”—she looked at her boss—“isn’t that big.”

Satisfied with her answer Jamie smiled, knowing she was right. “Ruth, please take a picture and post it to my socials.”

Her assistant lined up her phone and said, “Cheese!”

Jamie laughed so hard at their inside joke that tears streamed down her face.

“So . . .” Shorty met Jamie’s gaze. “The label wants your record done for a summer release.”

“It’s not a record label,” Jamie said with a straight face. “It’s a puppy mill.”

Ruth snorted with laughter. Jamie could always count on her assistant to support her regardless of the situation. Ruth was the best friend she’d ever had. As a kid she’d moved around so often she was never in the same place when a new school year began.

Shorty shook his head. “Mike said—”

“Doofus,” Jamie corrected him. “We call Mike Shrader what he is—a doofus.”

“He’s an accountant by trade,” Shorty said, almost excusing her record label’s president for his lack of personality and terrible fashion sense.

“Exactly.” Jamie nodded once. “He knows nothing about music.” She’d mistaken Doofus for a policeman the first time they met. A man with a crew cut and a mustache always put her on edge.

Holding his hat, Shorty hung his head. “He wants you to record the album here in Nashville.”

“What the fuck?” Jamie swiveled her chair to face him. “That doesn’t make sense for the record I want to make.” She was dying to make a hard rock album without any songs that would be considered pop.

Shorty shrugged. “The best musicians live here.”

“When does Doofus want me to start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jamie shot out of her chair. “It’s New Year’s!”

But that wasn’t the only reason she was freaking out. The label had sent her dozens of demos yet she hadn’t picked a single track for the new album. Everything was pop-rock: slick, polished, safe. She wanted grit. She wanted rock -rock .

“Think of it as a fresh start.” Shorty sounded optimistic, as only he could. He was the type of person who, whenever it rained, said, “We sure needed it!”

“What about my clothes, a place to stay . . . I’m tired of living in hotel rooms and ordering room service.

” Jamie widened her eyes, realizing she didn’t have her dog.

“What about Poppy Rose?” She’d given Poppy a middle name because she didn’t have one.

Her mother had told her she’d chosen “Jamie” to suit a boy or a girl long before anyone used gender-neutral names for their children.

“I left her in LA with Derrick. I thought we’d only be gone overnight. ”

Derrick Anderson—Hollywood’s answer to Jason Statham but with hair—was Jamie’s ex-boyfriend and a total alpha-hole.

The moniker of “America’s Macho Man” had gone to his head while the rest of him was all bluster, leaving the dangerous stunts to some guy who resembled him from a distance.

They’d been together for five years and had broken up as many times—six when you count two months ago.

Shorty turned to Ruth. “Can you get her dog and her clothes?” The assistant nodded, already on her phone making the arrangements. “As for a place to stay, I own that condo building downtown. The penthouse is empty and there’s security around the clock.”

Jamie sighed. “This is so messed up.”

A chaotic childhood had wired her for structure. As an adult, she clung to routine like a life raft—schedules, plans, predictability. Surprises? Not her thing. Especially last-minute ones.

“Sorry, Ruth,” she added quietly. “I really thought we’d be home for once.”

“It’s totally fine.” She cracked her gum. “I love it here. The people are so nice, just like back home in Oklahoma.” Ruth took pride in being an Okie and told everyone she was from there .

“Do we have any say in this?” Jamie asked her manager, pleading with him to get her out of it. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck in a place where honky-tonks were the main attraction and people were polite to a fault.

“I’m sorry, kiddo.” He adjusted the brim of his hat. “Not if you want that Grammy you’re always talking about.”

“You know I’d kill for one.” She put one hand on her hip and wagged her finger. “Fine, but tell Doofus no fucking banjos.”

Shorty left to watch Clayton’s set, since he was the top country artist on his roster. Their manager had a moral obligation to be there, not to mention a financial one. He was responsible for Clayton’s musicians, the house band for tonight’s performances.

Jamie poured another healthy slug of vodka into her glass and scrolled through her socials, jumping when her phone rang to CeeLo Green’s song “Fuck You.”

“It’s him,” Jamie told Ruth, hitting the answer button. “Derrick?”

“You called,” he muttered over voices in the background.

“I’m staying here in Nashville!” she shouted, covering her free ear. “Doofus wants me to start working on my album. Ruth’s flying out there to pick up Poppy tomorrow.”

“It sounds like you’re drinking.”

“Fuck, Derrick.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Please don’t give me a hard time. I’m headlining this benefit and going on right after Clayton Langley. You know how much I hate him.”

“I know.” Derrick sounded empathetic, to the slightest degree. “Hey, give Old Hickory a kick in the ass for me.”