by Nicole Green
She wiped the juice away with her thumb. “It’s okay, Austin. I’m a big girl. I don’t regret what happened between us, but I know that it’s over, and it was never meant to be forever.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” Austin said, the words swollen with sincerity. He thought about it, guilt-laden thoughts, almost every day.
She snorted. “Who’s hurt? You know my horses always come first. I don’t have enough time for a real relationship with a man. I’m too set in my ways and devoted to my horses for all that.” She looked toward Melody as she spoke, so he couldn’t see her face. She said, “But Melody. I think she could be good for you. So answer my question.”
Austin stalled. “What question?”
“Austin. Come on now. I’ve known you most of your life. This clueless routine doesn’t work with me, hon.”
“She’ll be gone as soon as her car’s fixed. A week or so from now at the most.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“The answer to your question doesn’t matter if she’s leaving soon, does it?”
“Doesn’t it?” Regan flipped her red hair over her shoulder and looked up at him with sparkling green eyes. She was beautiful, and working with the horses kept her in great shape. Still no doubt looking as good in her tight Wrangler jeans at forty-two as she had at twenty-two. Why did he have to hurt everything precious in his life? That was another good reason to leave Melody alone.
“I don’t want to hurt her. Look at her,” he said. Melody had one arm around Avery and the other around his mom and all three of them were doubled over with laughter. “She’s something special. Everyone’s seemed happier in the few days she’s been here. I don’t want to bring her down like I did—like I do everybody.”
“All I have to say is…don’t let fear make you throw away everything. You’re not a bad person. You just can’t get a break. Partly because you won’t open yourself to any opportunities for one.” She patted his shoulder.
“But if she’s going to leave soon, what kind of opportunity is that? For either of us?”
Regan shrugged, shifting a piece of green and pink rind from hand to hand. “Just be open. That’s all I’m saying. Now.” She patted his shoulder. “I’m going to get some more of this melon. This thing is just as sweet… If I have to be the one to say so, I’ve outdone myself. I’m going to have to keep on making my own fertilizer if this is the result.”
He watched her walk back over to the group, thinking about her words. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep the distance between himself and Melody. It just wasn’t a good idea to get any closer. After all, everything he touched so far in life had turned to dust.
His mind went back to Isadora, skin cold, lying on the floor of their apartment. He’d come out of a drug haze to find her sprawled out on the carpet in the living room. Empty eyes staring at the ceiling but seeing nothing. He should have never helped spring her out of rehab early.
He’d known then, even as he screamed into the phone for the medics to hurry after dialing 9-1-1. He’d known she was gone and that he was doomed to crush everything he cared about.
Chapter Sixteen
That night, possibly the hottest night of the summer, the air conditioning decided to conk out. It hadn’t been working right since the first night Melody moved in—the night of the huge thunderstorm. Even with the three windows in his room up and two box fans plus the ceiling fan on their highest speed, the night was hot and sticky. After tossing and turning for he didn’t know how long, Austin slammed his sheet aside and rolled out of bed. He slipped his running shorts over his boxer briefs, just in case he ran into Melody or Nina in the hall, and went down to the kitchen.
He stumbled into Melody, and she stifled a shriek. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her as their collision had knocked her off-balance. Her dark eyes, widened with surprise, were luminous in the moonlit kitchen.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t think anyone would be in here,” he said, his hands cupping her perfect shoulders. He couldn’t stop his eyes from roaming over her thin nightgown. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could appreciate more, but not as much as he wanted to. His hands slid lower on her arms.
“Too hot to sleep,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“I came to get something to cool myself off with.” She held up a popsicle. “Grape. Want some?” She held it up to his lips.
“Sure,” he said. In that moment, with her body so close to his, he probably wouldn’t have refused a vial of poison from her. She slid the cool, sweet treat past his lips. He took a bite, and she pulled it back.
“Don’t bite,” she said.
Realizing that he hadn’t let go of her yet and very aware of the proximity of her body, he stepped back and dropped his arms to his side. He hoped she wouldn’t see just how aware of her he’d become. After all, it was pretty dark in the kitchen. Only the silver light of the moon cut through the shadowy darkness of the room.
He took a seat at the kitchen table, and she sat on top of the table in front of him.
She said, “Have you heard of a woman named Blanche Leroux?” She licked the popsicle in a way that had to be illegal in at least forty states and probably a few territories, too.
“The crazy woman who lives in the woods? Sure. Everybody knows her,” he said. He was much more interested in her naked legs and the way that popsicle looked against her full mouth than he was in talking about Blanche.
She pressed the popsicle to his lips again. “Don’t bite this time,” she said.
He obeyed. Sucking at the popsicle, he thought about what it would be like to press his mouth to her skin instead.
“So people think she’s crazy?” She drew the popsicle back.
He sat back in his chair. “I mean, everybody’s nice to her, we all humor her, but come on. She lives in a cabin in the middle of the woods, and some people say she thinks she knows magic. She just showed up here one day from Louisiana, moved into that abandoned shack on the edge of town after claiming it belonged to some of her kin, and nobody said much about it. We just let her be.”
“You don’t believe in magic, Austin Holt?”
He snorted. “No. Why? Do you?”
She slid into his lap and slipped an arm around his neck. Her fingers tickled the bottom of his earlobe. With her free hand, she held the popsicle between their lips. He barely noticed the cool, sticky juice dripping onto his stomach.
“I dunno. It’d be nice if it did exist,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” he grunted. He didn’t have enough blood left in his head for coherent thoughts let alone words. Her thighs shifted against his, and he came to full attention. If she moved one inch in the wrong direction, she would know what she’d done to him.
She wrapped her lips around one side of the popsicle and he wrapped his around the other side. Lips touching, they devoured what was left of it. He tossed the stick onto the kitchen table and pulled her close. Pressing his lips to hers, he tasted her mouth the way he’d wanted to every since she’d pulled her long legs out of Regan’s truck Friday afternoon.
Her mouth was cool and sweet. It tasted like grape popsicle. She gave a soft moan, and he pulled her closer, massaging her waist through her thin nightgown. He then moved his massage lower, right over her hipbones, his fingertips playing into the side of her perfectly round bottom.
Her fingernails dug into his neck before she moved her hands up over his hair. Her hands moving over his bristles of hair gave him an almost hypnotic pleasure. He lost himself deeper in the kiss. He wanted to stay there, locked with her all night, showing her without words how much he wanted her and wanted to fall for her and use his mouth for anything but talking. He moved his hand under her nightgown and groped her thigh, massaging his fingers into it.
She moaned against his lips, and he deepened his caresses. He moved his lips over her chin, down to her throat. Nibbling at her neck. He slipped his hand farther under her nightgown. His fingers played lightly ov
er the heated flesh of her inner thighs.
He didn’t want to think. He probably couldn’t have if he tried. All he wanted was her. Under his fingers, his tongue. Touching her was the only thing that mattered.
Melody pulled back with a gasp. “What was that?”
“Huh? What?” Austin murmured, still in a fog of desire. He started to pull her in for another kiss when he heard it, too. Someone was crashing around in the living room. “Shit.” There was only one person who could sound like a heard of elephants moving through that house even when he was trying to be quiet.
Donnie entered the kitchen just as Melody was climbing off Austin’s lap. Melody rearranged her nightgown and hugged her arms over her chest. Donnie looked at them for a moment. Austin sent him a glare that dared him to say anything. For a moment, it seemed as if Donnie would comment on the situation. Then he headed for the breadbox on the counter nearest the refrigerator. He reached into the fridge for meet, cheese, and mayo. He brought everything over to the island in the center of the kitchen.
All he ever did was eat, but he remained skinny as a rail. He’d never been able to put on weight no matter how hard he tried. He took that off Mom.
“Y’all couldn’t sleep either, huh?” he said as he began making his sandwich.
“Too hot,” they both said at the same time. She looked away from him, but he caught a grin at the corner of her lips.
“Yeah.” Donnie slapped his sandwich together. “Wish I had some fried taters to go with this,” he muttered.
Austin looked at Melody. She kept glancing at him and then looking across the kitchen in the direction of the large window above the sink whenever she knew she was caught. He had a feeling she was having just as much trouble with words as he was at the moment. His mind was nowhere near conversation about sandwiches and potatoes.
“How about that watermelon Regan brought over?” Donnie rubbed the spot where his belly would be if he had one. “Mm, mm. I wish I had some more.” He paused for a minute, maybe thinking about the watermelon, maybe not. Then he said, “I reckon me and my knucklehead brother helped that watermelon come to be, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Austin said. He wondered why Donnie was being so friendly. Especially after the way he’d tried to get Austin’s goat earlier. It had to be a trap.
“Yeah. We help Regan out when we can.” Donnie looked straight at Austin when he spoke his next words. “We owe her a lot.”
Austin couldn’t disagree with that. “We sure do.”
Donnie went into a story about a watermelon seed spitting contest that ended with him getting chased clear across town by the mayor’s ornery dog. Melody couldn’t stop laughing. Austin barely listened. For one thing, he’d heard the story more times than he cared to count. For another, he was wondering what Donnie was up to. He was sure Donnie wasn’t done sticking his nose where it didn’t belong yet.
Donnie put the bread and mayo away after making a second sandwich. Knowing Donnie, he’d take that one back upstairs. “I’ll see y’all in the morning. Well, later this morning, I guess.” He headed upstairs with his second sandwich.
Austin turned to Melody, trying to think of something to say. With one look at her, he could tell the moment they’d shared earlier was over.
“I guess I should go up to bed, too.”
“Okay.” He stroked her hair as a substitute for stroking something lower on her body. He had to get his mind on something besides her. And what she would look like completely naked. Only that little scrap of a nightgown kept him from finding out.
She pressed her forehead to his for a brief moment. “I’m leaving in a few days. This…It’s not a good idea.”
“I know,” he said, desire making his voice husky.
She moved his hand from her hair to her lips and kissed his fingertips.
He clenched his teeth, it taking all his strength not to pull her back in for something that maybe neither of them would have been able to stop. “I thought you said it was time for bed.”
“It is,” she said, but she didn’t sound any more ready to leave than he was to see her go.
Their eyes met. When he saw the expression on her face in the semi-darkness, the same kind of longing he felt, he nearly grabbed her to finish what they’d started.
“Are we still going running in the morning?” she asked. “Well, in a few hours now, I guess.”
“Yeah,” he said. He could have done with a few miles right then. “Six o’clock sharp.”
“I’ll be there.”
“It’s kind of cool that early in the morning,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t show up to run in a sports bra and itty bitty shorts. He was having enough trouble behaving. As it was, he’d already broken his promise to himself to keep his hands to himself. If he didn’t get away from her soon, she might find herself minus a nightgown.
“I can barely imagine that right now,” she said.
She surprised him with a hug.
“Good night, Austin,” she said, letting her hands linger on his lower back.
“Night, Melody.” He backed away so his hard-on wouldn’t press into her stomach.
She ran her hands up and down his torso and then over his sides. Sheer torture, but in a good way. Then she headed for the stairs.
He hoped that engine for her car would hurry up and get to Sweet Neck because he had to get her out of there before they did something she’d regret. He’d already ruined enough lives. He couldn’t add her to that list of unfortunate people.
If something started up between them, it could only end badly. There was no way he was getting in another serious relationship or leaving Sweet Neck again. Not even for Melody.
Chapter Seventeen
Melody was on the phone with Jen, trying to explain why she couldn’t come home yet. She’d been in Sweet Neck for over a week, and Jen was getting antsy about it. She kept trying to convince Jen that she was fine, and that she’d be home soon, but Jen wasn’t having it.
“Okay, obviously you’ve temporarily lost your mind or something, so I have to come down there and rescue you,” Jen said. Melody could hear her fidgeting with something in the background. It sounded like tiles plinking. Jen was probably working on a new mosaic collage. They were a hobby of hers. She knew a guy who specialized in bathroom renovations, and she was always getting discarded tile from him. Sometimes, she went to art stores and even hardware stores, but she liked making recycled art much more. She called it her artistic and environmental contribution to the world rolled into one.
In fact, art was how she’d met Jen. They’d been in a pottery class together held at a local community college in the evenings. Melody had taken it for fun and out of curiosity. Jen had real talent for visual art, though.
“No, Jen, really. I’m fine,” Melody said.
“You’ve been down there for two weeks. That’s not okay. I’m coming this weekend.”
“Don’t you have your dance class?” she asked, trying to derail Jen’s plan. Jen taught a dance class on Saturday mornings.
“I’ll cancel the class. This qualifies as an emergency. I’m coming to get you, and we’ll figure out how to get that scrap metal you insist on clinging to back to Atlanta later.” Under her breath, Jen added, “You should have kept the Range Rover.”
“You know I heard that, right?”
“Oh. Did you think I didn’t want you to? You should have kept it.”
Melody rolled her eyes even though Jen couldn’t see her through the phone and said, “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that, but I can’t figure out why you’re staying there, Mel. Some weird sense of duty to this guy who’s fixing your car? Some kind of post-losing your job melt down? I have no clue.”
“When you say it that way, it sounds crazy.”
“That’s because it is. I’m coming. You can’t stop me.”
“I’ll be home soon. The car is almost fixed.”
“What, you trying to keep Grayson Meadows all to yourself or something
?” she teased.
Melody bristled. “His name is Austin. And no.”
“Oh. Oh Melody.” Jen paused for dramatic effect as she often did when she was about to say something inflammatory. “You like him. Don’t you?” Her tone was both accusatory and teasing.
“C’mon, Jen,” Melody said, her ears on fire. “Don’t revert to grade school. What are you going to do next? Sing about us kissing in a tree?” But as she reprimanded Jen, she thought back to the kiss she and Austin had shared the night the air conditioning had gone out. Over a week later, they hadn’t come close to another moment like that. It was like he went out of his way to avoid her. They went running in the mornings in near silence and then lifted weights in an outbuilding behind the main house in the same kind of quiet. At work, he’d spend as little time as possible in the office. Most of the time, when a customer needed ringing up or when one of the three mechanics needed something from the office, Austin would send Donnie or Avery into the office to do it or get it.
“…Melody? Earth to Melody?”
“Oh. Sorry, Jen. What did you say?”
“Girl, I know you. Okay, I’m definitely needed there. I have to see what the deal is down in Sweet Neck,” Jen said with an exaggerated—and really bad—version of a Southern accent.
“There’s no deal, Jen.”
“Saturday morning. Ten A.M. I’ll be there. You can’t stop me. Now, you gonna give me the address of Grayson’s garage for my G.P.S., or do I have to look it up online? ‘Cause you know I’ll do it. I know how to use Google, and I know it’s called Holt’s Garage.”
She knew. Although there’d be no website for Holt’s, Jen could probably find an online listing with the garage’s address. With a resigned sigh and a smile at the thought of her tenacious little friend, Melody gave Jen Leigh Anne’s address as well as the address for Austin’s shop where she would most likely be Saturday at ten.
