Right Before His Eyes

by Wendy Etherington

  Then, on the last lap, he slid coming out of Turn Four and nearly lost control. Mellie would swear her heart stopped as she watched. Go, Bart, go. The odds against him looked insurmountable, but he just kept digging.

  Then, within sight of the finish line, he executed a daring slingshot move—

  And sailed over the finish line barely a bumper in the lead.

  Mellie screamed and Al yelled. Saltshakers went tumbling. “He did it!”

  Al picked her up and danced her around, neither caring about the mess they created.

  A little while later, the phone rang. “For you,” Al called from the kitchen.

  Mellie’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Hey, girl.” Only Sheila.

  “Hey.”

  “Your heart settled down yet?”

  Mellie patted her chest. “I don’t know. He scared me to death.”

  “Well, I will tell you Gil is not exactly thrilled.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “But even he admits that was one amazing win.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Mellie asked.

  “And I kissed him and made it all better.”

  Mellie laughed. “It’s getting really serious between you two, isn’t it?”

  “It’s crazy. He’s a blue blood and I’m all mongrel. We have absolutely nothing in common.”

  Mellie found herself smiling. Sheila’s protest was a common refrain. “Yet somehow you manage to pass a lot of time together. Maybe it’s the sex.”

  “Why, Mellie, what would a little nun like yourself know about that?” Her grin was in her voice.

  “I’m not a nun.”

  “Well, a wild and crazy woman you most certainly are not. Not that it wouldn’t be good for you.” Sheila paused. “Tell you what, I’m giving you the night off tomorrow night, so you can extend Bart a much-deserved hero’s welcome home. My bet is he’ll spend tonight in Dallas with his family and fly back tomorrow.”

  As a matter of fact, Bart had told her that was exactly his plan. “But Lily—”

  “You know Louise will take her anytime, and if she can’t, I will.”

  “I don’t know…” She wanted to, desperately, but she was equally worried that she’d be doing the wrong thing by Bart.

  “No waffling, girl. The man is gorgeous, and you are gone over him, admit it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, kiddo.”

  “Sheila…”

  “Gotta go, girl. See you in a few hours!”

  Mellie stood there, holding a phone with only a dial tone.

  LATE MONDAY AFTERNOON, Bart glanced out the window of the plane he and Will shared, noting how many trees had already shed their leaves compared to those in Texas. The season would be over in two more weeks, and winter was coming. He would very much like to be sitting in front of a fireplace by then, with Mellie curled in his arms.

  A few weeks ago, that prospect had seemed very distant, but now, perhaps he was making progress in wooing her.

  He wanted to see her. Their nightly talks had brought them ever closer, but he needed to be physically close, too, wanted to touch her. Craved to make her his own with a fierceness different from how he’d felt about anyone else.

  He was becoming impatient with her constant retreats. She couldn’t keep toying with him.

  That’s not fair, a better part of him protested. Whatever is holding her back, she’s not playing around.

  But how much clearer could he make it that he cared? She should trust him, damn it. Hadn’t he proven himself worthy of that? He’d never had to work so blasted hard for a woman.

  The plane rolled to a stop on the tarmac, but Bart remained in his seat as his companions departed. Will, Zoe and the kids had remained in Texas for another two days. The plane would stop there to pick Will up for the flight to Phoenix on Thursday.

  Bart heard all the preparations for shutting down being made, but still he didn’t move. Mellie had to work tonight, and for whatever reason, his spirits, so jubilant since the win, were sinking.

  “Bart?”

  The familiar yet out-of-place voice had him looking up, then blinking. “Mellie? What are you doing here?”

  Her smile faltered. “I…is it not okay? I…they told me I could—”

  He rose from his seat. She was so tiny, she made him feel like a fumbling giant. “No, of course it’s fine, it’s just…I thought you were working.”

  “Sheila gave me the night off so I could see you,” she said shyly. Her face brightened. “Congratulations! That was an amazing win. I could swear my heart stopped there at the end, and then we were screaming and dancing and—” She stopped. “Well.” Stepped back.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to… I should go.” She turned away.

  He grabbed her elbow. “Sorry I couldn’t talk to you last night. By the time I was able to leave the track, it was really late Eastern time, and I thought you had to work today.”

  “I understand.”

  “No,” he said fiercely. “You don’t.” He closed the distance. “I wanted you there, Mellie. I wanted to twirl you in a circle and hand you the trophy and put the winner’s cowboy hat on your head. I needed to hear you tell me you were proud of me.”

  “I was. I am.” Her eyes went wide.

  “Then give me my victory kiss.”

  “But—” She glanced back toward the cockpit. “Here?”

  He couldn’t explain why he wasn’t willing to keep dragging his feet for fear of frightening her. It was time to stake his claim. He was sick of tiptoeing around whatever kept holding her back.

  “Here. Now.” But he didn’t initiate the kiss, for a change. She had to decide on her own.

  She stared up at him and gnawed on her lower lip.

  All the initial pleasure at seeing her began to drain away as she hesitated. “Never mind.” He released his grip on her elbow, ready to turn and grab his bag.

  The touch of her hand on his arm stopped him. Slowly he looked back.

  “I had a surprise for you,” she said quietly, those huge dark eyes studying him. “I wanted to cook you dinner, and then…” She rose to her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “I—” For a second she faltered, then murmured, “I, um…I thought I might spend the night.”

  Bart’s stunned gaze locked on hers. He might not know everything he wanted to about her, but he understood enough to know how enormous a step this represented for her. He took her face in his hands. “That would be the best celebration I could imagine.” He could feel her frame tremble and slid his hands down to clasp hers. “But you don’t have to do this, Mellie, if you’re not ready.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears she was fighting not to shed. “I want to be,” she said so softly he could barely hear. Then her spine stiffened, and her voice firmed. “I want to be with you, Bart, I do. I’m just…scared.”

  Scared, yes, but he’d always sensed that the fragile frame housed the heart of a lion. “I won’t hurt you, sweetheart.” He lowered his head and kissed her softly. “I swear it.”

  At last, she slid her arms up around his neck and slipped her fingers into his hair as she rose again to tiptoe, pressing her dainty body all along the length of his. “I believe you.” She answered his kiss with one that spoke of a heart’s deep longing, a kiss that was both sweet and tempting, a surrender that quickly ratcheted up to demand.

  Bart lost himself in kissing her back, in opening up a heart that had forever held itself apart from the women with whom he played and flirted, danced and frolicked.

  This was not a playful kiss. This one was serious and unnerving to him, as well. Love was nothing he’d ever counted on, never desired for himself. Love made you stupid, made you rash and kept you from protecting yourself—witness what his mother had suffered because she’d given her all in the name of a love that hadn’t been returned.

  But here was Mellie, so sweet, so vulnerable, so open in this moment of terrible beauty and aching vulnerability.

  Maybe love did
make you defenseless, but if this small woman, so tender and breakable, could open herself to him, could he do any less in return?

  So Bart hugged Mellie close to the body that was aching to make her his, to bind her to him as he’d never considered doing with a woman before. Then he turned the kiss from tender to torrid.

  Mellie flew right along with him. He could have easily laid her down right there. He was so hot for her, so ready—

  Bart grabbed ruthlessly to the reins of self-control and forced himself down from the half-mad beast driven to claim his mate. His heart was pounding nearly out of his chest as he uncurled his fingers, one by one, until he’d relaxed the savage hold he had on her.

  But he didn’t let go. Instead he held her close, his much larger frame shuddering from the force of his need for her. “I’m going to count to ten, sweetheart,” he murmured to the woman clasped tightly in his arms. “And somehow, I’m going to manage to make myself let go, at least long enough to get us the hell out of here and into a proper bed.”

  Her fingers dug into his back. “Okay,” she said against his chest, and the heat of her breath nearly undid all his resolutions. “We can do this.”

  Bart found himself, of all things, smiling. “Yeah, maybe,” he said into her hair. “But oh, babe, you have no idea how much I want to make love to you right here and right now.”

  Another press of fingers, and Bart had to force his eyes open and stare at the bulkhead across from them, reminding himself that the crew was outside the plane. He just barely managed to restrain himself.

  He wanted time—lots of it—and privacy for what would come next. “Okay, ten…nine…”

  Mellie giggled, of all things, then joined him. “Eight…seven…”

  It helped his ego that she seemed to be having as tough a time as he was prying her body from his.

  The second they said “one” in unison, he grasped her hand, grabbed his bag and said, “Let’s scram.”

  Mellie grinned and raced to catch up with his long stride.

  THEY NEVER MADE IT TO DINNER.

  Bart could not have cared less. As he laid Mellie down on his king-size bed, all he was hungry for was her.

  She watched him with wide eyes, her moves at first hesitant as though she truly were inexperienced, but somehow that only made him feel more tender toward her, more resolved to see that he treated her to all the pleasures possible. He teased her with soft kisses, taunted her with skilled fingers, made it his business to drive her beyond the point where that busy brain could keep thinking, to where she could only feel, only want, only need.

  Where she was as crazed for him as he was for her.

  Bart resolved that this was only the beginning of who they would be together. He would bind her to him with glorious pleasures, and she would never again shy away from his touch, from the ecstasy he could give her.

  One day soon, he vowed, she would bare that frightened heart and give it into his keeping, too. Then Bart himself quit thinking and planning and abandoned himself to the sheer splendor that was Mellie.

  And if, for a moment, a niggling sense of something unexpected nearly made him stop, the sheer joy of her passionate response quickly tumbled him back into the magic that was Mellie.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MELLIE CREPT FROM BART’S CONDO before dawn, grateful that she’d insisted on following him in her car. She’d cast one last glimpse at him, sprawled in his bed, and it was all she could do not to weep.

  The night had been beyond anything she’d ever imagined. In her wildest dreams, she’d never had a clue why people lost their minds over sex.

  Though this hadn’t been just sex, not for her. If she’d been halfway in love with Bart before, that had only been because fear had been the brake.

  But now that she knew what it was like to give herself completely to another, to feel that abandon returned…

  Maybe he didn’t notice. They say a man can’t always tell.

  Idly she wondered exactly who they were as she drove back to her apartment, thankful that she had a few hours before she had to pick up Lily.

  How would she know if Bart had realized this was her first time? And what would she do if he had? He would rightly want answers she wasn’t prepared to give—couldn’t give and keep him from being hurt by his father’s actions.

  How she wished she could talk to someone to help her sort out her feelings! Sheila was the only person she could remotely imagine discussing them with, though, and Sheila was walking around in a fog of misery after her breakup with Gil.

  Bart had been so tender, so caring. No woman could have ever had a better, more beautiful first time. Bart was so much more than his handsome exterior.

  Had she given him the kind of night such a generous lover deserved? He’d been clear how much he wanted her, but would this night make him happy or complicate his life?

  Oh, how she hoped not. He was kind and smart and funny…to say nothing of scorching-hot sexy. A part of her desperately wanted to be back in that bed with him, but he’d stripped her heart open and made her want so much more with him—more time to be selfish with him, a future she had no right to long for—and she needed to think, away from the potent distraction he presented.

  First, she had to get herself together. Quit mooning over a man she couldn’t have.

  One who had too much on his mind already. If she’d had an ounce of self-control, she would have resisted him last night, for his own good.

  But what red-blooded woman could possibly resist a beautiful man like Bart Branch?

  She was so confused. Mellie parked her car behind the diner, grateful that even Al wouldn’t have arrived yet. She would go up the stairs, grab a shower and fall into bed for a couple of hours before she had to face the day.

  Even if she really didn’t want to wash away the traces of the most magical night of her life, not yet.

  She would sleep first, she decided. Then maybe she would awake refreshed and know what to do. She stuck her key in the lock, but the door sagged open before she could turn it.

  Mellie stood frozen on the landing as she tried to absorb the sight before her, the carnage, the devastation.

  They’ve found us, was all she could think. Whoever they are. It’s happening again.

  Then she began shaking.

  BART SLAMMED INTO HIS TRUCK and threw it into gear.

  She’d lied to him…and run. In the clear light of morning, he’d understood his momentary hesitation last night. And the night’s magic had vanished in a cloud of disillusionment.

  You can run, Mellie, but you won’t get far. I deserve an explanation. He drove with his mind focused only on the trip, the blocks to be spanned before he got to her. He was angry, yes, to a degree he had only experienced before at the hands of his slimeball of a father.

  And just as with his father’s stunning betrayal, the true source of his anger was hurt.

  The woman he’d felt so protective about, had worried over, however much he’d tried not to, had lied to him, too. At the crucial moment last night, it hit him now, when his head was clear, there had been more to Mellie’s reactions than simple shyness.

  There was nothing Bart Branch hated more than a lie.

  His gut had been trying to tell him something his mind just couldn’t wrap itself around. Puzzle pieces were falling into place in a way he would have never expected. Jake’s most recent call had said the girls were in North Carolina somewhere.

  Don’t think. Just drive. Wrecking your truck won’t help.

  But he had to know, however sick he felt, so he plowed ahead. In minutes he was turning the corner of the block on which the diner stood and spotted her car. Good. He wheeled into the lot and didn’t bother parking inside the lines. All his control had to be saved for confronting the woman who’d made a mockery out of what had started out as the most astonishing night of his life.

  He pounded up the stairs. “Mellie!” he called out. “I want answers—”

  He halted as the door canted
on its frame, and fear replaced fury. “Mellie?” Every sense on alert, he eased inside, his gut roiling at the devastation he saw. “Mellie, where are you?”

  Anxiety beat a tattoo on his heart.

  Then he spotted her standing in the middle of the tiny living area, one hand over her mouth as her shoulders shook.

  Every drawer lay open, every cushion slashed.

  “Are you all right?”

  She gasped and whirled at his voice, her face bone-white, her eyes glassy with shock. She spoke too low for him to hear, only a few halting words.

  He crossed the distance, stepping over and around piles of destruction. “What is it? Are you okay? Stay here. Let me make sure they’re gone.”

  He scanned the tiny bedroom and the adjoining bath, but the place was empty. He returned to her side and gathered her close, but she was limp as a rag doll, shaking like a leaf and chanting a few words over and over again until finally he could make them out.

  “They’ve found us. It’s happening again.”

  Suddenly she jerked from his grasp and raced to the bedroom, yanking a suitcase from the closet and grabbing clothes, tossing them in, heedless of any order.

  “What are you doing? Mellie, we have to call the cops. Don’t disturb anything so they can find out who did this.”

  “I can’t wait.” Grimly she reached for a pillowcase and began stuffing items of hers and Lily’s inside, then froze and grabbed for her phone. “Lily. I have to call Louise and be sure—”

  Before she could dial, Bart captured her hand. “It’s barely dawn. A ringing phone at this hour will scare Louise and Al half to death.”

  “I don’t care. I have to be with Lily. Get out of my way.” She grabbed the overloaded suitcase that was half her size and dragged it off the bed.

  It fell from her grip with a thud.

  He grasped her shoulders. “Mellie, stop this. What’s going on? Do you know who did this?”

  She looked up at him, her face bleached to parchment. “Not really.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Bart, please. Just go. I’m leaving today. Right now. I’ll wait outside Louise’s until she and Al are up, but then I have to… We can’t stay.”