Welcome to Bluestone 1 - Bluestone homecoming (5 page)

Tears ran down Max’s cheeks. “I miss
her.”

Leo curved his hand around his son’s head,
drew it forward and pressed a fierce kiss to his forehead. “So do
I, buddy.”

***

Trinity watched the interaction through the
glass door and her heart broke. She knew the story, of course.
Max’s mom’s car had broken down on the side of the road. A driver
had swerved into her while she was waiting for the tow truck and
she was killed. Max’s father had been on assignment in Iraq and
couldn’t come back for days. The child’s only security was his
grandparents. And even when Leo had shown up, he’d been so wrapped
up in his own grief he didn’t know how to deal with Max’s. Or Max.
When the child started acting out, Leo shipped him to his parents
and bailed.

Only the story no longer seemed so
black-and-white. She didn’t know why she expected any story to.
Perhaps she’d lived with her parents too long.

She turned back to her office. Thursday
afternoon meant faculty meeting and she was afraid she knew the
topic. Their enrollment was terrible as families moved away, to the
cities where the jobs were. Bluestone Elementary had gone from
having two teachers per grade level to one, and now they were
considering combining grade levels—kinder and first, second and
third, fourth and fifth, which meant three teachers losing their
jobs. She was lucky she’d been able to hold onto her job as long as
she had. Honestly, she’d rather lose hers than see Mrs. Conover,
who had a young family, or Mrs. Dennis, whose husband was one of
Lily Prater’s employees, and his job was on the edge. Trinity at
least lived with her parents, though she had been saving for three
years to get her own place. She just couldn’t decide if she wanted
to live that close to her parents.

Oh, well, her decision might be made for her
in a few minutes.

***

Trinity walked out of the faculty meeting
nearly two hours later no more certain than when she’d walked in.
The school board would allow them to continue the rest of the year,
three more months, on the current budget, though it strained the
coffers. But next year, if the situation didn’t drastically
improve, they’d make the changes, and in addition, Trinity would be
a floating counselor, serving the elementary, middle and high
school in Bluestone one week, and then work in nearby Wilson
another. Okay, nearby but not nearby enough, and not in the winter.
Ugh. And she preferred working with the younger children, though
her job sometimes gave her an unexpected twinge, especially when
she spent time in a first grade class and saw the enthusiasm and
innocence of the children. She couldn’t help wondering what kind of
personality her daughter had.

She shook herself back to the present. She
didn’t expect that any of the solutions presented last night were
going to save her job, or Mrs. Conover’s, or Mrs. Dennis’s. What
had that lady on the news called it? The new reality.

She didn’t want to go home yet, where the
news was always grimmer, no matter what. She’d splurge on dinner at
Quinn’s. She was bound to know someone there, and even if she
didn’t, she didn’t mind eating by herself.

***

Leo shouldn’t be surprised that Max was less
than thrilled with the present. Leo tried to hide his frustration
as he urged the reluctant boy out into the front yard, positioned
him with his back to the house and the glove dangling limply from
his left hand.

“Bring it up, be ready now. You ever played
before?”

“In PE. I don’t like it.”

“It takes practice. That’s why I got
this.”

“Where’s your glove?”

Huh. Good question. What had he done with it
when he packed up the Excelsior house? “Maybe in the attic. I’ll
look for it tonight.” He checked his feet, spun the ball in his
hand. It had been a long damn time since he’d held one. He forgot
how right it felt. He rubbed his thumb over the threads and the
muscles in his arm bunched in memory. He had to temper it—no fast
balls to his kid, not yet. With a grin, he wound up and tossed a
soft one.

Max missed it, but stared at Leo. “You did
that just like on TV.”

Leo rolled his shoulders at the bit of pride
that rolled through him. “I played in high school and college.”

“Were you good?” Curiosity edged into Max’s
tone, and he shifted, bringing the glove up to touch it
testingly.

“Had a scholarship.”

“What does that mean?”

“I got to go to college for free.”

“You have to pay to go to college?” Max bent
and picked up the ball, put it in his glove, then tried to mimic
Leo’s movement. The ball arced, then fell short.

“Good effort. Here, I’ll show you.” He
crossed the yard. For the first time since he’d been here, Max let
Leo touch him without flinching as he drew back his son’s arm,
placed the ball in his hand and showed him how to throw.

They spent an hour throwing, catching, and
talking. Max’s questions were hesitant at first, as were his
answers to Leo’s questions, but his questions became more
spontaneous, random. He never quite reached chatty, but Leo was
feeling good when he ushered Max inside.

“I’ll give you your bath.”

“Dad.” Exasperation. “I’m old enough to bathe
myself.”

Leo hid a grin. “I thought Grandma had been
giving you baths.”

“She has but I’m old enough.”

“Just hard for her to see that, huh?”

Max nodded.

“I forgot to ask if you have homework.”

The look on his face said it all. Well, hell.
So much for good parenting.

***

Leo decided to take advantage of the early
sunrise to go for a run before he got Max ready for school. He’d
found a path that was just shy of decent along the lake. Anything
to get the kinks out.

His muscles twinged pleasantly when he bent
to tie his shoes. Throwing that ball last night had felt good, had
released some of the tension that knotted up his back and
shoulders. He hoped Max was willing to repeat it this
afternoon.

He stretched in the small unfamiliar room
that had been his brother Kevin’s. His older brother had moved out
when Leo was five, so Leo hadn’t spent much time in here. Maybe
they’d get along better if they’d been closer in age. Maybe Kevin
wouldn’t be so impatient with every choice Leo made, including
Leo’s marriage to Liv, which had only widened the rift.

Leo straightened and trotted down the stairs.
He could hear his parents moving around in their bedroom. He fully
intended to be back in time to get Max up and ready, but to do
that, he had to avoid talking to his mom now.

He slipped out the front door, wincing at the
chirp of the alarm, and started at a brisk walk down to the lake.
Mist hung low to the ground, blurring the trees and houses as he
strode past. He wished he’d chosen sweatpants instead of shorts,
but returning to the house to change would put him behind schedule.
He’d warm up soon.

When he returned, he’d have to write a note
to Max’s teacher about the missing homework. Max insisted he needed
one, and Leo admitted to feeling a little defensive about
apologizing for taking some time to bond with his kid. If Max was
as much trouble in school as his mother had reported, the teacher
should appreciate his effort, right?

He crested the hill that looked onto the
lake. The water was like a mirror on the still morning. The birds,
who were returning from their trip south, were making a racket in
the trees around him. The sound cheered him as he crossed the main
street and hit the packed dirt path that curved alongside the
lake.

He hadn’t run outside since he lived in
Excelsior. Back then, he’d run with an iPod blaring music so he’d
keep a rhythm, blocking out everything else. Now he wanted to hear
what was around him. Not sure if that was because of his time in a
war zone or because he needed to appreciate his surroundings. He
listened to the slow putter of a boat heading out for a day of
fishing, the occasional splash of a fish. He jogged past Prater
Landing, the launch company Lily’s family owned. He saw a couple of
guys bundled up checking out the boats lashed to the dock, and he
waved as he ran by.

Then he spotted a figure ahead of him on the
path, someone sensible enough to wear sweats over her curvy bottom,
her blonde ponytail swinging rhythmically as she jogged.

Trinity Madison. What were the odds? He
hesitated, not sure if he should approach, what his welcome would
be—the friendly flirt at the town hall meeting or the stern
teacher. He pulled alongside her and she jumped a foot to the side.
Too late, he saw she was listening to an iPod and hadn’t heard him.
He reached out a hand to steady her on the uneven path.

“Sorry about that.” He gestured to the
earbuds. “What are you listening to?”

“Maddox Bradley, since they were talking
about him at the town hall meeting.”

“Do you remember him? Are you—did you grow up
in Bluestone? He was a summer kid.” He didn’t remember her, but she
was younger than him. So was Maddox, for that matter. He remembered
the guy as a little prick, but the girls had had a different
view.

“I vaguely remember him. He was a couple of
years older. We moved here about fifteen years ago when my father
was assigned to Bluestone Methodist, then I went away to school for
a couple of years, and came back here to teach.”

“So you were, what, a freshman?”

“Eighth grade.”

He gestured to the bakery, with its neon
“OPEN” sign. “Want some coffee?”

She glanced at the face of her iPod. “I guess
I have a few minutes, if we get it to go.”

He guided her across the street with his hand
at the small of her back. It had been so long since he’d touched a
woman in such a way. Lily didn’t count—she was like the sister he
never had, no matter what Quinn thought. And that zing of awareness
didn’t buzz through his body when she was around.

They walked to the counter and ordered two
coffees to go. While they waited, he turned to her. “So you’re
pretty young for a counselor.”

She shrugged and placed her palms on the
counter. “I went on and got my masters, since I was already in the
swing of going to school. I put in a few years in the classroom
before I decided I wanted focus on counseling.”

A smile canted his lips. “Come on, we’re in
Bluestone. Do you really see that many problem kids?”

She leveled a look at him. “I also deal with
testing and achievement data, as well as kids dealing with divorce,
with the loss of family income, with the loss of a mother.”

Ow. He shifted back toward the counter, as if
that would make him any less vulnerable to her words. “Does he talk
to you? About her?”

She shook her head. “Does he talk to
you?”

He frowned, wishing he hadn’t brought it up.
It had been a surprisingly pleasant morning, and while the pain of
losing Liv was no longer sharp, the pain of what his son was
dealing with was. “I mentioned her yesterday in passing and we both
kind of froze up.”

“You can’t do that, Mr. Erickson. He has to
be able to talk about her, to hear about her. He might think you’ve
forgotten about her otherwise.”

Leo folded his hand around the disposable
cup, savoring the bite of pain at the heat against his palm. “He
doesn’t think that.”

“Sometimes kids do. I know it’s hard for you
to talk about, but you should make an effort for him.”

“What if talking about her just reopens old
wounds?”

“It might. He might cry, and he might dream
about her, and he might hurt. But you’re not doing him a favor by
protecting him from his memories of her, from your memories of
her.”

“She always worried I’d be killed,” he mused
after a few moments. “I’m the one who went off to war zones and
disaster areas. She always said I’d leave her alone, a widow. We’d
fight about it. I never thought…”

“No, we never do think.”

“I imagine he thinks that now, too. Worries
about it.” Though for all Leo knew, Max didn’t care one way or
another if Leo died.

“So what are you going to do?”

He shrugged. “No idea. I have some money
saved, so I can take a sabbatical for a bit. Not sure if that will
do any good or not.”

“I’m sure it will to Max. Hey, maybe you
could buy Quinn’s place.” She flashed him a teasing grin.

He grasped onto the change of subject like a
lifeline. He hadn’t wanted this to turn into a counseling session.
“I doubt Quinn would sell to me if I was the last person on earth.
He doesn’t like me much.”

“He doesn’t like anyone.”

“Except Lily.”

She pivoted toward him. “You see it,
too?”

“Could’ve been the way he snarled at me when
she hugged me the other night. Does she not know?”

Trinity waved her hand. “She has so many
other things on her mind it’s not funny. I’m sure she doesn’t
notice.”

“Good. He’s not the right guy for her.”

Her smile faded, and she sent him an
assessing glance. “You two go back?”

“Oh, yeah. I was her shoulder to cry on many
a time.” When some idiot boy broke her heart. When her dad would
get after her, always harder on her than on her brothers, no matter
how hard she worked.

“But not—romantic.” She blushed as she said
it. Huh. A little return on his attraction there.

“No. I didn’t want to get tied to a girl who
was tied to this place.” She drew in a little breath, but he didn’t
take time to analyze it. “You can pass that on to Quinn if you
want.”

She closed her hand around the paper cup and
straightened. “I need to get ready for school. Thank you for the
coffee. Don’t forget you have a parent conference with Mrs. Boller
at eleven.”

She pivoted and took off before he could ask
her if she ran every morning. Then he wondered why he cared.