One Plus One Makes Marriage

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Already done.” She realized he probably thought she’d asked someone to rescind them for her. She could tell by his expression. What had made him so cynical? “I paid them,” she added to clear up any lingering doubt.

  He didn’t understand. Fines were paid at city hall. “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Seeing if someone has John Kelly’s new address.” That had been her original intent, although when she’d walked into the firehouse, she’d asked to be directed to Lance’s office instead.

  He rocked back in his chair, studying her. He had patience and an eye for detail, which made him a good investigator and the likely choice to fill in for Kelly until they could find someone. But right now, none of that was within his grasp.

  “Why?”

  Why did he make everything sound like it had to be defended in order to exist? “Because I wanted to send him a gift.” She saw the question forming, and answered before it rose to his lips. “He was always nice to me.”

  In his experience, women who looked like Melanie McCloud were nice to men for one reason and one reason only. “Yeah.”

  “Like a father,” Melanie clarified, wondering whether or not to take offense at what he was clearly implying. She decided not to. He looked as if he was suffering enough as it was. He didn’t need someone snapping at him. What he needed, she thought, was someone to listen. And maybe even to care a little. “How dark is the world you’re in, Lance?”

  He wasn’t prepared to have the tables turned on him. With the worn heel of his boot braced against the metal leg of his desk, he shoved his chair back, away from it. It hit against the wall as he rose. He didn’t like being analyzed. Served him right for doing a good deed.

  No good deed went unpunished, he thought. “It’s not dark, it’s realistic.”

  “Then you should understand that a man like John Kelly might just be friendly without compromising his job—or compromising the person he’s being nice to,” she added significantly.

  He’d met Kelly just before the older man had left. A singularly unimpressive, talkative man with premature wrinkles and yellowing skin from years of being addicted to smoking. They each played with fire their own way, he supposed.

  Lance’s eyes washed over her slowly, still trying to decide whether or not she was for real. So far, with the exception of his aunt and possibly the mother he just barely remembered, no woman had been. “Did he teach you any tricks?”

  There was a point where easy-going just ceased going. Melanie had reached that point. Not for herself, but for the regard, or lack of it, that Lance had for John Kelly, a man she’d truly liked.

  Her eyes darkened. “As a matter of fact, he did. He taught me that it was possible to be a fire inspector and not to be a rude, suspicious know-it-all. Otherwise, I would have thought that was what the breed was all about.” There was no use talking to him. At least, not until she cooled down a little. “Good day, Inspector Reed. Enjoy your work.”

  She was almost out the door when he spoke. Part of him was willing to see her walk out. But part of him, some tiny part that sought to justify, to find logic in a world that continued not to have any, pressed him to ask, “You ever see a fire?”

  His voice was so low, she almost thought she imagined it. But she turned around, anyway. The expression on his face told her she hadn’t imagined the question.

  Melanie nodded. “Sure.”

  He knew exactly what she meant. Lance shook his head darkly. “I’m not talking about something contained within a circle of rocks you roast marshmallows over,” he said contemptuously. “I’m talking about afire mething that roasts flesh. That has no respect for who you are or how old you are, it just destroys everything in its path, getting stronger, bigger, defying you to stop it.”

  The problem with growing up the way she had, the merest suggestion brought vivid images to her mind. She could see exactly what he was talking about. See it and feel it. Melanie licked her lips before answering. They’d gone completely dry.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Lance kept his distance from her, because he wasn’t sure what he would do, just now, if he were close. Shake her or hold her. The latter worried him more than the former did. “I don’t enjoy my work, Ms. McCloud. What I enjoy is knowing that if I do my work right, that destructive son of a bitch called fire isn’t going to get a chance to get a toehold on the property I inspected.” His eyes held hers. “And then no one needs to die.”

  Melanie blew out a shaky breath as the pain he felt became evident to her.

  “How bad was it?” she whispered.

  He shook himself free of the memory that haunted him, mentally cursing his lack of control. “What?”

  She knew, or thought she knew. “The fire you were in. How bad was it?”

  Lance stared at her. Did she profess to gaze into crystal balls, too? “Who said I was in a fire?”

  Why did he bother denying it? “You did. Not in so many words, but you did.”

  The sympathy in her eyes unmanned him, sending him to a place he had no desire to be. He didn’t have time to waste talking to her. He had work to do.

  “Thompson can give you Kelly’s address if you’re interested in sending him something. He’s the guy looking in and staring at you.”

  Then, before she could say anything else to him, he brushed past her and walked out.

  Chapter Three

  “Who’s the lady on your desk?”

  Her question stopped him cold. This woman seemed to derive pleasure in preventing him from making it through doorways.

  Lance turned slowly around. In her hand she held the small, silver-framed photograph of Bess he kept on his desk. The one touch of himself he’d added to an otherwise depersonalized office.

  He glared at her. “Does the word privacy mean anything to you?”

  She’d already begun to put the photograph back, moving aside the pile of folders that had taken the opportunity to spill all over the newly vacated space and obliterate it. His question had her looking at him quizzically.

  With a sigh Lance strode back into the office and took the photograph from her. One sweep of the back of his hand and there was room on the desk. He planted the photograph back where it belonged, his eyes warning her to leave it alone.

  Melanie looked at the woman with the soft mouth and kind eyes. There was a quiet, serene beauty there that didn’t immediately leap out at a person. She raised her eyes to Lance’s face. That couldn’t be his mother, or else he wouldn’t be so touchy about his privacy.

  “Why, are you having an affair with her?”

  The question stunned him. What kind of mind did this woman have? Were there only photographs of men she’d had affairs with on her desk?

  “No, that’s my aunt Bess,” he snapped.

  So, he had filial feelings. There was hope for him yet. Melanie grinned, thinking of her own aunt. “My aunt Elaine never married. Instead she had affairs with younger men. She used to say that was what kept her young, and going strong.”

  Lance couldn’t picture Bess having an affair with any man, younger or older. From his earliest recollection, she had been entirely devoted to the memory of her husband, who’d died on a hotly contested piece of dirt half a world away, six months into their marriage. That had been thirty-three years ago. Bess had never shown the slightest inclination of wanting to go out with other men. One heart, one love, that was the way she liked to put it. From the sound of it, that wasn’t something McCloud’s aunt would understand.

  “Your aunt sounds like a character.” Apparently, it was a family trait.

  Striving for patience, Lance waited for Melanie to leave. She didn’t show the slightest inclination that she was going to.

  The grin deepened into a smile. “I suppose she was.” Melanie saw the mute question in his eyes when she said was, though she doubted he’d ask. Not because any sense of politeness prevented him, but because he seemed unwilling to accumulate any extraneous information about peopl
e. It was almost as if he was afraid that knowing things would force him to be friendly. She told him, anyway. “Aunt Elaine died a little over two years ago. I made the shop look like her parlor.”

  With all those photographs hanging on the wall? “Big movie buff?”

  He’d asked without thinking. His aunt Bess loved old movies. They made her sentimental. As a boy, Lance had watched them with her. Believing in sentiment was what had set him up for the fall he’d taken, he remembered. His eyes darkened.

  Melanie noticed the slight shift and wondered what brought it on.

  “The world’s biggest.” A fond note crept into her voice. “That’s how she got into her line of work to begin with. She loved movie stars, loved being around them and figured she might as well be paid for it.”

  Lance knew he shouldn’t ask. Like leaving food out for a stray cat, it would only encourage her to stay. But the same curiosity that made him so good at the investigations he conducted burrowed forth, obviously not knowing the difference between being curious about something trivial and something of grave importance.

  “And your aunt was—”

  Melanie warmed to her subject, fully aware that he was leading her out of his office.

  “A wardrobe mistress, then a makeup artist for two of the major studios. She did a bit of designing, too,” she told him proudly. “Those were some of her clothes they wore in Next Year, Paris.”

  Melanie doubted he was even mildly familiar with the old classic, a tragicomedy that still required at least three hankies to see the viewer through.

  How was it, Lance wondered, with all the people in the world, the world could still be such a small place sometimes? He found it completely uncanny that out of almost an endless selection at her disposal, McCloud would hit upon Bess’s all-time favorite movie. Suspicions inched their way forward in his mind, but in all fairness, he had to dismiss them. There was no way the woman could have known something like that on her own. Not unless she knew Bess, and that was highly unlikely. He knew, by sight or at least by name, almost everyone his aunt was acquainted with.

  Almost against his will, Lance recalled the first time Bess had made him watch the movie. He was twelve and rebelliously reluctant to sit through what he figured was just a “dumb-old girl movie,” though he would have never voiced his protest in those exact words to Bess. But she had prevailed, and he’d found himself struggling not to alternately laugh, then cry, then laugh again. Years later, he figured out she’d probably heard the gurgling noises he’d made and chose, for the sake of preserving his budding male pride, to ignore them and not comment.

  Bess was one in a million.

  So was the woman with him, for entirely different reasons.

  Melanie cocked her head, studying his face. She’d been right. He did look better devoid of that constricting, severe, expression he wore. As a matter of fact, he was pretty nearly a heart stopper. She wondered if he knew and decided that he wasn’t the type to be aware of things like that.

  “You’re smiling,” she observed, pleased that he did it in her company.

  Lance collected himself, lifting his chin as if that would wipe everything away. “No, I’m not.”

  She wasn’t going to let him deny it. There was nothing wrong in smiling. “I’ll admit it’s not very large, and some might even call it a grimace, but I’ve been around sound stages. I know the beginnings of a smile when I see one.” Her expression teased him, coaxing Lance to deepen the smile. “What?” she urged, wanting to know what had made him forsake that dark, dour expression.

  Lance looked at her, debating. Maybe he’d just gotten accustomed to playing his hand too close to his chest, not letting anyone in. Having your teeth kicked in when you most needed someone did that to you.

  But McCloud hadn’t been the one to do the kicking. In any case, there was no real reason not to tell her. No harm in it, anyway, and then maybe once he told her she would leave him alone and go about her business. Which apparently in her case meant sticking that very pretty nose of hers into other people’s lives.

  As long as it wasn’t his.

  He took a chance, shrugging as if it meant absolutely nothing instead of being an incredible coincidence. “It’s just that Next Year, Paris is my aunt’s favorite movie.”

  Lance wouldn’t have admitted that if it weren’t true, Melanie thought. Well, well, well. Pleasure poured like rich red wine all through her. “No kidding.”

  He saw her eyes light up like a child’s at Christmas. Why? Bess didn’t mean anything to her. She didn’t even know Bess.

  “No kidding,” he echoed.

  Lance ushered them out of his office and down the short corridor, very aware that he was garnering looks of unabashed admiration and envy because of his traveling companion. If only they knew. The woman brought new meaning to the term Superglue. He’d be more than glad to stick her onto any one of them and get on with his work.

  Melanie smiled to herself at his assurance. “No, I don’t suppose you know how to do that...kid,” she elaborated and ignored the black look from him that followed. He was edging away from her. She took pity on him and began to cut him loose. “Well, you’ll have to make a point of stopping by the shop around Christmas. I have a still from the movie autographed by Elliot Anderson. If she’s a fan of the movie, I think she’d like to have that.”

  Bess wouldn’t just like it, she’d love it. Lance paused despite himself. Very slowly he blew out a breath, knowing he was going to hate himself for what he was about to say. But this wasn’t about him, it was about Bess.

  “She has a birthday coming up.”

  He cared enough about his aunt to make an effort to give her a gift that meant something. The thought warmed Melanie. She was right. He wasn’t nearly the bear he wanted her to think he was.

  “Even better.” She nodded her head, the ends of her hair swinging to and fro over her shoulder. “A birthday surprise. Stop by the shop,” she invited again. Then her face brightened. “Or, I can bring the photograph by here if you want.”

  Lance raised a brow. Just how accommodating was she? He couldn’t help thinking that this was still all leading somewhere, to some ulterior motive. Bribery? But that didn’t make sense. She’d already paid her fines and besides, none of them had been large enough to warrant bribery to look the other way in the first place. Was there more going on here than he was aware of?

  “You deliver?”

  She heard the sarcasm in his voice and was determined to take the question at face value only, without offense.

  “Sure, why not? It’s not as if the fire station is in the next county.”

  Lance had a feeling that even if it were, she still would have offered.

  Though he hated to admit it, it was positively intriguing how one person could be so single-mindedly stubborn about not taking a hint and being on her way.

  Lance saw the way Gilhooley was looking at her. The fireman was almost drooling. He thought of asking the man how his wife was, then let it go. Didn’t matter to him who the man lusted after, or if the object of his lusting was flattered by the attention.

  Still, something almost protective made Lance move so that Melanie was forced to turn her back on Gilhooley in order to face him.

  “That’s okay,” he told her, heading off another unexpected visit from her. “I’ll stop by when I get the chance.”

  “This afternoon if you like. We’re open until six-thirty. I’ll have it ready for you,” she promised. Melanie looked around. There were several firemen and two women in the immediate vicinity. One of them had to be the person he mentioned who had Kelly’s new address. “Now which one is Thompson?”

  Lance pointed the man out, grateful to be able to finally sic her on someone else.

  Melanie slowly cleared off the counter, not that there was much on it to clear. It had been over forty-five minutes since their last customer had left. The hands on the clock directly adjacent to the wall of photographs were inching their way to seven o’clock
. The store should have been closed almost half an hour ago.

  She supposed he wasn’t coming tonight, either.

  Joyce eyed her. It wasn’t like Melanie to move so slowly. She was usually such a dynamo, just watching her made Joy feel tired. Joy locked up the day’s receipts, still eyeing Melanie.

  “Is it my imagination, or have you been dawdling about closing the shop the last couple of days?”

  There was no reason to make up excuses. “It’s not your imagination.” Melanie glanced toward the front window. It had an unobstructed view of the street. No cars were slowing down before the shop. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “I thought you were meeting your date at the restaurant.”

  Her date. She’d almost forgotten. In a moment of weakness last week she’d said yes to a friend and had found herself being set up with his cousin, a Wall Street broker visiting from New York. She didn’t really feel like going, but a promise was a promise.

  Melanie shook her head. “I am. I’m not talking about that.”

  Joy’s interest was immediately aroused. It was beyond her why, with all the things she had to offer, Melanie was still single. “Is he cute?”

  Melanie couldn’t fault Joy for her matchmaking instincts, though it did get a little old at times. But she knew that Joy just wanted her to be happy. “Yes, but he’s a potential customer.”

  “There’s no reason he can’t combine the two. Anyone I know?”

  “Absolutely.” Melanie didn’t bother suppressing her grin as she dropped the bombshell. “Inspector Reed.”

  Joy’s eyes widened. “The fire breather?” Was Melanie out of her mind?

  Melanie laughed. “That’s mostly smoke, I think.” She thought of the look in his eyes. There was a soul there, a soul with a great deal of substance. And a great deal of pain. “There’s fire, too, but it’s not the kind you mean.”

  Melanie had an incredibly soft heart that led her astray at times, Joy thought. She definitely needed a keeper. Joy pursed her lips, her hands resting in tight fists at her hips. “And you actually invited him to come back?”