Bluestone Song

By

M.J. Frederick

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by MJ Fredrick

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Dedication

To Dad and Sue

Thanks for everything!

Maddox Bradley blinked his eyes open and
peered through broken glass. A moment passed before he processed
what he was seeing—spider-webbed windshield, crumpled hood, tree
bark. Shit. He’d wrecked his car. Cautiously, he sat back,
relieving the bite of the seatbelt into his shoulder.

His first thought was to check his hands. He
stretched them in front of him and flexed his fingers. Thank God,
no pain. He’d still be able to play guitar.

Red and blue lights flashed in the rearview
mirror. A glance told him three emergency vehicles were behind him.
He jumped when someone appeared at his door, banging on the intact
passenger window. Moving slowly, because damn, he hurt all over, he
reached for the handle and shoved it open. A flashlight blinded
him.

“Mr. Bradley? You all right?” the young
female officer asked.

Maddox groaned inwardly. Too much to hope
someone wouldn’t recognize him. “Not sure.”

“You been drinking tonight, sir?”

And too much to hope whoever recognized him
wouldn’t know his past. “No, ma’am.” While the lie had come to him
easily back in the day, this time it was the God’s honest
truth.

She kept the flashlight trained on him a
moment longer, assessing, he thought, until she moved aside for the
paramedics to get him out of the car. He got one last look at his
baby, the Audi convertible he’d bought himself on his one-year
anniversary of being sober.

Ironic they’d think he’d crashed it because
he was drunk.

Beth Lapointe was working the lunch shift
when Maddox Bradley walked into Quinn’s Bar and Grill in Bluestone,
Minnesota. She’d just turned away from Dale Simmons, the town
doctor, smiling and warm from the flirtation with the handsome
doctor and stopped short when her past appeared in front of
her.

Maddox looked better than ever, lines fanning
from those whiskey brown eyes, a healing scar beside his right
eyebrow, straight brown hair combed neatly, his widow’s peak more
pronounced, shoulders broad beneath a crisp white shirt, stomach
flat into his Levi’s. She didn’t let her gaze slide any lower. He
removed the cream-colored Stetson that had become his signature in
a slow gesture, like he might have done if he came face to face
with a panther and didn’t want to make any sudden moves.

Smart man.

The titter of conversation told her Quinn’s
customers recognized the country singer. She doubted they
understood his connection to her. She doubted he’d even known she
was here. He’d probably just come in to talk to Quinn. Ballsy,
since he’d bailed on the concert he was supposed to have given
Memorial Day and cost the town a ton of money.

“Beth,” he said in that smooth quiet voice
she’d heard hundreds of times when she tortured herself by
listening to him in interviews with the likes of Katie Couric and
Barbara Walters. Yes, one of the Ten Most Fascinating People was
standing in her bar, in her path. Funny, since he hadn’t been able
to get out of her way fast enough fourteen years ago.

“You’re late,” she said, weaving around him
to get her plates lined in the pass-through.

He pivoted to follow, hat in hand, head bent,
contrite. “I’m here to make it up to you.”

“You have nothing to make up to me. Bluestone
was counting on you to play Memorial Day weekend. I told them you
wouldn’t come.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come back.
It was a scheduling issue.” He almost sounded serious.

She wanted to spin on him, lay into him about
letting everyone down, demand to know the truth about the car
accident a few weeks ago, the one that had been all over the
tabloids, demanding to know if he was drinking again, but they’d
already drawn enough attention with him following her around like a
whipped dog. Instead she said, “I have to get back to work. He’s
the one you need to talk to.” She jabbed a thumb at Quinn, who
watched them through narrowed eyes, hands braced on the bar. When
Maddox turned his head, she picked up a tray and headed for the
pass-through.

She loaded the plates on the tray, not daring
to watch Maddox shake hands with Quinn, not daring to register
Dale’s reaction to the whole thing. She pasted a smile on her face
and headed out to deliver the food.

She felt Maddox’s gaze follow her. God, why
did he have to look so good, sound so good, smell so good? That was
something she hadn’t been able to tell from TV, that he’d smell the
same as he had that night he’d talked her into the back of his
rusted-out Buick, that warm, clean, male scent that made her want
to bury her face in his neck.

Her body tingled with remembered pleasure, an
experience not often repeated in the past fourteen years. She had
to occupy her thoughts elsewhere. She looked around for customers
who needed service. Why couldn’t he have come in earlier, when they
were busier? Dale was watching her, eyes hooded. He always could
see more than she wanted him to. No one could know Maddox was her
weakness. She couldn’t afford to have any.

She shifted her attention to Quinn, trying to
read his body language. He was tense as he leaned against the bar
to listen to Maddox, who angled his head. So she wasn’t learning
anything there. She wished he’d tell Maddox to beat it, but that
was unreasonable. They needed Maddox, his fame, to draw tourists
back to Bluestone.

But she was being ridiculous. Maddox was a
busy man, a star. He probably had a concert tour and an album to
record. He wouldn’t stay around Bluestone. She was worrying for
nothing.

She got home at eight to the sound of crying
and the smell of a dirty diaper. Great.

Where was her sister? Beth made her way down
the narrow hall to the nursery—ha, grand name for the tiniest
bedroom in the tiny house—where Jonas was on his back in the crib,
flailing his legs and arms angrily. With a grunt of frustration,
she lifted his rigid little body and carried him to the changing
table. He continued to scream as she struggled to change him,
remembering at the last minute to shield his little penis with the
diaper before he peed on her. His cries echoed off the thin walls,
and she worried the neighbors would call—or worse, already had. By
the redness of Jacob’s face and the wetness on his cheeks and the
neck of his Onesie, he’d been crying awhile.

Once she had him clean and dressed, she
lifted him to her shoulder and rubbed his back as he continued to
wail in her ear. He was too far gone for an easy fix. Even feeding
him right now would only make him sick. She jounced him and turned
toward her sister’s room.

Where her teenaged sister Linda was asleep on
her stomach, arms thrown over her head. Beth’s gaze flicked to the
second-hand nightstand and the empty beer bottles there. Beth’s
heart sank. Not again. Where had she gotten the alcohol this time?
Beth lifted a foot to nudge the mattress a couple of times. Linda
grunted but settled deeper. Beth was about to kick her sister’s
foot when the knock sounded at the door.

Still trying to calm Jonas, she went to
answer and saw her neighbor Loretta Givens standing on the tiny
front porch, brow furrowed beneath her blonde bangs.

“I’m sorry, Loretta. Has he been crying
long?”

“A good half hour, I’m afraid. Where’s
Linda?”

“Asleep, poor kid.” Even as Beth lied, she
hated herself for it. “I’m so sorry he bothered you.”

Loretta’s lips pursed. “It’s not just that. I
thought you should know she had some friends over just after
noon.”

On a school day. Of course. Beth struggled to
keep her expression neutral, not to let her neighbor see her
despair. “Friends.”

“Boys, from the sound of it. Lots of laughing
and loud music. I think they were drinking.”

Beth’s stomach dropped. Dealing with Linda’s
drinking was one thing, the neighbors knowing about it was another.
She’d become Linda’s legal guardian eleven years ago, but still
worried they could still take Linda away from her. And Loretta just
stood on the porch waiting for Beth to say something. What she
could say, she didn’t know.

“I appreciate that, Loretta. I’m going to
deal with it, I promise, but I need to get Jonas calmed down.” She
reached for the door to close it.

“I know you’re doing your best, Beth. But I
think you need help with Linda, and with little Jonas. She’s too
much for you.”

That Loretta voiced Beth’s own fears didn’t
endear the woman to her. She’d been raising Linda for the past
fourteen years, and none of it had been easy, but the last two
years had been damn near impossible. She should have insisted Linda
give the baby up for adoption as planned, but Linda had seen her
son’s face and pleaded with Beth to let her keep him. Beth had had
power to do so little in Linda’s life that she’d relented. She
should have known Linda would go back to drinking.

Just like their father.

“I’ll look into what I can do,” Beth said as
Jonas reared back in his fury. “I’m sorry, Loretta, but I need to
take care of him right now. I appreciate you telling me.”

Feeling like the rudest person in the world,
she closed the door and heaved a deep breath as she carried Jonas
into the kitchen. She put him in his bouncy chair and strapped him
in, giving the chair a gentle tap to rock it while she got his
bottle. She knew he’d spit it all up if she didn’t calm him down,
so found a pacifier, rinsed it under the hot water and plugged it
in his mouth. That gave her about a moment of blessed silence
before he realized it wasn’t his bottle and spit it out. The room
filled with his wails again. She switched the stove on and turned
to comfort him when another knock sounded at the door.

With a huff, she unbuckled Jonas, carried him
to the door and swung it open, ready to tell Loretta just where to
go.

But Loretta didn’t stand there. No, Maddox
Bradley did, hat in hand, head dipped, eyes crinkled—until he saw
the baby perched on her shoulder. If she hadn’t been so frazzled,
she would have thought his blank expression hilarious. He recovered
quickly, though.

“I thought it was the TV. Yours?”

Trying to soothe her own nerves at seeing him
standing on her front porch like he’d never gone away, she rubbed a
hand up and down Jonas’s tiny tense back. The baby certainly
wouldn’t calm down if he sensed she was upset. “My nephew. What are
you doing here, Maddox?”

“I came to talk to you.”

She placed her hand on the door, a signal for
him to leave. “As you can see, this isn’t a good time.”

Maddox angled his head and narrowed his eyes.
“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s hungry and mad.” She stepped back into
the house and closed the door slightly, since he didn’t take the
hint.

Instead, he moved into the house. “Here.” He
held out his hands, fingers curved toward the infant.

She tightened her grip on Jonas, turning her
body away as she focused on his hands. “When was the last time you
held a baby?”

“My sisters have six between them.”