Susie Bell went to a psychic development circle to amuse her friend but never imagined that she would develop a powerful intuitive gift of her own, and definitely never thought she’d meet the sexy country singer, Ronnie Vaughn.
Tone deaf Susie is even more surprised when Ronnie’s deceased grandfather begins to visit her in her dreams, transcribing country music for his grandson to sing so he can launch his music career:
Is that your final answer or are you the weakest link?
You put our love in jeopardy much more than you think.
The Wheel of Fortune spun around the day that I met you.
Now you’ve taken me on Judge Joe Brown, Girl, we must be through.
Ronnie is overcome by the raw beauty and sensitivity of Susie and the sacrifices she’s making of her time, and eventually of herself, to help him succeed.
Soon the two are entwined both personally and professionally. Will their love affair last their lifetime, and will Ronnie fulfill his destiny to become one of the greatest country singers of all time?
Susie Bell was staring intently at her computer screen as if in a trance when her best friend Leslie popped her head into her office.
“You coming to the party?” Leslie asked.
Susie kept on reading.
“Hey!” Leslie said again, louder this time. “You coming, or what?”
“What?” Susie asked, finally breaking away from her thoughts enough to register another human being.
Leslie walked over to her desk and put herself between her friend and her screen. “Susie, are you coming to the party? The happy hour party,” she said slowly in a robotic tone.
“No,” Susie answered immediately. “I want to get this stuff done first.”
Leslie let out a deep sigh. “How are you ever going to meet anyone if you won’t get out of the office?”
Meeting someone was the last thing on Susie’s mind these days. After her divorce from Ben last year, she wanted nothing to do with men for a long time. It was nothing against Ben, he was a nice enough guy, and they were still friends, which was as far as they should have ever taken their relationship. Hindsight certainly was a wonderful thing.
Despite the seemingly amicable breakup, the fact was that her divorce was still painful—breaking up the family, distressing all the relatives on both sides, and stressing out their mutual friends as to whose side they should be on and so on. It was all just too much, and for now, Susie wanted peace and quiet. It was just easier to be alone.
And she enjoyed her work. It was boring by most people’s standards to work as an HMO administrator. Endless paperwork and sitting in her office occupied most of her days, and now many of her nights. She tried to tell herself her work had meaning, and healthcare was saving lives, yet even she realized that wasn’t the case these days. It was so difficult for so many people to even get decent healthcare, the truth was she was probably actually contributing to the problem more than she was solving it. But whatever she needed to tell herself to justify her current lack of interest in not only the opposite sex, but people in general, was what she needed to do for now.
This wouldn’t last forever, she told herself often. Eventually she would get back into life and maybe even love, but just no time soon.
“I have no desire to me…” Susie began until she was interrupted.
“I know, you have no desire to meet anyone,” Leslie mimicked. “What about hanging out and having a drink and some fun with friends?”
“Not tonight,” Susie said.
Leslie stared at her in silence for a moment. “Well, I have to go tonight,” she said finally.
“Why?” Susie asked.
“Because my psychic told me I am going to meet someone in the next two weeks who could possibly be my soul mate!” Leslie said, gleefully.
“Oh boy!” Susie said, rolling her eyes. “You don’t really believe in that bunch of junk, do you?”
“Well, she did tell me that Joel and I wouldn’t make it past summer,” she said, recalling her breakup just two weeks earlier. “So she was right on with that.”
“What makes you think it was her predicting the future and not you projecting her predictions on to your own life and making it happen?” Susie asked. “Haven’t you ever heard of the hindsight rule?”
“The what?” Leslie asked.
“The hindsight rule says that you can always justify things in hindsight, and it’s like you create stories to justify things that just aren’t really related to one another,” Susie said.
Leslie seemed like such a young and impressionable girl to Susie, who was two years her senior at twenty-five. Susie was trained in the sciences, although she had no idea why she’d taken a job at the HMO instead of going to work in a lab someplace, but regardless, she’d learned a lot in school and had been an excellent student, so Leslie was continually in awe of her and her odd tidbits of knowledge and trivia.
“Oh.” Leslie paused. “Well, I believe in it, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Fine,” Susie shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Oh, come on,” Leslie whined. “Just come with me, just for twenty minutes. I don’t want to go by myself.”
Susie looked at her clock. “What if I leave here in fifteen minutes and meet you over there?” she asked.
Leslie had heard this one before and was becoming wise to it. “Are you really going to come?”
“Sure,” Susie said, eyes transfixed once more on her screen.
Leslie stared at her again, then finally turned away. “Okay, I’ll see you in a few.”
Susie continued to answer her email, fill out paperwork, type reports until 8:45 p.m., when she turned off the computer, snapped off her lamp, and headed home, to bed, alone.
