Bluestone Song by MJ Fredrick

his
hand around her arm.
    “I’ll be fine. I’m mostly stunned, is
all.”
    Dale drew back a bit, the corners of his
mouth turned down. Oh, great, she’d hurt his feelings. He should
know her well enough to know she didn’t like a fuss being made over
her. Too late, she realized he’d just intended to get her alone.
Oh, dear. She was going to have to figure out how she felt about
this and then they were going to have to talk. God, she really
wished she knew if her reluctance to accept his gesture
whole-heartedly was because of her feelings for Maddox or for a
myriad of other reasons.
    “I’ve got to go get these diapers to Linda
anyway.” She smiled and touched his cheek, which seemed to appease
him. “You go enjoy your game. I’ll see you at the bar in a few
hours.”
    And again, she bolted.
     
    “Dad called,” Linda said as Beth walked
through the door with her burden.
    With the screen door slamming shut behind
her, Beth thought—hoped—she misheard. She set her load down on the
counter and turned to her sister. “What did you say?”
    Linda stepped forward, concern furrowing her
brow. “What happened to your face?”
    Beth waved her concern aside. “Got in the way
of a baseball game.” She lifted the ice pack to her face, easier to
do now that she wasn’t carrying the bags of baby supplies. “What
did you say?”
    Linda rocked back on her heels, her
expression closing. Because of Beth’s reaction to her concern, or
because of the news she was about to deliver, Beth didn’t know.
    “Dad called,” Linda said again.
    Beth’s heart did a slow, terrified thud. How
much of her past was going to rain down on her this week?
“Wanting?”
    “Money.”
    She had known that was the answer the moment
the question left her lips. She did her best not to show Linda her
panic. She was barely making enough for the three of them to live.
“How much this time?”
    “He wouldn’t tell me. He said he’d call back
to talk to you.”
    Which meant it was a lot. Which she didn’t
have right now. But she’d have to find a way, so he’d keep his
distance. “Did he say anything else?” The last time he’d called,
Linda had been pregnant, and he’d promised to send money to them
for a change. Of course, he’d probably gotten drunk right
afterwards and forgotten. No money had arrived. She wondered what
else he’d forgotten.
    Linda shook her head, no doubt thinking the
same thing.
    “You didn’t talk to him about Jonas?”
    Linda scrunched up her nose. “Why would
I?”
    Good point.
    “Why doesn’t he call Adam or Joey?”
    “He doesn’t have their numbers.” Because she
wouldn’t give the information to him. Her brothers had escaped his
abuse, barely, and were free. She wasn’t going to drag them back
in.
    “Well, he should. We shouldn’t have to bail
him out all the time.”
    “Don’t worry about it. I can take care of
it.”
    Linda’s shoulders snapped square and she blew
a frustrated breath out through her nose. “We barely have money for
ourselves. I mean, we can’t even afford to hire a babysitter when I
go to school, so you’re working nights and then babysitting. It’s
not fair.”
    Beth appreciated her sister’s outrage on her
behalf—and wondered where it was the rest of the time. “We’ll be
okay. I promised you it would, didn’t I?”
    “But why does it have to be so hard? We don’t
have anything and he wants more from us.”
    “And I’d rather give it to him than have him
come back.” She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She needed to
think about what she was going to do, how she was going to make
more money. She was doing better in tips since Maddox came, but she
should have known better than to hope it would give them some kind
of cushion. “Now, do you know if we have any ibuprofen?”
     
    “Beth, honey.”
    Her father’s voice carried soft and low over
the phone lines. He was drunk, she knew. When he wasn’t drunk, he
was uptight and angry and took his