Chance of a Lifetime by Jodi Thomas Read Free Book Online

about the cold.
    When Border yelled good night, Beau wasn’t in the mood to crawl under his blanket on the couch. He decided to walk. Maybe Ronny Logan was right, maybe tonight was a good night for a walk.
    He liked Harmony best when the town was asleep. He loved to go down to the old town square. There, time seemed to have stood still. It could just as easily have been 1950 as 2012. Nothing much had changed. In the sounds of the night he could hear music. A melody that only belonged to Harmony. Beau hadn’t traveled much, but he had a feeling every place had its own beat, only this was his home. This beat kept time with his heart.
    He slowed when he saw the sheriff’s car pulling alongside him.
    “You all right, Beau?” Sheriff Alexandra Matheson asked.
    “I’m fine. Just listening to the night.” If he’d been anywhere but here, the law officer might have thought him crazy.
    “You want a ride home?” she asked.
    “No. I’m home.” He smiled, proud of himself for not stuttering.
    “All right.” She understood and pulled slowly away.
    Before he made it back to the duplex, another song was already dancing in his mind, but he didn’t pick up his guitar when he slipped back into the apartment. He was too busy thinking about how he should change his life andlearn to do some hard living like country songs always talked about.
    Funny thing, he thought, how he had nothing much. He could pack all he owned in the trunk of a car and he couldn’t even afford an apartment, but tonight, with the music in his head, he felt rich.

Chapter 6

ON WEEKENDS R ICK M ATHESON USUALLY WORKED LATE at his office across the street from the courthouse. Or at least he tried to work. He’d been a lawyer for over a year and so far he’d yet to defend anyone he believed to be innocent.
    Pacing the small office above a used bookstore, he stopped long enough to watch Beau Yates walk the deserted streets below. The kid had more talent than anyone Rick had ever known, but he wasn’t sure if it was a gift or a curse. He’d heard once that the German word for “poison” is
gift.
Maybe the gifted in the world aren’t all that lucky.
    There was a sadness that shadowed Beau Yates like a broken aura, yet when he played, people felt his music all the way to their souls. The whole town was rooting for him to make it big. Well, everyone except his old man, who preached against Beau to anyone who would listen. Brother Yates was a fire-and-brimstone preacher, taking out what he saw as his son’s failure on the whole town. If his congregation got any smaller, they could meet at a picnic table in the park.
    Rick had to give the kid credit. “Beau Yates has something he believes in,” he whispered to himself, “which is more than I have right now.”
    When he’d first decided to go into law, he’d thought he’d be fighting for the wrongly accused. He’d fight for rights. He’d fight for truth. But, as it turned out, the ones who needed all that couldn’t seem to find his door. His cousin Liz Matheson had married Gabe Leary, a graphic artist hermit, and pretty much left Rick her small office. Now she worked mostly from home. Most weeks Rick felt he could scratch one of the Matheson names off the sign outside. He was alone, not sure of what he was doing, and broke.
    Rick found plenty of crooks caught red-handed who wanted to plead innocent. People who wanted to sue anyone they could find as their get-rich-quick scheme and couples who insisted on beating each other to death in court over scraps from a broken marriage.
    Forcing himself to go back to his desk, he stared down at the case file from yesterday’s latest waste of time. A guy, who went by Mouse, had cut his arm climbing out of a house he’d forgotten to make sure wasn’t occupied before he robbed. The police had evidence of his blood on the glass, and they had his fingerprints on all the stuff he dropped when he ran. The old couple, who lived in the place, were easily able to ID