Free Bluestone Song by MJ Fredrick Page A

“I’ll be back at eight
tomorrow.”
     
    Beth did her best to avoid eye contact with
anyone at the bar that night, her last night at Quinn’s. Her
emotions were too raw. She knew she needed to do this, but it
didn’t feel like the right thing to do. And though Maddox had only
been in town a few days, already his music, his rough, soothing
voice, was part of this place that she was leaving. Just hearing
his songs made her heart ache.
    Okay, enough. She wasn’t moving to the other
side of the lake. She was just leaving a job she loved for a job
she hated to keep her father from coming back here, and to keep her
sister’s baby. Yeah, nothing to feel sorry for herself about there.
She cleared another table and turned, almost crashing into Dale,
who stood in her path with his hands on his hips.
    “I had to hear about you leaving Quinn’s from
Quinn?”
    She huffed out a breath. “Well, you haven’t
been around and I don’t exactly have time to go looking for
you.”
    “Don’t have time or won’t make time? You’ve
been avoiding me ever since that kiss, Beth.”
    She ducked her head. She had, that was true.
“You want everything to change, and I just can’t deal with it right
now.”
    “If it changes, I can help you. That’s what
couples do. They help each other.”
    She blew out a breath. “I’m a waitress,
you’re a doctor. How can I possibly help you?”
    His shoulders eased and a half-smile teased
his lips. He scooped her hair back from her face, tilting her head
up so he could look into her eyes. “By loving me, Beth.”
    She wanted to. He was a good man, gentle, he
let her have the space she needed, never meddled, but…Her heart
squeezed as she looked into his eyes and wished she could see
something different.
    “I just can’t figure it all out right now,
Dale. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
    Wow. She’d heard of someone being crushed
before, but she’d never seen it in action. His face slackened and
he stepped back, pain in his brown eyes.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching out to him
with one hand, but someone bumped into her tray and she withdrew
her hand to steady it. When she looked up, Dale was gone.
    And Maddox Bradley was watching her through
the crowd.
     
    When she walked out of Quinn’s at two thirty,
Maddox was waiting by the rail of the porch, his cap tucked into
his back pocket, his hair flipping up all over.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “Waiting to walk you home.”
    “I already told you. I like being by
myself.”
    “Not tonight.” He motioned for her to precede
him down the steps.
    “Why not? You have more meddling
planned?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    She held out her cell phone, screen first, to
show him missed calls from both her brothers. “You want to tell me
why they’re calling me now when they haven’t called me in
months?”
    “Months? Now that’s just shameful.” He tucked
his hands in his jean pockets and matched her step for step down
the wooden planks to the parking lot.
    “Maddox. What did you do?”
    He shrugged and worked to keep his balance on
the shifting gravel. “I called to let them know they needed to
check in.”
    “And to get both of them to call within—” she
checked the screen. “Thirty minutes of each other?”
    He shrugged. “That was their doing. Probably
talked to each other first. You want to tell me what’s really going
on here?” He motioned to the bar.
    She tucked her phone away and kept her gaze
straight ahead. How could she feel comfortable with him and jittery
around him at the same time? Maybe if she ignored who he was, just
talked, her nerves would calm down. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, you quit Quinn’s to take a different
job, you kick the doctor to the curb. Are you getting ready to take
off, Beth?”
    She stopped short and snapped her gaze to
his. “No! God, if only, but no.” She pushed her hands through her
hair and started walking again. “I’ll see Linda through college.
Then