Bluestone Song (24 page)

A knock at the door had her jolting, and she
jumped up to get it.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Millie said, pushing her
back into the chair. “This needs a reveal.” She strode across the
floor and flung open the door to Maddox, Viveca and a photographer.
“Your timing is excellent,” she informed the two of them, and stood
aside so Maddox could see Beth.

Beth wasn’t sure what to make of Maddox’s
speechlessness. He stared for a long moment before his expression
softened and he crossed to her. He lifted his hand to her hair,
only to have it smacked by Tina, the beautician.

“You can’t touch her until after the
pictures. She’s perfect right now.”

“She’s always perfect,” Maddox murmured, his
gaze dropping to her lips.

“Aww, that’s sweet,” Tina said as Beth’s
heart turned over in her chest. “But you still can’t touch her
until after the pictures.” She turned toward Linda. “Come on,
little mama. We’ll go in the other room and get you ready for the
concert while these folks attend their business.”

“Really?” Linda’s squeal of delight echoed
through the room, and she bounced into the bedroom ahead of the
three ladies.

Leaving Beth alone with Maddox—and the
media.

“I apologize for my sister,” Beth felt
compelled to say to Viveca. “She thought she was helping everyone
out by making the story more exciting than it was.”

“Maddox has more than agreed to make up for
it with this exclusive session,” Viveca said with a wave of her
hand. “It was partly my fault for being in such a hurry that I
didn’t verify the information. Shall we do the pictures first?” She
turned to the photographer. “This is John, and he’s very good. Do
you want to stay in the room or go down to the lobby?”

“I’d rather stay here,” Beth blurted, though
she wasn’t sure the question was directed at her. “I’m already
self-conscious enough without people watching us.”

Viveca glanced at John, who shrugged.
Stiffly, she moved through the poses he set up—the two of them
pretending to dance, the two of them staring out the window,
holding hands, what he called the “romance novel” pose, which had
her holding her head at an impossible angle, her hair cascading
behind her as Maddox dipped her backwards. He arched her up a
little higher, so her breasts brushed his chest, and he waggled his
eyebrows at her, which made her laugh and John swear.

“How about some bedroom shots?” John
suggested.

“How about not?” Beth countered.

Finally, after a few dozen more awkward
poses, John was done, and it was Viveca’s turn. Suddenly, Beth
realized that the questions would be more revealing than any
photograph. Maddox motioned for Beth to sit at the end of the couch
and he sat beside her. She was grateful for the buffer of the couch
arm on one side and Maddox on the other.

Viveca produced a recorder and set it on the
coffee table between them. “So, Maddox, what made you go back to
Bluestone?”

Maddox slid a palm down his thigh, took a
deep breath, but his voice was smooth and steady when he said,
“After the car accident earlier this summer, I wanted to get away
from the people, from the speculation. I went back to a place where
I’d been happy when I was a kid. A place that was peaceful and out
of the way.”

“Did you know Beth was still there?”

“I didn’t, no.”

That surprised her. “You didn’t?” She angled
her head to look at him.

“No. I mean, I thought about you being there,
but I didn’t know for sure.”

“So when you saw her again, what happened?”
Viveca redirected.

Maddox grinned. “She wanted nothing to do
with me. Of course we were in the middle of the bar and she doesn’t
like attention drawn to her. So I went to her house and met the
baby. My first thought was, shit, I’m too late.” He curled his hand
around hers.

“But you weren’t,” Viveca said.

“Not in the way I thought, but fourteen years
is a lot of time to make up for.”

“So tell me about your romance fourteen years
ago, Beth.”

Beth squared her shoulders. “We dated for a
couple of summers, starting after my sophomore year. I wasn’t
technically allowed to date, but I was working at the diner and
he’d come in all the time, with his parents and without. He’d drink
about ten pops sometimes, just to hang out. And he’d leave me a
good tip, before he started waiting for me to get off work and walk
me home down by the lake. I was worried about what Dad would say,
so I’d leave him at the end of the road and walk home. He was
always really handsome, you know, with that wicked smile that goes
right down your spine, you know? He was the first boy I ever
kissed.” She smiled at the memory, at the way he’d slid his hand
under her hair as they stood on the shore of the lake, the way he’d
angled his head and given her the most perfect first kiss. “He left
with his family at the end of summer and promised to write. I
didn’t believe him, but he did, all through my junior year. I had
to hide the letters from Dad, so I got to know the mail woman
really well. And then he came back the next summer. We would stay
out all night—”

“Really?” Viveca smiled.

“We wouldn’t do anything. Well, we’d kiss. A
lot. He was really good at it. And he’d play guitar. He had an old
acoustic he bought at a garage sale. It was a piece of junk, but he
had such a good voice. And he wrote his own music, so there were a
lot of songs about me.” She laughed and tucked her hair behind her
ear. God, she’d been so young and carefree. She wished she could
grab that feeling again and hold onto it. “I’d come in just before
dawn. Dad was usually passed out so he didn’t catch me, and it was
–wonderful.”

“You loved him then.”

Beth sighed and looked up at Maddox, warmed
by the way he was looking at her. “Yes.”

“So why did you let him leave?”

She twined her fingers through his on her
lap. “Because I didn’t want to be the one holding him back.”

He threaded his fingers through her hair.
“She was the one who believed in me most. I wouldn’t be where I am
without her.”

“Oh, please,” she said.

“It’s true. I wouldn’t give up because I
didn’t want to let you down.” He curled his arm around her
shoulders. “That’s why I want you at my concert tonight.” He turned
to Viveca. “Are we about done? I need to get over to
rehearsal.”

Viveca reached for the recorder and clicked
it off. “I think we’re good.”

“Okay.” He lowered his mouth to Beth’s. She
relaxed into it, grateful the interview was over, and the shutter
of John’s camera whirled.

Viveca laughed when Beth drew back,
surprised. “Get used to it, Beth.”

The rest of the day was spent in a buzz of
anticipation. Beth had never been to an arena show, and wasn’t sure
she had quite the thing to wear. The three of them went down to the
shops in the hotel, but Beth’s budget wouldn’t allow her to indulge
in anything more than a snug-fitting t-shirt she thought Maddox
would admire. She hoped that Maddox would come back to the hotel
room with her tonight. She knew Linda would understand, and she
needed him close, needed to feel his love.

After dinner, the manager’s wife, Allie,
showed up with her own kids to take care of Jonas. Beth was wary,
but Maddox had promised she’d be a good babysitter. Next, two
assistants arrived and whisked Beth and Linda to dinner. Beth
couldn’t stop wondering if Maddox ate before the concert, or if he
was nervous. She couldn’t imagine—she was nervous enough for both
of them.

After a dinner she couldn’t bring herself to
finish, though it had to cost a fortune, the two women were taken
to the arena. Excitement bubbled as they saw the crowd streaming
into the building, as searchlights flashed across the sky. Their
car pulled around to the back and they were escorted backstage.

She couldn’t believe the bustle, and had to
pull Linda out of someone’s way more than once as she scanned for
Maddox. Would he be out here in all the mess, or did he have his
own dressing room?

“Oh, my God, it’s Miranda Lambert!” Linda
squeaked, gripping Beth’s arm and pointing as they were guided down
a narrow hall.

The country star flashed a smile at Linda.
The girl froze and Beth had to pull her along since the assistants
were still walking and Beth was afraid they’d get lost in the
madness. It was as if the entire population of Bluestone was
crammed into this tiny area, and they were all in a hurry to get
somewhere.

And then there, with his foot on a rail and
his guitar on his knee, his head bent as he strummed, was Maddox.
Her heart gave a tumble and she quickened her step, releasing her
sister, passing the assistants to get to him.

A hand caught her arm and she staggered to a
halt, looking into the forbidding gaze of a man two times her
size.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Maddox looked up and straightened, then gave
her a blinding smile. “She’s with me.”

The towering man released her with a murmured
apology and Maddox swept her into his arms, hugging her first, then
kissing her.

“You okay?” he asked when he released
her.

“Nervous.” She pressed a hand to her
shoulder. “You’d think I was going out on stage instead of
you.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve done it a time or two.” He
kissed her again. “You should go get in your seats. The show’s
about to start.”

“Okay. Good—”

He held up a hand, palm out, eyes wide in
alarm.

“I mean, break a leg.”

He grinned and winked at her correction, and
then she and Linda were swept out into the audience. Their seats
were to the right of the stage, and they were settled moments
before the first act. And soon, Maddox would be out there, Maddox,
who had dreamed about this as long as she knew him.

They enjoyed the two acts before Maddox, but
anticipation buzzed in Beth’s blood. What would it be like to see
him play with his band, on this huge stage? What would it be like
to hear the audience’s reaction?

Her heart swelled with pride when he finally
took the stage, the third act of four on the Fourth of July,
opening for a multi-platinum, multi-award-winning band.

He was amazing, despite his lack of practice
with the band, going from a drinking anthem to a broken heart song
to a song about down-home appreciation, and rousing everyone with a
patriotic anthem. The crowd around them stood, cheering, pulsing
with energy, with appreciation. They sang along and stomped and
clapped. Beth had never been so proud.

Then he disappeared for a moment, and
returned to stand alone in the spotlight holding an old guitar. Her
guitar, the one she’d given him fourteen years ago. Her heart
squeezed as he turned his attention toward her. She knew he
couldn’t see her, but he was addressing her.

“Tonight, there’s a very special person in
the audience, one who stood by me when I barely knew what I wanted,
who encouraged me, who inspired me. She’s back in my life again
after a lot of years—too many—and I wrote this song for her. It’s
called, ‘Now I Believe in Happy Endings.’”

She recognized the opening strains of the
song that had played at Leo and Trinity’s wedding. The words that
poured out of him in that smooth, deep voice were sweet and
emotional and she couldn’t believe they were about her. He sang
about sappy movies with endings he could never get behind, the
cynical way he looked at brides. He sang about how she made all
that change, how she made his heart light, made him want to see her
in a bridal veil, wanted to wake up every morning beside her, watch
the gray come into her hair, watch her grow with his child.

She couldn’t see through the tears that
blurred everything together in one big kaleidoscope of light. Next
to her, Linda gripped her hand.

Maddox was coming down the steps into the
audience.

The crowd around them surged, but four men
the size of linebackers cut them off from her and Linda as Maddox
approached, a spotlight illuminating his hat. His band continued to
play in the darkness on the stage, but he took off his guitar and
handed it to Linda, then plopped his hat on her head, casting her a
quick grin before turning those brown eyes on Beth.

“Did you like the song?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, only closed her fingers
around the placket of his shirt, raised herself on her toes, and
pressed her mouth to his. He hesitated a second, then folded his
arms around her as the people around them cheered.

He stroked her hair back from her face as
they parted. “In case you didn’t get the message, I love you.”

She shifted her gaze to the side, too aware
of their audience for this conversation. “I got it.”

He eased out of her arms, and went down on
one knee. The crowd around them went crazy, but she heard his words
very clearly: “And I want to marry you.”

Her stomach dropped to her toes.
“Maddox—”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled
out a small box. Beside her, Linda screamed.

“The one thing I regretted for fourteen years
was walking away from you. You would have kept me grounded. I would
have taken care of you. Now we can do that for each other. Do you
love me, Beth?”

She touched his cheek. “I never stopped.”

He dropped his head for a moment, as if in
relief, then looked up at her again as he opened the box. Beth
didn’t even look at the ring as he slid it on her finger, only
looked into his eyes. Once the ring—a little loose—was on her hand,
he stood.

“Be my happy ending, Beth.”

She nodded and wound her arms around his
neck. “Yes,” she managed before his mouth covered hers. “Yes.”

All around her, the crowd roared its
approval, but it all faded away as a bubble of happiness settled
around the two of them, and he lowered his mouth to hers.