by Jianne Carlo
“You”—he sat up abruptly, encircled her waist, and licked her lips—“are so adorable like this. You make me happy, Melanie.”
Her eyes crossed, and she blinked trying to get rid of the glaze blurring his features. Lordy, he wore this stunned, dazed expression, as if happiness was a foreign emotion. A dagger point pierced her heart, the laceration so acute she clutched her side. The healer in her sought to soothe, to protect, to care and comfort. Instinct drove her to cradle his cheeks, to look into his eyes, and whisper, “You deserve happiness, Mike.”
You deserve so much better than me. She knew nothing about entertaining or country club etiquette or jazz at brunch. Didn’t have much ambition beyond having a rambunctious family to take care of and fuss over. She wouldn’t have minded taking a two-year vet assistant course but wasn’t really interested in the whole veterinarian shebang. He had money, tons of it, and power. Mike Dorland needed a right-side-of-the tracks woman. One who had taken ballet classes, spoke several languages, and could hold her own with the media. Not traits Melanie possessed or even wanted to learn. But she didn’t say the words aloud.
He brushed his lips on one palm and then the other. “I want to shower with you, but it’s almost five. How about I make breakfast while you’re showering?”
Shower? Five? Breakfast? He changed mental lanes like an Indy driver in the last lap. Melanie shook her head. And then the words registered. “Five? Oh no. I’m going to be late.”
“No. You won’t, babe. I promise.” He gave her a smacking kiss and did his endearing eyebrow dance. “Eggs, bacon, the works?”
“Don’t be silly. I always get breakfast at work. No need to cook or waste time. The drive-through starts today, and it opens at five thirty. I’m supposed to be there by five.” She tried to scramble off him, but he gripped her waist.
“Forgot about the drive-through. Okay, here’s how this will play out. You shower and change in here. I’ll use the outside shower. We’ll be there by five thirty on the dot. Guaranteed.”
Outside shower? Was he nuts? “It’s freezing, Mike Dorland. You’ll catch a nasty flu.”
He hooted and jumped off the bed.
Thrown off balance, she locked her arms around his neck and hooked her legs around the ridge of his bottom.
“I have you, mate.” His large palms cupped her ass cheeks. He strode to the bathroom, kneading her bottom and licking her ear. Her toes curled so tight they froze in position. “I’m half-wolf, Melanie. The cold doesn’t bother me. And I never catch a flu.”
Huh?
Minutes after he vanished from sight, she stood unmoving in the shower stall, a hot stream of water beating down on her shoulders, holding the soap, trying to piece together how he’d managed to do everything in the blink of an eye. Wrap her hair in a towel, adjust the temperature to perfection, kiss her into a lust stupor, and then set her under the steaming showerhead.
She leaned her head against the tiles. Melanie’d never felt so jumbled and befuddled and panicked. Not even after the shocking news of Papa and Gramps’ deaths. There’d been no time for the luxury of confusion, and she’d had no one to rely on.
What in tarnation was she doing? Wasting valuable hot water and daydreaming. So not going there. No time to dawdle and relive the past. Especially the immediate past. She grabbed a rag, lathered, and attacked her flesh, determined to scrub the too-tempting, primitive, musky Mike smell from every pore.
But she found herself wearing a silly grin and drifting off as she toweled dry. By the time she finished dressing and shoved her feet into her shoes, rapid-fire fantasies had her all hot and bothered and wet down there. Melanie rolled her eyes. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t climaxed like a crazed banshee for the last couple of hours.
“Ready?”
A swarm of fireflies took flight in her stomach. Sweat beads peppered her forehead and the ridge above her mouth. The wispy curls that had escaped her scraped ponytail frizzed into springy corkscrews. He looked good enough to eat, his features relaxed, boyish, wearing jeans that caressed every inch of his powerful quadriceps and lovingly outlined his bulging erection. A wicked smile toyed with his full lips. He held out a hand.
There was no escaping his sensual web.
Melanie placed her palm on his. He brushed his lips over her knuckles, and she shivered.
“Don’t.”
The warning came with a melt-the-ice-off-the-Hubbard-glacier stare. The sudden weakness in her knees must have been obvious, for he hauled her to him.
“Don’t look at me as if you want to lick chocolate off my dick. Or else you’ll never make it to work, far less on time.”
“You can’t read minds, can you?” She slapped a hand over her mouth. Nooo—she hadn’t really blurted that.
“Gotcha. You have chocolate fantasies. Hold that thought for tonight.” He swept her up.
“Mike. I can walk.”
“I know. I like having you in my arms. It makes me happy.”
Melanie peered at him. “Are you working me?”
“You bet.” His long legs made short work of the distance to the door. “Told you, I always stack the odds in my favor. You want me to be happy. You make me happy.”
“It won’t work.” A rush of icy air cooled the burn in her cheeks.
“Are you trying to say that me working you won’t work?” He flashed her an uneven smirk and winked. Twin dimples softened the light grooves around his mouth, and inexplicably their appearance girded her loins. Global warming had nothing on her overheating pussy or dissolving bones.
“Yes.” She cuffed his shoulder. “Don’t.”
“Is it my turn?”
It was that twilight time when the moon and the sun battled for supremacy, the midnight skies glinting hues of gold like a string of blinking Christmas lights.
The graying horizon Etch A Sketched the slashed angles and planes of his profile, and the murky visibility heightened her other senses. Each breath, each slow exhale drew in one thread of the enchanting web he wove. His unique aroma—one part grassy aftershave, one part woodsy forest, one part primitive beast, and a zillion parts essence of sex, permeated her nostrils, sank into her alveoli—oozed into her pores, and intertwined with her female musk.
Why did it take five seconds before her ears and brain connected? “Your turn to what?”
“To reply. Me working you is clearly working, ’cause you have that chocolate-slurping look in your beautiful eyes.” He halted at the passenger side of the pickup.
She glanced over the hood and tried for a change of subject. “Why do you think it’s chocolate? Maybe I prefer caramel?”
“Ha! Everyone at the Caboose talks about you being a chocoholic, and we’re definitely going to explore those fantasies, hopefully soon. Maybe even tonight.” He opened the door, bundled her into the seat, and kissed the stuffing out of her. Before she registered his actions, he’d climbed into the pickup’s driver’s seat and started the engine. Both of them wore seat belts, and she had no clue as to when and how he’d accomplished it all in less than a minute.
In an effort to get her pulse to settle into a regular cadence, Melanie picked at a cluster of wooly nubs near the hem of her tweed coat and ran through her mental to-do list. Work. Grocery. Bills. Clinic. The hum of the engine died, and she looked up to find they had parked beside the Caboose’s loading dock.
He kissed her senseless, walked her to the back door of the diner, and his lips worked more magic before he murmured his good-byes. The door closed and blocked him from sight.
Melanie never knew how she made it through the breakfast shift. Virgil assigned her to man the drive-through orders, and he put Brinda on the order fulfillment window. The hours went by in a flash. The hordes of reporters and their crew ordering breakfast and coffee through the scratchy speaker intercom kept her too busy to think.
None of the staff spoke much, the shock of the murder too unimaginable to digest. In a town like Chabegawn where the slightest vandalism merited headlines in the
county newspaper, homicide—and a brutal, senseless homicide to boot—didn’t gel. That two murders had happened in less than three days was mind-numbing. Murder occurred in other towns. Not in Chabegawn. Not since Boyd Dorland’s murder.
Brinda joined her at the lockers just as she finished hanging up her apron. “I’m driving you home, hon. No arguments. I doubt the buses are going to be running on time today anyway.”
“Why not? Did something happen to Mac?”
“Mac’s fine. Saw him at the supercenter earlier. No, it’s all those fricking reporters and their dozens of trucks and satellite dishes. Everything’s running behind.” Brinda deftly snapped her combo padlock on the locker.
“I hate to take you out of your way.” Melanie shrugged on her coat and grabbed her purse. “Okay. I need to have a serious discussion with you, anyway. Are you sick, Brinda? Yvonne says you’ve been throwing up regularly and that you hair’s falling out in clumps.”
“What? I had a bad reaction to a new shampoo and got a rash and shed my hair a little more than normal.”
Melanie noted that Brinda avoided meeting her eyes. “And the retching?”
“I’ve had a slight case of indigestion the last couple of weeks. That’s it. Plain and simple. And no, I do not want you worrying about me and sending all your healing vibes my way. Got that?”
Talk about being put in her place. But maybe she shouldn’t have been so blunt. Maybe she should’ve approached the whole thing differently. “Maybe it would be better if I took the bus. You’re obviously not in the mood for company.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just this whole bullying thing and Yvonne not coming to me first. I know I should be grateful that she thinks of you as a friend. But she’s my daughter, damn it.”
“She loves you and is afraid of what would happen if you got seriously sick. That was her first concern. How to take care of you.” Melanie shuffled her feet. Should she tell Brinda about the rumors of her and Pincer?
“What am I going to do, Melanie? She’s so uncoordinated and timid. What if someone gets physical with her?”
“I asked Gray if he’d show her some self-defense moves. She didn’t seem keen on the idea. But before I left last night I asked Gray to call her. Apparently, she agreed to meet him in the school gym. He used to be the high school quarterback and knows the coach at Mackinac High and can arrange everything.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh?” Melanie lifted a brow.
“I sort of mentioned the whole situation to Drake Dorland when he came in for takeout and coffee. He offered to teach Yvonne too.”
“That’s great. Two’s better than one, right?”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Of course it is.” Why was Brinda being so contrary?
“Well, if we’re being straight with each other, then there’s something you need to know about Mike Dorland, and I’d prefer that there was no chance of anyone overhearing what I have to tell you.”
Chapter Nine
Mike made it to the Chabegawn Country Club three minutes after the agreed-upon one thirty. He gave his leather jacket to Harry, who’d manned the coat-check counter for decades and who didn’t seem to ever age, chitchatted for a few seconds, and then hurried to the Whippletree, the club’s fine dining restaurant.
Drake and their mother, Lucinda, were already seated at a corner table framed by opposing bay windows.
“Don’t get up, Drake. Sorry I’m late, Mom.” He bent to kiss his mother’s cheek. She still had the soft skin of youth even though her fifty-fifth birthday had come and gone that summer. Cruelly he wondered if insanity left a person immunized from the real-life stress of aging and the requisite wrinkles.
“You’re here, and that’s all that matters.” She beamed at him.
He sat and unrolled the cutlery from a shell pink napkin. “Have you ordered?”
“Drinks. Cherry Coke for you.” Drake shot him a where-the-hell-have-you-been scowl.
“Thanks. You look lovely, Mom. New outfit?” Long ago, Lucinda’s preoccupation with fashion would’ve irritated him. These days he welcomed the times she dressed to the nines as a sign of her recovery. For so long, she’d only showered and combed her hair when forced to do so.
“Yes. Thanks, Son.” She slid her hand down the front of the nubby, short pink jacket. “I splurged. It’s a Chanel.”
“Mom was just telling me that Valérie took her down to Grand Rapids last week. That’s where she found the suit.” Drake’s bland tone didn’t match the warning blazing from his ice-blue eyes.
Mike kept his expression neutral. “I hear she and Justin are engaged. Have they set a date for the wedding?”
“Yes. New Year’s Eve.” She took a tiny sip of water. “Both Chantal and Valérie have been enormously supportive since I moved back to town. I’m hosting Valérie and Justin’s engagement party next Friday. I hope you can both make it.”
The cream tablecloth hid Mike’s fisted hands. He’d planned to take Melanie down to Grand Rapids for the weekend. “Of course. What time?”
“Seven thirty. It’ll be a sit-down dinner. Just the Laroques, the de Verteuils, and us. I’m having it catered.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. Five hours of Spanish inquisition torture. Mike bared his teeth in what he hoped passed for a smile. Another important step to full rehabilitation; their mother had once loved to entertain. “There’s a catering firm in town now?”
Mom tsk-tsked. “In Chabegawn? Don’t be silly, Mike. But the Caboose now offers catering on weekends. I believe you two know the owner, Mr. Sledden?”
Drake kicked him under the table.
“We do.” What the fuck was Drake trying to warn him about? “Why?”
“I have a meeting with him later on this afternoon and hoped one of you would come along.” She arched a perfectly drawn-in eyebrow.
“We’ll both come.”
Drake, in the process of taking a sip of water, turned his choking into a cleared-throat sound.
“Are you okay, dear?” She patted Drake’s hand.
“Went down the wrong way.” Drake glared at him. “What’re you thinking of serving?”
“Well, I do have to work around Valérie’s allergies. She has a delicate palate, you know. No seafood, of course. What do you think of prime rib for the main course?”
He could be making love to Melanie. Or feeding her. Or—he repressed a sigh—showering with her. Mike tuned out of the discussion. His dick and stones engorged as images of Melanie’s beautiful breasts, all foamy with lather, filled his head.
Drake kicked him again.
“Do you agree, Mike?”
What the hell were they talking about? Mike’s glance strayed from his mother to his brother who mouthed, rib eye.
“Love rib eye. Great choice.”
“That’s settled then. Escargot to start. A basil, mozzarella, and tomato salad. Rib eye for the main course, followed by a cheese tray, and then double-fudge devil’s food cake for dessert.”
What was Melanie’s chocolate fantasy? Hmmm, he could go for double-fudge pussy any day.
“I’m glad you’re pleased, dear. I remember how you used to steal pinches from my devil’s food cake.” She had a winning smile, their mother. Her pink-lipsticked mouth turned up at the corners, and the twin dimples everyone thought he’d inherited played peekaboo with her still-unlined cheeks.
“What about the time you caught Drake wearing it?” His brother had a sweet tooth that could rival a bear’s.
Mom laughed. A real laugh, not the polite twinkle she used in public, but a burst-from-the-gut chortle. A cord of hope banded his chest, and he fought to suppress it to no avail. Maybe things would work out after all.
“Oh. I forgot to mention. Valérie’s agreed to meet us at the Caboose. Apparently some of the waitresses aren’t up to par, and she wants to choose the catering staff herself.”
“Mike. Drake. How lovely to see you both.” The devil had to be having a hysteric
al hooting fit. For there, striding in their direction, was the about-to-be-strangled Valérie.
“Don’t get up.” Valérie halted not three inches from his chair. She rested a proprietary hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Lucinda, that suit is absolutely perfect on you.”
Mom ducked her head a tad and smoothed the fine wool. “I can’t thank you enough for dragging me to Grand Rapids last week. It was such a fun day. Too bad your mother couldn’t make it.”
He’d bet Whisper Derby odds that Valérie had finagled her mother’s absence. What the fuck was the witch up to? Her hand traced the seam of his shirt. Mike dug his fingers into his thighs. He hated her touching him and choked back a snarl.
“I’ll see you three at the Caboose at five thirty.”
He’d lost track of the conversation and was hard put not to blow out a relieved sigh when Valérie’s palm fell away.
“Chantal is very fortunate to have such a loving daughter.” Lucinda kept her gaze trained on Valérie’s retreating back, so she didn’t notice Drake rolling his eyes and then mimicking a strangling motion.
The childish gesture made Mike grin, and he almost didn’t resent his mother’s implied chide that he hadn’t been the most loving of sons. Mike signaled for the waiter and sent a mental thank-you to fate for Melanie working the breakfast shift.
Lunch lasted a full two hours, and in that time, all of Chabegawn’s who’s who stopped by to welcome them back to the town. It turned out that virtually every mother had an eligible daughter either his or Drake’s age. Invitations were issued left, right, and center. Though he attempted to parry each one with the ubiquitous work and just-moved excuses, at least five events had been scheduled before the brothers departed the restaurant.
Mike entered the office in a grumpy, pissed mood.
“That was exactly what I was afraid of.” Drake looked like Mike felt: mouth turned down, eyes narrowed. “I’m not getting on that fucking social carousel that those de Verteuils and Laroques ride. Not. Do you hear me?”
“Stop battering that keyboard.” Mike shrugged out of his jacket and hung the worn leather on the coatrack. “I don’t see any way we can escape. At least not until after Christmas and possibly New Year’s. And you should thank God for small mercies. You don’t have Vamp Valérie breathing down your cock.”
