Free Love Songs by MG Braden Page B

about the Hughes family and what they’d been up to over the
years. He also found out that Madison helped out a lot with Kayla,
but that normally dinnertime was just Kayla and daddy. He was
hoping she stayed tonight because of him. He’d certainly stayed
because of her.
    “So, Cam. You were saying earlier about a
career choice? What have you been doing?” Madison asked while Jake
was putting Kayla to bed.
    “I’ve been singing in pubs with my band.
Well, it’s more like a trio.” He drained the last of his coffee and
set the mug on the table.
    “ Wow. I remember you being in
choir but didn’t realize you liked to sing that much. Would I have heard of
you?”
    He grinned at her. “I thought you didn’t
remember me that well from school.” As he watched her cheeks go
red, he gave her a reprieve. “And no, you probably wouldn’t have
heard of us. We just played in pubs across the country. Often they
were Irish pubs, as we sing quite a few Celtic songs.”
    “Oh, I’d love to hear you some day.”
    “Yeah, well, I have to figure out what’s
going on with Dad’s business. Not sure when I’ll be singing next.”
He suddenly felt weary. Even though he and his dad had been having
trouble lately, he had still loved him a lot. He wasn’t ready for
Dad to be gone, and he sure as heck wasn’t ready to run a company.
Was he?
    “ I’ve got to get going. I get up
pretty early in the morning so...” Madison smiled at him. “You know
what? I just realized I probably wouldn’t even be able to make it to one of your
gigs. I’m probably in bed before you even start playing. How sad is
that?” She stood up.
    Cam stood as well and grabbed his keys off
the table. “I’ll walk you out to your car. I’ve got to get going
too.”
    Jake came into the kitchen to say goodbye.
Cam shook his hand and then followed Madison out to her car.
    The silver Kia Sportage suited
her. The wind picked up and blew her red hair across her face, so
he reached out and gently pulled it back. It was like touching
silk. That surprised him for some reason. Not that he’d though much
about it, but if he had to guess, he would have thought red hair
would be drier. Yeah, like he'd ever thought about what different colour hair feels like. He
must have
been more tired than he thought .
    “Cam, you okay?” She tugged her hair out of
his hand. Her blue eyes appeared to be twinkling up at him.
    “Yeah, sorry.
Hey...listen...” He shoved his hands in his pockets—they seemed to
be moving of their own accord—to keep from reaching out to touch
her skin this time. “Did you want to get coffee, or something,
tomorrow?”
    ***
    He had asked her for a date. Well, not a
date really, just coffee. Or something.
    She was still thinking about it as she
frosted her third batch of cupcakes for the shop. She'd already
finished her special orders. She had groaned when her alarm went
off at three thirty this morning—it awoke her from a wonderful
dream she was having about Cam. Normally she was eager to start the
day. Once it sank in that the sooner she worked through the day the
sooner she would see Cam, she was back to her usual perky morning
attitude. Even the fact that it was Valentine’s Day couldn’t spoil
her mood. When "Endless Love" came on the radio, she didn’t change
the station, she sang along.
    “My first love...ugh. I hate this song, I
can’t do it.” She finally changed the station, just as one of her
employees, Marcy, came in the back door of the Cupcake Castle.
    “Hey, boss. Were you listening to love
songs?” Marcy laughed.
    “Of course not. Me?” Marcy had worked at the
Castle since the beginning and was a long-time friend. She knew
that privately Madison liked to sing anything. But love songs had
been on her do-not-sing, do-not-listen to list since a bad breakup
a couple of years ago.
    “Sounded like it. Must have been hearing
things.”
    “Yep.” Madison quickly started singing what
was on the new station she’d switched