by Nicole Green
“I can’t see a thing,” she said.
“I got ya. I know every inch of this house even with my eyes closed.”
“A useful skill to have right now,” she said.
“I guess it is.” He slipped an arm around her. Gripping her waist firmly, he guided her the rest of the way down the stairs. He knew he was holding closer than was necessary, but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt the heat of her skin through the flimsy material of her dress. She smelled like vanilla. He let his hand slip down to the top of her hip as they headed for the dining room. Either she didn’t notice, or she didn’t mind.
They did indeed have dinner by candlelight. He and Vernon set out the candles, and the others, Melody included, brought in the dishes and the water and sweet tea pitchers. Then they all sat down to a feast. Every meal his mom cooked was a feast, no matter how many or few people would be sitting down to eat it.
He hadn’t thought it possible, but Melody was even more radiant by candlelight. He wanted to brush her soft, black hair away from her the sides of her face and tease her skin with his tongue so badly that he could barely focus on the dinner table conversation.
“I hope Regan’s all right out there in all this,” Mom said. “I worry about her when it storms or anything, but she insists on living all alone out at that big farm,” she continued while fussing with a casserole dish.
“She’s fine, Mom. You know she is,” Austin said. Regan was one of the toughest and most self-reliant people he knew. Funniest and smartest, too. He’d always admired that woman.
Once they started eating, the conversation turned to Melody. He found out she was an A&R exec back in Atlanta where she was from and that she’d been on a business trip to Miami. A&R, huh? Life must have thought it was funny, always cracking little jokes at his expense.
“A&R. That must be so glamorous,” Avery said. “You probably meet so many stars. Do you know?...” and she rattled off the names of several musical acts. His sister had always been smitten with celebrities. She still was after all that’d happened. She was always picking up some gossip rag at Zip’s, the local grocery store. He couldn’t stand those tabloids. They ruined lives. They’d definitely helped ruin his.
After Melody got done answering Avery’s stream of questions, Melody said, “But you all have your very own star right here. Grayson Meadows.”
Everybody got real quiet. The only sounds were the scrape of fork against plate, the background patter of rain, and occasional booms of thunder that were starting to fade farther away. There was no way for her to know what a sore subject it was for his family, but he was still angry with her for bringing it up. He knew his anger was irrational, but if there was such thing as a family wound, Grayson Meadows was it for the Holts.
“Well,” his mom said, forcing a smile. “We are right proud of Austin.” She folded her hands on the table in front of her plate. “Melody, tell us more about Atlanta. Life there must never be dull.” That was his mom all right. Always putting out fires. Hiding her own pain. Protecting him. He felt especially guilty about that last part.
Donnie snorted in his direction before sending him a look. Austin couldn’t see him well in the dim, flickering candlelight, but he knew the look Donnie was shooting him had to be an ugly one.
Melody must have sensed the awkwardness she caused because she stumbled over her words when she first started telling Mom about life in Atlanta as requested.
Thankfully, the rest of dinner conversation centered around Melody, her job, and Atlanta. That didn’t stop Donnie from jumping in with his little snide remarks about Grayson Meadows. Donnie never had known when to shut his mouth up. That was probably why he had been busted in it so many times. Not by Austin—well most of the times Donnie had been busted in the mouth, Austin hadn’t been the culprit.
#
That night, after Melody changed into the sweatpants cut off at the knees and dark blue tank top that were her favorite sleeping apparel, she climbed into bed and quickly realized it was going to be impossible to fall asleep. It was too hot for sleep. The electricity, and so the air conditioning, was still out. Georgia in the summer was not a place anyone wanted to be without air conditioning. Even at night. Rather than cooling things off, the storm was making the air even muggier. Fans and cracked windows didn’t stand much of a chance against the humidity and the day’s heat that was still trapped in the house. This was especially true in a house the size of Bellevue. The rooms were huge and thus hard to cool. Especially the rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows that soaked up plenty of sun during the day—like the bedroom Melody was staying in.
After tossing and turning for a while, she pushed her sticky sheets aside and got out of bed. She decided to wander around for a bit, check out the rest of the house. If the house had been around since before the Civil War, maybe there was a ghost or something lurking around. And maybe she watched too much T.V.
Glancing down the hall, she saw light coming from under one of the doors. It was the one she’d seen Austin enter earlier that night after they’d finished with dinner and washed dishes the best they could considering the power was still out. Good. Maybe they could keep each other company since neither one could sleep. Plus, looking at him would be more fun and probably a better idea than wandering around in the dark in a place she hadn’t been invited to explore on her own. Besides, there was always the possibility that the ghost theory could pan out, and she was certainly no ghost hunter and had no desire to become one.
She padded down the hall and knocked lightly on the door, hoping he hadn’t simply fallen asleep with the light on.
“Come in,” came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.
She walked in and her breath caught in her throat. A candle burned on his desk, and he sat in the chair in front of it. He leaned back in the chair as she entered the room. He was shirtless. Shadow and light played over the well-defined muscles of his biceps, pecks, and abs. She swallowed hard and pressed her sweaty palms to the sides of her cut-off sweatpants without really thinking about it.
“See something that interests you?” he asked. She heard the amusement in his voice, and it brought her back to reality. She remembered how irritating she’d found him earlier that day. That cocky guy was surfacing again. Not that she hadn’t encouraged him to come out of there.
She ignored the connotation behind his words and thought up an excuse to cover her real thoughts. “I was just looking at your tattoo.” Luckily, he had one. A tribal band around his left bicep.
He looked down at it as if to confirm it was still there and then looked back at her. “Yeah, my agent thought it’d give me an edge or something.” The way he said “agent” sounded even more bitter than the rest of the words he’d just spoken. But he grinned when he said, “My image consultant hated it.” He gestured toward his bed. “Have a seat.”
She walked over and sank down onto the soft bed. A feather top mattress. It was the kind of bed that made you want to melt into it and fall asleep as soon as you hit it. The king-sized bed was in one corner of the sparsely furnished room, near a window. The lack of furniture made the already large room seem even bigger. His bedroom was almost the same size as her two-bedroom apartment.
“I’m sorry if I made things strange earlier,” she said. “At dinner. I didn’t know your modeling career was such a touchy subject for your family.” She settled back on the bed.
“There wasn’t any way for you to.” His expression didn’t seem to change, but it was hard to tell in the semi-dark.
“You wanna talk about it?”
He hesitated for a moment, but he eventually shook his head. “Nothing to talk about. I was a model. Now I’m running the family business.”
“Funny how things work out, huh?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Not so funny. I grew up with cars. Should’ve known I’d never escape ‘em. You can run, but you can’t hide.” His laugh was forced. He hunched his shoulders a bit and stared at a point to the left of her head.
�
��I guess I was thinking of me more than you when I said that,” she said, partly to make their conversation less awkward by taking the pressure off him and partly because it was true.
“Oh?”
She nodded. Her mother had always drilled being practical into Melody. Mom was terrified of Melody turning out like her dad—a washed up, deteriorating, starving artist. Melody had idolized her dad. When he died, she’d been so devastated that she cut music out of her life altogether for a couple years. Her mom encouraged it. Music was the center of her world, though.
When she realized what a dark place her world was without it, she’d enrolled in some music theory classes at her college. Later, she decided to minor in musicology. That was how she’d met the fool she married who tried to kill her love of music again.
“Yeah. I love music, but A&R exec was never my first choice for a career,” she said. “I love my job, but I used to want to be a songwriter. I knew singing wasn’t for me, but there was a time when I would’ve given anything to hear people who had real talent belt out my songs.” She chuckled. “I used to dream about writing a song for Jill Scott.” She shook her head. “Crazy, right?”
“What’s crazy about that?”
She shrugged. Her practical mom could’ve given him a laundry list of answers to that question if she were in the room.
“You still write? The songs, I mean?” He sounded interested in what she’d said. Excited by it even.
She shook her head. “I realized it wasn’t gonna happen, and I gave up on the whole thing.”
“Shame.”
She snorted. “How do you know? You’ve never even heard one of my songs. Could be for the best for everybody.”
“Sing me one.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? You got any of ‘em with you? Or memorized?”
“Maybe.” She had lots of them memorized. She wanted to sing, but she was afraid. She’d never sung solo in front of another person before. When she and Jen did karaoke songs together, she sang so low people could barely hear her. Karaoke nights and shower tunes made up the full extent of her singing resume. She was happy with that. Her dad had been the performer in the family.
“Sing to me.” He said the words in a low soft voice that made her stomach muscles quiver. He came over and sat next to her on the bed. The world seemed to tilt a little as the bed sagged under his weight. His scent—spice and soap—washed over her.
Lost in his green eyes, she said a stupid thing, “Okay.
“Good.” He smiled and leaned back on his elbows.
Watching his muscle flex as he shifted positions made her go blank for a moment, forgetting the song she wanted to sing. There wasn’t an inch of flab on him anywhere. Not even half of one. She’d never laid hands on a body that perfect in her life.
And you won’t now, she told herself. Behave yourself.
“I hope you’re not backing out on me,” he said. He was so close, his bicep near her knee. Thunder boomed through the sky, and she jumped. He grinned and put a hand on her knee. “Don’t worry. I won’t let it get you.”
“Ha ha,” she said dryly even though her heart was skittering around in her chest; his hand on her skin felt so good. Too good.
“You gonna sing for me or what?”
“Okay.” She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly, watching their shadows dance with the candlelight on the wall on the other side of the bed. “I think this one fits right now. It’s called, ‘Rain on my Window Pane’.”
She sang her song for him, and she was afraid to look at him until she finished. Still, she could feel his stare. When she looked down at the end of her song, she was frozen to his gaze. She’d never been looked at in such a tender way. There was something almost adoring in his eyes. Neither of them said a word. The only sound was that of soft rain hitting the roof and the windows.
“That was beautiful. Sad, but beautiful,” he murmured. “What were you talking about earlier? You have a great voice.”
She looked down at her hands, grateful for the fact that it was probably too dark for him to see her blush because she could certainly feel her cheeks roasting. “Thanks.” That was all she could think of to say.
“I didn’t expect country, but it suits you. It really fits.”
She nodded. Most people didn’t. That reminded her of something she hadn’t expected earlier. She’d been trying to think of a way to bring it up, and now was the best opportunity she’d had so far.
“That guy, Vernon, is he your dad?” She took in Austin’s blond hair and green eyes and the border between pale and golden skin on his arms that came from his farmer’s tan.
“Step-dad,” he said.
She leaned in and murmured, like it was a secret or something, “He’s black.”
He leaned up and murmured back, “I know.”
“Isn’t that a problem? In a town like this?” A small Southern town? Even in Atlanta, she’d sometimes seen interracial couples get strange looks.
He shook his head. “Nah. People mostly mind their business in Sweet Neck. We all know too much about each other to start throwing stones at each other’s glass houses. Well, most everybody. There are a few—aren’t there always a few—like Miz Hardy who lives on the farm next door. Mom calls her Miz Busybody.” He grinned. “Let’s just say this much. It is never a good thing to attract the attention, scorn, and hateful eye of a busybody.” He added, “But generally, things are copasetic. Most everyone in town loves Vernon and Mom anyhow.”
She nodded. “What happened to your dad?”
“Dead. Stroke.” He said the words with no emotion in his tone at all.
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago,” he said, watching the candle on his desk as he spoke. “Back to you.” He trained his gaze on her again. “You’re into country music then?”
“Yeah. I listen to everything. The label I work for is mainly R&B. A few hip-hop artists. We’re getting into some neo-soul and jazz now, which I love. But I have a special place in my heart for country. My grandpa babysat me a lot when I was a kid, and it’s all he listens to,” Melody said. She thought about all the time she’d spent with her grandparents before they moved to California, and the time she’d spent with them while she was in college out there. After her dad died, they couldn’t bear to stay in Georgia any longer. He’d been close them, and he was an only child. They’d moved back to California thinking the change of scenery would help them deal with their grief and because both of them were born there.
“She has Nashville in her heart, but she lives in Atlanta.” Austin hummed a little.
“Ha. So you write country, too?”
They laughed. He scooted closer to her on the bed. His arm brushed against her leg, and his skin was hot. Almost feverish. Part of her wished he’d pull her down to lay on the bed next to him. Another part was glad he didn’t.
Still leaning back on his elbows, he looked up at her. “I’m sorry you got stuck here and all, but I’m enjoying this. Talking, laughing, singing with you,” he said. The way he dropped the “g’s” off the ends of his words and drew them out with his drawl was delicious to her ears.
“Me, too.” For a moment, she almost leaned in for a kiss. Putting more distance between them, she turned the conversation in a safer direction. “Tell me more about this Mustang you rebuilt.”
He did. Then he gave her a crash course about the auto mechanic business and told her about his life in Sweet Neck. After that, she told him about Atlanta until they’d talked most of the night away.
Chapter Six
Melody woke up groggy after just a few hours’ sleep. She and Austin had been up until four in the morning talking. Still, no matter how late she stayed up, she could never sleep much past nine. Thankfully, the power was back on that morning. She plugged her charger and phone in before stumbling to the shower. The power being on meant there was running—and more importantly hot—water. After her shower, she trudged back to her ro
om to get dressed.
She went into the kitchen and gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from Leigh Anne. She looked around the sunlit, airy kitchen as she took a sip. The light fixtures were ornate and probably as old as the house itself though well-polished and cared for. The up-to-date stainless steel appliances seemed out of place.
“You want any breakfast?” Leigh Anne asked. She wore a faded pair of jeans and an old flannel shirt over a white tank top.
Melody shook her head no. “Just the coffee is perfect, thanks.”
“If you change your mind, there’s some leftover bacon and eggs in the oven.” She nodded at the stove across from the highly polished, oak kitchen table. “Or I can whip you up something real quick. We have cereal, too, if you’d rather have that.”
“I don’t want to you to go through all that trouble.”
“Oh, pshaw. No trouble at all.” Leigh Anne waved off her concern.
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” She was too tired to be hungry. Besides, at home, her breakfast rarely consisted of more than grabbing a travel mug full of coffee on her way out of the door in the morning. “Where is everybody?” she asked.
Leigh Anne said, “Vernon went over to check on Regan and see if she needed any help after last night’s storm. The kids are down at the shop. It’s what, ten now? They’ll be back in a couple hours or so. The shop’s open ‘til noon on Saturdays.” Leigh Anne sipped her coffee. “Austin said he’ll drive you to the bus station that’s a couple towns away from here when he gets home. Y’all can make arrangements about your car, too, when he gets here.”
Melody nodded. “Yeah. About the car. And you letting me stay here. I’m going to pay you all as soon as I get home and get everything straightened out. I swear. I’ll even sign something if you want me to.”
Leigh Anne laughed and put one hand over her heart, the other on Melody’s shoulder. “Oh goodness, Melody. I won’t take your money. I’m glad to have your company, and I won’t hear of it. And I insist on paying for your bus ticket. After all you’ve been through, it’s the least I can do. I’m sure you and Austin can work something out for the car. He’s a good boy, but you let me know if he needs a good bopping over the head about this.”
