What We've Become (My Kind Of Country Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  What We’ve Become

  COPYRIGHT

  PUBLISHER NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  About The Author

  What We’ve Become

  M. Lynne Cunning

  Copyright

  What We’ve Become

  Copyright © 2016 by M. Lynne Cunning.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: July 2016

  Fifth Ink Publishing, LLC.

  Iowa

  www.fifthinkpublishing.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Please do not partake in or encourage piracy of copyrighted works in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting this author’s hard work.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to locales, events, or actual persons—living or dead—is purely coincidental.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to locales, events, or actual persons—living or dead—is purely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER NOTE

  Thank you for purchasing What We’ve Become, Book 2 in the My Kind Of Country Series, by M. Lynne Cunning. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. We just want to let you know that What We’ve Become is not a standalone. Who I Am With You, Book 1 in the My Kind Of Country Series, is to be read prior to What We’ve Become.

  Again, we thank you for your purchase and we hope you enjoy the story!

  Sincerely,

  Erica M. Christensen

  Owner, Fifth Ink Publishing, LLC.

  CHAPTER ONE

  KATIE

  “Let it go, Katie.”

  Katie huffed in annoyance at hearing that phrase come from Jay. It was a phrase that meant so much, and yet, coming from him, she wanted nothing more than to ignore it.

  “I have already told you, I can’t.” She had to admit, the idea of letting go sounded all too appealing. Letting go of her guilt. Letting go of her fear. That wasn’t what Jay meant, though. He wanted her to let go of the farm—her dad’s farm—and that just couldn’t happen. No matter how appealing the idea of not having to keep up two properties—two separate lives—might seem.

  Things had changed in many ways since she had agreed to come to Nashville with Jay, but in other ways it was all still the same. Gone was the serenity and peace of the slow moving life she had been struggling to live out at the farm, replaced instead by city lights and an abundance of people. Most of those people were starry-eyed dreamers hoping and praying for their one chance to show Nashville that they could hack it in the country music world. Those people tended to move fast around her, leaving Katie’s mind whirling long after they had moved on. There were still many days though when she longed to be back on those porch steps with no sounds to keep her company, save for the slow shifting movements of the animals in the barn, and the singsong melodies of the crickets and cicadas.

  That was no longer possible, though. As much as she had tried to maintain a balance between taking Mason to see Jay in Nashville and continuing to run at least part of the farm, she had quickly come to the conclusion that the notion was futile. It was impossible to run a farm on her own—even one as small as Rustic Acres—and Jay had absolutely no interest in aiding her in such a venture. She had no one else to turn to, and the thought made her feel even lonelier and more desolate.

  It also made her miss Chad even more.

  That’s why she couldn’t allow herself to think about it, about how it had all turned out. Chad was gone—back to his old life, she presumed—and the farm had suffered because of it, almost as much as she had.

  The back and forth of trying to make Jay happy had resulted in downsizing her duties at the farm the only way she knew how. It had brought tears to her eyes to do it, but the end result included having to sell off most of the livestock. The horses had been sold quite easily, but the cows and pigs had proven easier to sell by having them butchered and sold as freezer packs, locally. Any crops she hadn’t been able to get harvested and sold at the local markets before the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend had been ruined by the frost that hit with a vengeance. The chickens had been sold as a flock to one of the farmer a few miles down the road. She had practically given them to him in return for his time spent watching over the farm during her sporadic absences. Mason had shed a few tears over that, and the sight of his sadness had caused her heart to clench with pure guilt. When she paired that with the emptiness of the farm, Katie couldn’t help but wonder if she had made a mistake.

  It was too late to change her mind now. The farm was now sedentary and silent as a tomb, and her son was now confused and struggling through an adjustment phase, being dragged from one life—a life he had thrived in—to one he knew nothing about. Katie wished his excitement for the transition had lasted, but, in all honestly, if she wasn’t excited for their future in Nashville, how could she expect him to be?

  Jay didn’t seem to notice that she and Mason were unsure as to how to begin their new life in the city with him. Instead, he had frivolously sold the condo in Canada, only advising Katie of the news after the fact. She’d been furious, but the reality was that, despite purchasing it together just before Mason was born, Jay’s name was the only one listed on the property deed. There was little she could do about the sale, and he knew it. He was obviously ready to take the bull by the horns and start over in Nashville with her and Mason by his side. She, however, was not yet that keen on the idea. However, with no condo to go back to—not that she would, anyway—and no crops or animals to look after at the farm, her reasons for jumping on a plane and flying back to the farm were becoming less and less believable. Jay had fought her on her plans to leave Nashville many times, but the only thing that allowed her solace was knowing that she could still use Mason’s schooling as an excuse. With the exception of the long Thanksgiving weekend in October, she and Mason had only been able to stay in Nashville with Jay for a weekend at a time, usually flying there through the night on Friday, staying with him Saturday, and then leaving again Sunday evening. Rarely, Katie would permit Mason to miss school on a Monday in order to stay a day longer, but that had only started to happen once she had sold the livestock and had nothing to return home for.

  “You could stay longer than a few days at a time, Katie. But you would have to let it go.” Jay’s voice cut through her thoughts again.

  “Jay, we’ve been through this. You know I can’t sell the farm.”

  “Everything you need is right here. Mason and I are here.” Jay reached out to pull her closer to him, just as he always did when the repetitive conversation arose.

  “Mason still has school to attend, Jay. You know that.”

  “We could get the paperwork done to transfer him here. I have said that before.”

  Katie exhaled slowly. She’d heard it all b
efore. It seemed Jay had it all figured out in his mind, every detail planned out that was needed to create the perfect “happy family” he believed they could become. Katie couldn’t do it, though. She was far from ready. He might be prepared to forgive and forget, but that didn’t mean she had to be. Too much had transpired between them, and only a few months had passed since. A new beginning without the comfort of any kind of safety net was too much to fathom at this point.

  “Mason is happy in his school, Jay. With his friends and his familiar surroundings. We will let him finish out his school year and see how it goes.” Katie held her hands on his arms, not allowing herself to be held any closer. She felt Jay stiffen slightly.

  “You want to wait another six months or so to decide?”

  “I told you, let’s just take this slowly. So much has—”

  “You still don’t trust me.”

  “I never said that, Jay.”

  “But you did say you were going to try.”

  It was Katie’s turn to become rigid. “I am. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t trying. I just need more time than you do, obviously. I’m sorry for that, but it’s the truth.”

  “When are you going to forgive me for what happened between us?”

  She didn’t want to say aloud that she wasn’t sure if she ever would. There was no use in creating more tension. “I’m not saying I haven’t. You’re putting words in my mouth again.”

  Jay’s chest rose and fell against her as he exhaled in frustration. Silence ensued, and Katie knew that he was trying to get the conversation back on more solid ground. “I just want things to go back to the way they were. I’m sorry if I am being pushy.”

  The way things were? Before he left her for another woman? Before her father died and left her with a sense of desperate loneliness she couldn’t shake? Or before she fell in love with someone else, only to have her heart broken again? Katie was not sure that things could ever go back to the way they were ever again. “I know you do,” was the only response she could muster.

  “Someday, we will be okay again, Katie,” Jay crooned against her ear, wrapping his arms around her despite her halfhearted attempt to pull away. “Someday, we will look back on this time in our lives and laugh about it.”

  The last thing Katie felt like doing was laughing, and she doubted she ever would. He may not think she had forgiven him yet, but she had—for the most part, anyway. She wouldn’t be capable of spending so much time in Nashville with him if she hadn’t. There was a difference between forgiving and forgetting, though. She did not forget.

  “Time, Jay. Just let me get my bearings, okay?”

  “That would happen a lot faster without that farm tying you elsewhere.” He held up his hands, denoting he meant no offence. Still, Katie scowled. “I am just stating a fact. I won’t mention it again,” he quipped, pretending to lock his mouth closed with an invisible key.

  Right, Katie thought. Until the next time.

  “You just need to give me a chance, Katie. To make everything right again. So we can live here together, raise Mason together...get married like we were meant to do.”

  “Jay—” Katie warned. She pulled away, and this time she put enough force into it to actually break free. She had a hard enough time with his constant questioning, and his thoughts regarding the farm; she had no tolerance for his absurd thoughts about getting married. She was nowhere near ready for that.

  “We could, you know. Just do it. It would be a real start-over for us, a real new beginning.” Jay didn’t try to pull her close again, but his face revealed a sly grin, the left corner of his mouth twitching upward. Katie had heard this idea before though, and she was once again going to put a stop to it before he continued on.

  “I’ve already told you no. We are not there yet, okay?”

  “You’re not. I am.” He offered his best boyish grin. Katie rolled her eyes. She knew he was well aware of her stance on this matter, but he was just mentioning it again as a method of psychological warfare, making sure it was clear that she was the one unwilling to make things better between them. That’s how it always was with Jay; things were never truly his fault.

  “Stop it, Jay. I am not hashing this out with you again. I said no.” She turned her back on him and began to pluck Mason’s Hot Wheels cars from the floor, allowing herself a short-lived reprieve from his watchful stare. Once again, Jay held his hands up, signaling what would only be a temporary surrender. His amused smirk never wavered.

  “Okay, okay, I’m done. But I will wear you down eventually. And if I don’t, this city will.”

  Katie responded with only a curt nod. He might be right about the city. Maybe it did hold something appealing for her, but, if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t yet convinced that that something was Jay.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAD

  Chad took a step away from the microphone suspended before him, his hands cupped over the headphones he wore. That was it, he could feel it. He knew without even looking up into the watchful eyes of the guys in the sound booth that he wouldn’t need to record the song again. He exhaled in relief and lifted his gaze toward the pane of glass separating him from his producer and manager. As he’d expected, they both wore wide smiles of satisfaction. They felt it as well, then; the air of finality, of a process seen through to completion.

  He was back.

  He was back in tune with himself, the man who had fought to get to this point in his music career, and who had subsequently clawed his way back from what could have been the abrupt end of it. He was back to creating music that not only was he was excited to see how his target audience would react to, but that also had the attention of the executives within the industry, too. In a matter of months, he had managed to achieve some level of forgiveness from the people who had helped him throughout the years, even though he knew damn well they should have packed up and gone on to find someone more worthy of their guidance and unwavering support. Instead, after disappearing from Nashville for a handful of weeks without so much as a note or call to any of them, he had returned to find his band and business partners—a group of guys who had done all they could, in the time he’d been gone, to prevent the media and powers-that-be in Nashville from finding out he’d left—waiting for him, albeit impatiently. That told Chad more about them than they could ever say; they were friends, not just people who worked alongside him.

  That’s not to say he didn’t return to a flurry of wide eyes, angry outbursts, and curse words. He heard it voiced in many different ways, but everyone he knew had cried out the same concerns. What the hell would possess you to do that? You should have contacted someone! and What if we were sitting here thinking you were dead? were just a few of the retorts he had been faced with. His friend and fellow songwriter, Andy, actually hit a wall and caused his knuckles to bleed when Chad first appeared back at the studio after his impromptu hiatus. Andy tossed insults and fits of outrage at him, visibly attempting to hold himself back from throwing a punch, along with the string of expletives. He let Chad know in no uncertain terms that his little vanishing act was unfair, uncalled for, and downright irresponsible. Chad knew that was his way of saying he had been worried sick about him, especially seeing as Andy rarely showed any sort of negative emotion outwardly. Andy was only one person in a long line of them who had flung around some choice words when Chad returned to the city, but he had expected it. Hell, he’d welcomed it.

  At that point, it had almost been a relief to know that there were other people who were dealing with hurt and anger about things that had happened, even if it was all directed at him. That meant he wasn’t suffering alone. He was fully aware of how deranged he was to think such a thing.

  He was also quick to notice how everyone phrased their statements towards him—saying “What if we’d thought you were dead?” instead of “We thought you were.” He picked up on the fact that, though they were concerned about his well-being and state of mind, no one had really questioned him as to his exact w
hereabouts during those weeks. That could only mean one thing.

  Liz.

  Obviously, Liz had figured out his whereabouts long before he had known hers, and she had subsequently let the most important people back in Nashville know that he was okay. Call it damage control—or maybe just a love of gossip—but he supposed he should be thankful she had helped him out that much. Lord knows she’d made an absolute disaster of every other aspect of his life, so he figured it was the least she could do. He had barely spoken to her since parting ways with her on the other side of the border, speaking civilly to her only when something work related required it. It was funny how a city with more than six hundred thousand people could seem so small sometimes.

  Perhaps out of everyone though, his manager, Barry, held the least amount of grudge against him following his return.

  “As long as you’re okay, Chad, then I am just glad to see you back where you belong.” Barry’s words had struck a chord somewhere deep within him, wondering then, what it would take for him to view Nashville as the place he truly belonged again, the way Barry did. Chad also decided that he must have been one of the people Liz had called—therefore, giving him time to calm down and setting his manager’s mind at ease—but the lack of hostility was welcomed, nonetheless. Barry also seemed overly eager to get Chad back into the life he had walked away from, and he supposed that was because it was the man’s job. He wondered if there was more to it, but he was certain he was doing it all for Chad’s own personal benefit rather than just for their careers. That made him wonder just how much Liz had divulged to him. But Chad didn’t have it in him to confirm that Liz had, in fact, notified anyone of his location or what she had deemed relevant to tell them.

  Now, though, as he stood in the middle of the recording studio and tugged the headphones from his ears, basking in the energized glances from his colleagues, he knew two things for sure. The first was that this new single was the one. It would surpass the success he’d had with Take Me Home and put his name out there for the world to remember. The knowing excitement that was radiating from Barry and his producer on the other side of the glass confirmed it. The song was country—real country—and it fit his voice, his demeanor, and his idea of what country music should be. And it should, seeing as he had written it with Andy’s help. No matter what releasing it would do for his career, he knew he would always be proud to call this song his own.