Read The Second Song #1: Homecoming for Free Online

the Cajun girl I was.
    "You all know I’m not very fond of you, especially for scaring my gran half to death, you should be ashamed of yourselves, but if you will all promise to leave Avery Island, I will give an interview with the reporter of your choice. You’ll all have the rights to the interview and you can have your pound of flesh, but you gotta leave my family alone if I do this."
    "When? Where? Who?" The questions fired faster than I could register them.
    "The interview will take place tomorrow, right here and you all will have to choose which of you will do the honors because I really don’t care. Just get off my grand-mére’s property right now ." I turned and walked back into the house without a backward glance. This probably wouldn’t go well for me, especially considering I was doing this without talking to my managers and PR people, but I was tired of running from this.
    I spent the entire next day with a young woman who turned out to be a very decent person and a good reporter. I showed her my childhood home and explained how my grand-pére Henri built the house with his own two hands and how my mother had grown up here and then my grand-mére raised me in this house too. Neither of us could part with the home we loved and I’d done my best to get grand-mére to let me make some improvements through the years, but she was a stubborn old lady.
    I introduced gran briefly to the reporters and they took her picture and asked her a few innocent questions about me as a child. They took pictures of gran and me weaving our baskets on the back porch, asking us about life in the bayou.
    I went on to show them my high school and the place that sold the baskets gran and I made. I took them on a tour of the swamps and all my old haunts, steering clear of Avery’s house. I explained how much I loved the simple beauty of my home and how I never wanted to be responsible for changing it in any way.
    They asked me about Avery, and I told them the simple version of our childhood romance. I introduced him, talked about his successful career and I explained that our current relationship was off limits and that Silas and I had always been great friends, but we both had known it was never going to be a long-term relationship. It was a good interview, probably the best most honest interview I’d ever given.
    "You’ve given us more than we could ever ask for Elise," she said, squeezing my hand in a friendly gesture. "I think we can safely say the world might understand you a little better when this airs."
    "Yeah, and it’ll be a miracle if my managers don’t murder me on the spot." I laughed as I walked her out.
    The next day they were all gone and Avery and I spent a blissful week together.
    Then the interview aired. It was good. No one had resorted to sneaky editing tricks to portray some dark horrible secret they’d fabricated just to make it more exciting. It was simple and honest. It showed Elise Leroux the adult. I liked it.
    Max called two seconds after it ended. I couldn’t have expected any less of him, but he was furious. I’d never heard him so angry. I hung up on him. In two months, he’d cool down and forgive me. What choice did he have?

Chapter Nine
    "I love you Lise," Avery whispered as he moved inside me. "I’ve always loved you, every day of my whole life." He gazed deep into my eyes and I could see it all so clearly. We’d been so stupid and stubborn all these years we could have been together, loving each other like this.
    I reached to stroke his face, my body moving with his where we lay in front of the fireplace in the living room.
    "I love you Ave. So much it hurts to breathe when you’re not around."
    "I’m here cher , I will always be here, even when life comes back and we have to part, it will never be like it was before."
    "Oh Avery," I gasped as he began to move, thrusting harder and deeper.
    "You are mine Elise Leroux, you’ve always been mine and you will always be mine, mon cher ."
    I