by Zoey Marcel
She had tears of fright and worry pouring down her face. “M–my sister, Kendall, just had her house broken into. Some man…I called the police in her city. I’m so scared.”
She cried on Hunter while he held her and played with her hair. “It’s all right, angel. The police will be there for her.”
“You did the right thing, Mellie. Where does your sister live?” Jake asked, rubbing her arm. “We’ll take you to her. Oh.”
He looked like he suddenly remembered where Kendall lived.
“She lives in California.” Melanie wailed into Hunter’s pajama shirt. “She’ll probably be dead by the time they show up.”
It was probable, but Emmett kept that shitty tidbit to himself. Strangely, Melanie’s tears didn’t annoy him as manipulative weeping had in the past, nor was he indifferent to them. This woman wasn’t trying to connive him with her tears. They were real and he felt something that might have been sympathy toward her, empathy even.
Emmett wanted to put his arms around her and say nothing to her. He wasn’t big on telling people what they wanted to hear just so they would feel better. He believed in telling it like it was and when the brutal truth hurt too much silence was better than saying anything, certainly better than lies.
He would have acted on his impulse to embrace her, but she already had enough men dog-piling on her between Hunter and Jake. One more stooge would be a crowd. He would wait to have his turn consoling her.
Greyson was quiet and contemplative in all of this. A thinker, that one was. Emmett liked that about him, though he could do without his propensity to hold grudges for half a lifetime.
“I have to go to her,” Melanie stated and pleaded at once. She looked over at Greyson. “Please let me go to her. I’ll work twice as hard as before when I get back. I just need to see her to make sure she’s okay.”
Greyson gave a single nod. “You can go to her. Take Emmett and Diego with you for protection.”
Emmett’s ears perked. Normally this would have been about the time he’d open his mouth and say something clever, but this was hardly the appropriate moment for that.
Jake frowned. “Why not me?”
Greyson just gave him one of his big brother looks.
Jake scowled and then turned his attention back to the object of his affection.
Diego crowded in and patted Melanie on the back. “All will turn out well in the end, dolce. You will see.”
Greyson’s head jerked toward Diego, and Emmett had a feeling Greyson hadn’t missed the pet name Diego had dubbed Melanie with. If Diego agreed to marry Melanie, would Greyson follow suit?
Not likely. The cowboy was a trailblazer, not a follower. Regardless, Emmett knew that if anyone had a chance at persuading Greyson to join in their ménage it would be Diego. Best friends, he and Greyson were thicker than molasses. Greyson was closer with their ranch hand than he was with his own brothers.
Emmett’s focus drifted back to the sobbing woman in his sort-of-but-not-twin brother’s arms. “Melanie.”
She looked over at him with tears in her eyes and he felt something. Sympathy he’d felt once or twice in his life, mostly for animals more than people. But this was something he’d never felt before. He knew what it was, down to his core he did. It was the very purest and strongest form of empathy—as deeply as one could possibly care for a non-blood relation without actually loving them.
No woman could ever drag his bloody ass down lover’s lane again, but evidently this woman could make him feel compassion. She made him feel needed because of her brokenness and simultaneously he felt helpless because there was nothing he could do for her right now. When he flew her to California and she saw her sister alive and well, then he wouldn’t feel so powerless like he did right now.
“We’ll leave right away and head to the airport,” Emmett informed her.
Melanie didn’t smile at him, not that he expected her to when she was falling apart, but she acknowledged his comment with a fervent nod.
He got dressed quickly in his room while Melanie dressed hastily in hers and Diego did the same in his own room.
Emmett wanted to be there for her, though he wasn’t sure why when he’d become so hardened to emotional women over the years. Hunter and Jake referred to him as cynical, but he preferred to think of himself as a realist. However, he had to admit that he was slightly bitter where women were concerned. In that instance he might actually use the term cynical to describe himself.
Melanie met him and Diego downstairs. The tears had frozen in the frantic rush of getting ready, but her becoming eyes were still moist.
“I’m ready.” She almost plowed through him like a horse that had just heard the rattle of the grain bucket on her way to the front door. “Thank you so much for taking me there.”
“Of course,” Diego replied.
“You’re welcome,” Emmett said quietly, placing his hand almost without thinking on her shoulder blade as they went out the front door together and into the moonlit coolness of the night.
It was flooring how he could feel something this strongly. He’d lusted after her on more than one occasion, but the emotion he felt right now wasn’t lust. It wasn’t quite love either. It was pure, selfless compassion.
He knew now that Hunter and Jake had fallen for the curvy housekeeper, they expected him to do the same. Emmett thought they were off their rockers, but he had every intention of spending more time with Melanie so he could get to know her better.
He wasn’t big on the idea of marrying without love, but it would make Hunter and Jake happy and probably get their old man back if the stubborn yet oddly loveable geezer was even still alive.
“Godspeed, angel,” Hunter said to Melanie on her way out. “Call us when everything turns out all right.”
That one had a lot of faith. Emmett could admire his brother for keeping to his convictions, but Emmett refused to believe in anything until he saw evidence, tangible proof to give him a reason to believe.
Melanie kept trying to get a hold of her sister on her cell phone while he drove. “It’s still dead.”
She put her hand over her mouth, and Diego reached into the backseat and squeezed her hand.
“She will be all right, Melanie. The police are probably talking to her and arresting the man.”
She nodded emphatically and gave Diego a feeble smile from what Emmett could make out in the rearview mirror.
He accelerated, feeling mildly sick inside when he realized things might not turn out the way Melanie hoped.
She had her eyes closed in the backseat and he knew she was praying. It didn’t bother him, but it made his chest hurt a little because he knew there was no one there listening to her.
Emmett had nothing against God and only a few qualms with religion. He just didn’t believe in the existence of God. If there ever turned out to be proof, he’d change his thinking that same hour.
He didn’t believe in unicorns either, but if some cotton candy-colored bastard came and gored his ass, then he’d have to admit that they were in fact real.
His mind wandered back in time to a rainy day when he’d been driving down this same road with a different woman. He instantly slammed the door to that memory closed. He didn’t like the sudden hardness it sent over him. It was cold and vicious and made him yearn to focus more heavily on the purity and softness of the empathy Melanie had instilled in him for her.
He might not fall in love with her and he was fine with that. He’d still marry her for the sake of uniting his family, but maybe he could at least have some kind of bond with her.
Of all the things he didn’t believe in, love was the most potent. He would never believe in it any more than he would believe in anything without a good reason to. He’d loved once, but that ability was long gone. Love was dead in him.
When he glanced back at Melanie in the rearview mirror and felt a soft tug on something deep inside him, he started to wonder.
End of Book 2: Mellie's Angel
To be continued in
Book 3: Believing in Mellie
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zoey Marcel lives with her husband, their baby, and their quirky pug in the Pacific Northwest.
She writes erotica and erotic romance, and her favorite genres include paranormal, BDSM, ménage, cowboys, dark fantasy, and historical. Her stories range from scorching and moving to dark and edgy. She enjoys variety in her characters, but her favorite heroes are alphas and the tortured ones in need of love and redemption.
When she’s not writing, Zoey enjoys spending time with her husband and friends, working out, reading, going for drives, and seeing new places.
She can be contacted via blog, e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.
Blog: http://zoeymarcelbooks.blogspot.com/
E-mail: [email protected]
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zoey.marcelbooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZoeyMarcelBooks
For all titles by Zoey Marcel, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/zoey-marcel
Siren Publishing, Inc.
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