Mel stood, stepping over the dog to cross to the same window, picking up a picture of darling Jeremy and his cute, perfect, Asian wife, the silver frame cold in her hand. “All this time, I’ve beaten myself up for my mistake, for the misery I caused my mother before she’d even had five minutes to come to terms with my father’s death. Not that she ever admitted that to my face, but I knew. Not only that I’d disappointed her, but that my actions had forced her out of what she thought of as her own home. And she did love this place. This house,” she said, glancing around before replacing the photo, then once more leveling her gaze on Lorraine. “Leaving it...it devastated her. So it might’ve been nice to know that it wasn’t entirely my fault.”
“You don’t understand—as long as your grandmother was alive, I didn’t dare tell anyone the truth—”
“That’s bull, Lorraine. You still had choices—”
“What choices? Your grandmother...you were still a kid, you probably didn’t realize how much influence she could still wield in this town. She could have ruined things for us—”
“Not to the point that you couldn’t have gotten in touch with me, or my mother, at any time and explained. Apologized. If it’s true Nana never told my mother what her real beef with you was, then Mom had no idea, either, why you reacted the way you did. Or, hell, why Nana never spoke to her again. If they had begun to mend fences—ohmigod, that must’ve devastated my mother. So at least we would have understood. I would have understood.”
“I was ashamed, Mel,” Lorraine said softly. “I still am.”
“Sorry. Not good enough.”
After a moment Lorraine stood and walked over to Mel, her arms folded over her ribs. “David saw to Amelia’s medical needs in her last years. By then she’d alienated everyone she’d ever known. And, according to him, she died a lonely, bitter old woman with, as he put it, only her grudges to keep her company.”
“That, and every item anyone’s ever hawked on QVC,” Mel muttered, and Lorraine sadly smiled.
“I don’t want to end up like that, Mel. Having no one give a damn about me.” Then she sighed. “I’d also like to think Amelia can’t hurt us anymore. But now I’m not so sure.”
Mel’s face warmed, even as she acknowledged the thing writhing inside her, grown fat and sassy with all the nurturing and coddling and encouragement she’d given it over the years. The only thing she’d been able to count on, she realized with a start. Well, hell.
“What I don’t get,” she said, almost more to herself than Lorraine, “is why Nana left me the house. If she disapproved of me so much—”
“Because it was never about you, Melanie. It was about me. And maybe, in your grandmother’s head, this was her way of making it up to you? Sounds crazy, I know, but after all she let you stay with your cousins all those summers, despite her rift with your mother. My guess is she did love you, in her own way.”
“As in, bizarre and demented?” Mel muttered, and Lorraine softly laughed.
“You know what I think? That your grandfather hurt her deeply. As I did David,” she said, her eyes brimming again. “But at least I’ve done everything in my power to atone for my reprehensible behavior.” Color flooded her cheeks. “To him, at least. Now all I ask is that you let me do the same thing for you. And Quinn?” She unfolded her arms, briefly reaching for Mel before seeming to rethink the gesture. “Come to dinner, both of you. Tomorrow night. Say, seven? What’s Quinn’s favorite food?”
“Anything but raisins, but—”
“Then it’s settled,” Lorraine said, finally touching Mel’s arm to steer her out of the room, toward the front door.
Settled? Not by a long shot. Even if Mel had gotten some long overdue answers. Still...
“The wounds...they go pretty deep, Lorraine. So you’ll understand if I still don’t entirely trust you.”
“Completely,” she said, disappointment wrestling with hope in her eyes. “But...?”
“But...yes, we’ll come to dinner. And we’ll take it from there, I guess. That’s all I can promise.”
“That’s all I’m asking. Thank you. There’s something else, though,” Lorraine said, finally opening the door. The dogs slithered past them to galumph around the front yard, tussling with each other in a whirlwind of leaves. “You remember what I said, about how you brought Ryder out of himself when he was a little boy?”
“Yes...?”
Concern softened Lorraine’s features. “Deanna’s death...it pushed him into a very dark place, Mel. Not so most people could tell, but I can. The moment you returned, though—”
“Oh, no, no—I know where you’re going with this—”
“You could bring him back, Melanie. I know it, I can already see the change in him. And then...well. Who knows what the future might bring?” At Mel’s eyeroll, she added, “You’re a mother, too, you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, I am. And I appreciate how much you want to see Ryder heal.” Mel’s eyes burned. “So do I, my heart bleeds for him to see how much he’s hurting. But you can’t possibly equate what happened when Ryder was five to what’s going on now. No, Lorraine, I’m sorry...but it’s not up to me or anyone else to bring Ryder ‘back,’ except Ryder. Which he and I have already discussed,” she said when Lorraine’s mouth popped open. “And if you’re suggesting I manipulate his emotions just to, to patch together a family, even for Quinn’s sake...”
Mel paused, took a breath. “I will sacrifice almost anything for my daughter, but no way in hell will I go there,” she said, then finally wrenched herself out of Lorraine Caldwell’s force field and walked out the door. Except by the time she got around to the driver’s side door, she heard Lorraine call to her from a few feet away.
Thinking, Oh, for pity’s sake—what now? Mel looked up, the older woman’s crumpled expression at odds with the stately white portico she stood under.
“I know I’m the last person who should be giving advice,” Lorraine said over the bay breeze whipping strands of red hair around her face. “Or at least, the last person you’d want to take it from. But what the hell.” She stepped closer. “Don’t be a fool, Melanie. Don’t let the bad blood between us blind you to what could be a blessing. And for God’s sake don’t let your hatred of me keep you from loving my son.”
For a moment Mel felt as though she’d been knocked off her feet by a fire hose. But she recovered enough to say, “Not to worry. Since it never has.”
A slow, knowing smile spread across Lorraine’s face. “Good for you,” she said, then returned to the house, the dogs trotting loyally behind her.
* * *
Ryder gunned out of the clinic’s parking lot, cursing the twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit along Main Street until he spotted Mel’s Honda headed in his direction on the other side. He honked, catching her attention, then pointed toward a duo of vacant, angled parking spaces in front of the town’s only decent—according to his mother—beauty shop, housed in a narrow brick building that matched the brick sidewalk in front of it.
Before she’d cut her engine he was around to her door, holding it open as she climbed out. Then he yanked her into his arms, because he wanted to, had to, even though the clashing emotions as a result nearly made him dizzy. And not in a fun way.
“Let me guess.” Mel’s voice was muffled against his chest. “You talked to your mother.”
Ryder set Mel apart before she suffocated, getting a What are you doing? look in response. “Just got off the phone, was headed toward your place,” he said, amending, at her raised brows, “Fine. April’s place.”
“Except April took Quinn to the bookstore,” she said, nodding toward the quaint little shop down the block, tables of used books half blocking the paned storefront windows, before looking back at him.
A pointed silence ensued, the brisk air swirling around them infused with th
e scent of the thousands of chrysanthemums crowded into whiskey-barrel planters lining both sides of the five-block stretch.
“They’re expecting you, I suppose?”
Another glance toward the shop. More pointed silence. Followed by a sighed-out, “Not really. I just thought, since...never mind.” Then her eyes touched his. “But what about you? Don’t tell me you left a dozen people sitting in the waiting room, wondering where the heck you are?”
Ryder smiled. Gently chafed her shoulders. “Slow morning,” he said, wondering what he was doing, to be honest. “Dad can handle things for a little while.” Then, finally, he let go to plant one palm on her car’s roof. “You okay?”
She sputtered a short laugh. “Sure thing,” she said, and Ryder glanced at the town square across the street, then reached for Mel’s hand.
“Come on—”
“Ry, no, really, I’m fine, you need to get back to work—”
Ignoring her, he steered her through what passed for traffic this time of day—or any time of day, actually—and into the little park crowded with flame-tinged maples and oaks, toward a black wooden bench badly in need of a fresh paint job. He brushed off a stray crimson leaf and sat, dragging Mel down with him. Still holding her hand, it should be noted.
Which she let him hold, it should also be noted.
Then he sighed. “Well, that sure as hell didn’t go according to plan.” He faced her scowling profile, although whether the hand-holding had anything to do with that, he had no idea. A squirrel scampered toward them across the leaf-littered grass, tail twitching, then seemed to think better of asking for a handout and scampered away again. “I was supposed to be there. For the great confession.”
“So you know? That she had a fling with my grandfather?”
“Not until this morning. And only after I dragged it out of her. How did you find out, anyway?”
“Dear old Nana left a paper trail,” Mel said drily, finally reclaiming her hand to fold her arms over her stomach. “A letter of apology from your mother, to be exact. Blythe discovered it among a stack of papers dating back to colonial days.”
Ryder leaned forward to clasp his hands between his knees. “Damn, honey. I can’t imagine what you must’ve thought. Are probably still thinking.”
“I’m still...processing. Yeah, it was a million years ago, but at least I now understand the bug up my grandmother’s butt. I understand a lot of things I never did before.” She paused. “Did your mother tell you the part about how she did what she did—about me and Quinn, I mean—because my grandmother held a metaphorical gun to her head?”
“Yes.” Ryder straightened, took her hand again. It was cold. And a little rough. A hand that worked, that fed people. That, along with its mate, had touched and stroked and driven him insane with pleasure, he thought on a rush of heat. That had cupped his face as she’d looked deep into his eyes, tucking him inside her far more deeply than sex ever could. He hauled in a breath. “Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know,” Mel said on a rush of air. “And I can’t exactly go to the source, can I?”
He gently squeezed her hand. Resisted lifting it to his mouth. “I can’t believe you bearded the dragon in her own den.”
Her soft laugh made his skin prickle. “It’s called adrenaline. Act first, think later. But whatever. It’s done now, nobody died, and somehow...” She frowned. “Quinn and I are coming to dinner tomorrow night. Still not quite sure how that happened.”
“Mom said. She’s also ridiculously pleased about it.”
“That makes one of us.”
“But I thought—”
“I can’t help it, Ry, I can’t simply slough off the last decade because your parents want me to. Which I told your mother. And yet—” she sighed again “—I keep thinking I need to tell Quinn. Before this dinner. Except whenever I actually picture myself doing it, I get sick to my stomach.”
Ryder shifted on the bench to make Mel look straight at him, his hand on her knee. “And to paraphrase something a wise and very beautiful woman once said to me, you will tell Quinn when it feels right and not a moment before. Although considering how you stood up to the old gal, something tells me you’ll do just fine.”
Mel gave a weak laugh. “I don’t have to live with your mother. Compared with my daughter? Lorraine is a cupcake.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Quinn carries her genes, remember?” Her mouth flattened. “Not to mention mine. Child is doomed, I tell you. As are the rest of us.”
He smiled, as well, then released a breath. “There’s one more thing. I’m calling Jeremy tonight. To have a little chat.”
“Oh, Lord, Ry...”
“Has to be done, honey.”
“I know, I know, you’re right, but...yeesh.”
“Wanna be in on the call?”
“Not even if you gave me my very own key to the Godiva factory.”
Ryder chuckled, then said, “Any messages to pass along?”
“Yeah,” she said after a moment. Or six. “That whatever comes next as far as your brother’s concerned is up to Quinn. Not him, not your parents. Quinn. If she wants to meet him, I mean. Not that I’m pushing for that, believe me. But no more lies. No more pretending. And no more letting Mama save his sorry ass.”
“That’s my girl,” Ryder said over his cell phone’s vibration in his jacket pocket. A text from his father. “Ah. Guess things are getting a little clogged at the clinic.”
“I’m sure. And I do need to catch up with the others.”
They stood and headed back across the street, both of them with their hands in their pockets. Halfway across, however, Mel glanced up at him, almost shyly.
“Thanks.”
“For dealing with my bone-headed brother?”
“Well, yes, that. But also...for being you. Being here.”
“I always am, honey. Always will be. Watch out for that car—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she laughed out. “I’m a big girl now. I even beard dragons in their dens, remember?”
They reached his car; Ryder beeped the RAV unlocked, opened the door. Which would be his cue to get in the car. To let her go. Instead, she’d gotten as far as a quivering-leafed ash tree a few feet away when he called out, “So you’re sure you’re okay?”
She turned, walking backwards. But not quickly. “Yes, Ryder, I’m fine—”
“But you call if you need anything. I mean it. Promise?”
“Promise. But I won’t.”
“Stubborn little minx, aren’t you?”
“Minx?” She stopped, grinning, her bangs fluttering in the breeze, and his heart kicked him in the ribs. Hard. “Who the heck says minx anymore?”
“A thirty-something dude who stole a certain young minx’s romance novel when they were kids. And read it.”
Mel screeched another laugh, then looked down at the ground for a moment before slowly retracing the few steps she’d just taken, something like apology replacing the laughter in her eyes. “I’m not being stubborn, Ry,” she said quietly. “I’m being practical. I know you mean well, really. But Quinn and I...we’ll face this together, and we’ll face it alone—”
“Why, for God’s sake? I’m here, honey. For both of you. Always will be.”
“Of course you are,” she said, her eyes steady in his. “On your own terms.”
Ryder felt his brows slam together. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Except he knew damn well what it meant, long before Mel stepped off the curb to lay a hand on his arm.
“You’re the same terrific guy I always knew, okay? And I do know I can count on you. I do. At least as far as knowing you’re always on my side, that you’d never knowingly hurt me, or betray my trust. And I have no doubt you’ll be the best uncle ever to Qu
inn. But you know what?” She sucked in a big breath. “I need more than that. I need real. I need now, and I need forever. If not from you, then from someone whose heart still isn’t entailed to someone else.”
His mother thought secrets were a bitch? Yeah, well, so was the truth. Especially when it hits you upside the head like a cast-iron skillet. “You said you were okay with...last night,” he said stupidly.
“And I was. Am,” she said, her expression pleading. Please understand. Please forgive me. Except why on earth was she asking for understanding? For forgiveness? “But being around you...” She lowered her hand to clasp his, squeezing tight. “A repeat performance is too damn tempting.”
A moment passed before he said, very softly, “Can’t argue with you there.”
“And that, I wouldn’t be okay with.” One last squeeze, then she dropped his hand. “Not as things stand now. I don’t regret last night. And I never will. But it took last night to make me realize...”
She smiled. Not the hero-worship smile of the “little sister” he once knew, but gonna-do-this-if-it-kills-me smile of an adult with the courage to make hard choices.
“Being back here did more than force me to face the past, it’s also made me reassess who I am. What I really want. What I really need. And that, my sweet friend, is someone who is absolutely nuts about me, who loves me the way my father loved my mother. Hell, who loves me the way your father loves your mother.” Her eyes filled. “Who loves me the way you obviously loved Deanna.”
Cue the skillet, Take Two.
Ryder released a long, ragged breath. “Damn, Mel—”
“And you can stop right there. It’s not your fault you can’t be that person. But that’s why I don’t dare let myself count on you. Because I’m afraid I’ll start seeing things that aren’t there. That probably won’t ever be there.”
His throat working overtime, Ryder looked away to force out a humorless laugh. “The timing—”
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