Almost Blue: The Oro Beach Series, #1

By Julie Strauss

He loved her first…

Ellie Norman stays away from relationships, thank you very much. It's been almost three decades since Wayne Maxwell crushed her heart and fled Oro Beach to become an international blues star, and she's never forgotten it—or him. But at least he's long-gone, and she can enjoy her peaceful seaside hometown, her bookstore, and her solitude.

Which makes it especially infuriating when Wayne waltzes into her store one day, ruining all three.

Wayne's been brought home by a family tragedy, but being back in town is reminding him of everything he loved about Oro Beach—including Ellie. Now he's thinking about staying, but Ellie's determined to drive him back out of town. How is he supposed to convince her he's a changed man if she won't even give him a chance?

Set against the backdrop of coastal California, Almost Blue is a love story about listening to the music of your heart and facing to your past.

Almost Blue is the first book in the Oro Beach Romance Series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julie Strauss
• Release date: Sep 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386713326

Julie Strauss

Julie Strauss lives, reads, and cooks in Southern California with her husband and four children.

Book preview

ALMOST BLUE

BY JULIE STRAUSS

Chapter One

Wayne Maxwell

Wayne Maxwell saw a weathered red door in the building next to the dingy motel and pushed it open without noticing the sign on the bay window. Seashells, beach towels, t-shirts with funny sayings; it didn’t matter. Everything in this town sold the same shit. His feet moved automatically, in and out of each doorway as he tried to wander the day away.

He had to jerk the door open, the damp ocean air swelling and cracking every piece of wood in this town. Nothing ever changed, he thought. Everything in Oro Beach fell apart, and nothing ever changed.

Not true, obviously. Everything had changed. That was why he was here.

The bell made an unpleasant twang as he shoved the door closed, and he frowned and looked up at it. It had a crack up the side. Wayne pinged it a few times with his finger, the frown deepening between his eyebrows. Broke-ass bell, he muttered to himself. Broke-ass town.

I’ll be right with you, a woman called from the back of the store.

He turned around and was surprised to face a large room lined with black bookshelves. The polished wood floor gleamed in the morning sunshine that poured through the windows. A bookstore. He didn’t even know bookstores like this existed anymore. But if they did, it would be in a backward town like Oro Beach. He still couldn’t see the person who had called out to him because the shop looked empty. Still, it was cozy inside, nice to be out of the chilly wind that whipped off the Pacific Ocean outside.

He ran his hand along the shabby green velvet couch. It felt smooth and soft against his hand, and he thought about how nice it would be to collapse into it and relax against the puffed cushions, maybe close his eyes and allow himself to drift off. But no, there was no time. He had to stay awake, had to face his family. He walked the perimeter of the shop, letting his eyes drift over the books without really noticing them. A woman sat behind the counter on a big stuffed chair. A squashy chair, Momma used to call them, then his throat closed up at the memory and he brushed the thought aside. The woman was hunched over a book and didn’t even look up at him. Fine, he thought. Every other shop owner in this town felt the need to talk to him, offer him things, ask him for a selfie. A few had even hugged him. For once, he felt grateful for snooty customer service, since he didn’t want to talk to anyone. Maybe not ever again.

It was useless to hope to never talk to anyone again. The next week would be nothing but talk, talk, talk. With everyone he’d ever known, everyone he’d grown up with, everyone who had ever loved him. They’d all ask questions; they’d want to hug him; they’d want answers. They’d want him, and there was nothing of him left.

He turned away from the woman, who hadn’t looked up, and went back to the books. He could hide out here for while at least. A stranger in his hometown, but here in this spot no one knew him and he could be free.

He pulled a book off the shelf—The Geopolitical Paradigm of World War II—and started flipping through the pages, not seeing the words, his eyes skimming over the dense, tiny paragraphs and blurry black-and-white pictures. The only thing that made it into his brain was the classical music coming through a tinny speaker somewhere. A Haydn trumpet piece, but he couldn’t place it. He had used this chord progression in a song once—the plaintive and sad trumpet solo at the end of this concerto became the searing blues lick of his single Walk the Pain Away. He flipped through the pages of the book, only vaguely noticing the pictures, his chin bobbing as he started singing the words he knew so well.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman in the squashy chair look up and study him. He stopped singing but kept humming under his breath. A picture in the book had caught his eye—a big, inflatable tank being carried through a field by six soldiers. The French Army placed inflatable tanks throughout battlegrounds to bluff their enemies and evade detection, he read.

Wayne studied the picture, and it felt like the first thing he had learned in a long time. Inflatable tanks. Making a decoy of an entire tank, to throw off an army. Why had he never thought to make an inflatable version of himself? He could place the blowup Wayne Maxwell in the middle of Momma’s living room, to evade the army, and the entire town could hug him all day long. He could paint the inflatable face into that cheesy smile he always used when people wanted to take selfies with him—lips back, chin lowered down, one eyebrow raised. He hated the expression, and still he did it every time. Sometimes people even imitated it—his press manager told him once that Wayne’s way of smiling had become a viral hashtag: #waynesway. Whatever that meant. He’d make an inflatable version of himself, with that shit-eating expression on his face, and it could pose for him, tour for him, fake out enemy armies in fields for him.

Not a bad idea.

He’d been staring at the spines for a long time, contemplating this fake-out he had planned. The woman behind the desk stood up and began creeping toward him. He could feel her eyes on him, but he didn’t look up. He didn’t want to smile at anyone, have to explain anything to anyone. Not even his book choice. He pulled another one down—the same one? No, this was The Geopolitical Paradigm of World War I. For blue’s sake, who knew there were this many geopolitical paradigms in the world? He flipped through this book with even less interest than the first. Someone had written this book. Someone had sat behind a desk and thought about paradigms and spent eight hundred pages writing about something that already happened, only to have the book gather dust in a boring town. The woman walked the aisle next to him; he could still feel her watching him, studying him. Please no, not now, don’t recognize me. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to pose. I don’t want to sign anything. Just let me stand here and pretend to read this boring book.

She retreated back to the cash register, and he took that as his cue to get out of there. He shut the book, jammed it back on the shelf, and walked quickly to the door.

Your bell’s broken, he said as he approached the door, anticipating the dissonant clang he was about to hear.

He could hear the book flying through the air before he knew what it was, coming toward his back like a jet engine. He saw the edge of her reflection in the bay window. She leaned forward, her arm extended like a pitcher throwing the winning strike. He saw the book flying toward him in the reflection, anticipated the impact on his back before he felt it. He ducked to the right, and the book grazed his shoulder and hit the door, causing the broken bell to emit an even more dull clang than usual.

"The fuck!" He turned quickly to see that she’d come from behind the cash register.

Her face was pulled into a tight glare, her dark hair was shot through with streaks of grey, but he recognized her in an instant.

Ellie Norman.

You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up in my shop.

He stood with his mouth open for a second, and then laughter overtook him. She looked like a deranged witch in her long skirt, her skinny arms bending out from her body as if she wanted to fly away or keep winging books at his head. Her hair spun about her face in frizzy ringlets, and her eyes sparked with rage. Nobody wanted his autograph here. Nobody was interested in him at all. Only Ellie would throw a book at his head today, of all days. Only Ellie would scream at him today. It was too much. He bent over double and wiped his streaming eyes. Crazy hippies in a crazy hippie town with broken bells and boring books.

I didn’t know it was your shop. How would I? Aren’t you the woman who is always concerned about her priiiiii-vacy? He gasped, standing up straight and trying to contain his laughter.

I don’t believe you. I knew you’d come back one day, and I thought I wouldn’t care. And you know what? I don’t care. Wayne Maxwell, I don’t care that you are here, and I don’t care that only thing you can even say to me is that my bell is broken. It’s so—her arms flailed as if