After
twelve years on top of the charts, country music superstar Lily Rae has decided
to hang up the microphone and move home.
Becoming Lillian Raftzen again is harder than she anticipated and soon,
it seems running home is not enough to escape from her manipulative ex-agent,
who not only threatens to end her happiness, but her life.
When the girl of his dreams walks back into his life twelve
years later, Justin DeLuca realizes as much as he loves her, she is no longer
the girl he remembers. With everything they must overcome, can the two of them
make their dreams come true? Lily’s
dream to sing and Justin’s dream for a family are so very far from the same
path. But by veering off course they
find a new dream on a new path ending up right where it all began…..home.
This is a debut novel for author Rachel Smith, and I must say,
that it is a very good 1st attempt. She is definitely an author to watch for.
The characters were all fun and likeable. Well, except Colton, who is a grade A
jerk.
I'm a bit back and forth on the rating. I really enjoyed the story
line. The author kept the story going at a great pace. It was a quick, fun
read. Justin is a great character who delivers some swoon worthy moments, and
he is a yummy, country alpha male. I'm not quite sure on my feelings where Lil
is concerned. I mostly like her, but there are a few times when she just plain
got on my nerves. I wouldn't say she's a brat, but there are times where she is
just so freakin' stubborn or immature I wanted to scream. This only happened,
oh, maybe 3 or 4 times, so, not really that huge if a deal in the grand scheme
of things.
I think that anyone looking for a light, fun contemporary romance
will enjoy this story. It is definitely worth the read.
I heard the jingle of bells hitting a door and looked to my
left thinking it was Pops making his exit. Instead, a shadowy figure encased by
the sunlight behind him entered the bar.
My stomach dropped and I got that feeling. You know, the one where butterflies flap
around and get you all giddy until it bottoms out straight to your knees? Check!
This silhouette of a man was magnificent. Tall and built. He grabbed his hat off his head and ran his
palm through his thick, dark brown hair.
It was long enough that it curled at the nape of his neck and around his
ears. He came a few more steps into the
bar and……
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
I recognized him
instantly. Obviously he’d changed, but
he was still the boy I knew all those years ago. The one I had placed high on a pedestal and
made any other man I’d ever known seem not good enough.
He took a few steps further into the bar before he saw me
and stopped in his tracks. His light
green eyes were as round as saucers and the color drained from his face like he
had seen a ghost.
“Bright Eyes,” he
said as he exhaled.
“Yeah,” I managed to croak.
My mouth was dry and it was hard to spit out any other words. I couldn’t believe that after twelve years I
was seeing my best friend again. He
stood frozen, staring at me like he didn’t know what to do next. I saw, as he started to thaw, a slow smile
creep up on his lips as he glanced at my half empty beer glass.
“Drinking in the middle of the afternoon? I see you haven’t changed much. Did you at least pay for the beer this time?”
he asked with a smirk.
I jumped up off my barstool and ran to him.
“Hey, Justin,” I said softly in his ear as I threw my arms
around his neck. It was just like the
old days. He wrapped his arms around my
waist and squeezed. He quickly let me
go, but held me at arm’s length as he scanned my body. “And Pops paid for it, actually,” I finished.
“Oh, well that’s good to hear,” he said. “Though I figured with your celebrity status
you were probably used to getting shit handed to you for free.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled up at him. His eyes searched my face like he was looking
for something. I was uncomfortable
having him study me that close, so I pulled back and stood awkwardly to the
side. “Will you join me for one?” I
asked. Justin followed and sat on the
barstool next to mine. Once I got myself
situated, I took a moment to see all that he had become.
Time had been good to Justin DeLuca. His All American Boy features from high
school turned him into one hell of a good looking man. I looked him up and down, admiring his solid,
muscular body and his tanned skin. He
had to be just over six feet tall and his shoulders seemed twice as wide as I
remember. He was wearing a pair of worn
blue jeans, a gray t-shirt covered in dirt and sweat, and a pair of dark brown
work boots. I took a deep breath and
smelled him.
Holy Lord he smelled like a man. Not the type of man I was used to, with shiny
manicured fingernails and the stench of expensive cologne, but a man. He’d been working in the sun all day doing
manly things, I’m sure.
“What?” he asked as he grabbed the handle of his glass to
take a sip of his beer. He didn’t even
have to order, the bartender had his short draft ready before his butt even
made it to the seat.
“You’ve changed,” I blurted.
It came out more of an accusation than an observation.
“Well no fucking shit,” he said with a slight bite to his
tone. “You took off twelve years
ago. What the hell did you think was
going to happen?”
My head jerked back like I’d been smacked in the mouth. All of a sudden he went from smiles and hugs
to snapping at me like I’d committed a crime.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I didn’t mean…”
“I know,” he interrupted me.
“You just didn’t mean a lot of things, Lil.”
Well, damn. This was
not how I envisioned a reunion for the two of us. I didn’t know what to say, so I pretended to
be totally intrigued with the tab on my tomato juice can.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked up to see Justin looking directly at me. When my eyes met his, my heart fluttered
again and dropped down into my stomach.
What is happening to me? I thought to myself. Even though I’d had a crush on him growing
up, we always had a very platonic relationship.
And now, here I sat twelve years later like some teenage kid with a
super crush, feeling a pull from somewhere deep just because he looked into my
eyes.
I took a breath to
calm my nerves. “I…..I can’t do it
anymore,” I told him while shaking my head.
“I thought singing was my dream.
I mean, it WAS my dream once upon a time. But all the bullshit got in the way and it
stopped being fun.” I looked up to see
his expression had hardened.
“I’m done,” I shrugged.
“Just like that?” He
asked. “I can’t believe that you just
woke up one day and decided to throw it all away.”
“Well, it didn’t happen overnight,” I corrected him. “I put the wheels in motion with my lawyer
about six months ago. We’ve been quietly
working to get out of all my obligations and dissolve the staff on payroll.”
“So basically what you’re telling me is the last twelve
years of making records and going on tour was for nothing. Right?
You didn’t have to leave THE DAY of our high school graduation to go
chase your dream. A dream that, we come
to find out, was the wrong one?”
I felt my eyes get huge.
He was obviously mad that I had given up, but he just didn’t get
it. He would never understand, and there
was no way I’d ever tell him what really happened.
I wiped the sweat from my beer glass. “It just got too hard. I lost me.
I lost the Lil that put on fake shows in her bedroom at night singing
into a hairbrush to Reba McEntire tapes.” I drained the rest of my beer and set
down my glass. “I wanted to be a singer,
Justin, not a puppet so everyone else could get rich off of my hard work.”
He reached into his back pocket to grab his wallet. “I gotta go,” he said, throwing a few bills
onto the wooden bar.
I was so flustered I didn’t even know how to respond. Why was he upset with me? I had only been in town a whole forty-five
minutes!
“What is the matter with you?” I snipped.
Apparently that was not the correct question to ask at this
juncture. Eeck!
The stony glare
Justin turned on me was petrifying. “Are
you fucking shitting me?” he asked as he leaned his muscular arm against the
bar and brought his face terrifyingly close to mine.
“Um, no?” I said softly, but it came out more of a question.
“Damn it.” He spat at me.
“If you even have to ask me that after twelve goddamned years, Lil, then
we are not friends anymore. I can count
on my fingers – my FINGERS,” he roared, “the number of times I have spoken to
you since graduation day. I haven’t
seen you in person. Not once. And you change your mind one day and come
crawling back home with your tail between your legs? Well, don’t expect a fucking ticker tape
parade if maybe not everyone sees your homecoming as a good thing. You left town, Lil. You left ME.
And that’s not something I will ever forget.”
Rachel Smith was born and
raised in small-town Iowa. After
spending a few years in the “big city” she now lives with her husband and two
children in Clear Lake. She works part
time from home and spends the rest of her time exercising, reading and taking
care of her family. Having always had a
vivid imagination, Rachel decided to bring her characters to life in Home, her
debut novel.
