by Fredrick, MJ
He nodded solemnly. She’d always loved this town, had never wanted to leave, while he couldn’t wait for graduation and freedom. Now that he was an adult and his escape was assured, he could see the charm, but that didn’t mean he wanted to stay. “I was down there earlier. You’ve added some launches and some cabins, I see.”
She pressed her lips together. “Seemed wise at the time. We were getting a lot of tourists from the city. Now, with the recession, not so much.”
A dark-haired man stepped forward and took Lily’s arm, seemingly forgetting that Leo’s arms were still around her. “We should go in and get a seat.”
Leo let his hands fall to his sides as he turned to the other man, who was all intensity, his attention on Lily. He glanced at Lily, eyebrow raised, but she only gave him a sheepish smile and turned to the dark-haired man. “Quinn Alden, this is Leo Erickson. We went to high school together, though clearly Leo is older than I am.”
Quinn’s mouth twisted into what he might have thought was a socially acceptable greeting, and held out a hand to give Leo a brisk handshake. Yeah, intensity, this guy had it. What he was doing with sunny Lily, Leo had no idea. But he clearly wanted her to himself.
Lily was having none of that. She kept her arm hooked through Leo’s as they walked toward the town hall. “Come sit with us. We need to catch up.”
“Not during the meeting,” Quinn grumbled. “And there might not be three seats in a row.”
“Always half full, is Quinn,” Lily said, not to be deterred as the three of them pressed through the crowd trying to get in the door.
Leo glanced over his shoulder but didn’t see his mother. He did, however, meet the shuttered gaze of Trinity Madison.
“So why the big turnout for the meeting?” Leo asked. “I don’t remember it being such an event before.”
“Your mother didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
Lily tucked her long hair behind her ear, and her expression dimmed a few degrees. “Bluestone’s been hit pretty hard by the economic downturn. Jill barely rented out half her cabins last summer, and I only rented out a third of the ice fishing cabins. Quinn’s been trying to sell his bar for a year, no nibbles. People just don’t have the money to come up here, or they’re working two jobs, or staying closer to home. So we’re trying to come up with some ways to get them to visit. Maybe you have some ideas.”
He frowned. “You think that I, who couldn’t get out of this town fast enough, will have ideas to lure people here?”
Her mouth twisted in a pout. “It’s not really the ends of the earth, like the two of you seem to think it is. It’s a lovely place that’s not too expensive, where people can get away for a weekend without too much trouble.”
“I suppose you tried that line of advertising,” Leo teased, surprising himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d teased someone. Successfully, that was.
“We’re trying to broaden the appeal,” she said, ignoring him. “So far Bluestone is mostly known by sportsmen. But if we appeal to families, maybe we can revitalize.”
He appreciated that, and hell, if he didn’t think Bluestone was a nice little community, he wouldn’t have sent his son to live here. “It’s not going to be easy. Something like that takes years.”
“Maybe you could come up with a quick fix. You were always the smart one.” She gave his arm a squeeze.
Despite Quinn’s prediction, they were able to find three folding chairs together, two rows behind Leo’s mom and a woman who’d been her friend forever, Brenda Filbert. Again he wondered why his mother dragged him here, then sat somewhere else. She’d only introduced him to the reverend.
On the other side of Lily, Quinn folded his arms and stared straight ahead, at the council gathered on the stage. Right. Leo remembered he had been here before, for a play in middle school. He’d had a crush on a little blonde girl whose name he could no longer remember, and sat through a bad version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
“So. Boyfriend?” Leo asked low, dipping his head to Lily’s ear.
Her laughter rang out, earning a scowl from Quinn. Did the man do nothing but scowl? Maybe Leo was just bringing out the best in someone again. Maybe Quinn and Max would get along just fine.
“No. Just a friend.” But something in the brightness of her eyes made him doubt her words. Quinn certainly had other ideas.
The meeting was called to order, and after a reading of last meeting’s minutes, the council dove into a discussion of how to save Bluestone.
An advertising campaign was suggested, but all of the slogans were trite and tired, nothing uniquely Bluestone. Leo immediately wished for a notebook, but hadn’t thought to bring one. He glanced at Lily. No purse, so no notebook. He looked around, and saw Trinity Madison sitting two rows behind him. People were still calling out slogan ideas, so he leaned back and waved to draw her attention.
“Do you have a pen and paper?”
She frowned and pointed to her ear, indicating she couldn’t hear. He twisted further in his seat and mimed writing on his hand, then repeated his question. She nodded, and bent to retrieve her purse from the floor. She dug through it, finally drawing out a small flowered notebook and a gel pen. She passed them forward. He looked from the very pink utensils back to her, and she shrugged with a half-smile. He had to stop himself from grinning as he twisted forward and started scribbling.
Bluestone…family…tranquility…fishing…comfort…
All the words he could think of when he thought of Bluestone—well, when he thought good things about Bluestone. He grabbed a few words that were flying through the air around him.
Tradition…trophy…
“Bluestone, a Minnesota trophy,” he muttered.
“What?” Lily asked, but he waved her away.
Stone…jewel…treasure. He shook his head. He was going the same direction—too trite, too generic.
The gavel sounded again, and the room quieted.
“Is someone writing all these down?” the mayor asked.
“I’ve got it,” someone else said.
“You should have a contest,” Leo heard himself say. “In the paper. Best slogan will win, I don’t know, something local.”
“Dinner for two at Quinn’s,” Lily offered.
“Hey!” Quinn protested, but she only patted his leg, which seemed to appease him.
“We could open it up,” a voice chimed in behind him, and he turned to see Trinity had spoken. She flashed a smile in his direction before continuing. “We could put it in the Lake Life Magazine, make a big deal out of the winner, put pictures of the winners enjoying their dinner at Quinn’s, and maybe a few other activities around Bluestone. Jill can do the photo layout. I think that’s a great idea.”
A smattering of applause came from the room, followed by murmurs as people tried out their slogans on each other.
Leo caught his mother’s proud smile before they were called to order again.
“That’s still just part of the problem,” the mayor said. “We need to come up with something to bring people here on a regular basis. It’s been suggested that we have more artisans open shops in the area so we have a draw for the wives of the sportsmen who come here for the fishing, but before we do that, we have to give them some kind of assurance that they can make a living here. So we need to put ourselves back on the map. I have a few ideas here.”
“Is there something historical about Bluestone?” Leo asked. “Something we could play up? I lived in Excelsior, which was one of the first tourist towns in Minnesota. Right now it’s doing well, though I understand it’s closer to the cities.”
“As far as I know, the most interesting thing about our history is logging and the Ojibwe natives,” one of the men on the dais said. “But I like that angle. Maybe someone could look into that.”
“It would be a good school project,” Trinity said. “I’ll bring it up tomorrow.”
“What about a concert series?” Lily asked. “T
he country singer Maddox Bradley is from around here, isn’t he? We could get him to kick it off, maybe on Memorial Day, and then we could find some other bands from around the state, and have a music festival every month or something. It would bring in the young people, too, maybe some people who never thought about fishing, or coming to a lake town.”
One of the councilwomen frowned and leaned toward the microphone. “I’m not sure we want that kind of reputation. It might chase off the people who do love fishing, if they think we draw the wrong kind of people here. And concerts are messy business. A lot of physical preparation and detail work.”
“Which means we’d have jobs,” Lily countered.
“Temporary ones.”
“Set-up, tear-down, advertising, those are all jobs.”
The mayor held up a hand. “We’ll take it under consideration. Are there any other ideas?”
There were, a suggestion for an arts fair, and a food fair, but none were as long-term as the concert idea, and the meeting dragged on as the different ideas were debated. Finally the mayor banged the gavel again and adjourned the meeting. People were still muttering as they stood and folded their chairs. Someone tapped Leo’s shoulder and he turned to look into Trinity’s wide blue eyes.
“My pen?” She held a hand out.
He capped it and tipped it toward her. She caught his hand and turned it up so he could see the pink glitter smeared on the edge of his hand.
“Cute.” Then, as if she realized she really didn’t know him, she let his hand drop.
He rubbed the edge of his hand on the hip of his jeans to wipe away the glitter. “Can I hold onto the notebook for another day?”
She flicked her gaze to the frilly thing. “Take some good notes?”
“Some things I don’t want to forget.”
“That was a good idea you had. There’s probably going to be a lot of entries. They’re going to need someone to organize them.”
A sense of foreboding filled him, sensing there was a trap here somewhere. “They’ll probably get an intern to do that.”
She laughed. “Have you seen our paper? They don’t have interns. They have six people on staff.”
He laughed. “Six? How can they run a paper with only six people?”
“It’s a weekly, doesn’t make much money, so they can’t afford a lot of employees. You should give them a hand while you’re here.”
Before he could say anything, his mother pressed through the crowd and took his arm. “Hello, Trinity.”
“Hi, Mrs. Erickson.”
“I’m ready to go.” His mother fanned her face. “It’s very warm in here with all these people.”
He nodded, grateful to be saved from expectations he didn’t think he’d volunteered for. Besides, he wanted to get home before Max went to bed.
But it was too late. Max was already asleep when Leo and his mother returned. Leo listened with half an ear as his father described their evening together, but had a hard time concentrating, resenting too much that he hadn’t tucked his child in tonight. Another failure.
Chapter Three
Leo wasn’t accustomed to being idle. Tension stiffened his shoulders, his legs, and he recognized the need for exercise. Bluestone didn’t have a gym—maybe that was something they could work on—and it was too cold to swim. Ice-out had just been a couple of weeks ago. He could run, maybe, if he could find a spot. He’d check it out when he went to town. Surely some place in town carried balls and mitts. He was going to bring his son home today and they’d play catch in the back yard, just like he and his dad used to do.
Yeah, and look how close they were now.
But it would be a start.
He walked into the heart of town—only about three blocks from his parents’ house. He figured he could have lunch at Quinn’s—still hadn’t gotten the story on that guy and his relationship to Lily, and he wanted to check him out—hang out in town for a bit, and walk to pick up Max. Max might not be crazy about walking home, but it was a nice day, and they had to take those while they could get them.
Finding a ball and mitt was harder than he thought. After hitting two stores, he thought he’d have to drive over to Wilson to the Target there. Instead, he decided to stop at Quinn’s place for lunch.
The tavern was a big log building with a gravel parking lot a stone’s throw from the lake. Great location, if the town was doing well. It was a place tourists would come, with the mounted fish and other game on the walls. Only about a dozen people were there for lunch. Leo checked his watch. Almost one.
The man himself was behind the bar, but he came out when Leo sat at a table near the window, apparently as curious as Leo.
“Must have missed the lunch rush,” Leo commented.
Quinn scoffed. “This is the lunch rush. What can I get you?”
Quinn handed a menu to Leo and stood with his hands folded in front of him. Leo looked from the one page laminated menu to Quinn.
"Don't I get a waitress?" He inclined his head toward the dark-haired girl across the room, laughing with a group of men.
"You get me."
Huh. A bit of hostility there. Leo didn't have to work hard to figure it out. Quinn didn't know the nature of his relationship with Lily.
"I'll take a club sandwich, chips on the side, and iced tea."
Quinn took the menu back, but didn't move away.
"Did I miss a step?"
"No." Quinn pivoted and stalked off.
Poor Lily, if this guy was in love with her.
As Leo ate the sandwich—which was really good, though the limited menu didn't offer a lot of incentive for a free meal for two—he was torn between watching the scenery out the window and watching the interactions in the restaurant.
Mostly men, and the pretty little waitress seemed to be a draw. Again and again, though, she returned to one customer, a man of about forty with dark hair graying at the temples, who had a warm smile, and followed her affectionately with his gaze as she moved about the room.
Leo’s attention traveled to a small group of men, apparently construction workers, and back to Quinn, who was stocking the bar, watching him. Yeesh, maybe he was the reason business was down if he glowered at every newcomer.
Leo finished his sandwich, wiped his hands and his mouth on the stingy single napkin, and crossed the room, drawing out his wallet to pay.
"Know where I can get a ball and glove for my son? I've already been to Boysen’s and The Bluestone Stop.”
Quinn rocked back on his heels and looked down his long nose at Leo—a trick since Leo was slightly taller. "How old's your kid?"
What that had to do with where he could find what he was looking for, Leo had no idea. But he'd made the effort to be friendly. Maybe Quinn was reciprocating. Hard to tell. "Nine."
Quinn nodded once. "There's a place down Highway 23 a bit, maybe fifteen miles. Should have what you're looking for."
Leo glanced at his watch. He had just enough time to get there and back in time to pick up Max if he hustled. "Thanks."
Quinn relaxed his shoulders. "Any time."
Leo got the feeling he meant it as he headed out the door and strode home.
***
Of course he was late picking up Max, and Trinity was standing outside with her hand on his shoulder. No other kids, parents or teachers were around. He looked at the dashboard clock. Ten minutes late. Not too bad—unless you were nine years old. As Leo parked, he tried to see if Max had been crying but couldn’t tell from here. He glanced at the ball and glove on the passenger seat and decided to leave them there for now. He hopped out of the SUV with a grin on his face that Max could probably see through.
“Hey. Sorry I’m late. Wanted to miss the traffic.”
The stern expression on Trinity’s face told him she didn’t believe him. “I’d like to schedule a conference with you and Max’s teacher Mrs. Boller for tomorrow at eleven. Is that convenient for you?”
He stopped a frown from creasing his brow. After
their conversation last night, he’d expected her to be a bit friendlier. Not that he was looking for anything like that, but this attitude was a complete about-face from last night. He hated how slimy she could make him feel, how worthless.
He put his hand on Max’s shoulder and wished he felt more confident that his son would accept the gesture. “I look forward to it.”
“Don’t be late, now. The teachers only have a short break.”
He bristled. He was never late—today being the exception—but of course she didn’t know that. He nodded briskly and steered a silent Max toward the SUV.
“I got you a surprise,” he said once Trinity had gone inside. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want her to hear—she’d probably think he was trying to bribe his son’s affection. When was he going to stop feeling judged for the choices he made?
Max didn’t respond with any enthusiasm.
“Don’t you want to know what it is?”
Max lifted a shoulder as Leo opened the back door and helped him into the booster.
“Kid, you suffer from a lack of curiosity. Not like your mom. When I told her I had a surprise—” He stopped himself when Max’s eyes widened. Leo rubbed his own chest, surprised by the lack of pain at mentioning her. The words had just rolled off his tongue. He tried to remember the last time he’d spoken of her, the last time he’d spoken of her to his son. He’d avoided doing so because he worried about the pain it would cause, but maybe—maybe that was the wrong tactic. So he continued. “She would dance around and pester me until I couldn’t take it anymore and I would give her the surprise. Made me want to give her surprises all the time.” He smiled at the memory, double-checked Max’s buckle, and looked up into the kid’s face.
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.”
