The Black Dahlia Hotel 3
Melodie’s Song
Art gallery owner, Melodie Buxton, was attacked and stabbed on the street in Tribeca. Upon waking in the hospital with a knife wound on her face, she remembered the dark presence that held her barely conscious body and attempted to stop the bleeding, but she didn’t know his name.
Dom Logan Hawk, lead singer and guitar in Dark Place, had seen the attack. He stopped to help the beautiful young woman. As he put pressure on her wound and felt her pulse under his hands and her blood flow through his fingers, he knew that their souls had bonded.
Logan’s dangerous stalker, Karin Sanders, is determined to get rid of Melodie in any way she can. When Karin attacks Melodie on the street outside Rockefeller Plaza, Logan and Melodie retreat to the new BDSM hotel in Florida owned by his friend, Jack Dalton Brown.
Can Logan overcome Melodie’s need to hide her scar as well as the malevolent intentions of the stalker and compose a happy ever after?
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary
Length: 43,395 words
MELODIE'S SONG
The Black Dahlia Hotel 3
Skye Michaels
EVERLASTING CLASSIC
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Everlasting Classic
MELODIE'S SONG
Copyright © 2014 by Skye Michaels
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-513-4
First E-book Publication: October 2014
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
For all of my family, friends and readers.
I hope you enjoy this new series set in my own backyard, beautiful South Florida. Sometimes we who live here take it for granted.
Life happens. Enjoy the journey.
With many thanks to my beta readers, Patricia Walker, Jennifer Torlone, Donnette Hawley and Eileen Dix for all their help.
With special thanks to my old friend, Mary Elizabeth Wert, for her help with location advice in regard to her Tribeca neighborhood.
The Black Dahlia Hotel Series:
Mikaela and Dillon’s story in Mikaela’s Debut, Book 1
Vaughn and Paul’s story in Vaughn’s Awakening, Book 2
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
About the Author
MELODIE'S SONG
The Black Dahlia Hotel 3
SKYE MICHAELS
Copyright © 2014
Prologue
The Intensive Care Unit at New York-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital, New York, New York, Tuesday night, November 11, 2013
Melodie Buxton was not asleep, but she was not awake, either. She could move her eyeballs from side to side, but her vision was obstructed by…bandages? And then she remembered. The blood. The pain. The fear.
It all came back to her. She had been walking down the street after closing up and leaving the gallery for the night. She was heading toward her brownstone a few blocks away when she had been accosted by what appeared to be a homeless person. He’d smelled bad, and his eyes had not looked normal. She’d tried to brush past him, but then he stuck out his arm and connected with her midsection. Before she knew it, a knife was coming toward her. And then she’d felt a sharp, jagged pain as the knife sliced the side of her face. She had gone down to the dirty, gray pavement. She didn’t know what happened after that.
As she began to stir in the high hospital bed with the side railings up, she heard a door open. The face of a pretty, black nurse swam into her field of vision. “You’re safe, hon. You’re in the ICU at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. You’re going to be okay. The doctor will be in to see you soon. Just rest now.”
She was in the ICU? That was serious. She glanced down and saw the faded floral print of the ubiquitous cotton hospital gown, the blood pressure cuff on her finger, and the IV in her arm. She was connected to a ringer bag that was probably saline, and there were a couple of other smaller bags hanging from the rolling stand that were most likely antibiotics and a sedative drip. She was not a stranger to hospitals, after having seen her beloved grandmother through the last days of her battle against cancer.
Melodie felt sore all over and her face hurt some, but the pain was dulled, as though she was heavily medicated. How long had she been here, unconscious? Had anyone called her family? Her mother and stepdad lived in Phoenix, and her sister lived with her husband and two kids in Brooklyn. Her best friend, Pansy Nicholas, would be worried and wondering why she couldn’t reach her. She needed her phone. Where was her handbag
and briefcase?
The pretty nurse, whose nametag said “Shaneka Jones,” rushed back in. “Now, I told you to rest and relax. Your BP and heart rate just spiked. The doctor will be right in to talk to you.” She shook her head. “I know you are scared and have questions. Try to settle down.” She fussed around the room, straightened bedclothes and fluffed pillows as she kept an eye on the monitors behind the bed. Suddenly, the bed tilted and Melodie gave a frightened squeak. “It’s okay. The bed is just adjusting your position to alleviate pressure and the possibility of bedsores. It automatically changes position every fifteen minutes.”
“Why do I need that? How long have I been here?”
“You’ve been in a medically induced coma for a week. The doc thought it was time for you to wake up and rejoin the living. So, rise and shine. Oh, here he is.”
A short, balding, pleasant-looking man in a white coat with a stethoscope sticking out of his pocket hurried into the room. “Hello, Melodie. I’m Dr. John Goldman. I’m the plastic surgeon who did the corrective procedure on your knife wound.” He smiled, but he looked like a snake oil salesman to her. She was terrified. He glanced over her head at the monitors, as Shaneka had done earlier. “Okay, I can see you need information and not bedside manner. Calm down and let’s talk.”
“Yes, please. Tell me what’s going on.”
“You were extremely lucky. The knife wound along your hairline at the temple was jagged and fairly deep, but there was no damage to the optic nerve. I’ve done the best I can for the time being in repairing the incision. You will need further remedial procedures to minimize scarring. A little creative hairstyling in the meantime will help disguise the scars. Whether your body forms keloid scars or not will determine how much corrective surgery you will need.”
“So, I’m going to have a knife scar on my face? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I’m afraid so, my dear, but don’t despair. We will work on it until we have the best possible result, and I really don’t think it’s going to be that bad when all is said and done.”
“Doctor, thank you for all you’ve done, but you are obviously not a thirty-something woman living in Manhattan with a knife scar on her face. An act of random violence is going to change my life forever. Did they catch the homeless man who stabbed me?”
“No. The police will want to interview you as soon as you’re up to it. A passerby saw the attack and called for help, but he didn’t see your attacker’s face. He stayed with you until the ambulance arrived. The attacker ran into an alley and had disappeared by the time the police cruiser got there.” He shook his head. “That is unfortunate. Perhaps you can give them a better description.”
“Has my family been notified?”
“Yes. They just went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Your parents, sister, and your friend, Pansy, have been taking turns sitting with you and talking to you. They’ll be back in a few minutes. Just try to rest now. I’ll come back to change the dressings and admire my handiwork in the morning.”
Melodie’s parents, sister, and best friend rushed into the room when the nurse advised them that she was awake. Tears were running down her mother’s, Candy’s and Pansy’s faces.
“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry, but you’re alive and are going to be fine. That’s the most important thing.” Melodie could feel the tears welling from her own eyes when she saw the lines of worry on her mother’s face—but she didn’t know how fine she was actually going to be.
Her stepdad, Sam, stood back while the women rushed to the bed. His concerned look said that he had no idea what to do about this. He had always been great with oil changes, flat tires, and small repairs at her townhouse. He obviously didn’t have any idea what to do with three—four if you counted Pansy—crying women. “Thank God you’re okay, Punkin’. I’m going to wait outside for a bit and let you girls talk.”
Melodie turned her head and watched him walk through the door in the glass wall fronting the ICU unit to the waiting area. He’d been the rock in their family since he had married her mother when she was twelve, and she adored him. Her dad had left them behind for another woman, moved to California, and started another family. They had rarely seen him after that. Sam sat down and picked up what looked like a tattered magazine that had seen better days.
“Poor Sam. He must have read that Guns ‘N Ammo magazine fifty times in the last week. I bet he’s memorized it. I don’t know what we would have done without him running for coffee and food and just being Sam.”
Melodie’s older sister, Candy, leaned against the side of the bed and took her hand. “Are you in pain, Mel? Do you want me to call the nurse?” It was obvious she didn’t know what to say or do, either. She was good with scraped knees and elbows, and Transformers that didn’t want to perform as advertised, but this was apparently outside her scope of expertise.
Pansy stepped up to the other side of the bed and patted her other hand. “Glad you’re back with us, Mel. You had us all scared shitless.” That was Pansy. She cut right to the chase, and she didn’t take prisoners.
“How bad is it, Panz?”
“It’s not great, Mel, but it will get better. We’ll get you a good haircut that will screen some of the scar, and Dr. Goldman says there is still a lot more work he can do on it.”
Melodie closed her eyes. She could see that this was going to be a long road. “Does Jasper have the gallery open?”
“Yes. He’s been in a couple times to see you after closing. Don’t worry about the gallery. Everything is fine there.”
Yeah. Everything was going to be just fine. She closed her eyes and felt the tears continue to leak out and down her cheeks.
Chapter One
The Paint Splatters Gallery, Tribeca Section of New York, New York, Wednesday morning, July 1, 2015
Melodie watched from behind the display panel near the front door. That guy was standing in front of the gallery window again. He stopped at the same time every morning to just look in the window and stare at the large abstract painting she had displayed there. It was her own work, and not for sale. The painting had helped her work through some of the anger she still felt every time she glanced in a mirror. She never really looked. The rest of her pain she kept as private as possible. The guy she had been seeing at the time of the knife attack had bailed when he saw the angry red scar on her face. He wasn’t up to the challenge, it seemed.
By putting the painting in the window of the gallery, she was displaying the only face she was willing to show the public. Someday it would end up on the wall over her mantel, but right now, it was where in needed to be. The puckered scar that ran from her right temple down to her jawline was better than it had been when she first came out of the hospital. Then, it had been horrible. Consequently, she looked in mirrors only when absolutely necessary. Two subsequent surgeries and time had made it smaller and lighter in color, and makeup helped as well. But she was still self-conscious and wore her hair longer on the right side in an asymmetrical cut that screened the scar from most eyes. Dr. Goldman said he wasn’t done with her yet, and was far from ready to give up.
The man standing on the sidewalk was tall and well-built. She hadn’t ever really seen what he looked like, because he usually had a hoodie pulled up like he didn’t want to be recognized. She had just gotten a suggestion of long, dark hair and high cheekbones. He usually dressed in black jeans with a lot of leather, but the clothes looked like they might be designer and expensive. Today he was wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans, but he somehow looked prosperous and well tended to her. What did he find so compelling about the painting? She felt it was her best work, but that might be because it had been so therapeutic for her. The pastel colors blended with the eddies of blood-red pigment depicting the anger that still swirled through her mind.
The police had never gotten the man who had cut her. Her handbag and wallet had been found in a garbage can in an alley several blocks away, minus her cash and credit cards. Even though he was
still out there, she refused to live her life in fear. He had probably left the area months or years ago. The city’s homeless were migratory and moved from place to place, shelter to shelter. She forced herself to walk to work every day, although she tried to be home before dark. If she had to stay late to meet a client, she called a cab to take her the few blocks to her brownstone. She had made Jasper Winter the manager of the gallery after the attack, and he had done a great job—even implementing some of his own merchandising ideas while she had been in the hospital or laid up at home. She had another remediation surgery to look forward to this winter.
Ah, he was moving on. She wished she had the nerve to just walk outside and ask him what he thought of the painting. Before the incident, she probably would have done just that, but now she was hesitant when meeting new people. She hated the shocked look when they first saw the scar.
* * * *
Logan Hawk stood outside the gallery, staring at the astounding painting that was bathed in a cone of light. The small signature on the bottom right hand corner of the canvas read “M. Buxton.” He knew that was the name of the woman who had been stabbed on the sidewalk just up the street almost two years ago. He could hardly forget that name. It was etched in his mind. He had been walking toward her when he had seen the stabbing and called 9-1-1. Then he had stayed with her until the ambulance had taken her away.
Melodie Buxton was beautiful. She was tall, but not too slender, with glossy, dark hair and haunting deep blue eyes. The way she moved gave the impression that she might have been a dancer at one time. He had noticed her over two years ago on his morning walk for coffee and the newspaper. The gallery was on his daily route from the loft that contained his apartment and the rehearsal space where the band practiced, and where he did his composing.
Melodie's Song [The Black Dahlia Hotel 3] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) Page 1
