Page 4 of Sweet Music (Sugarville Grove #7)

CASH

C ash sat on the plane, squeezing his phone in his hands and trying to get his head together.

He had been watching the video feverishly since last night, without sleeping. He watched it again and again, through waves of denial, numbness, and even anger.

The only other thing he had used his phone for was to make Aimee book him on this red-eye flight to Vermont. He’d given up his own jet years ago, and honestly preferred the tour bus, but now he felt like he was crawling out of his own skin with the slowness of it all.

He looked around the cabin, almost hoping for an annoying distraction, but found none. There was nothing to do but watch the video again.

His headphones had run out of juice twenty minutes ago, and he’d been watching it at low volume since then.

The guy in the first-class seat next to his had given him an initial look of annoyance over the top of the paperback he was reading.

Then he’d done an actual double take, and buried his face back in his book.

No one was going to complain to the flight attendants about Cash Law listening to some music. Fame did have its benefits.

Besides, it was a good song. Simple, but well-executed. And if you believed the hashtags, the kid had written it himself.

The song finished once more, and the boy leaned forward to turn off the recording, allowing Cash a half-second closeup of his face. His hand practically trembling, Cash tapped the screen to pause, as he had so many times before, and searched the boy’s eyes.

Could it be true?

The idea that it was possible, and even probable, hit him again, right in the chest. But the feeling was different now.

With each loop of the video, the numbness and the anger had faded until his heart began to surge like an ocean and he felt the warmth of the sun rushing back into him.

He could be mine.

My boy…

The idea was still every bit as scary as before, but now there was something else there too, the pull of a longing buried so deep within him that he had never even known it was there.

It felt like falling in love.

Cash didn’t know if it was fear or hope that had him tapping the screen again, eyes glued to the boy as the video looped back to the beginning again.

My boy?

It wasn’t just his own instinct, that suggestion was all over the comments.

The video had gone viral almost instantly after it got shared by a few of the bigger music influencers.

The comment section was growing by the minute, and just about everyone seemed to have something to say that related back to Cash.

He scrolled down to look at some of the latest entries.

@headtwangersball like father like son #cashlaw

@jennifer_burns1999 amazing song for such a young kid, seems plausible that he’s @cashlawofficial’s son

@13strings_08 the kid’s from vermont, his profile says sugarville grove, and the timing is right for the burlington breakout show #whosyourdaddy #cashlaw

@guitarhero_99 good point about that show @13strings_08 wow

@ 1cashfan_OG i was at that show, thats my boy lol ;)

@ angeleyesoncash to @1cashfan_OG i was there 2 cash was so hotttt the first three rows probly got pregnant just from listening #hotrocker

Cash closed the comments again, shaking his head.

Normally, rumors and fan theories didn’t bother him. The trouble this time was that he had spent the night with a girl after that show. And the memory of it still made him feel like a heartbroken nineteen-year-old every time the memory surfaced.

Don’t think about it.

But there wasn’t much else to do besides think about it. So, he watched the video again, his eyes on the boy’s hands. Were those quick, long fingers as familiar as they seemed? Did the boy have Cash’s sharp jawline, or was it just the lighting?

But it wasn’t the physical resemblance that convinced him the most. It was the way the kid was playing.

His hands moved effortlessly, but the look in his eyes told a different story.

He had the same light touch and inner intensity that Cash remembered having himself once upon a time, back when he wrote a song practically every night, and his life was a whole lot simpler.

He found himself fantasizing that it was true, that he had a child—a son to take care of and share his life with.

A son I haven’t been there for or supported financially. A son who doesn’t know me…

But that wasn’t entirely true. Cash didn’t know anything about this kid, but it seemed like the boy did know something about him. Unless the love of toe-tapping rockabilly music was genetic.

What if I could get him to forgive me for not being there?

What if this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life?

Cash was probably going to miss tonight’s performance, something he had never done throughout his entire career.

It was a known fact that Cash Law had played through bronchitis and the flu.

When he had a broken arm, he brought in a guest guitarist and got onstage anyway to sing for his fans.

He had been playing a show the night his grandfather died, while the rest of the family gathered in the hospital back in Vermont.

Cash Law did not disappoint his fans. Not ever.

But he’d raced out of that hotel last night without a second thought.

And now, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe this was his destiny, maybe this was why he’d never felt fully satisfied with his life, even as his music dreams came true.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re approaching Burlington International Airport now,” the captain’s voice said over the speaker. “It’s twenty-nine degrees and clear.”

Cash tuned the rest out, his eyes fixed on the small screen again as he watched the boy with the too-long dark hair play his sweet song one more time.

“That’s your kid?” the guy in the seat next to him asked quietly, nodding his head up and down as if in answer to his own question.

“I’m going to see him,” Cash said automatically.

Luckily, it seemed like an answer within a non-answer, and he hoped it would be enough to keep the guy quiet.

“That’s nice,” the other man said approvingly before turning back to his Gillian Flynn.

Was that how people reacted to you when you had a kid? Like you were in some secret club? It was kind of nice to get warmth from a middle-aged guy on a plane instead of the usual sucking up or eye rolling.

As soon as the seatbelt light blinked off, Cash was moving off the plane in a rush, ignoring the handful of people who asked for an autograph or a selfie.

“It’s not him, Mom,” a young girl insisted. “Cash always takes pictures with his fans.”

His pang of guilt was short-lived. He was in too much of a hurry to get home to let it bother him for long.

The moment he stepped out of the airport, he was met with that familiar, sweet, frigid air of a Vermont morning.

It was about five-thirty and the sun wasn’t even up yet, but he knew that just about everyone on the farm would be awake.

No one was expecting him, and he hadn’t dared to call after midnight when he’d headed out.

His phone still had enough juice to call now, but at this point he figured he was close enough to home that he’d just surprise them.

A cab pulled up right away, and he hopped into the warm interior. The smell of coffee mingled with the scent of the pine tree air freshener dangling from the mirror. The worn upholstery and polaroid of the driver’s family stuck to the dashboard made Cash feel right at home.

No stretch limos in my hometown .

“Where to, young fella?” the driver asked brightly, as if Cash was just another fare.

“Sugarville Grove, if it’s not too far,” Cash told him.

“Not at all,” the driver said. “Do you have an address for me?”

Cash shared it, and a moment later they were on their way to Lawrence Farm.

“That’s not the maple sugar place is it?” the driver asked. “I took my grandkids out there a few years back.”

“Nope,” Cash said. “That’s the Hayes Farm nearby. They’re good people. My family runs a dairy farm.”

“Oh, now that’s a good business, dairy,” the driver mused. “My sister kept goats back in the day.”

“Around here?” Cash asked. “What’s her name?”

And just like that, they fell into a normal conversation. Cash highly doubted the man recognized him, and if he did, he didn’t say a word about it.

People in Vermont were like that. It wasn’t just because Cash was from here, plenty of celebrities and billionaires holed up in their mansions near the ski places and still wandered out to farmers markets and festivals in sweats and flip-flops, and the natives wouldn’t fuss over them for anything.

There was real respect for privacy here, but also a conviction that people were people, and everyone should be treated the same.

By the time the little cab carefully clattered over the covered bridge and the sign for Lawrence Dairy Farm came into sight at last, Cash knew everything there was to know about the driver, his wife, his kids, and even his grandkids.

“Well, I hope you have a very nice visit, young man,” the older man said as Cash hopped out.

“Take care, Lonny,” Cash told him, giving a friendly wave before he headed up the driveway toward the house.

He had traveled light, with nothing but Grandpa’s guitar, so it felt almost like he’d just been dropped off after a gig back in high school.

The house and fields were still mostly shaded by the mountains, though the sun winked just over the crest. There was nothing like the morning stillness of the farm in the winter.

He looked out over the snowy fields of his childhood, and suddenly there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to be in his mother’s arms.

“Charles Cash Lawrence,” a voice sang out across the field, as if in answer to his prayer.

He turned to see his mom trooping up from the old barn, a smile on her face so big he could see it from where he stood.