Feels Like Home (Southern Bride 5)

After I left Comfort, I didn’t set foot in my old hometown for the first few years. My schedule wouldn’t allow it, and, honestly, I was a coward. It was too painful, and I was scared I’d run into Bri. I’d flown my mother and grandparents out to Nashville numerous times to visit, though. I extended the offer to my father, but he always turned it down—through my mother, of course. It wasn’t until a year or so ago that I stepped foot back in Comfort. My grandparents refused to fly to see me anymore; they were getting up there in age and traveling like that was too much for them. So I resorted to sneaking back to Comfort to see Grams, Granddad, and my mother. Every now and then, I would rent a car, put a baseball cap on, and drive around Comfort. I wanted to be a normal person, something that I rarely got to experience anymore. It also wasn’t a secret that I had made a lot of folks mad in my hometown. Not only had I broken Bristol’s heart, I had walked away from the family ranch.

It didn’t help that I wrote a damn song about never going back home. I’d made it damn clear I wasn’t heading back to Comfort—at least that was what an angry 22-year-old had said when he stupidly penned a song because he was pissed off and butt hurt, and then sang it for a record company that turned around and said it needed to be recorded within the week. I was signed to a recording deal within forty-eight hours of arriving in Nashville. That shit was unheard of, the luck of a stupid bastard with a nice body and a pretty face who happened to write a classic breakup song in a matter of minutes. Now, the whole damn world knew how I felt about leaving Comfort. The whole world, including Bristol and every citizen of my hometown.

The words in the song pretty much sealed my fate with Bristol. It had taken her two months to finally answer my calls after I left that night without talking to her. Then it was another month of texting and talking to each other before she agreed to come to Nashville to visit. I was over the moon, and she was excited as well. We were getting along great. She had even made plans to come and stay a few months. But then “Let It Burn” was released early, and the record executives failed to tell me or Robert, they had decided to push up the release date. I had wanted to tell Bristol about the song in person, when she got to Nashville. Explain the emotions I had been going through. All hopes of making up went up in flames after she heard the song. My mother said people asked Bristol for weeks what she thought about me writing a song like that about her. She simply sent me a text that said she would never forgive me, then she canceled her trip to Nashville. From that moment on, I hated the song. Hated every single word in it. Hated that it caused me to be an overnight success in a business where that only happened in the make-believe world of the movies. Hated that it ripped Bristol away from me.

I pushed all the memories of the past away and scrolled through Bristol’s photos. One was a picture of a table that had been set up in her tea shop, Farmhouse Tea, that she had opened a year ago. It had been one of her dreams to open her own place, and I was proud as hell she’d done it.

The next photo was of a cup of tea in a clear mug that was shaped like a heart. Her caption was, “Who needs a hug in a mug this morning? This girl does.”

I smiled. She hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend in over a year. Especially not that asshole Josh. She was pretty open with her nearly six-hundred-thousand followers, so when she broke up with Josh, she shared it with them. She hadn’t seemed sad in her live video, though. She almost looked relieved. He hadn’t been the one, but they remained close friends. One of her followers had commented about how she hoped it was a friends-with-benefits arrangement, because Josh was hot as hell. Her words, not mine.

The next photo showed Bristol dressed in overalls that had sunflowers on them. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun on her head, and she held a chicken.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Raise Your Own Chickens.

She was absolutely stunning.

Another smile moved across my face as I closed my eyes. I drifted off into a dream, and like always, Bristol Overmann was the featured star, instead of me.