The irony wasn’t lost on me that the channel she’d made for me was the very thing that launched the name Fallon Gentry into headlines.
I was so fucking innocent, using my real name, but I don’t think either one of us thought that humble little channel would get any attention.
But that was all in the past. I’d called my sister the day I crossed the Nashville city limits all those years ago, given her the password and insisted she shut down the account.
The videos still floated around. I had no control over them, but I did have some sort of control of my public persona. It didn’t take long before the writing was on the wall for me. I didn’t want a damn thing to do with anything in the public eye.
Making my music my business had been the gravest mistake of my life. Suddenly the business overshadowed all else, and I’d lost the very thing that’d brought me there in the first place.
Her.
It’d been a few years and a few thousand miles since then, and I was sure I’d seen the darkest corner of every country-rock bar south of the Mason-Dixon. Singing on a lonely stage, locals in every city all the same—tolerate the music, stay for the booze.
My life was simple.
Well, it had been.
Until Augusta Belle.
How this woman had the ability to throw me way the fuck off-kilter whenever I was in her orbit still amazed and annoyed me.
I pushed a rough hand over my face, multiple months’ worth of unkempt beard making me laugh out loud.
Augusta Belle hadn’t seen me with a beard, don’t even think I’d been able to grow one back then, but here I was looking all lumberjacked.
The first time we’d met, I’d been scrawny, legs not bigger than twigs and biceps a fraction of the size I had now. I’d grown big, scary, a little wild-looking, all on account of keepin’ the TMZ bitches off my back. Sellin’ a picture wasn’t much good when the subject was about unrecognizable and flippin’ the bird.
They hadn’t bothered me once since I’d left Nashville. Thank fuck.
That was the last thing I needed to deal with right now.
Augusta Belle was back, for better or worse. The woman I’d written a #1 hit about was in possession of the keys to my truck, and maybe still my heart.
I kicked back on the bench, damp wood cradling my broken body as more memories of us washed over me like a tidal wave.
The first time I met her, she was fixin’ to throw herself off a bridge. How could I have thought that life after meetingAugusta Belle Branson would be anything but extraordinary ever again?
THREE
Fallon—Twelve Years Before
“Mind if I ask what you’re doing up here, lookin’ all sad?” I stepped closer, knowing damn well the look of desperation in her eye.
Couldn’t say I hadn’t felt like that a few times myself.
“Admirin’ the view.” The sweet twang in her words made me smile. “Which I’d like to do in peace, if you don’t mind.”
I stifled a laugh with the back of my hand.
Her eyes averted back to the slow-movin’ water below. “Wonder how many people have jumped into that river.”
“None that have made it, I’d venture to guess.” I moved forward, hopin’ to get in arm’s reach of her in case she took a mind to throw herself over the side. “My pa used to tell me a story when I was a kid ’bout someone gettin’ thrown off this bridge. I always thought he just said it to scare us.” I inched nearer. “Pretty far down, and then the impact alone. Not a good way to go if you ask me.”
Call it instinct, but I felt something in this girl was sad beyond words.
On the outside, she was sweet, a cascade of blond hair and eyes that twinkled with mischief. But behind that mischief, I recognized a tired soul.
A girl who’d seen too much in her short years on this planet.
