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Authors: Fredrick MJ

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Welcome to Bluestone 1 - Bluestone homecoming

BOOK: Welcome to Bluestone 1 - Bluestone homecoming
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Bluestone Homecoming

 

By MJ Fredrick

 

 

 

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by MJ Fredrick

 

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
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of this author.

 

 

Dedication

 

To Dad and Sue, for the inspiration and
hospitality, and for being walking, talking references

Bet you never knew one little comment could
spawn a whole series!

Chapter One

 

 

Leo Erickson pulled up in front of Bluestone
Elementary School and sat for a moment, gripping the steering wheel
and fighting the knot in his chest. Feeling anxious about seeing
one’s own son was all kinds of wrong, but he hadn’t seen Max in
almost two months, and from what Leo’s mom said, the boy was having
issues.

Yeah, well, why wouldn’t he, after all the
changes in his short life? But Leo was his father, though he didn’t
much feel like one these days, so he came home from his assignment
in Afghanistan to see what the problem was. Then he’d go back to
the war and finish his story. It was too important to be left
untold.

He opened the door of the SUV and approached
the school with the same trepidation that he’d seen soldiers
approach a bunker. The place was scary quiet, as though something
dangerous lurked inside, just like a bunker.

Then the bell rang, like a bomb going off.
His heart threatened to jump through his ribs. The glass doors flew
open and children of all sizes streamed out, the very few teachers
calling ineffectively to those who veered off in search of freedom.
How could so few adults be expected to control so many
children?

An impact against his knees made him grunt
and he looked down into the wide dark eyes of a little girl, her
black hair parted exactly in the center of her head and braided to
her shoulders. She stared up at him, pink Dora backpack slung over
her shoulder, and shoved her thumb into her mouth. No telling how
long they stood there before a woman—her mother—hurried over to
scoop her out of the way, casting a wary glance at Leo.

Right. Small town. Stranger. Never mind that
he’d lived here from sixth grade until he could get the hell out.
No one remembered him. And though he’d hated living in a small
town, he wanted that protective atmosphere for his child.

Who he didn’t see, anywhere.

“Whose Toyota is this?” an annoyed voice
called from behind him.

He turned to see a beautiful blue-eyed blonde
standing at the fender of his rental. “Mine.”

She huffed out a breath. “Sir, you can’t park
here. You’re backing up traffic. Don’t you see the arrows?”

His face heated. He had seen the arrows but
thought he’d be long gone before the traffic started to flow. His
first time with the after-school business. Livvie had dealt with
that, then the stream of nannies had taken over, then his parents.
He’d just thought…

“Where should I go?”

“There’s plenty of parking across the
street.” She pointed to the supermarket parking lot.

He turned toward the thinning stream of kids
emerging from the school. Where was Max? “My son should be out any
minute.” He tried his charming smile, so rusty it had to be more of
a grimace.

She wasn’t charmed, just folded her arms
under her full breasts and waited. Behind her, several cars took up
her cause by honking. At him. Well, hell.

With another glance at the school, he turned
to the rental, tugging the keys from his front pocket. “Sorry,” he
muttered to the blonde as he climbed in and started the vehicle,
doing his best not to peel out as he left the place.

By the time he parked—plenty of space his
ass—and jogged across the street to the school, most of the kids
and traffic had gone. Some older kids milled around, and one
smaller one, bent double, sobs racking his body as the blonde woman
crouched before him, her hair tucked behind her ear as she tried to
comfort him.

Christ. He hadn’t thought—the day Liv died,
Max had been left at school, with no one to pick him up for hours.
His son had to think something had happened again to turn his life
upside down.

“Max! Max, I’m here.” Leo increased his speed
and dropped to his knees beside his son, putting his hand on his
arm. The boy’s flinch surprised Leo into drawing back. “Hey, buddy.
Hey. I’m here.” Helplessly he let his hand fall to his lap as he
watched the blonde cradle his distraught son in her arms.

“I…want…my…grandma.”

Leo’s gut tightened at the boy’s refusal to
even acknowledge him. He’d thought his mother had been
exaggerating, but maybe not. “Okay. Okay. I’ll take you to
Grandma’s. We just thought it might be fun if I surprised you.”
Actually his mom hadn’t thought that was such a great plan, but Leo
hadn’t gotten where he was without being stubborn—in his career and
in his life. Look what it got him, a son who wouldn’t look at him,
who clung to a stranger instead. Leo’s arms ached with the need to
comfort his son.

“Are you his father?” the blonde asked.

He shifted his gaze to the woman. “Yeah. I’ve
been out of town. Are you his teacher?”

“The school counselor.”

Right. So she knew Max, who lost his mother
and moved to a new town so his father could report on the war in
Afghanistan. He watched his son, nonplussed. The kid had loved
visiting his grandparents, so Bluestone seemed like the perfect
solution when the string of nannies didn’t work out. But the kid
before him didn’t look like he was bouncing back from the loss of
his mother. He was pale and fragile, almost unrecognizable. Did the
boy think the same about him?

“Max, your daddy wanted to surprise you.” The
blonde’s smooth, soothing voice even had Leo relaxing.

She rubbed her hand up and down Max’s slender
back and made gentle shushing noises, just like Liv had done with
Max was little and had colic. Christ, he missed his wife, missed
that he hadn’t had to feel guilty when she was around because she
took care of everything. Missed that he hadn’t had to feel
helpless.

“He came all this way to see you,” the blonde
continued.

Her words gave him a jolt. Did she know where
he’d been? Probably, since this was Bluestone where everyone knew
everyone else.

Max turned his face away from her shoulder
with a doubtful sniff as he inspected his father—and no doubt found
him lacking. Leo forced another smile. This was his kid and he
didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve missed you, buddy.”

Max snuffled and pulled away, just a bit,
from the counselor. Leo held out an ineffective hand, knowing the
boy wouldn’t take it.

“Want to go home?”

For a moment, the boy’s face brightened and
Leo knew he’d said exactly the wrong thing when the boy echoed,
“Home?”

“Grandma’s.” Not the beautiful house in
Excelsior with the playroom and the neighborhood where his friends
lived and the mother who loved him more than anything. “Grandma’s
house.” The words lumped in his throat. He wanted to go home, too,
to the time before his wife had been killed, when the light that
had warmed both his son and him had been extinguished.

The blonde murmured a few encouraging words
Leo didn’t pick up over the roar of blood in his ears, and Max
finally straightened to stand before his father. Leo flinched at
the accusation in his son’s eyes. He rubbed a hand over Max’s
arm.

“Wow, you’ve gotten big,” he said in what he
hoped was a man-to-man voice. “What are you lifting these
days?”

Max only looked at him, and again, Leo felt
helplessness flow through him.

“How about some ice cream on the way home?”
He glanced over at the counselor. “Is the Dairy Queen open
yet?”

She nodded. “Just last week.”

Leo stood and offered a hand to his son.
“Let’s go ruin our dinner.”

The blonde rose, too. “Will you be in town
long? I’d like to schedule a conference with you and Max’s
teacher.”

“I’ll be here awhile,” he said, not wanting
to let Max know he only planned to stay a couple of weeks, until
things settled again. “I’m Leo, by the way.”

“Trinity Madison,” she said, and extended a
hand.

He shook it, briefly, trying not to think
about the softness of her skin, the ringless state of it, and he
turned to guide his son across the street to his SUV.

Now that he and Max were alone, he was even
more clueless. He’d talked to Max on the phone a few times while he
was in Afghanistan, but the conversations had been short. The kid
apparently followed in his own footsteps when it came to social
interaction.

“Have you been to Dairy Queen yet?” he asked
as he buckled the boy in the booster in the back seat.

Max shook his head. “Grandma said too much
sugar isn’t good for me.”

Leo remembered her saying the same to him,
but weren’t grandparents supposed to spoil kids, just a little? And
if any kid deserved spoiling, it was one who’d lost his mother.
“Yeah, well, it’s not good for any of us, but we’re going to go
anyway.”

He closed the back door and rounded the
vehicle to climb in, trying to remember what his mother used to do
when she picked him up from school. “How was your day?”

“I got a mark.”

A mark? What the hell was a mark? “What does
that mean?”

“I couldn’t sit still in class and the
teacher yelled and then she gave me a mark in my behavior
folder.”

Okay, so he got in trouble. “So what does
that mean? Did you miss recess or something?”

“Tomorrow I have to stand against the wall at
our break.”

“Well, buddy, I guess you need to stay in
your seat so you can play on Friday.”

“Doesn’t matter. No one plays with me
anyway.”

His mother had mentioned Max didn’t have any
friends, but Leo figured it was just a matter of time. Clearly that
wasn’t the case. “Well, that sucks.”

“Grandma says that’s a bad word.”

Leo pressed his lips together. “Yeah, she’s
right. Sorry, buddy. So why doesn’t anyone play with you?”

“They think I’m weird. And they’ve all been
friends before. They don’t need me.”

Again Leo heard the accusation in the boy’s
voice. Man, he’d really screwed this up, moving Max away from the
world he’d known so Leo could get back to his life. Worse, he
didn’t have the first clue about how to make it better.

 

***

 

Ice cream apparently wasn’t the way. Max
ordered a dipped cone and dripped it all over the booster seat,
then the minute they pulled into the driveway at his parents’, Max
puked all over the running board. Leo’s mom Nora must have been
watching from the front window because she hurried out from the
side door, helping Max out of his soiled shoes and casting a
baleful glare at her son.

“Ice cream?”

Like Leo needed to be judged right now. “He
was upset. I was trying to smooth things over.”

“You did a bang-up job there. Come on, let’s
get you cleaned up.” She scooped Max into her arms—the kid was
nearly as tall as she was—and marched into the house, leaving Leo
alone, his arms still aching to hold his child. Instead, he turned
on the hose and washed the ice cream off his car.

When he walked into the kitchen later, Max
was at the same counter where Leo had done his homework years ago,
freshly bathed, the scent of the shampoo his mother had used since
Leo was a child carrying him back. He wanted to press his lips to
his son’s head, something he’d done when Max was little but now
just felt awkward. Instead he leaned on the counter at a right
angle to the boy.

BOOK: Welcome to Bluestone 1 - Bluestone homecoming
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