Hillbilly Rockstar Read Online Free PDF

"Payments did continue from your account up until a year ago. They were handled by Charlie Cahill of Cahill Management. Do you know him?" He looked expectantly at Trace.
    Trace slumped in the visitor's wing-back chair. "Charlie was my manager. He recently passed away. He started getting sick about a year ago, so he may have missed paying some bills. My management company handles most of my financial transactions."
    A cold, clammy sickness rose inside him. He recognized fear. He'd seen it before, felt it before. But this fear was different, stronger. He could not lose his grandparents' land. It meant so much to him to still have that property, to be able to visit it whenever he needed to feel closer to them, even though he couldn't bring himself to live there. Being there, without them, hurt too much.
    Trace felt as if a sword was hanging over his head, ready to steal everything he cared about out from under him. "I have the divorce papers at home. Trixie Harper took out this mortgage without my knowledge. I can't pay it back, but if you give me a chance, I will do whatever it takes. I can't lose my property."
    "Mr. Harper, it's too late. The past due payments and are over fifteen thousand dollars and the balance of the mortgage is over seventy thousand. The bank has to start foreclosure proceedings."
    The fear continued to churn inside his gut, crawl over the skin on his back and neck. He couldn't lose his grandparents' farm, the place he'd essentially grown up when he visited them each summer, leaving his single mother in Chicago so she could work with him out of her hair. It was the only place he'd ever felt welcomed, the only place he'd ever been loved. He'd fallen in love with the south, fallen in love with Nashville, fallen in love with the land where he'd learned how to ride, how to grow a garden, how to play the guitar. He thought of his grandfather, sitting with him on the wide front porch in the early evening, teaching him the chords, the finger movements. He still had that old acoustic, stuck in a closet in his apartment. Since his grandparents had passed away six years ago he hadn't been able to bring himself to play it. And now it was all going to be gone.
    No, that wasn't going to happen. Trixie wasn't getting away with this. I'm Trace Harper. I'm a Grammy-winning recording artist. Something can be done. A flash through his mind and he had it, right in front of him. Charlie's funeral Patrick had mentioned an offer he wanted to run by him while they were at Charlie's funeral, but Trace had blown him off, said he didn't want to hear anything. He needed to speak to Patrick and find out about this offer. It could be the way out.
    "I need to call my agent. Is there somewhere I can speak to him in private?" It took all Trace had to stay calm.
    "You're welcome to stay here, Mr. Harper. I need to head upstairs for a few moments anyway. I'll be back in about ten or fifteen minutes."
    "That should do. Thank you." Mike left the office, waddling in his ill-fitting suit. Trace took out his cell phone and called Patrick's direct line. His agent answered on the second ring.
    "Hey, Trace, what's going on?" Trace could hear Patrick's radio playing in the background and knew his friend wasn't in his office but in his car.
    "Patrick, can you meet with me today about that offer you mentioned a few weeks ago, the one you mentioned at Charlie's funeral?"
    "You said you didn't want to hear it."
    "You haven't contacted someone else, have you? I changed my mind. How much does it pay?"
    "Don't you even want to know what it is? You're not going to like it."
    "I don't care what it is, I'll take it. Can you meet me somewhere? I don't want to take a chance on losing your signal."
    "It pays a hundred grand and should last about ten weeks. It's for television."
    TV. Crap. Trace closed his eyes. Patrick was right, Trace was probably not going to like it. But a hundred grand was a hundred grand, even after Patrick's cut, and it could be enough to