by Donna Hill
Alan laughed some more. “Lucky me.”
She stopped pacing and planted her hands on her hips. “Why won’t you tell me what he said? Can’t you at least give me a tiny hint?” she whined.
“Why don’t you ask him?” His smile was soft and loving. “I have a strong feeling that he’s ready to tell you what’s been on his mind.”
But would he still feel the same way when she told him her news?
She returned to her room and put in a call to her doctor, insisting that she squeeze her in. It was an emergency. The nurse said she could have the last appointment of the day at six. Melanie assured her that she would be there. With that task aside she called Cynthia. She needed some girl talk and the ear and support of her best friend.
Vincent had taken the day off and Jessica and Veronica were busy going over some new files. She told them she was going out to run an errand and meet with Cynthia and that she would be back later in the evening.
She drove into town, stopped at the local bakery and picked up some fresh bread and rolls. Then she stopped in the florist and placed an order for a flower delivery. With those tasks out of the way she walked down to Cynthia’s gallery.
The gallery was relatively quiet with only a smattering of visitors. Cynthia was just finishing up on the phone and waved Melanie over. She leaned across the counter and kissed Melanie’s cheek.
“I knew from your call that something was wrong. And now it’s in your face.” She reached for her purse from beneath the counter. “What is it? Come on in back and we’ll talk.”
Just hearing Cynthia’s gentle words of concern eased the tension that had a stronghold on Melanie’s insides. She followed Cynthia to her back office. She closed the door and sat down on the comfortable love seat.
“First, how is Alan?”
“He is doing so much better. He was sitting up today. His nurse said that she’s going to let him do some walking.”
“Oh, thank God. I was so worried.” She breathed a sigh of relief, then focused all of her attention on Melanie. “Now, what’s going on with you?”
Melanie folded her hands in her lap and in measured words took Cynthia on the journey of her and Claude’s worldwind affair, right up to the results she’d gotten that morning and Alan’s intimation.
For a moment, Cynthia was completely speechless as she tried to process it all. “Girl, you don’t have a relationship for decades and then when you do it’s an Oprah moment.”
Melanie didn’t want to laugh but she couldn’t help it. “Ain’t that the truth?”
“I know you’re torn right down the middle about everything right now. But let me ask you this one question: How do you feel about Claude? I mean really feel deep down in your soul?”
Her lips quivered as the intensity of what she felt for Claude tried to form words. She looked straight at her friend. “I’m in love with him.”
Cynthia flipped through the magazines on the table and watched the women in various stages of pregnancy come in and out of the office. Just thinking about her friend as one of them gave her pause. She knew that Melanie would make a great mother. She’d spent her entire adult life taking care of others. She only wanted her to be happy and for Claude to be happy when he got the news.
She checked her watch. Melanie had been in with the doctor for more than half an hour. Now she was getting nervous. Just when she didn’t think she could take the suspense a moment longer, Melanie emerged. She couldn’t read her expression. She tossed the magazine onto the table.
“Well?” she said the instant Melanie was close enough.
Melanie hooked her arm through Cynthia’s and ushered her toward the door.
“I’m not pregnant,” she said once they’d stepped outside.
“What? But I thought…”
“I know. It’s the same thing I said to my doctor who, after a thorough exam, assured me that I’m not pregnant, just late. She said that every now and then those little tests are wrong.”
They walked arm in arm toward Melanie’s car. “She went on to give me a thorough lecture on safe sex.” She snickered. “I felt like I was twelve. ‘You should know better Melanie. There are a lot worse things you get besides becoming pregnant,’” she mimicked.
Cynthia laughed. “Ouch.”
Melanie stopped and opened her purse for Cynthia to see. She looked inside. The entire bottom was filled with condoms in a rainbow of colors and flavors. They both cracked up laughing.
“So how do you feel about finding out that you’re not pregnant?” Cynthia gently asked while Melanie drove her home.
Melanie took a deep breath. “At first I was so nervous I couldn’t process the information. After the reality hit me, I was relieved and then oddly disappointed.” She turned and stole a glance at Cynthia, who watched her intently. “But…it’s a good thing. I want to move on in this relationship the right way without the added responsibility of a child that neither of us is prepared for. I have no idea how Claude would have taken the news. He may have done the gentlemanly thing or he may have lost it.”
“From everything you’ve told me about him I don’t think he would have lost it.”
“You’re probably right. But I want him to want me for all the right reasons, not because he feels that he has to.”
Cynthia nodded and reached out to cover Melanie’s hand with hers. “Well, now you have all the time in the world to find out.”
Chapter 19
Melanie returned home feeling lighter and totally positive. She couldn’t wait to talk to Claude, hear his voice. She practically skipped through the house as she teased Evan about dinner, begging for just a small sample, to which he resoundingly said no.
Undaunted she went to visit her brother, who informed her that he’d gone for a long walk up and down and up and down the hall. “That nurse is a real tyrant,” he’d joked.
Veronica and Jessica were gone for the day but had left her some notes on prospective clients. She was reading them over when she heard the doorbell ring. She frowned. She wasn’t expecting anyone and it was too late for any deliveries.
She walked out of her room and went to the top of the stairs just as Evan opened the door. Her heart jumped when Claude looked up at her with a smile that almost resembled relief mixed with the same joy that rushed through her veins. She hurried down the stairs and ran over to him and into his arms.
He covered her face in kisses until their lips met and held and explored. Finally he released her. Her gaze danced over his face following the trail of her hand.
“What are you doing here? I had no idea…”
“I took the last flight out and I have to leave at the crack of dawn to get back in the morning. But I had to see you.”
“You’re letting out all the cold air, you two,” Alan said from the top of the stairs.
They both looked up and laughed like school-children. Melanie pulled Claude inside and shut the door.
“Let me go and chat with Alan and then I can spend all my time with you.”
“Go, go. I’ll be here.”
He kissed her softly, then turned to go upstairs. Moments later she heard the rich hearty laughter of the two most important men in her life. She hummed on her way to the kitchen, and this time she wasn’t taking Evan’s no for an answer.
She’d arranged a cozy little setting just off the back porch in the enclosed sitting room. Beyond the tempered glass window the outline of the rocky bluffs and the deep-blue horizon made the perfect picture. She lit candles for the centerpiece, and Evan had prepared the rolling cart with their dinner.
Melanie poured Claude a glass of wine, then sat next to him on the brocade sofa. She raised her glass. “To many nights like this.”
He tapped his glass to hers. “To us and many nights like this.”
She took a sip and studied him over the rim of her glass. “So tell me, what made you fly out here on the spur of the moment?”
“You. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About us. Last night when we talked I
felt that something was wrong. I couldn’t pin it down and it was driving me crazy. I knew I had to see you and look you in the eye and have you tell me.”
“Oh, Claude, everything is fine. Better than fine.” She swallowed. “But you were right.” She tucked her feet under her and took his hand. Slowly she told him what had happened, her fears, her elation, her disappointment and her acceptance. “It was silly of me not to be more cautious. It’s just that’s it’s been a while for me,” she confessed, “and birth control isn’t something that I think about.”
“I’m just as responsible as you are. I should have known better but the moment…you…I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He paused. “It would have been all right, you know.”
Her gaze jerked to connect with his. “What?”
“It would have been all right. I wouldn’t have run.” He ran his finger along her cheek. “That’s what I really came here to tell you, what I should have told you when we were together.”
Her brows drew together. “What is it?”
“I love you, Mel. I love you so much that it aches inside. I want to be with you. I want us to make this work somehow.”
Her soul felt like it opened up and the sun came pouring in. Her eyes burned as tears of joy filled them. She threw herself into his arms. “That’s what I wanted to tell you!” she cried an instant before her lips met his in a fiery kiss of passion and promise.
They lay together under the full moon that shone in through Melanie’s bedroom window, cuddled in each other’s arms.
“What time is your flight?” Melanie asked as she listened to the calming beat of his heart.
“Six. I need to be at the airport by five. I have a car coming to pick me up at four.”
Melanie turned onto her side and looked down at him. “That only gives us an hour.” She reached into her nightstand and pulled out several condoms. She slinked along his body, placing hot kisses on his flesh, using her tongue to tease and titillate. Claude moaned in pleasure as she took her time awakening every nerve ending in his body until he was practically begging her to stop.
She draped her legs on either side of his body and raised up on her knees, placing his relief only teasing inches away. A look of lust darkened her eyes. “Strawberry or cherry?”
He barely made it on time to meet the car as they tiptoed down the stairs, giggling and whispering along the way.
“I’ll call you as soon as I get a free minute. My day is packed,” he said as he held her for those last few minutes in the doorway.
“I love you,” she whispered.
His mouth curved into a soft smile. He leaned down and kissed her as slowly as time would allow.
“I love you, too.” He turned to leave and in moments, the SUV was gone.
Trancelike, Melanie closed the door and returned to bed. Burrowing under the sheets, she inhaled the scent of him and her early-morning dreams were filled with images of what they’d shared and all that they longed for.
With the big Labor Day weekend less than a week away, Melanie realized in a panic that she had done little or no shopping. With all that had gone on in her life she’d totally put her holiday shopping on the back burner. It was a TPS tradition to share gifts of thanks for all the hard work they’d done throughout the year. She and Cynthia had agreed to meet and get as much done as their feet and time allowed.
Living by the water could be bitterly cold during winter, but Melanie loved Sag Harbor at this time of year. The former whaling town reminded her of the Hallmark picture postcards, perfect in every detail.
She and Cynthia met at noon in the center of town, both with a list in hand. After several hours they were loaded down with bags and boxes. But Melanie still hadn’t found the perfect gift for Claude.
“I have no idea what to get him,” she complained, wanting to include him in the family gathering.
“Socks,” Cynthia joked as she put her purchases in the trunk of Melanie’s car.
“Very funny.”
“You still have a few more days. You’ll think of something. Come on. I’m beat and starving.”
Mildly disappointed, Melanie climbed in the car and pulled off.
Later that evening after wrapping all of her gifts and stacking them in the designated spot under the living room window facing the ocean, she still hadn’t figured out what to get for Claude. She wanted it to be special, a reflection of her feelings for him. But what? When they talked that evening late into the night, she was tempted to just come out and ask him, but whatever she decided on she wanted it to be a surprise.
He was telling her about the long hours he’d spent that day and how difficult the months ahead were going to be after the Senate came back from recess.
“I don’t know how often I’m going to be able to get away,” he finally said. “Maybe every other weekend. At least until we get some of these bills passed.”
As she listened, the possibility of seeing less of him seemed inevitable. An idea began to form in her mind. She had the perfect gift.
On the day before Labor Day, or J’Ouvert, the house was filled with family, and the smell of mouthwatering aromas wafted from the kitchen. Music played softly in the background. Everything would be perfect as soon as Claude arrived.
Melanie tried to conceal her anxiety as time ticked by. His plane should have landed more than an hour earlier and she hadn’t heard a word from him.
“Looking out of the window isn’t going to get him here any sooner,” Alan said, coming up behind her.
His recovery had been no less than miraculous. In the weeks that he’d been home he seemed to really improve. The weight that he’d lost was coming back and his strength was returning. He’d started taking morning walks and had begun exercising again. Every night, Melanie sent up her thanks for healing her brother.
He put his arm around her waist, then leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “He’ll be here, relax.” He brought her back into the living room where the family was playing a mean game of Scrabble.
Evan came out shortly and announced that dinner was ready. They all filed into the dining room but not before Melanie took one last look out of the window. She saw his Suburban pulling into the driveway, and she nearly screamed with relief and joy. She pulled the door open and ran out to meet him.
The moment he saw her running toward him he knew that the decision he’d made was the right one. He caught her up in his arms and kissed her soundly.
“Now that’s the kind of welcome a man can get used to.”
“Then get used to it,” she said, kissing him again.
“Let’s get you inside. Everyone is waiting.” He took his two shopping bags of gifts from the passenger seat as they walked together to the house.
Dinner was a loud, laughter-filled affair, typical of Harte gatherings. Stories were shared, lies were told and their unwavering love for each other was renewed.
After they were full and dessert was served, they all tumbled into the living room for more talk and frivolity.
Claude felt totally at home. He’d never experienced this kind of family love. His growing-up years were worlds apart from this. This is what he’d been missing and searching for, waiting for the right time. A home. With people to love and who loved you back. He pulled Melanie close and was happier than ever that he’d found her.
“Okay, I can’t wait a minute longer,” Jessica announced. “I want to open presents!”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Vincent said, diving toward the stack of gift-wrapped boxes like a five year old.
That was the signal. Everyone joined in, finding a space on the floor, shouting out names on boxes and passing them along to the recipient.
Melanie laughed in delight. This is what it was all about, family and being together with the ones you love.
Claude’s heart was racing out of control when Melanie turned to him with a slender white box in her hand topped with a bright red bow.
“For all your hard work,” she whispered
with a double meaning and held the box out toward him.
He swallowed and picked up the plain white bag near his feet. He took out a box that looked like it could fit a Sunday go-to-meeting hat. He handed it to her.
“Open it.”
“Let’s open ours together,” she said, eager to see the look on his face.
He untied the ribbon and she untied hers. Inside, her box was filled with pink tissue paper. She looked up at him curiously.
“Keep looking,” he said.
She pulled the tissue away, and tucked deep inside was another box of white velvet. Her fingers shook as she lifted it from its cushion. Her insides were trembling so badly she could barely get the box open and when she did all the air rushed out of her lungs.
An exquisite diamond sparkled back at her picking up the light from the candles, making it glow even more.
“Oh…Claude…”
The room had gone silent as Claude lifted the ring from its temporary home. He held it out to her.
“I love you, Melanie Harte. More than I can ever explain. And if I know nothing else, I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
She blinked several times. She looked at the ring, at Claude and then at her family, who seemed to hold their collective breath. She turned to Claude.
“Yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”’
A whoop of joy shot through the room as her family screamed and hollered.
Claude slid the ring on Melanie’s finger and pulled her into his arms. “I love you,” he whispered.
She sat back and with tears in her eyes she looked at the diamond on her finger.
“That’s what took me so long. The jeweler had to do a last fitting. I thought I was going to lose it while I waited. Are you happy?”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am.”
With that they were swarmed with kisses and hugs and well wishes.
“I say this deserves a toast,” Alan said and began pouring drinks for everyone.
They all held up their glasses. “To my new brother and my amazing sister.”
