Hold on to My Heart (Maine Sullivans)

Ashley’s kiss at the café had been the best surprise in the entire world. And making love with her again?

It had been the best damned thing he’d ever done in his life.

After jumping out of her bed and meeting her son, who looked like a really good kid, Nash had taken a taxi to his rental property to pick up the keys from his new landlady. It was a short-term rental, two weeks in a cottage in the woods on the outskirts of Bar Harbor. He’d chosen it because it had a secure fence around the property, in case word got out that he was here. He had deliberately opted not to stay anywhere five-star. He’d had enough five-star lodgings to last him a lifetime. He was craving something that felt more like home.

Not that he knew what home felt like. The apartment he’d lived in with his mom in Raleigh hadn’t had any family pictures on the walls, no knitting in a basket, or books to read on a coffee table in front of a fire, or flowers on the kitchen table, or knitted throws on a couch.

His childhood home had been the polar opposite of the one Ashley had created for her son. The moment he’d stepped inside their house, he’d been filled with a longing that had surprised him. He had his every need catered to by hotel staff. People always said they wished they could change places with him.

So why did he suddenly want to make his own meals and do his own laundry?

It had been nearly twenty years since he’d had to do either of those things. He hadn’t held a hammer or a saw for just as long. Though he usually loved writing songs, recording, and performing, when inspiration refused to strike after his European tour, he had canceled his plans to record the new album at the studio and come to Bar Harbor instead. Hopefully, he’d find some inspiration here.

Selma, his landlady, looked to be in her seventies and, thankfully, had no idea who he was. She laid down strict rules about how she expected him to take care of her rental property, and he appreciated that she treated him without kid gloves. She didn’t want anything from him. She didn’t worship him. Selma treated him like she would any other short-term renter—with suspicion.

But grocery shopping and cooking a meal on the old stove top in the kitchen would have to wait. He was too wrecked from his six weeks of nonstop touring and then his transatlantic flight to do more than take one last look at his phone to see if Ashley had contacted him, then crawl into bed as the sun set.

Nash dreamed of Ashley all night long. Dreamed of living with her in her cottage. Dreamed about Kevin being his son. Dreamed of a life he’d only ever seen on TV or read about in books, one with parent-teacher meetings and dinner as a family and evenings on the couch in front of the TV.

What had once seemed boring to him now seemed like an out-of-reach fantasy.

Nash had gone from rags to riches, from being disdained to worshiped, from having no one who cared about him to millions of strangers professing their love. By the time he was eighteen, he’d signed a record deal. His first release had landed at number one six months later. Nearly two decades after that, the world was his oyster.

Only, he’d never suspected how lonely it could be at the top. Or how easily a pretty single mom from Maine would get beneath his defenses and make him wonder if the “dream life” he was living was the life he actually wanted.

In the morning, he found a bag of bagels in the kitchen cupboard that the landlady had left for him. Or maybe it was the previous tenant?

He burned the first bagel to a crisp before figuring out he needed to set the toaster dial lower or risk setting the house on fire. It was surprisingly satisfying to get his second bagel-toasting attempt exactly right.

When he was done eating breakfast and had cleaned up the kitchen—yet another thing he hadn’t done for the past twenty years—he pulled out his phone again to make sure he had a signal. Or maybe the problem was that she’d entered his number wrong into her phone?

He almost had to laugh at himself, thinking that the only reason Ashley wouldn’t have gotten back to him was because his phone was broken or the number was wrong, rather than because she’d thought better of ever seeing or speaking to him again.

Honestly, he wouldn’t blame her for wanting to keep her life on the path it was on before he’d stormed his way into her life. Hell, if he could manage to be even the slightest bit selfless, he’d leave town without bothering her again. Lord knew Ashley didn’t deserve to have her safe, steady world tangled up with his celebrity ridiculousness.