ALMOST HOME
Page 1
ALMOST
HOME
♫~♫~♫
A ROCK AND ROLL FOREVER NOVEL
BOOK FOUR
~~~~
MARY J. WILLIAMS
© 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Mary J. Williams.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the Copyright owner and publisher of this book.
First E-book Printing, 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
~~~~
Writing isn’t easy. But I love every second. A blank screen isn’t the enemy. It is an opportunity to create new friends and take them on amazing adventures and life-changing journeys. I feel blessed to spend my days weaving tales that are unique—because I made them.
Billionaires. Songwriters. Artists. Actors. Directors. Stuntmen. Football players. They fill the pages and become dear friends I hope you will want to revisit again and again.
Thank you for jumping into my books and coming along for the journey.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
~~~~
Please visit me at these sites, sign up for my newsletter or leave a message.
Bookbub
Newsletter
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Goodreads
MORE BOOKS BY MARY J. WILLIAMS
~~~~
Harper Falls Series
If I Loved You
If Tomorrow Never Comes
If You Only Knew
If I Had You (Christmas in Harper Falls)
Hollywood Legends Series
Dreaming With a Broken Heart
Dreaming With My Eyes Wide Open
Dreaming of Your Love
Dreaming Again
Dreaming of a White Christmas
(Caleb and Callie’s story)
One Pass Away Series
After the Rain
After All These Years
After the Fire
Hart of Rock and Roll
Flowers on the Wall
Flowers and Cages
Flowers are Red
Flowers for Zoe
Flowers in Winter
WITH ONE MORE LOOK AT YOU
One Strike Away
For a Little While
For Another Day
For All We Know
For the First Time
The Sisters Quartet
One Way or Another
Two of a Kind
Three Wishes
Four Simple Words
Five More Minutes (The Sisters Quartet Christmas)
Six Days (The Sisters Quartet Wedding)
Rock & Roll Forever
Almost Paradise
Almost Blue
Almost Everything
Almost Home
Almost Like Being in Love (A Rock & Roll Forever Christmas)
Coming in 2020
One Pass Away—The Next Generation
Hurts So Good
Hurt Somebody
Hurt Me Now
Hurts Like Heaven
Box Sets
One Strike Away—The Complete Series
Hollywood Legends—The Complete Series
Hart of Rock and Roll—The Complete Series
The Harper Falls Series—Books 1 & 2
AUDIOBOOKS
After the Rain – click here
Dreaming with a Broken Heart – click here
If I Loved You – click here
If Tomorrow Never Comes – click here
If You Only Knew – click here
If I Had You – click here
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
MORE BOOKS BY MARY J. WILLIAMS
AUDIOBOOKS
PROLOGUE
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
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
♫~♫~♫
“I’M DYING. MALIGNANT brain tumor, so my doctor tells me,” Danny Graham said with a shrug.
Joplin Ashford waited for the punchline. Her uncle was famous for throwing out comments—the more outrageous the better—designed to get an emotional response. Laughter, tears, anger. Didn’t matter. Though he was a sophisticated man in many ways, his sense of humor never matured beyond that of a thirteen-year-old boy.
“I’m serious, my dear. Deadly.” Danny snorted. “Sorry. Turns out when your prognosis is hopeless, the jokes start writing themselves.”
Knees suddenly like jelly, Joplin sank onto the chair opposite Danny’s desk. She swallowed, trying without success to find a bit of moisture in her suddenly dry as the desert mouth.
“You’re dying?”
Danny nodded.
“You’re dying,” Joplin whispered. “Impossible. You’re a rock. Invincible. Legends don’t die, they—”
Except legends did die; all the time. Seemed lately, the mortality rate had reached an all-time high. Off the top of her head, Joplin could name a half-dozen music industry icons who were no longer among the living. Singers, writers, producers. No one was immune.
Yet, she’d never thought of Danny as vulnerable to the ravages of time or disease. He practically raised her, taking charge when her parents had lost interest in their baby experiment. She was conceived in a doomed attempt to save a marriage.
Hardly shocking when, six months after Joplin’s birth, Kris and Fred Ashford went their separate ways. As a baby, toddler, and preschooler, she was left in the care of a succession of nannies. The day she started the first grade, Kris decided out of the blue to become a devoted mother.
To her credit, the impulse lasted longer than anyone expected. Six whole months until something new and shiny caught her eye—an Italian in a silver Lamborghini. The impulse took her life when the car crashed on a rain-slicked road outside of Paris.
In a twist of irony and fate, Fred Ashford died a week later of a massive heart attack. Too young, but he lived a fast life filled with excess and self-indulgence. The rich food and lack of exercise simply caught up with him sooner than most.
Enter Danny Graham. A bachelor, he could have passed his sister’s child off to another relative. Or, tucked her away in a fancy boarding school. Instead—for reasons he never explained—he decided to take Joplin in to live with him.
Too young to understand the loss of parents she barely knew, Joplin’s life didn’t change a great deal when she was shuttled from one mansion in Beverly Hills to another. Again, her primary care was turned over to strangers.
Danny, busy running a music empire, didn’t suddenly feel the urge to be a father figure. Manager to some of the top names in the industry, he was chin-deep in lucrative ventures all over the world.
However, when Danny was home, he always carved out a little time for Joplin. Odd to some, but the only normal she knew, she would sit in his office—much as
she did today—and discuss the world he inhabited. Heavy subject matter for a child under ten. However, even when she didn’t understand the meaning, she absorbed every word like a sponge.
Before Joplin reached the sixth grade, she knew, like her uncle, the business end of the music world was her calling. As she rubbed elbows with entertainment royalty, she watched, listened, learned. Better than any university, her life was a masterclass.
Never one to believe in rose-colored glasses, Danny made certain Joplin saw all sides of the industry she adored. The ups and downs, ins and outs, and the pitfalls.
If Danny’s purpose had been to discourage her, he failed—miserably. Joplin wasn’t like her parents. She wasn’t afraid of hard work. When life became a little sticky, she didn’t walk away. She used her brain to find a smoother path. If necessary, she forged a new one altogether.
At eighteen, Joplin’s official title was assistant to her uncle’s assistant. Little more than a gopher, she continued to learn and bide her time. In less than a year, she became Danny’s right-hand woman. At the ripe old age of twenty, she took to the road scouting talent.
Hard work and long hours, Joplin lived out of a suitcase. Fine with her. She discovered she had a knack for knowing which acts would click and which didn’t have that certain something to be a star.
Joplin hit a bump or two along the way—and one massive raven—but she earned her stripes. Today, she was head of her own management agency. Thirty-two acts, twelve number-one singles, ten gold albums, eight platinum.
The sky wasn’t her limit. When Joplin was finished, she planned to conquer the universe and beyond.
Right now, she wasn’t worried about concert dates or record sales. Danny, her mentor, teacher, and even when they were at odds over one thing or another, her friend, claimed he was dying.
Joplin couldn’t wrap her head around the idea. Yes, he looked thinner than usual, a bit pale. But sick? A terminal brain tumor? No! Impossible.
“What exactly did your doctor say?”
“Kid, you want technical, you’re talking to the wrong man. Be happy to give you some phone numbers. They’ll talk your ear off. Nothing an arrogant know-it-all likes more than to pontificate. I should know.” Danny rubbed a hand over his balding head and chuckled. “Only words I needed were inoperable and terminal. Everything else seemed superfluous.”
Danny might be willing to take one person’s word about his future, Joplin wasn’t.
“We’ll get a second opinion.”
“Been to four. The best money can buy. Should have stopped at three.” Danny snorted. “Last one chopped a good six months off my sell-by date.”
Making a joke was so like Danny. He believed humor was the best way to combat most situations. Many a temperamental artist entered his office angry over one imagined slight or another. The meeting often ended in laughter, tears, and hugs all around—another lesson Joplin learned by watching every move her uncle made.
Not that Danny didn’t have a temper. Slow to ignite, when pushed too far, he could blow with the force of Mount St. Helens and Vesuvius combined. He could be vain, egotistical, petty, and knew how to hold onto a grudge like no one Joplin had ever met.
In other words, Danny Graham was human. He was also the person who believed in Joplin enough to put her into a position of responsibility that she would have spent years striving toward if anyone else were her boss.
Joplin heard the whispers of nepotism. She couldn’t argue. However, what her detractors didn’t know or refused to acknowledge was that no amount of shared DNA would cajole Danny into putting his business at risk. She earned every inch of her success through hard work and unflinching resolve.
Though she knew when to throw in the towel, she never gave in without a fight. Now wasn’t the time to start.
“Death is inevitable for all of us,” she said, her spine stiffening with resolve. “Doesn’t mean you should give in without a fight.”
“Joplin—”
“What does your doctor recommend? Chemotherapy? Radiation?” Joplin took out her phone and googled brain tumor cures. “Says here a man sought out an experimental treatment in South America. Five years later, he’s alive and kicking. In fact, he just ran the Boston Marathon.”
“You wouldn’t catch me dead running a marathon,” Danny cackled. “I need to write these bon mots down for posterity. When I’m gone, you can publish a book. 101 Jokes for a Dead Man Walking.”
“Not funny.”
“The title isn’t written in stone,” Danny said with a shrug. “When the time comes, I trust you to find something worthy of my brilliance.”
Joplin opened her mouth to argue, rail, scream. But one look into Danny’s eyes, and the air left her sails.
“You’re giving up,” she accused.
“Wrong, kid. I gave up.” Danny held up a hand before Joplin could build another head of steam. “I was diagnosed over a year ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Joplin was so far beyond shocked she couldn’t find the right word. “Why?”
Suddenly, Danny looked tired, every one of his sixty-three years etched into his face.
“My odds were never good. Saw no reason to lay my sob story on you until I knew the final score.” Danny let out a heartfelt sigh. “Bottom of the ninth, Joplin. The score’s twenty to nothing. Two outs, nobody on, two strikes against me, and Mario Rivera is on the mound—in his prime.”
“Even Rivera gave up a home run now and then,” Joplin said, her eyes burning with the need to cry.
“Even if I hit one from the Bronx to Baton Rouge, it wouldn’t be enough.” Smiling, Danny shook his head. “Enough baseball metaphors.”
“Or, we could start over with a more palatable team. You know how I feel about the Yankees.”
When Joplin shifted to teasing mode—however reluctantly—Danny smiled. He knew he’d won.
“I’m not afraid to die. Been a good life.” His gaze grew hazy as though sifting through the memories. “Regrets, I’ve had a few.”
“You and Frank Sinatra,” Joplin said. “Do us both a favor and don’t break into a chorus of, My Way.”
“Can’t compete with old Blue Eyes.” Danny turned thoughtful. “My Way. Need to add the song to the playlist for my wake.”
Unable to hear another word about the end, Joplin latched onto something she could deal with.
“What regrets?” she asked.
“More than I care to remember.”
Danny moved to the sideboard in his office which served as home for a varied and pricey collection of alcohol. Into a pair of antique crystal snifters, he poured a liberal portion of perfectly aged brandy.
“Thank you,” Joplin said as he handed her a glass.
Danny swirled the dark liquid around the snifter, breathed in the scent then took a carefully calibrated sip which he allowed to rest on his tongue, appreciating the nuanced flavor on his taste buds.
Without thinking, Joplin copied the ritual exactly as she was taught. She rarely drank. A glass of wine at dinner when in the mood. A beer at the ballpark to wash down a hot dog. However, when Danny poured a glass of his finest brandy, you didn’t argue. Instead, she held the snifter, enjoyed the aroma, and because she knew he wouldn’t notice, abstained.
Rather than return to his desk, Danny moved to a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows which looked out on a vast expanse of green lawn. The Beverly Hills house, built in the nineteen-thirties, was an art deco showpiece. His home and sanctuary, he loved every inch.
“Ninety-nine percent of my personal missteps and blunders are impossible to fix. Burned bridges, dead rivals, and so on.” Danny took another sip of brandy. “One percent isn’t a lot. However, I’ll take what I can get. Would be nice for one of my more glaring mistakes to be off my books the day I meet my maker.”
“Whatever helps,” Joplin said.
“You can help.”
“Of course. Anything.”
Turni
ng, Danny met her gaze, one eyebrow raised.
“Anything? I’ll hold you to that even when you balk at my request.”
Frowning, Joplin crossed her legs and shrugged.
“Short of murder, I’m onboard.”
Danny snickered, a bit of the devil sneaking through.
Briefly, every muscle in Joplin’s body tensed. Just as quickly, she relaxed. Danny Graham was rumored to have killed a few careers—a fact he neither confirmed nor denied. The act of murder, taking another person’s life, wasn’t his style. Even if he would allow himself to travel down such a dark and ominous path, he would never ask such a thing of her.
“Enough joking around, Danny.”
“One last request. Something only you can bring to fruition.”
“I’m listening,” Joplin said. “What do you want?”
“Guess.” Danny raised an eyebrow. “My biggest failure. You were there.”
Shaking her head, Joplin’s pulse raced as her skin turned cold.
“No,” she said, hoping she was wrong.
“One night.” He shrugged. “Who can say no to a dying man?”
“They can,” Joplin assured him.
“But not you.”
No. Not her. Taking a deep breath, Joplin reminded herself where she was, what she’d made of herself. She wasn’t a foolish young woman of twenty-one who forgot the cardinal rule of management—don’t become emotionally involved with the client. And whatever you do, do not fall in love.
The mistake cost her dearly. However, she survived, hardened her heart, and moved on. Stronger, tougher, she could handle anything. Even a long, difficult walk down memory lane.
“Fine,” Joplin said. “I’ll try.”
“Can’t be done over the phone,” Danny said. “More difficult to say no face to face.”
Joplin thought of the five people Danny wanted her to track down. Once her friends, now strangers. Something told her, in this case, Danny was wrong. A no to her request, she could handle. The anger and bitterness—the heartache—wouldn’t be as easy to stomach.