Chapter Seventeen
Melba couldn’t have been happier when Clark called the next morning and asked if she had time to meet. Dad had two therapy sessions, so she had a good window of time—and they both needed it. After yesterday’s failed conversation, her frustration made spending time with Dad more difficult than ever. “I’m getting to see why it’s important I get a few breaks in my week,” she said as they slipped into a booth at Karl’s Koffee. “I’d go a little nuts myself if I spent all my time with him.” She was unpleasantly surprised such mean and uncaring words could come out of her mouth, and she leaned back against the cushion and shut her eyes in remorse. “What an awful thing to say. Dad’s not nuts. He’s sick. He’s...”
Clark reached a hand across the table. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up. You’re under a lot of strain. Even without all the...” his glance shot around the room and he lowered his voice “...complications, what you’re doing is no small feat. I really admire you for coming back to him.” That heartbreaker smile crept across Clark’s face again. “I’m rather happy you came back to Gordon Falls right about now.”
Clark laced his fingers with hers, something she’d cherished the other night on the steps. It was as if she could feel his strength seep into her when he did that. She tossed her gaze around the room as well, aware his hand was visibly linked with hers. “So you’re okay with...this? We’re not sticking to just being friends while you concentrate on your...” She stopped, unable to think of the word. “Exactly how do you become chief?”
“The ceremony involves a blood oath and a pound of flesh,” he teased, his smile broadening when she laughed. Clark seemed to be the only person capable of making her laugh these days—even late-night phone calls to Charlotte didn’t seem to brighten her spirits. “Actually, it was a town council vote—seeing as I’m a municipal employee and all. I’m already part of the department—the chief position takes effect at the end of the month. Barney tells me there’s a party planned, but I figure that’ll be more about celebrating Pop’s retirement than about my promotion.”
Something flashed through his eyes—something sharp and dark, like the opposite of a lightning strike. “You’re good with that?” she asked carefully.
“Everyone can agree Pop’s career is worth celebrating.” There was something about how he said the words that let Melba know everything hadn’t been smoothed out between father and son. “Not everyone is on board with my placement just yet. But you know,” he said with a hint of defiance, “I don’t think there’s much I can do about that. I care about this town, I really do. Only people think what people think, no matter what. Most times they’re wrong anyway so why bother?” His tone hinted at the old rebellious Clark, all long hair and black leather jackets.
“People will come around, you watch. The truth of your actions will show them, don’t you think? You came back because Gordon Falls matters to you. You jumped in the river to get Dad out, you doubled back that first night to bring me dinner.” Clark rolled his eyes, and she squeezed his hand. “You’re a good guy, Clark Bradens, don’t be so shocked by it.” It struck her that for all his reformed behavior, Clark hadn’t truly settled into his new life. Maybe that’s why they were so good for each other. “You’re a really good guy.” She let her thumb run across the side of his hand, feeling the tendons flex at her touch.
To her surprise, he changed the subject. “How’s your dad? Did you ask him about any of this?”
“Wow,” Melba said, picking a chocolate chip off her scone.
“Wow, what?”
“I just realized that’s the first time since I came here that I haven’t started a conversation off with talking about Dad.”
Clark took a gulp of his enormous coffee. “That’s a good thing, right?” The guy drank the stuff like water. Perhaps all firefighters did, considering the hours they kept. He set down the hefty mug. “Did you get any answers?”
Melba pushed out a deep breath. “Some. Definitely not all.” She looked up at Clark, surprised at the lump that rose in her throat even now. “He admitted it’s true.”
Clark’s hand tightened on hers. “How was that? Hearing it from him?”
“Hard.” She swallowed. “There’s so much pain in his face when he talks about it. I feel like I’m hurting him just by asking. Only I have to know. I have to know the truth, that’s the only way I’ll get through this.” Melba broke off another bite of her scone, but her appetite had fled. “I hate this bit-by-bit unearthing, you know? Peeling off layers, getting one fact only to have new questions emerge. And really, now that his memories are getting distorted, how do I know what’s fact at all?”
“Maybe you can’t.”
She frowned at him. It wasn’t like Clark to offer such platitudes. “You know what the worst part is? I know it can’t be true, but I feel like he somehow chooses to fade out on me when I ask something hard. As if he’s choosing to hold things back, hiding behind the illness. I upended my life to come and help him with this, and he ducks out of the way when I ask him something that important? He owes me the truth! I get so mad.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes, angry with herself. “And then I remember there’s nothing to get mad at. Only there is, and I’ve got all this hurt boiling up inside with nowhere to go and...” Melba pushed back the plate holding the scone.
“Look, is it okay with you if we go somewhere with a little less of an audience? I’d offer you a boat ride, only that didn’t go so well last time.”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
Clark stood and tossed a few bills on the table. She liked that he often overtipped. That had always been the sign of a good guy to her. “How about a walk?”
“A walk sounds great.” Melba took the few minutes of steps down toward the riverbank to settle her spirit. She wanted to talk this out with Clark, but didn’t want it to become an emotional escapade. Trouble was, she wasn’t sure it was possible to avoid. At least a scene on the footbridge would be less public than one in the middle of Karl’s Koffee. She loved the feel of him slipping his hand into hers as they walked. Clark had such a solidness of spirit. She felt like a walking cloud of vapors lately, without edges or any kind of backbone.
“I’m almost positive he knows more than he’s telling me, Clark. It’s like I can see the truth hiding in his eyes. I thought we were past this. And the clock is ticking, you know? I can’t help but see time running out right in front of my face before he reaches the point where he truly won’t be able to give me answers anymore. How can he think there’s any point in keeping the rest of it from me? What’s the point in hiding facts now?”
Instead of being empathetic, her little tirade seemed to bother Clark. He stiffened a bit, slid his hands from hers to grasp the bridge railing as they stared out at the current ambling along underneath them. “Maybe he’s trying to keep from hurting you.”
“It’s not working. I’m one giant, walking ball of hurt. I think he owes me the truth. There, I said it. I want to demand it from him. I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and get him to understand how awful it is to know there are more secrets out there lurking.” The tears started up, just as she knew they would. “I need to know that I know everything.”
She expected him to take her and hold her, the way he did on the steps. He didn’t. Instead, Clark looked at her and said, “You don’t.”
“I know I don’t. That’s the whole problem.”
“No, you don’t know everything because...because I haven’t told you everything I know.”
His admission slammed into her as if they’d opened up the floodgates at the end of town. “What do you mean?”
“I know more than I’ve told you.” He couldn’t even look her in the eye when he said it. “I’m sorry.”
Melba felt as if her last solid foothold had just evaporated. Truly, it was a falling sensation, just as surely as i
f she’d tumbled off the bridge into the river. “You’re sorry? After everything I’ve told you, knowing how much I struggle with this, you kept a secret? What could make you do something like that? What do you know, Clark, what haven’t you told me?” She wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him. He was supposed to be the one thing she could count on in all this.
“I know who ‘G’ is. I knew it the minute I saw the letter.”
Clark couldn’t have picked a more damaging thing to say. She wanted to shout harsh, horrible words at him, but couldn’t even pull in enough breath to make a sound.
Worse yet, Clark’s own anger was rising up. “Don’t you see, Melba? ‘G’ is George Bradens. My father wrote that letter. It’s my dad who was in love with your mother. It’s Pop who would have ditched his family—ditched me—if your mom was willing to run off with him. Can you see for a moment why that might be a bit hard to spit out?”
Melba’s head was spinning. “How long have you known?”
“I recognized the handwriting. I went to him that afternoon and confronted him. He owned up to everything. Seems the upstanding fire chief wasn’t exactly Father or Husband of the Year.” Clark went to the other side of the bridge, staring at her with broiling eyes from the opposite railing.
“You knew when you came back to the house, and we sat on the steps? You knew then and you didn’t tell me?”
“I knew I should but...”
“You coward!” The words lashed out of her, ripping her chest as they went. “You came to me. You let me sit there, knowing all my secrets and keeping yours, letting me kiss you, kissing me the way you did and...”
“Wait a minute, you were...”
“I was a wreck. I told you how much I needed to know the truth and you had part of it. Part you kept from me.”
“I didn’t know how to deal with it. It’s terrible what Pop did. I hate it.” He paced back over to her, and she sidestepped him. “It’s even worse than you realize, Melba. Do you think I want to know what a sleazy thing my pop did? Do you think I’m happy to find out how far he would have gone—that he was willing to leave me and my mom for Maria? Do you want to know how bad it is? Do you want to know the whole, awful truth?”
Was he not listening to her? “Yes, I do.”
Clark pulled both hands down his face, reining in his temper and lowering his voice. “My father paid Danny Baker off. He called in a few favors to get the guy transferred to some firehouse downstate and gave him a load of cash to disappear.”
She couldn’t have heard him right. “What?”
“You read the letter. Your mom came to my dad, desperate for a solution to a huge mistake of a one-night stand while your dad—Mort—was away in the Gulf.”
“And that’s how your father chose to help?”
“He thought that by solving this little complication, he’d get rid of his competition, and then win your mom over when Mort rejected her. Somehow the whole thing made a sick sort of noble sense to him at the time. He says he regrets it now, but who knows if I can believe anything? He didn’t love my mom when he married her—the whole courtship story my mom told me growing up is a complete lie. My family is as messed up as yours, Melba, maybe even more.”
“And you kept this from me?”
“It was a little hard to swallow, you know. At least your parents loved each other.”
“That doesn’t make this okay, Clark.” She was starting to haul off at him again for his deception when the full extent of George’s scheme hit her anew. “Wait—your father bought off my biological father? To win my mom?” Melba brought her hand to her forehead. The facts were whirling around her now, rushing together like some sort of awful television soap opera. “You knew this that first day and you kept it from me?”
“Not all of it. Look, you were a mess the other night. How was I supposed to heap this onto what you were already facing?”
“Oh, so you thought you’d protect fragile little old me. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Your dad thought he was protecting my mom when he bought off my father.”
Clark jabbed a finger at her. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair? You know what’s not fair? I thought you were the one person around here I could count on and I was wrong, that’s what’s not fair.” She turned and headed back over the bridge, wanting to put as much space between the awful Bradens men and herself as possible. How many more coffees—and kisses—would he have taken before he found it convenient to share what he knew?
“I’m sorry,” he called, and she tried to ignore the pain in his voice. “This whole thing pulled the rug out from underneath me and I...” His voice caught and Melba stopped but didn’t turn around. “I messed up. It’s a gift of mine. Look.” She could hear him coming close behind her. “I needed you and I was sure you’d push me away if I told you that my dad was the one who tried to pull your parents’ marriage apart. I should have told you that night but you were so...so...”
His voice trailed off, and Melba remembered how she’d flung herself into his arms, an impulse to keep the pain at bay. They were so bad for each other right now, and yet so hopelessly tangled. There was nothing to do but walk away.
Which is what she did. Even when he called her name.
* * *
Clark let his head fall against the railing, feeling the anger and regret surge over him like the river current. He’d failed her. He’d made the wrong choice, had taken the coward’s way out not once but twice, and now it had cost him Melba. The world felt as dark and forsaken as it had at the bottom of that fire so many years ago.
What’s the point, Lord? Clark launched a silent howl at Heaven. Why bring me home and pile on the pain? I’ve hurt everyone I care about, and people I care about have hurt me. This is why I came to Gordon Falls? This is what You had in mind? Why?
“Why?” Clark yelled it out loud, listening to his anger echo across the riverbank. There seemed to be no point to any of it. No solution, only a frustrating maze of anger and mistakes. He looked back at the town and didn’t see streets or buildings, but his history of mistakes and a future filled with nothing but more of them. What possible life could he build here now? The whole Gordon River didn’t hold enough mercy to wash away all the damage he’d uncovered since his arrival. An ocean wouldn’t hold enough. He couldn’t see his way clear to forgiving his father, and that made him miserable. Mort and Pop would never forgive each other. Even the town wasn’t ready to forgive him his own past.
Oh, but none of that even came close to Melba. He couldn’t see how she would ever forgive him, and that seemed to suck his future dry. Clark wouldn’t survive seeing that look in her eyes ever again, the aching accusation in them that told him how badly he’d let her down. He’d have to bear it every day in this tiny town. The weight of knowing he’d caused so much pain pressed against him until he didn’t think he could breathe. She’d done something to him that could never be undone, pulled open a place in his heart that could never be filled by anyone else.
He stood on that bridge, stared at her car winding its way up the hill, and knew. Clark knew he was watching the love of his life leave his life forever. Only she wouldn’t leave. She couldn’t.
Which is why he had to do what he’d always been known for: walking away. Clark Bradens was about to live up to his reputation. Again.
Chapter Eighteen
Melba handed the knitting back to Jeannie. “See? You just knit that stitch when you should have purled. The rest is all right.”
Jeannie eyed Melba. “Unlike you.”
Melba sighed. It had been a whole day—a whole miserable day since her last talk with Clark—and she thought she’d kept her state better hidden than that. After all, this group wasn’t exactly known for their ability to refrain from meddling. One slip, and she’d end up gushing out far more than was wis
e. That’s why she hated secrets so much. All they did was throw walls up between people. Walls that could grow and expand years after the fact, as she was now learning. “No, I’m fine. Just tired. Dad got up a lot last night.”
Jeannie resumed knitting but didn’t look at the yarn. Instead, she bore into Melba with a mother’s searing glare. “So your present state has nothing to do with why Clark Bradens is currently at the station trying to talk my husband into being fire chief instead of him? You have no idea why Clark might be fighting with his father and threatening to put a hundred miles between himself and Gordon Falls?”
“What?” Melba’s knitting slid off her lap.
“I was waiting for you to bring it up,” Abby said, “but honestly, if you sat there pouting one more minute I thought you were going to puddle into the couch cushions.”
“Some of us go to Karl’s Koffee, too,” Violet said with a knowing smile, “not that you were noticing any other customers with that handsome man’s hand holding yours.”
“You’re out of sorts and Clark is banging around the firehouse like an angry bull. It’s not hard to connect the dots,” Jeannie said.
“Give us some credit, dear, we were young once, too,” Tina said. She came over and took Melba’s hand in such a tender gesture that a small sob burst from Melba before she could hold it back. “Love is a very messy business indeed.”
“Clark can’t leave!” Melba blurted out. Then again, why not? What was keeping him here? Certainly not family loyalty—he clearly viewed any allegiance to his father as null and void now. And certainly not her.
“Well, I know that, and you know that, but someone had better tell that to the young man,” Marge said. “You all must have had some whopper of a spat out there on the bridge.”
Melba’s eyes grew wide. “What did you hear?”
Jeannie dropped her knitting and put her arm around Melba. “Nothing, hon, but you can see that bridge from the windows at Karl’s. It wasn’t hard to guess the nature of the argu— conversation.”
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