My Darling Melissa

by Linda Lael Miller

  Quinn realized that he was keeping her from her work and said nothing more. He did wish, suddenly and sorely, that he could go home.

  He left the cookhouse and spent the morning felling timber, working as hard as any of his men did. Whatever labor problems the company might have, he knew he was respected and liked for his ability to not only keep the pace, but set it.

  During the midday meal he hardly noticed Becky, because the workers were giving him an earful—what they wanted and didn’t want, what they needed. Quinn listened with his good right ear—he was stone deaf in his left, thanks to the old man’s temper—and when the food was gone he went back to the timber and manned his end of a crosscut saw until the day was over.

  Quinn had been brought up tough, and he was no stranger to hard work, physical or otherwise. Even so, he was so tired that night that he could barely eat, and he fell asleep sprawled out on the fur bedspread, still wearing his clothes.

  By the time Becky arrived first thing the next morning, with another pot of coffee, he missed Melissa so badly that he was on the point of walking down the mountain.

  “It’s nice and warm in here,” she said cheerfully, and Quinn shivered.

  “If you say so. Your husband—his name is Jake, isn’t it?”

  Becky nodded, her eyes wide and worried. “Yes.”

  “How does he feel about your working over here?”

  She averted her gaze for a moment, looking shamefaced. “I told him I was lookin’ after a sick neighbor woman, old Mrs. Higgins.” She stopped and shook her head. “My man’d be real mad if he knew we were here.”

  Quinn sighed. He didn’t like interfering in a marriage, and by keeping Becky on the payroll he was doing just that. “He’s bound to find out the truth sooner or later,” he reasoned. “What will you do then?”

  Becky stuck out her chin. “No matter what, I won’t let him stop me ’fore Margaret’s got her shoes and her reader for first grade,” she said. “I’ll be here every day, as long as there’s work, Mr. Rafferty, unless you send me away.”

  Quinn had already discerned that Becky was a hard worker, but it was the echoes in his mind, the memories of another woman’s suffering, that made him say, “If you ever need permanent work, come and see me. There might be a place for you at the new hotel.”

  Delight brightened Becky’s tired eyes. She nodded and left the railroad car to go on about her business.

  The building where the newspaper had been located was three streets back from Center Avenue, and it was as depressing a sight as Melissa had ever seen. The walls were charred and jagged, resembling rotted teeth. Peering inside, she saw that the twisted corpses of desks and bookshelves and presses still lay on the floor where they’d died their writhing deaths.

  She shivered, chilled by both the destruction before her and the insipid rain that had been drizzling down all morning.

  “It’s hopeless,” said Dana Morgan, shaking her head so that her bonnet ribbons wiggled under her chin. “I think Uncle George is right, Melissa. You’re going to have to put up a building, since there isn’t a single one to rent in the whole of Port Riley.”

  Melissa hadn’t expected to be able to resurrect the old newspaper, she’d come to investigate, to get a sense of what had happened there. She felt total desolation.

  Her courage flagging a little, she turned away from the ruin with a sigh. “Somehow,” she said, “I’ll find a place. I know I will.” She brightened a little as an idea struck her. “What about the people who published the newspaper—do they still live around here?”

  Dana looked thoughtful, and when the realization struck it was visible in her hazel eyes. “Glory be!” she cried out, startling Melissa so much that she flinched. She started striding down the sidewalk, and Melissa had to scramble after her.

  “Well?” Melissa demanded, irate. She hated it when people acted in a mysterious fashion.

  “I just remembered Miss Bradberry!”

  “Miss who?” Melissa asked, grateful that Dana was sharing her umbrella, if not her revelation.

  “Miss Bradberry is the daughter of the man who owned the Port Riley Courier!”

  “And?”

  “And if anybody could tell you about the newspaper business, it would be Emma Bradberry.” Dana drew in a breath and let it out in a huff. “Goodness mercy, Melissa—for a person with a university education, you can be very slow.”

  Melissa considered being insulted and decided against it. She needed all the help she could get, even if that meant intruding upon Miss Emma Bradberry and putting up with disparaging remarks from Dana.

  Miss Bradberry lived in one of the pretty little saltbox houses facing the water, just around the bend from the new hotel. Melissa tried not to think about that place or its owner; she missed Quinn desperately, even though he’d been gone only a day and a half.

  At their knock the plump spinster appeared not at the door, but in the side yard. “Come this way,” she called, beckoning with one hand. “I cannot let you in by the front door because Sir Lancelot is lying on the rug in front of it.”

  Melissa gave Dana a look. “Sir Lancelot is lying on the rug?” she whispered.

  “He’s a cat, silly,” Dana confided as they walked toward the place where Miss Bradberry was waiting.

  She was standing on the steps of a screened sun porch, wearing a gray serge dress and a floppy straw hat like the one Katherine wore when she worked in her rose garden. Hurriedly Miss Bradberry shuffled Melissa and Dana inside the house, much as a hen would gather stray chicks under its wings.

  “Imagine going calling on such a day!” she sputtered, shaking rainwater from her patched skirt.

  Melissa and Dana glanced at each other and then away. “Miss Bradberry,” Dana began, “I do hope we haven’t inconvenienced you by dropping in unexpectedly. It’s just that Melissa here means to start a newspaper—”

  “Start a newspaper?” echoed Miss Bradberry in a shrill voice as she hurried through a small, beautifully kept parlor to stand beside a stove glistening with chrome. She continued to shake out her skirts. “Nonsense. No woman ever started a newspaper.”

  “I’m sure some woman has done it somewhere,” said Melissa firmly, Katherine Corbin’s daughter through and through.

  “Quite so,” agreed Emma unexpectedly. “Did you know that I’m a twin?”

  Dana cleared her throat. “Don’t you think I should introduce my friend to you in the proper fashion, Miss Bradberry? This is Melissa Rafferty—”

  “Rafferty?” interrupted the spinster. “Any relation to the rascal who burned down Papa’s newspaper building?”

  Melissa felt the starch flow out of her knees. She dropped into a rocking chair only to be terrified by the leaping, hissing indignation of the huge gray and white tabby cat she’d displaced.

  One hand to her heart, her breath coming in ragged gasps, Melissa calmed herself enough to ask, “Are you saying that my husband was responsible for the fire?”

  Miss Bradberry bent forward, squinting as she peered at Melissa through obviously myopic eyes. “Husband? Goodness, no—you’re not old enough to have a husband!”

  Melissa threw up her hands in defeat while Dana chuckled and laid a reassuring palm on her friend’s shoulder. “We’ve all heard rumors about the fire, but nothing was ever proven, was it?”

  “My papa knows, all right. It was that no-good Eustice Rafferty. Terrible, drunken man—beat his children, you know. And it’s generally known that he murdered his own wife.”

  Melissa was on the edge of her chair by that point, but pressure from Dana’s hand and some unnamed instinct kept her from asking any more questions. “I want to buy a printing press,” she said instead.

  “Papa lost the new ones in the fire,” Miss Bradberry said. “Did I tell you that I’m a twin?”

  Melissa let out a sigh, and Dana found her way to a chair, making sure there was no cat there before she sat down.

  “My sister Doris, God rest her soul, was three minutes
older than I,” Miss Emma imparted. “They called her Doris—for Papa’s only sister—right off, but you can’t possibly imagine what a hard time they had thinking up a name for me. I went without one until I was five, you know, and then I just got tired of waiting and named myself.”

  Melissa’s head was practically spinning. Was Eustice Rafferty Quinn’s father? Had he really beaten his children and killed his wife? And why on earth would anyone make a little girl go without a name until she was five years old?

  “Of course!” Emma blurted out, startling everyone except Sir Lancelot, a long-haired white cat who had remained placidly on the rag rug in front of the door throughout the interview. “Papa’s old press wasn’t burned up in the fire. It’s right outside, in the woodshed.”

  Melissa sat up finishing-school straight. “Is it for sale?”

  “I suppose. I certainly have no use for it, and Papa says if he never sees another bottle of printer’s ink it will be too soon.”

  Moments later Melissa was inspecting the press. It was covered with dust and cobwebs, and looked as though it dated back to the revolution, but her heart leapt with the hope that she could have it for her own. Later, when her paper was a resounding success, she could buy a better one.

  “How much?” she asked, seeing no point in beating around the bush.

  Miss Bradberry didn’t bat an eyelash. “Forty dollars. Have I mentioned that I’m a twin?”

  “Sold!” cried Melissa.

  “I believe you did bring it up,” said Dana.

  Melissa pulled two twenty-dollar bills from the pocket of her dress and handed them over, and Miss Bradberry gave her a receipt written in a flourishing hand. It was agreed that Dana’s uncle would come for the press with a wagon as soon as possible.

  “I’m in business!” Melissa crowed the moment she and Dana were out of Miss Bradberry’s yard and hurrying down the road toward the main part of town.

  It was late afternoon, and the rain had abated, although the sun was still behind the clouds. Dana glanced up at the sky and replied, “I’m so hungry!”

  Melissa laughed. “I swear you’re as flighty as Miss Emma Bradberry!”

  Dana smiled. “Have I told you that I’m a twin?” she asked mischievously.

  Melissa shook her head, but anything she might have said was drowned out by the shrill whistle of an arriving train. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, but from Dana’s knowing look, it was obvious Melissa hadn’t fooled her. Melissa was hoping against hope that Quinn was home.

  Sure enough, the same noisy steam engine that had hauled him away was now bringing him back again. Melissa’s heart leapt into her throat, and she forgot her friend and her printing press as she ran toward the railroad spur and waited shamelessly beside the tracks.

  Quinn came out presently, and when he looked at Melissa she saw surprise and weary pleasure in his eyes. He was dressed like a lumberjack, he smelled of grease and sweat, and his chin was covered in prickly stubble.

  He had never looked better to her.

  His brash brown eyes swept over her dusty dress, and his mouth quirked at one corner. “Hello, ragamuffin,” he said gruffly.

  Melissa might have flung herself into his arms if she hadn’t sensed that the whole town was looking on. She and Quinn were the subject of much gossip as it was.

  “I’ve missed you,” she confessed, averting her eyes. She was afraid to look at him, because then she might blurt out that she loved him. He’d apologize for not feeling the same way, and she would feel wretched.

  Quinn offered his arm, for all the world as though he were wearing a top hat and tails, and Melissa shyly took it.

  Together, oblivious to the stir they created, the Raffertys walked home.

  Once they reached the house Melissa went to the kitchen to discuss dinner with Mrs. Wright while Quinn climbed the stairs to the master bedroom. He was in the bathroom, singing over the sound of running water, when Melissa arrived.

  There was a mirror over the bureau, and she looked at herself in despair. Her dress was precisely as her mother had described it: horrid. Her hair was stringy from the combination of dust from Miss Bradberry’s shed and the afternoon rainstorm, and there was a smudge of dirt on her face.

  And yet, for all this, some deep, driving instinct told Melissa that she mustn’t wait any longer for Quinn’s declaration of love. After all, it might never come.

  Quietly, while her husband engaged in a noisy bath, Melissa unwound her hair from its heavy plait, brushed it until it gleamed, and then braided it again. She washed her face and her hands and then, trembling, she stripped to her camisole and bloomers.

  She found, to her mortification, that she could go no further, but that mysterious impulse to go to Quinn as a wife had not abated. Indeed, it had grown keener with every passing moment.

  Despairing because she had no perfume, no allurements other than her own untried, quivering body, Melissa crept into the bathroom, moving as silently as a geisha. Her eyes were downcast.

  “My God,” she heard Quinn breathe.

  She lifted her gaze to his face. He looked like a shameless hedonist, lying sprawled in that mammoth tub, a glass of brandy in one hand and a cigar jutting from his strong white teeth.

  Uncharacteristic shyness overwhelmed her, and she would have fled except for Quinn’s raspy command, “Don’t go, Melissa. Please.”

  She stood still where she was, too stricken to speak.

  Finally Quinn held his hand out to her. She went to him but took the cigar instead of his hand, making a face that drew a raucous burst of amusement from him. She tossed the offending thing into the commode, grimacing, and Quinn laughed again.

  Melissa knelt beside the high edge of that great marble tub, and Quinn reached out and grasped her shoulder in one hand, as if to stop her from rising.

  She heard his hoarse plea for her to stay again, but she was never sure whether he had actually repeated the words or she had just imagined them. In any case, she was trapped. She could not leave him.

  He took her hand and laid it gently on his chest, which was matted with twists and sworls of glistening golden brown hair. She had never touched a man in so intimate a way, and the freedom, the glorious daring, nearly took her breath away.

  Quinn groaned and closed his eyes as she touched nipples like brown buttons; he bore her explorations as long as he could before wrenching her into the tub. She landed astride him and felt his hardness touching her, but his hands created other distractions.

  He made no move to open her camisole or lower it, as he had done before, but instead cupped water in his palms and made her wet. Her nipples leapt against the transparent fabric, aching to be free, to be Quinn’s.

  He chuckled low in his throat at their obedience, then leaned forward to tease one with the gentle scraping of his teeth.

  Melissa moaned, so ferocious was her need, and tried to bare herself, but Quinn stopped her by grasping her wrists and holding them at her sides. And then he went back to taunting her with exquisite skill, making her certain that she would go mad if he didn’t have her.

  She was half blinded by need when he finally unfastened the buttons of her camisole and peeled it away from her breasts. Now he took her full into his mouth, and Melissa cried out with delight, but it was only the beginning of the joys he meant to teach her.

  Now his hands were slowly lowering her drawers. She was whimpering as he caressed her fleshy, tingling bottom, but when he brought one hand around and began to stroke her she threw back her head and waited to die of the pleasure.

  “Have me!” she pleaded when the joy became so exquisite, so delicious that she was sure she could not bear it.

  “Not like this,” he said, his mouth lazy at her nipple, “not the first time.”

  The rhythmic motion of his hand increased in pace, and Melissa stiffened violently as the first crushing wave crashed over her, nearly crushing her beneath it. “Oh!” she cried out. “Oh—my—”

  “That should
remove any doubt that we’re really married,” Quinn remarked with maddening calm as Melissa’s body buckled in another primal response to his touch.

  She gave a long, low wail and then fell against him, exhausted. After a time he rose from the water, drawing her with him, supporting her by both arms. He dried her with a towel and carried her to the bed, and his own powerful body was still covered in tiny droplets of cool water as he stretched out over her.

  Melissa felt as though she’d had too much to drink.

  “You’ve never done this before?” Quinn asked softly. His breath was cool against her temple.

  She shook her head. “Never,” she managed to say.

  He nudged her legs apart ever so gently with one of his knees. “It hurts a little the first time,” he warned.

  Melissa didn’t care. Everything within her craved union with this man. She ran her hands up and down his broad back in desperate caresses, urging him closer, and then she felt him pressing at her, tremendously hard. “I love you,” she whispered into his left ear, but he made no response.

  He eased into her, and every bit of progress he made increased the strange mingling of pain and pleasure Melissa felt. She finally arched her hips in a powerful thrust, and there was a stinging hurt as the barrier was irrevocably crossed.

  Quinn cried out at this, muttering her name like a man tossing in a fever, moving at an ever-increasing pace as he linked himself with her and then withdrew. Over and over again he repeated this process until Melissa was as fevered as he was, until she was flinging herself at him. Her body was demanding something from his; she didn’t know what it wanted, and she didn’t care.

  Their bodies were moving frantically, damp with exertion, before that shattering moment of reward came. Melissa knew then what the French meant when they spoke of the “little death.”

  Quinn’s climax was evidently just as cataclysmic in force, for he made some senseless plea of heaven and delved so deeply into Melissa that another series of sweet ripplings were set off inside her. She was weeping softly when her husband gathered enough breath to ask, “Did I hurt you?”