Read Online Boston Avant-Garde 2 - Crescendo by Maitland Kaitlin - Free Book Online Page A

each other for support.
    Joshua pressed his forehead against Seth’s and gripped his shoulder. “I’m not going to let her hurt you again.”
    “You can’t spend the rest of your life protecting me, Joshua.”
    “The hell I can’t.”
    Seth thought back to the beginning, when a ten-year-old Joshua had transferred to Seth’s boarding school. The two boys had become friends during the winter quarter while dealing with a tenacious bully. Seth had never had a best friend before.
    He chuckled at the memory. “Leslie isn’t a fourth-grade bully.”
    “I never said she was.” Joshua pulled back and met his gaze. “And I don’t expect her to get drunk and beat you black-and-blue with a horsewhip either.”
    Seth would never forget the look of terrified determination in Joshua’s blue eyes. Joshua had spent spring break at Seth’s father’s estate on Cape Cod that year. Seth had never anticipated his new best friend would step between him and his father during one of the old man’s angry, drunken bouts. He had. A school bully could never compare to Seth’s mean-natured father, but Joshua hadn’t backed down. Not then and never since. It was a decision that changed their lives forever.
    It had only been two years since his father’s funeral. On some level, Seth had forgiven the dead man for his physical abuse. Josh still struggled with the idea of closure, and Seth suspected his friend would never let go of his protective habits.
    “You were the only one who ever gave a shit about me, Seth. How could I not at least try to put a stop to that kind of treatment?”
    Neglect had been Joshua’s parents’ way of handling their offspring. Until the visit to the Cape with Seth, Joshua had spent every vacation and holiday break at school. His parents hadn’t even arranged for him to spend summers at home. Their idea of parenting was a nanny until he was old enough for boarding school and college after that.
    Which brought them full circle and landed them in this predicament with Leslie.
    “Do you trust me, Joshua?”
    “Without question.”
    Seth cupped Joshua’s jaw in his hands. “Then please trust me where Leslie is concerned.”
    Joshua opened his mouth to argue, but Seth placed a thumb against his lips to prevent any words from coming out.
    “There’s more to this woman than you could possibly imagine. Please give us a chance.”
    Seth saw the acceptance in Joshua’s blue eyes, felt it in his body when the fight drained from his muscles. Now he had to somehow uncover the third piece of the puzzle. His legacy was physical abuse, Joshua’s was neglect, and Leslie’s was still a mystery to be unraveled.

Chapter Six
     
    Rosin danced on an updraft, turning to fairy dust in the sunlight streaming from the front windows. Leslie drew the green-tinted cake down the bowstrings and took comfort in the familiar routine. When everything else in life was uncertain, this was what she craved. That one moment when bow met string and all else melted away until nothing but the notes remained.
    The first strains of Vivaldi echoed around the penthouse, resonating across the wood floors and rising in her ears until it seemed her heart beat with the key signature. Her worries faded into the background. The silly Donna Show, Jen’s warnings, her own traitorous feelings, and even the fledgling emotions for Seth and Joshua that she didn’t dare examine.
    Why couldn’t everything be as simple as the melody flitting over her strings, as her fingers sliding down the neck of her violin to coax the highest notes from the gleaming wood? As simple as the rhythmic wavering of her wrist to create the plaintive vibrato.
    The answer, of course, was that life was never simple. Decisions were rarely one way or the other. Instead, they all existed within the grey mist of possibilities.
    The bow went still and the violin silent.
    Lowering the instrument, Leslie turned it upside down and tilted it until a shaft of sunlight caught the red grain