My Darling Melissa

by Linda Lael Miller

  Melissa got out of bed and tried on the dresses. They fit well enough, but the shoes were a bit too large. She was striding back and forth, trying to get the hang of keeping them on her feet, when Quinn reentered the car with a rush of cold air.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, scowling. It was plain enough that he’d lost at poker.

  “I’m practicing,” she answered. “If these are going to be my shoes, I’d just better learn to walk in them.”

  “A cryptic statement if I’ve ever heard one,” Quinn replied, rounding the desk and opening a drawer. He took a wallet from the inside pocket of his tailored suit coat and dropped it inside. An expression of polite horror crossed his face as he took in her worn calico dress. “Great Scott, that’s ugly.”

  Melissa curtsied, though she was beginning to feel weak again. “Thank you so much, sir,” she said.

  Quinn took her firmly by the arm and led her back to the bed, where he sat her down. “Get back into bed,” he ordered when he’d divested her of both her shoes. “A porter will be along soon with more hot lemon juice.”

  Seeing that Quinn had turned his back, Melissa squirmed out of her charity dress and crawled back under the covers. She was wearing muslin drawers and a camisole now instead of Quinn’s shirt.

  “I’ve got it all figured out,” she announced, assuming an optimism she did not feel. “I’m going to prove to my family that I can take care of myself.”

  The porter brought the lemon juice in a crockery teapot. When he was gone Quinn poured the juice into a cup and handed it to Melissa. Only then did he comment, “I can’t wait to hear your plans, Miss Corbin.”

  Melissa took a noisy sip of the hot drink. “I’m not going to touch my trust fund, nor will I charge so much as a paper of pins to my mother’s accounts.”

  A wry grin twisted Quinn’s lips; by now he was settled in the bedside chair again. “Drastic measures,” he commented.

  “I do have a little money that I earned myself, though. From my writing, I mean.”

  Quinn sighed. “What does your family think of your—er—literary pursuits?”

  Melissa lowered her eyes for a moment. “They don’t know,” she confessed. “Except for Banner, that is.”

  “Banner?”

  “My sister-in-law.” Melissa was proud of Adam’s wife, and she could not contain her enthusiasm. “Banner, who’s married to Adam, is a doctor—not a midwife or a nurse, mind you, but a real doctor. Jeff’s Fancy was once a magician, and Keith’s wife, Tess, takes the most remarkable photographs.”

  Quinn gave a low whistle to prove that he was impressed and then ruined everything by saying, “The lady doctor probably has a face ugly enough to stop a grizzly bear’s heart.”

  Melissa took a great gulp of her lemon juice. “I’ll tell my brother you said so,” she purred.

  A slow, insolent smile touched Quinn’s mouth. “Do that. I’m not afraid of your brothers, Melissa.”

  She returned his smile. “All that proves is that you’re foolish,” she replied lightly. “But that’s neither here nor there. Is this train going to stop in Seattle, Mr. Rafferty?”

  He arched one eyebrow and then rubbed his chin before answering. “Briefly. Why?”

  “The money I mentioned is in an account there.”

  Quinn cleared his throat and sat forward in his chair, looking earnest and impossibly pompous. “Listen, Melissa—I think this whole idea calls for some careful reconsidering on your part. After all, you’re only a woman, alone in the world—”

  She smiled sweetly as she interrupted him. “But I’m not alone in the world. I have you, Mr. Rafferty.”

  “Me?” Mr. Rafferty echoed, looking stricken.

  Melissa nodded. “Even though you have in effect compromised my good name, I am in your debt. I’m going to Port Riley with you. I’m going to rent a room, land a job, and make something of myself.”

  Quinn was aghast but finally managed a raspy “You can’t do that!”

  Melissa deliberately widened her eyes. “Why not?” A horrible possibility struck her in that instant, and she gasped out, “You’re not married, are you?”

  “God, no,” Rafferty breathed. “But there is a woman… .”

  That admission injured Melissa, although she realized, of course, that Mr. Rafferty’s personal life was none of her affair. She bit her lip and willed tears into her eyes; it was a gambit that always worked with Jeff and Keith.

  “Gillian would never understand.”

  Melissa sniffled. “Gillian?” she whispered miserably.

  Quinn shot out of his chair so fast that it nearly overturned. “Damn it, stop that! Stop looking like that, stop sounding like that—”

  “I can’t go home,” Melissa reminded him.

  Quinn flung his arms out from his sides. “There’s always Seattle,” he suggested, with a note of wild desperation in his voice.

  “I know too many people there.”

  “I see that as an advantage!”

  Melissa stuck out her chin. “Well, it isn’t. Word would get back to my family, and I’d be in Port Hastings before I knew it, tatting doilies and warming my feet by the parlor fire!”

  Quinn let out a long, ragged sigh and pushed back one side of his coat to shove a hand into his trouser pocket. “Listen to me,” he implored. “I’m an innocent bystander here. I was standing out there on that platform, minding my own damned business, when you came running out of the rain.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “Melissa, I’ve tried to be a gentleman about this whole thing. I gave you my bed, I saw that you were taken care of when you fell sick, and I never once took advantage of you as a lot of men would have done. But I draw the line at letting you ruin everything I’ve worked for.”

  Melissa squinted at him, her heart beating fast. “How could I possibly do that?” she wanted to know.

  “I told you a minute ago that I don’t have a wife, and that’s true. But I do have a fiancée, Melissa. Gillian and I plan to be married this summer.”

  The news shattered Melissa, although she couldn’t think why it should. “I see. And what does marrying this Gillian woman have to do with whatever it is that you’ve worked so hard to build up?”

  “We have a—business alliance, Gillian and I. Our combined holdings—”

  Melissa held up one hand. “Please. Don’t go on—I understand quite clearly. You’re marrying this woman for her money.”

  Quinn started to speak and then fell silent, turning away from Melissa and disappearing beyond the partition.

  Even though she knew he was only a few feet away, Melissa felt thoroughly abandoned. She snuggled down into the covers, wondering what she was going to do now.

  She had a thought. “If you want money,” she called out, “you could marry me. I have a lot of it.”

  Quinn’s voice was tight with anger. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Oddly, the pain Ajax’s betrayal had caused her seemed slight beside what she was feeling then. “I’m a virgin,” she pointed out in spite of herself.

  She heard him sigh, once more the soul of long-suffering forbearance. “Hog-tying a husband won’t prove a damn thing to your family, Melissa.”

  Melissa’s lower lip trembled. “You’re quite right, of course,” she called back. Then she closed her eyes and, with immeasurable difficulty, went back to sleep.

  When she awakened again she felt much better. She got out of bed and called out, “Quinn?”

  There was no answer, so Melissa dashed to the cubicle in the corner of the car, where the facilities were. When she came out a tub had sprouted in the middle of the floor, filled to the brim with steaming hot water.

  Melissa looked at it with longing.

  “It’s all yours,” Quinn said with an indulgent chuckle.

  Realizing that she was dressed only in her underthings, Melissa gasped and dodged back into the water closet.

  There was a rap at the door. “We’ll be in Seattle in an hour,” Quinn said after a moment.
“If you want a bath, I’d suggest you get on with it. I’ll be in the dining car, having breakfast.”

  Melissa’s stomach rumbled. She could only hope that Quinn would find it in his heart to bring her something to eat when he came back. She waited until she heard the outer door close and then crept out.

  The car was empty, and Melissa quickly stripped and stepped into the bathwater. It felt wonderful, soothing her achy muscles, seeming to warm her very spirit. But she dared not linger.

  She was wearing one of her two calico dresses and toweling her ebony hair when Quinn returned to the car. It was interesting, she thought, that he didn’t knock, and there was an odd, surprised look in his eyes when he saw her.

  “I suppose you’re hungry,” he said accusingly, after a moment of awkward silence.

  Melissa had appropriated Quinn’s hairbrush, and she began grooming her wild, flyaway mane. “If I am, it’s no concern of yours,” she said. “We’ll be in Seattle soon. After I’ve stopped by the bank I’ll buy myself something to eat.”

  “Melissa.” He was leaning against the partition, watching as she began weaving her still-wet hair into a heavy plait. It would be a horror when she unbraided it, but there was no helping that.

  “What?”

  “I’m not marrying for money.”

  Melissa dared to look at him directly, although where she got the courage she did not know. “It’s a love match, then,” she said. “You love Gillian, and she loves you.”

  Quinn cleared his throat and looked away. “Not exactly.”

  She felt a strange exultation. “You don’t love her?”

  “I like her a lot.”

  Melissa wanted to smile but managed not to. “Ummm,” she said.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Quinn demanded.

  “I hope you and Gillian will be very happy together,” she lied, but now she allowed herself a smile. “You like her, she likes you. You’ll probably both like your children as well.”

  Quinn’s neck flushed red, and he clamped his jaw shut tight for a moment. Then he opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out the whistle shrilled and the train began to slow. Water splashed over the sides of the tub, the walls and floor shook, and Melissa and Quinn just stood there, staring at each other.

  Melissa recovered first. She tied her braid with a bit of ribbon taken from her wedding dress and rolled the costly gown and her spare calico into a bundle of sorts. “Well,” she said, with a brave lift of her chin, “I’m off to make a name for myself.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Quinn grumbled. His brown eyes seemed to simmer with agitation. After a moment he looked calmer, if still more grim, and he sighed. His hands were strong on Melissa’s shoulders. “You don’t need to prove anything to anybody. Go back to your home and your family, little one—it’s a big, brutal world out there.”

  “Do you think I’m a child? I have a university education, Mr. Rafferty, and I was almost someone’s wife!”

  Again anger flared in his eyes, and he laid one hand to his chest. “I keep forgetting what a paragon of sophistication you really are!”

  Just then the train stopped, hurling both Melissa and Quinn backward onto the bed.

  Melissa was breathless, but Quinn burst out laughing and rolled onto his side, looking down into her rosy face. As his gaze swept her features, however, his expression turned somber.

  “Damn,” he muttered, and then he lowered his mouth to Melissa’s unwillingly, as though some invisible hand were pressing at the back of his head.

  When their lips touched a hot tremor went through her. As the kiss deepened a soft, despairing moan escaped her. Her body ached for the weight of Quinn’s with an intensity that was just short of true pain while, at one and the same time, her spirit rebelled.

  The moment Quinn lifted his head she slapped him and began squirming and struggling to be free.

  He stared at her in bewilderment. “What—?”

  “Let me up!” she yelled.

  He immediately complied. “My pleasure,” he responded, and somehow that made Melissa angrier than she would have been if he’d held her captive on that bed all afternoon.

  Her face flushed violently pink. She sat up, smoothed her hair, and grabbed for her bundle. “Thank you very much,” she said, storming toward the end of the car, “and goodbye!”

  She wrenched open the door and stepped out onto the platform.

  The railroad yard was a busy, noisy place. A strange mingling of smells and sounds and sights clamored for Melissa’s notice, but she strode staunchly into the Seattle depot, through the lobby, and out the other door onto the street.

  She hadn’t gone half a block before Quinn fell into step beside her, taking her elbow firmly in one hand. He smiled down at her from beneath the rounded brim of an elegant black hat.

  “The least you can do, Miss Corbin, is let me buy your breakfast. After all, I’m the man who saved you from your family’s undying pity and then almost single-handedly dragged you back from death’s door.”

  “I don’t want anything from you, not even breakfast,” Melissa muttered through her teeth, but she smiled at passersby lest they think something was wrong. “Go away and leave me alone before I have you arrested!”

  “You wouldn’t do that.” They’d reached a hotel, and Quinn thrust Melissa through the door and into the lobby. She had to take long strides to keep up with him. His voice dropped to a companionable whisper. “If you did, I’d be forced to explain to the police that your celebrated family is probably searching high and low for their precious darling. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were offering a sizable reward.”

  Melissa thought back to the time her brother Keith’s first wife was killed. He’d disappeared in a fit of grief, and Adam and Jeff had established a reward and gotten posters printed within the space of a few days. She looked imploringly at Quinn as he escorted her into the dining room and smoothly seated her near a window.

  When he joined her at the table he smiled warmly. “I’ve been thinking,” he announced, “about your offer to marry me.”

  Melissa’s cheeks flamed, and she was glad Quinn couldn’t know how rapidly her heart was beating. “I wasn’t serious,” she said. She couldn’t help remembering the kiss they’d shared on Quinn’s bed, nor could she stop the rush of sensations the memory unleashed. If she were Quinn’s wife, she would have a legal and moral right to explore the strange delights his body had promised to hers.

  “I think you were,” Quinn argued affably.

  A waitress came, bringing coffee and taking Melissa’s order, and then they were alone again.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Melissa spat, as though there had been no break in the ridiculous conversation. “I’d sooner marry a woolly African ape than you, Quinn Rafferty!”

  He had the brazen effrontery to take one of her hands in his. The way he chafed the inside of Melissa’s wrist with his callused thumb caused a tender blossoming sensation deep within her. “Marry me,” he said in an audacious undertone.

  Melissa nearly upset her coffee, so swiftly did she pull her hand free of his grasp. “How fickle you are!” she whispered furiously. “What about Gillian?”

  “I told you. That was just business.”

  “Whereas you harbor a deep and undying affection for me, I suppose,” Melissa taunted.

  “I sure as hell feel something,” Quinn responded blithely. “Might as well find out what it is.”

  If they hadn’t been in a public place, and if people hadn’t already started to look, Melissa would have slapped Quinn again. She lowered her eyes to the plate of ham, eggs, and biscuits the waitress brought to her and concentrated as best she could on her meal.

  As hungry as she was, Melissa could barely eat, her emotions were in such a tangle. She’d truly loved Ajax, or thought she had, but he’d never made her feel such anger, such tenderness, such frustration.

  “I won’t marry you,” she said firmly when sh
e’d eaten what she could. “I couldn’t think of tying myself down to a man who merely liked me.”

  “Who says I like you?” Quinn countered.

  Melissa slammed down her fork and made to stand up, but Quinn stopped her by taking a hard but painless grip on her wrist.

  “Finish your breakfast,” he ordered.

  Although she longed to defy him, Melissa found herself obeying.

  Three

  The hotel dining room was filled with conversation and the cheery clatter of good china. Melissa gazed at Quinn over the rim of her coffee cup, having made short work of her breakfast.

  Quinn wasn’t sure why he wanted to argue for marriage, when all his life he’d been firmly opposed to the institution. Even his engagement to Gillian Aires had been entered into with an eye to bailing out again if the waters got too rough, but here he was, ready to do his damnedest to persuade a total stranger to become his wife.

  “Look at it this way,” he said smoothly. “You won’t get a chance to prove anything to anybody if your brothers come to Port Riley and drag you back home.”

  Those fantastically blue eyes of hers widened, then dodged away. “That’s true enough,” she admitted in a small voice.

  Quinn ventured to reach across the tabletop and take her hand in his. In that instant of their touching, innocent as it was, he knew why he was willing to marry Melissa Corbin.

  He wanted her. Desperately.

  He spoke huskily when he went on. “If you married me, you would become my—ward, so to speak.”

  “I would become your wife,” Melissa said flatly, pulling her hand from his. “And you would have rights that I don’t wish to grant you, Mr. Rafferty.”

  Quinn knew that having this delectable little chit for a wife and not being able to bed her would be an early consignment to hell, but he was confident of his ability to win her over. No woman had ever found him wanting when it came to the art of lovemaking.

  He spread his hands, the personification of nonchalance. “I haven’t thrown you down and had my way with you so far, have I?”

  A rich blush glowed in her cheeks; she lowered her eyes and bit her lip.