Read Online Bluestone Song by MJ Fredrick - Free Book Online

“Not your
business.”
    “You come out of Quinn’s office ready to cry,
I’m making it my business. Or his.”
    She glared at him then, nostrils flared.
“When did you become such a meddling old lady?”
    Good question. Since he came back to
Bluestone, apparently. “What has you so upset?”
    “Nothing. It’s just hard to leave a job. I’ve
worked here for years.”
    Surprise snapped his spine straight. “So why
are you leaving?”
    “I can make better money across the lake at
the casino.”
    He’d been to that casino. He hated the place,
with its flashing lights and ringing machines and cigarette smell.
He didn’t want to imagine Beth wandering around serving drinks to
the men there, with no one there to look after her, no one to
remind them they needed to respect her.
    A thought occurred to him. “Is it because I’m
here? You’re going to work over there to get away from me?”
    She made a dismissive sound and her gaze
flickered down. “Don’t flatter yourself. You won’t be around that
much longer, so quit butting in.” She twisted free and stormed out
of the bathroom, and out of the bar.
    He stared after her, wondering why the hell
she had to be so stubborn.
     
    Beth collapsed in her deck chair at three in
the morning, a bottle of diet root beer beside her and the
mosquito-repellent lantern burning beside her. Today had been
rough. After she’d gathered herself after leaving Quinn’s, she’d
called Jonathan’s mother, and arranged to meet her before she went
in for one of her last shifts at Quinn’s.
    The woman hadn’t been particularly
sympathetic.
    “If Linda had given up the baby as she and
Jonathan decided, the adoptive couple would have paid all the
hospital expenses,” Mrs. Bomer pointed out.
    “I understand, but this is Jonathan’s child,
too. We wouldn’t be in this position—”
    “If your sister hadn’t wagged her tail at
him.”
    Beth’s face heated. “Teen-agers—”
    “You could at least have put her on the
pill.”
    “She’s been on the pill since she was
fourteen.” But she didn’t always remember to take it, the little
fool. “That’s all water under the bridge. The fact remains,
Jonathan has a responsibility to this child.”
    Mrs. Bomer’s face hardened. “He signed away
his responsibility when he signed the adoption papers. He doesn’t
want anything to do with Linda or the baby.”
    “This is your grandchild, Mrs. Bomer. Don’t
you want to be a part of his life? He’s a sweet little boy and
needs lots of love. You can just dismiss him like this?”
    The older woman leaned forward. “Jonathan has
a future. He’s going to college. We’ve planned for this all his
life. He doesn’t need a baby or a girl holding him back. I’m sorry,
Beth, but you girls decided to keep the baby. He’s your
responsibility.”
    The conversation had so closely mirrored the
one they’d had when Linda had turned up pregnant, Beth didn’t know
why she was surprised. But now her precious little Jonas would grow
up without either set of grandparents.
    Just like she had, and she’d turned out,
well, she’d turned out.
    Later, Trinity Madison had walked up to her
in the bar, when she was unloading a tray of dirty glasses. The
other woman barely spoke to her as a rule, more because, well,
Trinity had friends and Beth didn’t, so Beth was speechless for a
minute. That gave Trinity the time to launch into her spiel.
    “Quinn tells me you need a babysitter, and
I’m out of school now, and as you guessed, pregnant. I could sure
use the practice.”
    Beth looked past the pretty blonde to where
Quinn and Leo Erickson, Trinity’s fiancé, stood at the far end of
the bar, pretending they had no idea what was going on.
    Her first instinct was to say no. She didn’t
accept help from other people, wasn’t beholden to other people,
because she wasn’t able to return the favor. But she was in pretty
desperate straits here. She looked back at Trinity, with her
earnest eyes and