“Sucks. I know. Hey. It happens.”
He faced Mel again, lifting his hand to thumb away the wetness on her cheek. “How’d you get to be so damn amazing?”
“Copious amounts of bacon,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek before walking off.
Chapter Ten
Standing with Mom in front of the blindingly white door with the shiny brass knocker, Quinn lifted one foot to scratch the back of her other leg through her new leggings. Which she loved, don’t get her wrong—they were white with polka dots in every color you could imagine—but they were a little itchy. Not so bad that she couldn’t deal, though. Besides, they looked totally awesome with her also new purple sweater and silvery ballet flats with the big bows across the toes, and anyway, Blythe said sometimes you had to suffer to look good. Mom had rolled her eyes at that. Blythe also said Quinn looked bitchin’, but later, when Mom wasn’t around.
“You ready for this?” Mom said, taking Quinn’s hand, and Quinn thought, Ready for what? but she smiled up at her, anyway. Mom looked totally bitchin’ tonight, too, in this amazing turquoise dress in some real soft fabric that made her look all curvy, with the cutest matching sweater with little beads scattered down the front. And high heels. Really high heels. With lots of straps crisscrossing the tops of her feet.
“Sure,” she finally said, feeling like it was somehow up to her to make Mom feel better. Even though her mother’s hand was cold and kind of damp—ick—Quinn didn’t pull away. Because it was pretty obvious how nervous she was. Which Quinn guessed had something to do with Ryder. Again. Or still. She wasn’t sure which.
She and April had come out of the bookshop yesterday right when Mom kissed Ryder on the cheek, and after he’d gotten in his car and driven away Mom had noticed them, smiling all fast like everything was good when anybody with half a brain in their head could see it wasn’t. Then she’d suggested they all go to the outlet mall nearby, because she and Quinn had been invited to dinner at Ryder’s parents’ house and they could not go looking like a couple of bums, she said.
Instead of, for once, maybe actually talking about what had just happened? So, per usual, Quinn got a shopping trip instead of answers. Although, actually, the shopping trip was a new thing. Usually it was cookies. Sometimes a cake or pie, but usually cookies.
One thing was for sure—things hadn’t gotten less weird over the last few days. Especially since she kept catching Mom staring at nothing with this not-really-there look on her face. Or frowning, like she was trying to figure something out. Or sighing. Lots of sighing. And every time Quinn would ask if she was okay, all she’d say was, “Sure, sweetie, why wouldn’t I be...?”
“So, you gonna ring the doorbell?” Quinn asked, suddenly realizing how long she’d been standing there thinking about stuff. And that the wind was going right up under her little skirt and freezing her butt.
“Sorry,” Mom muttered, and punched the button, the ding-donging making the dogs bark on the other side of the door. Quinn stepped back.
“Don’t worry, they’re harmless,” Mom said, and Quinn wondered how she knew that.
Ryder’s dad answered the door, smiling like always and telling both her and Mom how nice they looked. Then he gave Quinn a wink, which made her giggle. The dogs made her giggle, too, so excited to see her she could barely get inside the door.
“Lucy! Ethel! Come! Sit!”
At the sound of the woman’s voice, the dogs stopped trying to lick Quinn’s face and left to sit by the tall, thin, redheaded woman belonging to the voice. She was really pretty—for somebody that old, anyway—but not dressed up nearly as much as she and Mom were. Black pants and a long, kinda beigey sweater, a chunky gold necklace—that was it. Then she smiled at Quinn, her hand stretched toward her like they already knew each other, and now Quinn felt seriously funny inside, like she did know her from somewhere but couldn’t remember.
“Quinn, sweetheart,” she said, her smile getting brighter, like a light bulb right before it dies. “I’m Lorraine Caldwell. Ryder’s mother.”
“Nice to meet you,” Quinn said, taking her hand, because she hadn’t been raised by badgers, as her grandmother used to say, and Mrs. Caldwell said, “Very nice to meet you, too. And don’t you look lovely!” and Quinn said, “Thank you, so do you,” and she thought Ohmigosh, this could go on all night.
“And don’t you have the nicest manners, young lady!”
Young lady? Brother. Then again, they were going back to Baltimore in a couple of days—which wasn’t sitting all that well, truth be told—so what were the chances she’d ever see Ryder’s mother again, anyway?
Then Ryder appeared out of nowhere and Quinn ran to him and he lifted her off her feet in a big hug, and suddenly she felt like crying for no good reason that she could tell.
* * *
All through dinner, Ryder could tell Mel was holding her breath as she picked at her food, clearly apprehensive that one or the other of his parents would let something slip. They wouldn’t, of course, both well aware how easily this fragile truce could be blown. However, when his mother asked Quinn how she liked St. Mary’s, he could practically hear Mel’s hammering heart, her eyes wide and even darker than normal as she awaited Quinn’s answer.
“It’s okay, I guess,” the child said with a shrug, her own gaze darting to her mother as though unsure what to say. Then she grinned at him and his heart melted. Again. “I like all the cute little shops and stuff. But mostly I like sitting out on the dock and watching the water and sky. And the birds,” she said to his father.
“Are we still on for tomorrow?” David said, and Quinn looked at Mel, who hesitated before nodding, and Quinn did a fist pump, making his mother laugh. His mother. Laughing. At a fist pump. Honestly, Ryder felt as though he’d landed in an alternate universe.
One in which one stunningly beautiful Melanie Duncan was apparently loath to meet his gaze, which was bugging the life out of him. Well, except when he asked her to pass the rolls, and her gray-shadowed eyes had shot to his as though he’d suggested fencing stolen goods, and regret slashed at his gut, that what they’d had lay in ruins between them. That they’d somehow managed to wander into that limbo between friendship and more, where they simply didn’t fit together anymore.
That here was this incredible woman saying, basically, I’m yours for the asking, and he...couldn’t.
Can’t? Or just too damn afraid?
“Let’s have dessert in the living room!” his mother said, rising, sounding more chipper than Ryder ever remembered, and despite the lead weight in his stomach he smiled at how Quinn carefully folded her cloth napkin and laid it atop her empty plate before getting to her own feet, and he caught Mel’s eye and winked—because he was perverse like that—making her blush.
Then, remembering, as the others drifted into the formally furnished room that hadn’t been used since forever, he snagged her elbow and whispered, “We need to talk.”
Her gaze zinged to Quinn, who’d already discovered the baby-grand Steinway by the bay window, her smile enormous when his mother encouraged her to go ahead and try it out, if she liked.
Mel bit her lip. “But—”
“They’re not going to do anything stupid, Mel. Way too much at risk.” He turned his head, lowering his voice even further. “I talked to Jeremy.”
That got her attention. “When?”
“This evening,” he said, steering her toward the two-story conservatory at the back of the house, the interior washed in coppery light from the rapidly fading sunset. “I’d called, left a couple of vague messages both on his home phone and cell, but he didn’t get back to me until then.”
“Oh.” She left his side to meander through a virtual jungle of multicolored hibiscus, the trumpet-shaped flowers glowing like jewels, stopping to cup one magnificent coral blossom in her palm. “What did
he say? When you told him why you’d called?”
“Not a whole lot. I got the feeling he couldn’t talk freely. Because he wasn’t alone, I assume. But he knows. That the jig’s up.”
“And you told him—?”
“I did.”
Mel dropped the flower to press her folded arms to her middle. “So. That’s done, then.”
“It would appear so.” Ryder paused, then said, “I’ve never seen you in heels before.”
Smiling slightly, she glanced down, turning out one foot to pose, then back up at him. “I have to admit, they’re strangely...empowering.”
“For you, maybe,” he said, and she laughed, then shifted to look out over the gardens, a few valiant blooms defying the shorter nights and cooler temperatures.
“We should get back,” he said, and she shuddered. Sighed.
“Probably.”
Ryder slowly closed the distance between them to drape his arms around her shoulders and pull her close. Unresisting, she melted into him, and he ached. For her, for himself, for what couldn’t be.
“So why wouldn’t you look at me during dinner?”
She was quiet for a long moment, then said, very softly, “Because despite everything I said yesterday, there’s this nasty little voice in my head that will not shut up. A voice that keeps telling me I could fix you.” She paused. “Love you enough to heal your heart.”
When he found his voice again, all he could say was, “Wow.”
“I know, right?”
He chuckled softly into her soft, sweet-smelling hair. “That’s incredibly...honest.”
“And wrong, on so many levels.” After another shrug, she twisted to look up at him. “I hurt so much for you, Ry. More than I can even begin to put into words. And it slays me, that I can’t make it better.”
Feeling as though he was about to burst into flames, Ryder cradled the back of her neck and lowered his mouth to hers, the kiss soft and deep and bittersweet, before tucking her against his chest, whispering, “Yeah. Me, too.”
Because it wasn’t that he didn’t love her—always had, always would.
It was that he didn’t love her enough.
* * *
Dude was gonna kill her dead, no lie.
They stood for some time, cocooned in silence and each other’s arms, as though they both knew that conversation was over. Not to mention the relationship. Only, see, that’s what was driving Mel up a wall, that Ry so obviously wanted...something. To find his way out of his own head, if nothing else. And she could be that something, she knew it. Especially after that kiss. Because that kiss...it hadn’t been about lust, and it sure as heck hadn’t been about friendship. What it had been about, however, she had no clue.
And neither, she was guessing, did Ryder.
Except that he needed her. But if he couldn’t see that, couldn’t admit it, couldn’t unshackle the pain and fear and grief that rattled and clanked along behind him, there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do, was there—?
“So tell me something,” he said, making her flinch, “did you put some kind of spell on Quinn before you brought her here tonight?”
Despite everything, Mel laughed. “Talk about a nonsequitur.” Then she smiled up into that face she’d always loved, that somehow she’d known, even as a wee little thing, she’d love forever. In one way or the other. “You mean, the Stepford kid routine? That was my mother’s doing,” she said, forcing herself to let go, to distance herself from all that solidity and warmth and bone-deep goodness. “Since she said it never took with me, she was bound and determined to civilize Quinn. Kid knew how to use a twelve-piece place setting by the time she was five.”
“Hmm. Almost as if—”
“She knew she’d need that particular skill someday. I know. Crazy, huh? Then again, I think on some level she understood a lot more than I gave her credit for. Or wanted to believe. Not just that she’d meet her other grandparents someday, but all of it. The why behind what happened.”
“You mean, about your grandmother?”
“Yeah.” Mel walked away to toy with the frond of an immense fern in a majestic, hand-painted urn, her insides pinching at how well Ryder understood her, even after all this time. “You know, I never understood my mother’s unswerving loyalty to yours. Even after we left, she never, ever said a word against her. I thought she was nuts, frankly. But now...maybe I can see things a little differently. Not that part of me doesn’t still wish your mother had stood up to my grandmother. Called her bluff. Because frankly I’m not sure Nana would have ever made good on her threat, never mind how much your mother believed she would.”
She turned. “However, I’ve been thinking a lot the past couple of days, about how Mom was able to put everything that happened behind her and move on.” Her throat got so tight she could barely get out, “Including forgiving me for screwing up her last chance at patching things up with her mother. While my grandmother hung on to her resentment and grudges every bit as tightly as she held on to all the crap in that house.” She gave Ryder a small smile. “And I had to ask myself which example I’d rather emulate, for my own sake as well as Quinn’s.”
He smiled back. “So you’re saying you’ll never be a hoarder?”
“Oh, Lord, no,” Mel said on a laugh. “But it also means I can’t let the past deprive Quinn of something she wants. And needs.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ryder said quietly, his features unreadable in quickly fading light. Then, his voice even softer: “Thank you.”
Mel nodded, then glanced around the conservatory, the taller specimens ghostly in the near-dark. “We used to play hide-and-seek in here. Remember?”
A beat or two passed before he said, “You were, what? Four? Five?”
“Something like that, yeah.” She forced a laugh past her still-clogged throat. “And you were a such a jerk, jumping out at me when I’d get close to finding you, making me scream.”
“What can I say, I’ve always loved to make you scream.”
Mel pushed out a fake sigh. “Now how did I know you’d say that?”
He sighed as well. A genuine one, in his case. “Innocence lost?”
“It was innocent, then. I always felt safe with you. Protected. And those memories...they can’t be tainted. Can’t be taken from us. Ever. I like that.”
“Yeah,” he said after a long pause. “Me, too.”
“And you know something else?” Her eyes burned. “The more I think about the good stuff, the less important the bad stuff seems. And I really like that.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “We’re leaving on Monday, by the way.”
“Oh. So soon?”
Mel refused to hear disappointment in his voice. Or, far worse, hope in her own head.
“I’m actually holding off an extra day—so Quinn can have her birding adventure with your dad—but April’s got things pretty much under control with the house, and, um, I’ve got three interviews lined up. And this one place, if it pans out—I could start immediately.”
Another pause. Then: “So you really won’t consider staying? To take April up on her offer.”
She thought of that incredible kitchen-to-be, the chance to make up her own menus, to have something that was her own—
“I can’t, Ry.”
Silence. In the dark, she held her breath. Your turn, she thought, closing her eyes and feeling her heart hammering in her chest. Give me a reason to stay—
“Are you planning on telling Quinn before or after you leave?”
Tears crowded the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back. “At the moment I’m going with after. I think it’ll be better, don’t you? Give her a chance to assimilate things away from here. That way if there’s fallout, nobody feels it but me. After the dust settles I’ll get in touch with your parents, and we can ta
ke things from there, I suppose. But whatever happens, it’s all about Quinn. Just like always.”
If Ryder wondered about her sudden verbal spewage, he didn’t let on. Instead he said, “Those stitches can come out in a couple of days,” and she said, “Right, I’ll see to it,” and then he took her hand to lead her out of the dark, and by now treacherous to navigate, space.
They found his parents and her beaming, animated daughter playing Monopoly in the den, her initial shyness with Lorraine apparently dissolved. A quick glance at the board made Mel chuckle. Judging from the nice little stack of play money in front of the kid, clearly Quinn was beating the socks off her grandparents. Who were both, just as clearly, getting an enormous kick out of it. In fact, at Ryder’s and Mel’s reappearance, Lorraine looked up and smiled at Mel, her hand pressed to her heart as she mouthed, “Thank you.”
Then the dogs, who’d been sacked out on the thick rug as close to Lorraine as they could get, both jumped to their feet and bolted from the room, barking. Mel barely caught Lorraine’s exchanged glance with David, a frown marring her brow, before, muttering an obscenity, Ryder strode from the room.
Then she heard voices. Ryder’s, of course, and a woman’s she didn’t recognize.
And a man’s she did, even if lower than it had been ten years ago.
Her heart rocketing into her throat, Mel whipped around to face a very pale Lorraine as Mel heard Jeremy say behind her, “Well, isn’t this convenient, everyone’s here for our little reunion....”
This couldn’t be happening. Couldn’t—
Quinn’s puzzled gaze swung to Mel’s. “Mom—?”
“Mel, Quinn—” David beckoned them toward the French door leading outside. “Come on—”
But it was too late. There he was, a study in preppy chic trailed by the pretty Asian woman Mel had seen in the photo. Who looked every bit as befuddled as her husband looked determined, his rectangular-framed gaze latched on to Quinn.
“Hello, honey—you must be Quinn—”
“Please, Jeremy, don’t,” Mel said, her heart shattering, as Ryder grabbed his brother’s arm.
The Doctor's Do-Over Page 18
