Liddie sat back in the glider on her porch, surveying the front yard while drinking a glass of sweet tea and enjoying the temperate weather. She waved at a few of the neighbors who were also out and about enjoying the evening. She’d been busy for the past three weeks, setting up the house she’d rented within half an hour of setting foot in the front yard.

Tally and Chloe had gone back to California two weeks ago, and as much as she wished they’d stayed in Georgia, near her, both Tally and Chloe seemed so much happier there. Of course, the fact that Greg, Tally’s husband, actually flew out to Georgia to drive them across the country helped ease Liddie’s mind, at least a little. Time would tell if the couple stayed together or not.

Her phone chirped, and Liddie answered it with a smile. Tobias had gotten a short-term gig up in Nashville the week before, so she’d been mostly on her own since then. “Hey, big man.”

Tobias’s laugh rumbled from the other side of the line. “Hey, pretty lady. How’re doing tonight?”

“I’m good. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. The session wrapped up early, and the engineers are working their magic. I gotta hang around for a few in case we need to re-record anything, but I should be home by the weekend at the latest.”

Liddie grinned at the phone. “Looking forward to it.”

“Oh, hell yeah. I’m gonna hug on you so hard. And maybe kiss on you, too.”

They chatted for a bit about how their days had been going, but she got the sense that he was holding something back. After ten more minutes of small talk, Tobias cleared his throat and said, “I gotta ask you something.”

“Okay. What’s up, Toby?” She tried to sound breezy, but her heart was hammering in her chest.

“So, there’s this thing I’ve been invited to,” he began.

“Yeah? What kind of thing?”

“A dressy sort of thing. Like an award ceremony.”

“Okay . . .”

“It’s not televised or anything, but I’d really like for you to attend this thing with me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She could hear him suck in a breath. “It’s in Nashville, so it’s not like you’d have to travel very far or be gone a long time. We could literally drive up and come back the same—”

“I’d love to.”

“Whatever you w—what did you say?”

“I said I’d love to. You don’t have to convince me. I’ll go wherever, whenever.”

“Yeah? Even if it’s just a kind of rinky-dink thing?”

Liddie shook her head in amazement, glad that he couldn’t see her face to see how gobsmacked she was at the fact that he didn’t think she would want to go. She cleared her throat. “Yes, even if it’s just a rinky-dink sort of thing.”

“I mean, you don’t even have to get a dress or anything, I don’t think, unless you want to.”

“Oh, I’m getting a dress, Tobias Harper. And probably some new lingerie to go underneath.”

“Oh, I approve of that,” he said with a chuckle. “You really wanna come?”

“Yes, I do. I’d be honored.”

“Cool.”

´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´

Liddie and Tobias chatted about the logistics of the award ceremony a bit, and then Tobias had to hang up for a dinner meeting. He was still on a high about her agreeing to go with him when his longtime manager, Marty, arrived at the restaurant where Tobias was already seated. It had been a few months since they’d seen each other, even though they’d talked weekly, just as they’d done for the past thirty years, ever since Marty had pulled Tobias aside and told him to sever his business ties with his father.

“Toby, my boy, you always were punctual.” Marty Skaggs and Tobias shook hands over the table, and then Marty sank heavily into his chair. “Good to see your face. I get worried when I can’t lay eyes on you.”

Tobias bobbed his head. “I know you do. Been keeping busy in Atlanta lately—haven’t had a chance to get back to Nashville.”

“So tell me what you’ve been up to, and I don’t mean with work, because I know that.”

Tobias stirred his sweet tea. “You remember Liddie Hopewell?”

“How could I forget that name? That girl was the best and worst thing that ever happened to you.”

Tobias grinned crookedly at the older man and clucked his tongue. “Well, what would you say if I told you I’ve been seeing her again?”

“I’d say you were a lying liar, but that idiotic grin tells me you’re not kidding. Or you could be high as a kite, but I don’t think so.”

Tobias just grinned wider.

“Well, I’ll be damned. And it’s going well?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“You taking things slow.”

“Not at all,” Tobias said with a laugh.

Marty snorted. “Didn’t think so. You never went slow when it came to that girl. If you wanna know the truth, I figured she’d get knocked up and I’d be officiating a shotgun wedding just so you wouldn’t get hog-tied by her daddy.”

“Hell, we never got that far when we were in high school.” Tobias flushed. “Not that you needed to know that.”

Marty coughed into his hand. “You got the prenup and everything in order, right?”

Tobias choked on the water he was drinking. “Good Lord, Marty, we’re not going that fast. Damn.”

“You never know. You wanted to marry her thirty years ago. What’s stopping you from running off right now, other than being older and, hopefully, wiser than you were last time you got hitched?”

“Shit, I pretty much knew I was making a mistake the moment I got Candy a ring—”

“You said her name.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Holy shit. Is that development because of Miss Hopewell, too?”

“Nah. You can thank the producer I’ve been working with for that. He set me right after Candy showed up at the studio in Atlanta.” Marty raised his eyebrows so high they shifted his toupee back on his head, but Tobias waved him off. “Mick ran Candy off—banned her from the studio—and then handed me my ass. It’d been a long time coming, and I needed it.”

“Well, hell. You gotta new girl, and you’ve finally kissed off the old girl. Next thing you’re going to tell me is that you’re going back into the studio for some solo work.”

Tobias’s lip tilted up. “Well, as a matter of fact . . .”

“Aw, hell, Tobias,” Marty hooted but then grew serious. “This is good. No, this is great. How long has it been since you’ve recorded your own stuff to be used on your own album? Ten years?”

“Fourteen.”

“Damn, son. That’s a long time for you to be giving your stuff away.”

Tobias snorted. Lord knew he hadn’t been giving his music away; royalties and rights had made him a rich man, at least after he got out from under his father’s financial thumb.

As if reading his mind, Marty backed out of his statement. “I know you’ve been compensated for your music, but you know what I mean. That first album, after you got out from under your daddy’s bullshit—that album was special, magical even. Hell, I bet that one song earns you more than the rest of your catalog.”

Tobias shrugged. “That’s because it’s the theme song for that movie, and the movie’s on cable all the time,” he said without contradicting Marty’s statement. “But yeah, I get what you mean. I . . . haven’t felt like I could record most of those songs, because they were too personal, you know? I’d rather hand them off to someone else who didn’t have the emotional baggage that I did—hell—that I still do.” Tobias scrubbed his face with his hands. “This album is going to be like that first album. I’ve been writing and writing and writing, and my muse doesn’t seem like she’s quitting me anytime soon.”

“You ready for it, Toby?” Marty looked him right in the eye, and suddenly, his old friend didn’t seem to be talking just about the new album.

“Hell yeah. Been ready for it for thirty years.”