Chapter One
Hattie Lynn
I was sittingon a stool smack dab in the middle of the stage, wondering how I was going to make it through the next ten minutes.
As always, thanks to my team, the show had gone off thus far without a hitch.
But as I sat there on that little stool with sweat dripping down my spine, my mind kept going to the little girl backstage.
For all the blessings I’d been given in life —Two-time Grammy winner, platinum country music artist, one of the wealthiest women in the world, right behind Taylor Swift—I was powerless to change the outcome of Lucy’s life.
“Are you all having fun tonight?” I asked, leaning into the microphone, my voice filling the arena.
“Hell yeah!” the crowd roared.
“Fantastic.” I grinned. “So, I’m gonna need y’alls help with something. Think y’all can do that?”
Again the crowd went wild. “Hell yeah!”
“So, I’ve got a special guest here tonight and I’d love for you all to help me give her a big ol’ Chicago welcome.” The crowd erupted again.
“Okay. On the count of three, I want you all to shout ‘Come on out, Lucy.’ Are you ready?”
“One. Two. THREE!”
The building shook with the outpouring of love, and it was all I could do to keep myself from falling apart when all the fans screamed, “COME ON OUT, LACY!”
From the side of the stage, a woman in scrubs wheeled out a wheelchair, and my heart clenched so tight I could barely breathe.
The little girl sitting in it couldn’t be more than eight years old. Her head was completely bald, smooth as porcelain, and the oxygen tube snaking under her nose caught the lights.
She was so thin her hospital bracelet slid around her tiny wrist, and dark circles ringed her little eyes that should have been sparkling with excitement, not fighting to stay open.
But that smile on her face.
By all the gods in heaven, that radiant, shy smile that spread across her face when she saw the crowd cheering for her.
My heart felt like it was going to crack wide open.
“What do you think, darlin’?” I waved my hand out at the sixty thousand people up on their feet, screaming, crying, holding up their phones with the flashlights on. All of it was for her.
I blinked back the tears and waved Lucy forward, until her wheelchair was right next to my stool.
This beautiful baby had a clock counting down, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
I barely held my smile as I thought about the phone call from the Dream A Dream foundation three weeks ago.
Lucy Madox was an eight-year-old child diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Hearing that broke my heart, so when my PR team told me that her dream was to meet me in person, I jumped all over it and pulled out all the stops.
I sent my private jet to Arizona to pick up Lucy and her family, I reserved the presidential suite at the Four Seasons. I hired a personal healthcare team that was on standby, just in case.
“Chicago, meet my new friend Lucy!” I announced, and the crowd went absolutely wild.
Lucy waved a shaky hand.
Hopping off the stool, I crouched down next to her wheelchair, speaking directly into her ear so she could hear me over the crowd. “You doing okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded, that brave smile never wavering.
