“Yes.”
Joyce just couldn’t bring herself to assimilate the information. There had to be something she was missing. “As a customer?”
Melanie didn’t see the problem. “Sure, why not?”
Joy huffed. If they never saw that jerk again, it would be too soon. Didn’t Melanie understand that? No, Melanie only understood hurt looks and paws that needed thorns removed from them. Joy shook her head.
“I don’t know, maybe we’re violating some sort of ordinance or other, and he’ll use his ‘visit’ as an excuse to slap us with another one of his citations. This hasn’t been the most lucrative month, Mel.”
The reminder didn’t faze Melanie. Every down had an up. “It’s always a little slow in September, Joy. Next month’ll be better.”
“So, are you going to linger around here until the Prince of Darkness decides to make an appearance?”
“Maybe just a few minutes.” Melanie smiled at the puckered look of concern on Joy’s face. “It’s not like I have a long way to go in order to get home,” Melanie pointed out.
Joy glanced overhead. She was well aware of what existed upstairs. She’d helped Melanie get it into shape, spending whatever spare time she could find to help paint, scrape and wallpaper. Just like Melanie had helped her the year before.
“No, you don’t, I just don’t like the look in your eye.”
“What look?” Melanie asked. Was she really that transparent?
“Don’t play the wide-eyed innocent with me, Melanie .McCloud. That look you get in your eyes just before you take in a stray.” Melanie might think it was humorous, but Joy saw nothing to laugh about. She placed her hand on Melanie’s arm, trying to make her see reason. “Mel, Reed isn’t a stray, he’s a humorless, angry guy. Good-looking, I grant you, but there’re a lot of good-looking guys around. Ones who know how to laugh.” Even as she spoke, Joy had a sinking feeling her words were only so many disjointed letters, floating around in a huge bowl of vegetable soup, as far as Melanie was concerned. Melanie wasn’t going to listen to anything she had to say. “You don’t need a guy with all that excess baggage he’s carrying around.” “How do you know what he’s carrying around?” Melanie asked, feeling as if someone had to defend Lance. Since there were just two of them in this discussion, it looked as if the job was up to her.
Joyce sighed, knowing the battle was lost. No one stood a chance when Melanie made up her mind. She might look slight, but, like her aunt before her, she had a will of iron.
“You don’t look like that and not have something dragging you down. Take my advice, Mel. Close the doors, go upstairs and take a long, hot shower, then put on something slinky and go meet Greg’s cousin. Who knows, this could be the start of something big.”
“Maybe,” Melanie agreed, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“Want me to stay and do your hair?” Joy offered.
She just wanted to guard her in case Lance did show. “Thanks, I’ll do my own hair.” Melanie placed her hands on Joy’s back and gently pushed her toward the door. “Go home to your husband and make your own dreams, Joy. I’ll be fine here. I promise.”
The expression on Joy’s face told her she had her doubts about that.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Melanie said with finality.
“I want details about your date,” Joy reminded her.
“Right. Details.”
Melanie closed the door behind her best friend and let out a long sigh. Then, slowly, she let her eyes wander around the still shop. Alone, it felt different to her. When it was quiet like this, she liked remembering what it had been like, living with Aunt Elaine, listening to the woman’s endless stories, basking in her spotlight vicariously.
People were always dropping by the house. People whose faces were recognizable to the general public. People who’d always been just a little larger than life to her.
Melanie had always felt so important because everyone knew Aunt Elaine and, by association, everyone knew her. It had been a great life, growing up with one foot in fantasy, one foot in reality. Melanie had grown up knowing that behind every illusion there was an explanation grounded in truth and the real world. It never ruined the illusion for her, it only made her appreciate it more.
If, every so often, she caught herself wondering what it might have been like to have a father, the next moment someone would pick her up and swing her around, teasing her and calling her their girl. And the lonely feeling would fade away. She didn’t have one father, she had half a dozen, doting on her. Caring about her.
She was going to have to see about dropping by the studio again soon, she mused. Things had changed since Aunt Elaine had worked there, but there were still a great many people on the lot who remembered her. It’d be fun to see them again.
Who knew, she might even pick up another batch of memorabilia.
Straightening, Melanie pushed herself away from the door. It looked as if Lance wasn’t coming tonight. She might as well get ready for her date. With a twist of her wrist, she locked the door.
Maybe he wouldn’t come at all, until the next inspection was due. Too bad. She knew that his aunt would really like the photograph, just like she knew that he needed the conversation, the friendship she could provide.
Her mouth curved as she laughed at herself. There was no fooling Joy. Her best friend had hit it right on the head when she’d accused her of wanting to take in a stray. She’d done that as a kid, Melanie recalled. Only then it had been stray animals with damaged wings and broken legs, desperately in need of care.
Now, she supposed, she was following in her aunt’s footsteps, and taking in stray souls who needed more than a full belly and a pillow under their heads to help them get through the night. The full bellies and pillows, that was the easy part. Listening and hearing, that was tricky. Because if you heard, you began to understand what created the neediness.
You didn’t have to be poor to be needy.
Just before she pulled down the blinds, Melanie saw the car. It slowed down just in front of the store. Instinctively she knew, though she had no clue what kind of a car Lance drove when he was away from the fire station, that it was Lance. It looked as if he was toying with changing his mind about stopping by.
Not if she had anything to do with it.
Quickly, Melanie flipped the lock again and threw open the door. She hurried out to the curb. “Hi,” she called out to him.
His windows were rolled down, and he heard her. And Lance knew that she knew he heard her. Caught, he eased his foot onto the brake, stopping. He should never have come by.
The car idled, fidgeting in neutral.
So was he.
Lance looked at her as she bent down to his window. The breeze saw fit to fill his car with her scent. Everything seemed to be on her side except him, he thought. That made him a majority of one.
“Business so bad you have to stand on the curb and draw the customers in?” he asked drily.
She was getting accustomed to his manner. And immune to it. “Business is fine, thanks. I was just waiting for you.”
Seemed to him that she should have better things to do than wait around until he showed up. What if he hadn’t shown up at all? He’d certainly considered it.
“Why?”
“Because you said you’d be by for that gift for your Aunt Bess.”
That struck him as hopelessly naive. Naive people got hurt. It was a fact of life. Didn’t she know that? Why did she leave herself open like that? “Maybe I was just making conversation.”
He wasn’t fooling her. He’d come even though he’d tried not to. Something within him wanted her to reach out to him. If she hadn’t thought so before, she did now.
“People make conversation about the weather and baseball scores. They don’t talk about fifty-year-old movies unless they have some interest in them.”
Lance supposed he had no choice but to park and come in. Either that, or have her talk his ear off right here at the curb.
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He pulled up the hand brake. He’d worked late at the station specifically to not give himself this opportunity. It had been his sense of fair play that had him driving by her shop on the way home, just to assuage his conscience that he’d tried without success. He was confident that the place would be closed by then. After two days he didn’t figure she’d be sitting waiting for him.
“Don’t you close at six-thirty?”
She lifted a slim shoulder and let it fall carelessly. He found himself following the simple movement, taken in by the gentle curves that were involved.
“Generally. But there’s no hard-and-fast rule about that. Sometimes I keep the shop open if a customer says he’ll be by late.” She indicated the second story with a quick sweep of incredibly long lashes. “I live just upstairs so it’s no hardship.”
He glanced up involuntarily and realized that the windows with the white curtains belonged to her. He hadn’t paid any attention to them when he’d been by earlier for the inspection because that had been none of his business. The other woman had clearly told him that the shop was only on the ground floor.
Resigned, Lance got out of the car. “Like to be close to your merchandise?” he asked.
“I think of it as memorabilia, not merchandise,” she answered. It was clear by the look on his face that he thought of it as junk, but that was his privilege. She knew better. There were bits and pieces of dreams here. In so many forms. “But in answer to the general intent of your question, yes, I do. I grew up with a lot of it. Being around it keeps Aunt Elaine alive for me.
“C’mon,” she hooked her arm through his. “Let me show you what you’re getting.”
He had an uneasy feeling that she would show him whether he wanted her to or not—and that it didn’t strictly involve just the photograph.
Chapter Four
“So, what do you think?”
Melanie set the Florentine eight-by-ten frame on the glass counter and watched Lance’s eyes for his reaction. His face was impassive.
She had taste, he had to admit that. The frame she’d selected was delicately understated, the glass purposely nonglare. What stood out was the photograph, a romantic clench between two very beautiful people, and the precise, almost old-fashioned signature on the bottom right-hand corner.
Lance picked up the frame and read the inscription. “To Elaine, with all my gratitude forever, Elliot Anderson.” Placing it on the counter again, he looked up at Melanie. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. Anderson had an affair with your aunt, too.”
Melanie could almost hear Aunt Elaine’s bawdy laughter in response to the suggestion. Elliot Anderson might have looked like a dream walking, but it was a dream with a very distinct twist to it.
Melanie bit her tongue, but she couldn’t keep a straight face. “Hardly. Elliot Anderson brought new meaning to the term ‘a man’s man.’ He preferred his partners a little, shall we say, more rugged than Aunt Elaine.”
“Oh.” Lance looked down at the photograph again. Certainly couldn’t tell a book by its cover, could you? He reread the inscription and was at a loss as to its meaning. “Then what—”
Melanie obligingly launched into what was one of her favorite stories. “Elliot Anderson had been in a barroom brawl in a scruffy little town south of the border the weekend before shooting Next Year, Paris was supposed to begin. Paris was touted as being his ‘comeback’ movie.”
Aunt Elaine used to tell the story with much more flair, but Melanie knew that Lance wanted just the bare bones. She trimmed the story as she went.
“Anderson’d had a string of really bad movies, and the studio was going to drop his contract. He really needed a hit and Paris had all the earmarks of being one. But the director, Simon Backwater, was one of those push-ahead-at-all-costs types. If Elliot wasn’t prepared when shooting began, he had someone else in mind. Actually, he was eager to use someone else. He and Anderson hadn’t gotten along in years.” She saw Lance’s impatience and hurried the story along. “Anderson came to my aunt, completely distraught, sure his career and his life were over. With a little polish, a little paint and a lot of skill, she managed to camouflage his bruises well enough to squeak him through shooting until they faded on their own. The rest is history.”
But not his, she realized, noting the blank look on Lance’s face. She elaborated. “The movie was a hit and Anderson went on to do very well for himself. He died a star.” She smiled fondly. “He always said Aunt Elaine and her ‘bag of tricks’ as he called them had saved his career.”
The way McCloud told the story, it sounded as if this aunt of hers had been a regular scout leader. Human nature just wasn’t like that.
“What did your aunt get out of all of it?”
The question, and the suspicion that had clearly prompted it, caught her off guard. It took her a second to answer. “Satisfaction.”
The cynic within him didn’t believe it. Everyone was always looking out for number one, first and foremost. Hadn’t Lauren shown him that, walking away from him when she’d thought she was going to be saddled with a cripple? Even if she hadn’t brought the lesson home to him, his father had already laid the foundation. Bruce Reed had walked out on his ten-year-old son because he couldn’t deal with the loss of his wife, never once thinking that with that same blow of fate, his son had lost a mother he loved dearly.
Bruce had returned, turning up at his hospital bed after years had passed, but even that was for selfish reasons. He’d only returned in an attempt to soothe his own guilty conscience. Nothing could convince Lance otherwise.
Everyone was out for themselves. Why should McCloud or her late aunt be any different?
Still looking at the photograph, he shrugged. “If you say so.”
Melanie struggled not to take offense on her aunt’s behalf. “Don’t you believe people can do things out of the goodness of their hearts?”
His eyes were steely as he looked at her. “I don’t believe in goodness, McCloud. It’s something that only exists in a kid’s fairy tale.”
The amount of hurt Melanie saw just beneath the surface took her breath away. What had happened to this man? How had he become one of the walking wounded? She wanted to know, but there was no one to ask. Yet.
She banked down a wave of pity, knowing he’d snap her head off if he detected it. Instead, she just shook her head. “And you’re related to that nice woman in the photograph on your desk?”
A perverseness he couldn’t contain had him challenging her, even though the theories he had about human behavior didn’t apply to Bess. They never had. “How do you know she’s nice?”
The answer was simple. “She has kind eyes.” Melanie glanced at her watch. It was getting late. Her safety margin was decreasing rapidly. “Would you like me to wrap this for you?”
Because he wanted to leave, he almost declined her offer, but thought better of it the next minute. He was all thumbs when it came to wrapping gifts. Besides, he figured she’d charge him for it.
“Yeah, might as well. I can’t wrap worth a damn.”
Why didn’t that surprise her? Melanie smiled to herself as she took out a roll of wrapping paper the color of beaten silver. It complemented the frame. “Probably because you’re out of practice.”
“No one around I want to give anything to besides Bess.” He missed the sympathetic look in her eyes as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. She hadn’t quoted him a price yet. He glanced at the bills there and wondered if he was going to have to give her a charge card instead. “How much do I owe you?”
The photograph belonged to the group that wasn’t for sale. Pure impulse had prompted her to offer it to Lance. Even if she tried, she couldn’t put a price on it, or the sentiment behind the inscription.
Melanie reached for the tape dispenser, pulling off a piece of cellophane. “Tell your aunt happy birthday for me.”
The woman made less and less sense the more he talked to her. Lance didn’t see why she’d want him to wish Be
ss anything on her behalf, but if it made McCloud happy, it was all one and the same to him.
“Sure,” he muttered. “Now how much do I owe you?”
“That’s it,” Melanie told him, sealing another corner. “Just tell her happy birthday from me. And don’t forget to tell her the story I just told you.” She could see she was going to have to explain herself. “Aunt Elaine would have wanted that photograph to go to someone who would truly appreciate it. Give it a good home. From what you told me, it sounds as if your aunt can provide it.”
The planes of his face hardened, becoming rigid. “I don’t accept charity.”
He really did make things difficult, didn’t he? “Not charity,” she insisted. “A gift.”
A gift was another name for a bribe. “I don’t accept those, either.”
Almost involuntarily, he watched her hands as she wrapped. They moved quickly. She had small hands, competent hands. He found himself wondering what they would feel like, moving swiftly like that along a man’s body. His body.
What the hell had brought that on?
“Learn,” Melanie told him. It was just short of an order. Then she tempered it. “Besides,” she pointed out, “the gift is for your aunt, not you.”
That didn’t make any difference. A bribe was a bribe and he wasn’t about to be put into that sort of position, the way Kelly probably had.
“You don’t even know her.”
“There’s an easy remedy for that. Bring her around sometime,” Melanie suggested cheerfully. “I know she’d enjoy herself, and I’d love to meet her.” She glanced at her watch again.
That was the second time she’d done that. She didn’t strike him as someone who adhered to schedules. “You have to be somewhere?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Finished, Melanie replaced the wrapping paper under the counter and pushed the dispenser back beside the register. “I’m supposed to meet someone at Land’s End on Main in less than half an hour.” And if she didn’t hurry, she wasn’t going to get a chance to change. She still didn’t want to go, but if she was going, she intended to look presentable.
One Plus One Makes Marriage Page 5
