Sweet Harmonies

by Melanie Shawn

  Sweet

  Harmonies

  By

  Melanie Shawn

  Cover Design by Hot Damn Designs

  Published by Red Hot Reads Publishing at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 Melanie Shawn

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Melanie Shawn. Exceptions are limited to reviewers who may use brief quotations in connection with reviews. No part of this book can be transmitted, scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any written or electronic form without written permission from Melanie Shawn.

  This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  First Chapter of Sweet Victories

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Karina Blackstone freed her long dark hair from where it had been trapped in a ponytail atop her head and ran her hands through it in frustration. It cascaded down over her olive-skinned shoulders in glossy black waves, and brought out the drama in her deep onyx-colored eyes.

  She turned to gaze out the large picture window of Sue Ann's Cafe in her small hometown of Hope Falls, and took a deep breath. She tried to let the lovely scene she witnessed on the other side of the glass in the small storefront cafe calm her nerves.

  Directly outside the window was Downtown Main Street, a quaint section of town characterized by a wooden sidewalk and small, family run shops and restaurants. Beyond that immediate view rose the mountains surrounding Hope Falls, a small town located about 30 miles away from Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Pine trees of deep forest green filled Karina's vision, dotted with fiery yellow and red aspens, adding spice to the woodsy landscape.

  It was Karina's favorite view in the entire world, and she ought to know – she had traveled through most spots on the globe. Her career as a highly successful pop star had taken her to every corner of the earth, and given her the means to make any one of them her home. However, when it came down to it, she had realized that this humble spot, this small burg of only 5,000 souls, was the place that had nurtured her as a growing child, and was the place that nurtured her soul still.

  So Karina Blackstone was moving home.

  This seemed like a fairly straightforward proposition to her. She wanted to return to the roots of who she was as an artist, dig down deep and bring forth music that truly expressed her soul.

  To do that, she needed to return to the place where she could get in touch with herself, with the person she had been before all the madness of fame had started. She needed to come back to the Sierra Nevadas and reconnect with the simple life that inspired her, to clear away all the bright lights of the city and revel in the soft glow of the stars in the mountains. She needed to spend time with people who knew her as Karina Blackstone, her rightful name, not Karina Black, the milquetoast whitewashed stage name she had been assigned for her career as a radio-friendly pop princess, conveniently airbrushing out her identity as a Native American. She needed to be with people that knew and loved her as their smart-ass and ultra-loyal friend, not worshiped her from afar as a superstar without actually knowing her. She needed to come home to Hope Falls.

  Simple enough to understand, she thought.

  The person who absolutely, unequivocally didn't understand, however? That was her manager, Bernie Kaplan, who was sitting across from her at the table in Sue Ann's. The 70-year-old Bernie was short and excruciatingly thin, with tufts of white hair sprouting wildly in a ring around his bald crown. His round and buggy eyes were magnified behind the oversize lenses of his thick-framed glasses, and he had the odd affectation of having a cigar forever in his mouth, albeit unlit. Bernie had been her manager for 8 years, and she didn't think she'd ever seen him smoke the damn thing.

  Bernie, for all his harmless quirkiness, was the cause of her current frustration, which was rapidly devolving into despair. She seemed to be getting nowhere in her conversation with him, and it was beginning to tie her shoulders and stomach up in knots.

  “I don't know what to tell you, Bernie, I think I've expressed this as many ways as I know how. I just feel like I need to do this in order to return to the kind of music that's me. Something more stripped down. Just instruments and my voice, and songs that I write...”

  “You write your songs!” Bernie protested, interrupting her.

  “Bernie!” she let out a frustrated laugh, “I don't know whether to take issue with the accuracy of the word 'write' or 'songs' in that sentence! I mean, I make up cutesy little rhyming phrases and set them to catchy, hooky melodies, but it's not what I would consider actual songwriting!”

  Her face took on a sarcastically cheerful expression as she snapped her fingers and bopped her head, singing,

  “I was thinking maybe

  You'd be my baby

  Feeling's right

  Come out tonight

  With a kiss, you could save me...”

  Bernie looked confused, “I don't recognize that one, is that one of yours?”

  Karina cried, exasperated, “Bernie! I just made up that nonsense off the top of my head, are you kidding me?”

  Bernie smiled widely and spread his hands in front of him, palms up, “What did I tell you, sweetheart? You have a gift! You should jot that one down, I smell top ten single...”

  “The fact that you couldn't tell the difference between that off-the-cuff idiocy and one of my actual 'songs' actually explains my predicament better than I can.” Karina shot back.

  Bernie sighed and looked out the window himself. Karina could tell he was getting exasperated. He had always made a point, when dealing with Karina, of cajoling her into doing things she didn't want to do in a cheerful and non-confrontational manner. Karina had, by and large, been compliant – often she would protest initially, but ultimately give in to what Bernie thought was best. After all, he was an extremely savvy manager. He had taken her from being a virtual unknown to being a mega superstar in the course of only one year, the first year after he had taken her on as a client. And, in a feat that was actually much more impressive in the fickle world of pop music, he had kept her on top – throughout all the changing trends of not only the music scene but the music industry, when many artists were crash landing or throwing in the towel, Bernie had kept Karina's career consistently growing and thriving. And she was grateful – good God, was she grateful – but she had to be true to herself now.

  Bernie sighed deeply and shifted his gaze to the table top, “What you are talking about is the complete destruction of the brand that we've spent years building, polishing, perfecting, protecting...after all we've been through...”

  Karina put her hand on top of his. With tears in her eyes, she said, “Bernie, look. This isn't personal. It was your acumen that got me t
o where I am today. Both your intellect and your instincts are brilliant, almost frighteningly so. This is not about me not trusting you. This is about me reaching a point where I have no choice but to follow my heart. The persona you built for me, it's not bad. It would fit a lot of people. But it's so far from who I actually am.

  “I feel like that old Ben Folds line, 'I juggle one-handed, do some magic tricks, and the best imitation of myself.' That's what my life has been distilled to. If I'm with another person, any other person, I'm performing. I am constantly 'in character' as Karina Black.

  “If I continue down this road of pretending, of being fake literally ALL of the time – I feel in danger of losing who I actually am, and I am so scared I would never be able to get it back, not fully. Can you understand that?”

  Bernie shook his head. “Not really, to be honest. My game is business. My tools are numbers. I'm not about the emotions of a thing. But I respect you, sweetheart, and I respect your decision.”

  Karina sighed a little in relief, “Thanks, Bernie. I just really need to be here right now. I need to be with my grandmother, I need to be with the tribe, I need to be with my friends. I need to find me again. The real me.”

  Bernie shook his head, “If that's what you need to do, that's what you need to do. But don't make the mistake of thinking that the label is going to take so kindly to your transformation. You're talking about a complete, total, top-down rebranding effort...”

  Karina interrupted, with what she hoped was a charmingly bright smile, “See? You say REbranding, but I like to think of it as UNbranding...just stripping away all the adornments, and what you're left with is me...”

  Bernie barked out a cynical laugh, “You call it what you want, sweetheart. But the label has put millions of marketing dollars into creating and maintaining the Karina Black brand, and they're not going to take so kindly to you wanting to just toss it out like yesterday's garbage.”

  Karina's lips set in a grim line, “Bottom line it for me, Bernie. What are we looking at? They won't support the albums?”

  Bernie shrugged, “You'll be lucky if they don't sue you.”

  Karina's jaw dropped, and she sat back against her chair, “Is that a serious possibility?”

  Bernie chewed worriedly on the end of his unlit cigar, “Nah. I don't think it is. It would frame them as the big evil enemy in the minds of your fans, which would hurt sales of your back catalog.”

  Karina sighed, “OK, good...”

  Bernie stopped her, “Not so fast, buttercup. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they're going to make it easy for you, either.”

  “So, you think they'll stop supporting my albums? No more tours, no more press?”

  “I think they'll shelve your albums and refuse to release them until you give them something they like. I think that when the production costs aren't recouped by the album sales, because they never put the record out, they'll bill you, which they are within their rights to do.”

  “They wouldn't!” Karina protested disbelievingly.

  “Heh. If you piss them off enough, they will. And I think that if you go ahead and pursue that course of action for the next 5 CDs you're under contract to them for, that it's a real good way to burn through your fortune. That's what I think.”

  Karina slumped in her chair, defeated.

  Bernie continued delicately, “I also think that if you aren't getting paid, then I'm not getting paid. And what's the point of that? If I wanted to spend all my time with someone who won't listen to my advice and is costing me money, I'd retire and move back in with my wife.”

  Karina looked up, tears of regret stinging her eyes again, “You gonna leave me, Bernie? The first time in eight years I stand up for myself, and you're gonna leave me over it?”

  Bernie twisted his unlit cigar around in his mouth and stood, gathering his papers into his old, battered, leather briefcase. “Yeah, yeah, don't get your panties in a bunch,” he said gruffly, “Let me talk to the label and get their take. Who knows? Maybe they've just been waiting with bated breath for the next Joni Mitchell to waltz through their doors, and you're the answer to their prayers. I'll call you next week.”

  Karina smiled and stood up, hugging Bernie hard, “You're the best, you know that, Bernie?” she said affectionately.

  “Ha! If I was the best, I would have been able to talk you out of career suicide, I guess I'm not the best. But I'll try.”

  As Bernie shuffled out of Sue Ann's, Karina called to him cheerfully, “Bye, Bernie! Talk to you soon!” but his only response was a backhanded wave, for which he didn't even turn his head to look at her.

  “He loves me. I'm his favorite client,” Karina snarked in a mock cheerful tone to her grandmother Renata and her good friend Amanda as they settled into the seats across the table from her, occupying the space that Bernie had just vacated. Karina looked across the table at her loved ones – Amanda, her long-time friend, with her unruly blonde curls and wide, innocent blue eyes, accompanied by Karina's Grandmother, with her long salt-and pepper braid and ramrod straight bearing. Merely the sight of them made her feel more centered and secure.

  “That didn't sound like it went very well,” Amanda said sympathetically. Karina had enlisted both Amanda and her grandmother to sit at an adjacent table and eavesdrop on the conversation so that she could get their take on it.

  Karina shrugged, “Not ideal, but much better than how it could have gone. It could have been a bloodbath.”

  Renata nodded solemnly, “I particularly liked the part where you assured him that you want to spend more time at home with me, and settle down with a good boy from the tribe. He needs to know how important your community is to you.”

  “Rewind,” Karina said, spinning her fingers back toward herself quickly to illustrate the concept, “I said I wanted to hang out and spend more time with you and the tribe. I think the 'nice boy' bit was creative editing on your part.”

  “We'll see,” replied Renata, unfazed.

  “I just need to focus on my music right now, Grandmother,” Karina said pragmatically, “I don't have room in my heart, or in my schedule, for any kind of romantic entanglements.”

  In an attempt to get the conversation back on track before this oft-discussed topic between Renata and Karina could veer into, what Amanda knew from experience was a well-worn and lengthy argument, she interjected, “I just think it's good that he ended it on a positive note!”

  Karina nodded quickly, “I did too. At least he's going to try and pitch the label. How successful he'll be is anyone's guess. But, as Bernie so correctly pointed out, he doesn't make money unless I make money. So I do know he'll try.”

  Just then Sue Ann Perkins, the owner and proprietress of Sue Ann's Cafe, bustled up to their table with a carafe of coffee, refilling their mugs.

  “Hot pot, coming through!” Sue Ann called cheerfully.

  The three women greeted her warmly. Sue Ann was a longtime fixture in Hope Falls, someone that Karina and Amanda had known since they were born. She was a cheerful woman with springy grey hair and delicate-looking glasses that she wore on a chain around her neck. She always dressed in some variation of a floral skirt/button-down shirt/matching cardigan ensemble. Best of all, she always greeted the patrons of her shop like they were long lost friends, even if they had just been in earlier in the day. She was one of the many, many things that made Karina feel like Hope Falls wasn't just her hometown, it was her HOME.

  Renata said, “Did your grandson ever come for a visit, to help you here? I don't like the idea of you being all alone here, doing all the work.”

  Sue Ann said, “Oh, my, yes! He's been here for a week already! Let me get him, I'd love to introduce you!”

  She walked back toward the kitchen, calling, “Ryan, honey, come out and meet some people!”

  Karina smiled, “That's sweet that her grandson came out to help her. I wonder if his parents let him fly alone?”

  Just then, a gorgeous specimen of a man walked out of the
kitchen's swinging double doors, causing Karina to catch her breath. He was tall and suntanned, with golden blonde hair and soft, deep brown eyes. His shoulders were broad and his arms well-muscled, and the fit of his jeans told her that his arms weren't the only things about him that were well-proportioned and perfectly shaped. This man looked like a Greek god in cowboy boots!

  Amanda leaned over to Karina, “Gee, Kar, I don't think his parents need to accompany him for much of anything anymore! And, by the way, you may want to pick your jaw up off the floor before he gets over here.”

  This snapped Karina out of her trance somewhat, and she shook her shoulders a bit to bring herself the rest of the way back to reality. To her surprise, it only partially worked. She still felt as if the room around her were actually a dream state, as if she were suddenly in the middle of a world that wasn't real.

  This doesn't happen to you, she told herself furiously, snap out of it! Sure, you see a hot guy and get the hormone-fueled rush of attraction, but that is limited to the heat of the I-Wanna-Bone-You variety. You do NOT, under any circumstance, get twitterpated! EVER! So knock it off!

  Karina's stern lecture to herself had very little effect – if anything, she was even more dumbstruck when Sue Ann and her grandson arrived at their table.

  Sue Ann, with obvious familial pride, said, “I'd like to introduce you to Ryan Perkins, my grandson. He'll be around for a while. He's come out here from Montana to help me run the place, and I just couldn't be more tickled about it!”

  Ryan laughed, obviously embarrassed, “Thanks, Granny. It's really no big deal.”

  Karina felt another wave of lightheadedness hit her when he laughed, and the most adorable dimple appeared in his right cheek. She actually had to consciously stop her arm from raising up of its own accord so that she could brush her fingers over it.

  Sue Ann laughed proudly, “Oh, you stop! It's a big deal! Ryan, this is Mrs. Blackstone and her granddaughter Karina, and this is Amanda Jacobs.”

  Each of the women in turn shook Ryan's hand. As Karina's turn approached, and she anticipated the feel of Ryan's hand in hers, her heart began to beat faster in anticipation, and her cheeks began to flush. When she put her hand out to shake Ryan's, she saw that it was trembling slightly.