by Shirley Jump
Instead of turning toward him, Mellie went left and into the park. Harris had spent more than one afternoon in the Eli Delacorte Memorial Park, a beautiful space that Jack Barlow had erected as a memorial to a friend he’d lost in the war. It was a weekday and older kids were in school. Only a few moms of toddlers lingered by a bench at the back of the park. The bright blue playground equipment meant for bigger kids was empty. Melanie dropped onto a large gray-and-red metal circle, leaning against one of the striped handles that kids held on to when the wheel spun. She put her head into her hands, and his heart caught.
“Hey, you okay?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice. “Do you always go around in stealth mode? That’s like the third time you’ve surprised me.”
“Sorry.” He settled into the space beside her, their bodies separated by the slim curved handle. The circle pivoted a little with the addition of his weight. “You looked upset. You okay?”
She shrugged. “Just dealing with my mom. Or more to the point, watching Abby deal with our mom’s constant criticism. Nothing is ever good enough. And the things that are...”
Her voice trailed off, something clearly left unsaid. Mellie’s mother had always been judgmental and hard on her, something Harris knew all too well with his own father. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.
What was he doing? This was the woman who broke his heart. The woman he had once wanted to marry, before he’d seen her with someone else. The woman whom he swore he would never get close to again because what they had was done and over. They’d caught up last night, and he had vowed to draw the line there. And yet here he was, sitting a few inches away, trying not to give her a hug. Masochist.
“Talking about it never changed anything.” She got to her feet, brushed imaginary dirt off her jeans, then crossed to the slide and leaned against the ladder stairs.
He went with her and stood on the other side of the ladder, their backs against the cool coated metal railing. Silence filled the space between them, peppered with the occasional call of a bird or soft whoosh of a passing car. If Mellie didn’t want to talk about what was bothering her, Harris was the last person to push her to do otherwise. He had plenty of stuff in his own life that he kept swept under the rug. Most notably, a history with his father that he didn’t want anyone to know about, because of the part he had played.
Suddenly, she shoved off from the railing and moved in front of him. “You asked me out the other night. Does that offer still stand?”
He blinked. He should say no. Should stay away. But he didn’t. “Uh, yeah. Of course. What made you change your mind?”
“I’m a woman. I’m allowed to do that.” She gave him a grin, but it seemed to flicker and he wondered if there was something else beneath her words. “It’d be nice to catch up, Harris.”
He thought they’d already done that in the bar and on the porch last night, but he didn’t question her. Mellie was smiling, and that smile did something to his common sense.
Maybe her night had been just as distracted with thoughts of him. Or maybe she’d felt that same tension on the deck that he had. He took a step forward, which brought them within inches of each other. Her perfume curled into the space, a lure drawing him even closer. “Catch up?”
“Yes,” she said, but the word was almost a breath. Her eyes caught his, held. “I’d love to hear all about what you’ve been up to since...”
“Since we broke up,” he finished, as if saying the words erased it all. “That was a long time ago. Water under the bridge.”
But was it? Seemed to him, given the riot in his gut, that the water was still a bit turbulent. Maybe because he still had questions that had never been answered.
“Good.” She smiled again. “Then that means we can be friends.”
The single word punched him in the gut. “Friends? Is that what we are?”
Why did he care? She’d broken his heart, ruined his life that summer. He didn’t need her back in his life as some do-over relationship or some hokey second-chance love. He had other things to concentrate on right now, far more important things.
“What else could we be?” Mellie said. “I’m here for the wedding, then I’m going back to New York.”
Exactly. Just friends. Anything more would be...complicated. After these couple of weeks, maybe they would stay in touch by email or something.
“Exactly,” he echoed. He was having a little trouble coming up with words of his own. Maybe it was her perfume—something darker and spicier than she’d worn years ago. Or maybe it was her curves, more tempting now than ever. Or maybe it was the way she kept looking at him as if nothing had happened that summer night.
A girl like that will ruin you, Harris. All she does is distract you from your goals. So be smart and walk away before she traps you into marriage with a bunch of kids.
His father had never liked Melanie and told Harris often that he could do better. In Phillip’s mind, Harris was going to marry some equally driven type-A. A lawyer or doctor or something who would fit with his father’s image of what their family should be. But Harris had been in love with freewheeling, adventurous, saucy Melanie Cooper.
But all that was years in the past, and Harris no longer lived under the same roof as Phillip McCarthy. What Harris did with his life, and his love life, wasn’t his father’s concern anymore. Nor was something that had happened a decade ago.
“Just friends is good, right?” Mellie said, but her sentence ended with a lilt of doubt. “Because...”
“All the rest is in the past.” He moved closer and traced along her jaw, ran his thumb over her lips. They parted and she inhaled, her eyes wide. He shifted closer still, entranced, and for that moment, he was eighteen again, and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “Right?”
“Right,” she said, but the word trailed off halfway through, and she turned her cheek to his hand and closed her eyes.
Harris leaned in and kissed her. Mellie melted into him by degrees, her body sliding closer and closer, until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. His arms went around her back and she opened to him, tangling her fingers in his hair, returning his kiss move for move.
Nothing had died between them, he realized. Not a single damned thing. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a very, very dangerous one. Either way, Harris wasn’t about to start asking questions now.
Chapter Five
For a solid minute, Melanie was seventeen again and caught in the shadows of the high school bleachers while Harris kissed her and turned her world upside down. There’d always been something about his touch, something almost...magical that made all rational thought disappear.
Even now, almost a decade later, he had that effect on her, damn it. She wasn’t here to kiss him or fall for him or anything stupid like that. She was here for a shot at a career-making story—a means to a new end that was far from Stone Gap and Harris McCarthy.
She reminded herself that when she had needed him most, years ago, Harris had betrayed her. He had jumped to conclusions and broken up with her, unwilling to hear her side or to give her even a shadow of a doubt. He’d turned into someone she didn’t recognize.
Her real reason for asking him to go out was to get the inside scoop on the fire. Harris would open up, she’d have her article and her career would be reawakened, all without falling for him again. It was the least he owed her, after breaking her heart and leaving her alone on her darkest day. Except somehow she had ended up kissing him just now. What was that about?
Working toward a new job—0. Getting involved in a mess—1.
She put her hands between them—damn, when did his chest get so much more solid and muscular?—and pushed hard, stepping back as she did and colliding with the ladder. The jarring impact was a relief—it cleared her head before she caved to more than just a kiss. “What was that?”
She definitely hadn’t forgotten that. She’d been thinking about that very thing way too much since she ran into Harris in the bar. “That wasn’t part of catching up.”
“I’m sorry. I must have misread you,” Harris said.
He hadn’t misread her, not one bit. In fact, every single nerve and hormone in her body had been leaning toward Harris, begging for a kiss. The logical side of her brain, however, was the party pooper that had reminded her that she was here for a job, not a one-night stand with a man she’d never truly forgotten. Yet another reason to keep this light and breezy and focus on the story, not on the man. “Either way, I think it’s best if we keep things...uncomplicated.”
“As you wish.”
The one line from The Princess Bride, a favorite movie for both of them, echoed in the air, reminding her of the connection she’d once shared with Harris. One time, Melanie had sat down with Adam on a lazy Sunday morning and turned on the classic fairy tale. Within five minutes, Adam had been bored and switched the channel to golf. Melanie couldn’t help but compare the two men, then and now. With Harris, things had always been easy, natural. With Adam, she’d constantly felt like she was trying to make the pieces of him fit with her.
Why did Harris have to go and break her heart, anyway? She’d been so in love with him back then, so convinced they were forever, and then he’d broken it off, accusing her without hearing her side, and left her stunned and crying. Stupid boy, she thought, the same thing she and Abby used to whisper late at night when they were trying to figure out the hidden meaning behind a boy’s glance or smile or note.
Harris’s breakup had taken her years to forget. It hadn’t been a blind date standing her up or a man who didn’t call after a few nice dates. It had been Harris, and when it had happened, he had been her everything. And from that day forward, when Melanie realized the adult consequences of adult decisions, she had stopped living life by the seat of her pants and took the safe route of a job, a marriage that didn’t fulfill her, and a life insurance policy. No more risks, no more bad choices.
“How about we take a grand tour of Stone Gap?” Harris asked, dragging her attention back to him, to the present. “I’m sure your sister is crazy busy with wedding plans, and it’d be a shame to miss out on the quaintness of this place. So I’m offering, as your friend, to be your tour guide. For a strictly platonic date.”
“Sure.” Though, put that way, with the words platonic and friend, the whole thing sounded kind of...sad. Then again, her reasons for agreeing to the grand tour weren’t exactly about being friends, more of a means to an end—her own end. Was it wrong that she was reconnecting with Harris just to get him to talk to her for the paper?
Then why hadn’t she mentioned it? Why take this circuitous route to what she wanted?
She pushed the doubts away. It wasn’t as if she was doing anything bad. She wanted to write a story that would show Harris as a hero—surely he couldn’t object to that. After she turned the story in, they could have a drink and laugh about what had brought them back together. As friends. Platonic friends.
Except there was that pesky matter of still being attracted to the man. Enjoying that kiss. Wondering if he would do it again. And reminding her why she had vowed to keep all that in the past.
“I’ve got a couple errands to run,” Harris said. “How about I meet you back at the inn at five, and we start our tour of this fine town?”
“Sounds good.”
“And should I presume that you definitely aren’t interested in any more kisses?” He waved between them, as she had. “Because for a minute there, you seemed to be quite interested.”
“You caught me off guard, that’s all. I need to...prepare myself.” Liar, liar.
He chuckled. “What am I? A history test?”
“You, Harris McCarthy, are...complicated.” A family came into the park—mom, dad, baby in a stroller and a four-year-old boy barreling toward the swings. Melanie spied her mother and Abby on the sidewalk, talking. Or rather, Abby was standing stiff and resolute, while Ma wagged a finger and made some kind of judgment. Apparently the sugar rush had worn off and Ma was taking the opportunity to let loose yet another lecture. “I gotta go.”
Melanie spun on her heel and hurried away before Harris could kiss her again or add yet another layer of trouble she didn’t need. Or worse, before she gave in to the incessant craving in her gut to make a move on him.
Melanie plowed forward and out of the park. She didn’t look back, didn’t worry what Harris would think. Her emotions were all in a jumble, tangled in some weird vortex between the past and the present.
She caught up to Abby just as her sister peeled off from Ma, and Ma headed into a dress shop. “What happened?” she said to Abby.
Her sister sighed. “The usual. I don’t even know why Ma came out for the wedding. She told me she’s too busy to be involved in the planning.”
“Too busy? Doing what? She’s retired.”
“Apparently she joined a book club and she’s behind on reading. Oh, and there’s the blanket she promised to knit for someone’s grandson.” Abby threw up her hands. “I can’t do anything right.”
“You? You always do everything right, Abs.”
“No, that’s you.” Abby shook her head. “I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but when Ma starts in on how perfect your life is... I’m sorry. It shouldn’t bug me.”
Melanie swallowed a lump of guilt. Maybe now was a good time to tell Abby the truth. My life sucks. It’s a train wreck.
Abby drew her younger sister into a hug. Melanie drew a deep breath, opened her mouth... And she couldn’t say the words. Yet again.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Mel. Ma is driving me nuts, and with the kids and the wedding... I’m just glad to have you to lean on.” Abby drew back and smiled. “Kinda ironic, huh? Me leaning on you?”
“Well, I’m not five anymore, so I think it’s allowed.” Melanie grinned. But inside, she was thinking what a low-life move it was to let her sister keep on thinking that Melanie could be any sort of foundation for anyone right now. Stupid girl.
* * *
Harris changed his shirt three times before finally settling on a blue cotton button-down. He rolled up the cuffs, threw on a pair of jeans, then headed downstairs. The B&B was definitely an unusual place to meet a date. But then again, Mellie was no ordinary woman, and this was no ordinary date.
Or rather, a not-date. It was two friends, hanging out. Nothing more, no matter how strange that seemed.
Maybe it was because he’d never really looked at Mellie that way. When he’d been young and foolish, he’d considered forever with her. Then she’d broken his heart, and he’d ended it in that kind of hurried, angry way kids did.
Now, with a lot of years between them and several more relationships, Harris understood that relationships were complicated. All relationships—whether they were romantic or not. He’d learned that firsthand working for his father and had grown up more in that year than in the twenty-two years before he went to work at the firm. Maybe there’d been more to that summer with Mellie than he knew. And maybe he’d been too damned young to consider forever with anyone.
He’d come close once, with his engagement to Sandra, but at the last minute he’d backed out, with some foolish idea that he could find some kind of storybook love. His father had reminded him a hundred times that waiting for some idealized version of a woman was a futile exercise. That marriages should be made between equals who brought complementary talents and backgrounds into the mix. Like a business merger, only with sex.
Harris wanted something in between the two. Something more than the cordial partnership his parents had or the fiery, intoxicating and foolish romance he’d had with Mellie.
He lean
ed against the archway of the dining room. The elegant wooden staircase, with its dark oak treads and white turned spindles, curved away from him and toward the second floor. At any moment, Mellie would descend, reminiscent of Scarlett O’Hara. And the rush of desire he kept telling himself didn’t exist anymore would come roaring back.
What was he doing here? Chasing a memory? Hoping for some kind of closure?
His phone rang, and he fished it out of his front pocket. John Kingston’s face lit up the screen. Guilt squeezed Harris’s chest. If only...
But the time for if-onlys and what-ifs had already passed. What was done was done, and all Harris could do was try to make it right again.
“John. How are you, buddy? How’s the family?”
“Hanging in there.” John paused for a long moment. Harris had liked the man from the minute he met him. There was a reason Harris had gone to John’s barber shop, when there was another much closer to the job site. Because every city Harris visited, every town he worked in, he searched for the names on his list. John’s had popped up in Stone Gap. Between the clippers and the shave oil, he’d connected with John. This friendship was real, though, which was different from before. Even after Harris left town last year, they’d kept in touch via emails and texts. He liked John, liked him a lot.
“I...I realize I screwed up that night.” John sighed. “I gotta get my act together or I’m going to lose everything. It’s just been so hard, you know? Since my company got shut down seven years ago, it seems like nothing has gone right.”
We’re going to close their doors, Harris. These business owners carry too much flab in their workforce. They need to be leaner, meaner, more profitable.
That had been his father’s motto for everything: Leaner, meaner, more profitable. Phillip McCarthy had worked his way up from being just a CPA to becoming an outside expert, flown in by struggling companies to find and eliminate the “flab.” That all sounded very admirable...until a closer examination showed that Phillip “helped” companies by covertly ruining their competitors, making their problems go away. Problems like John Kingston, who had started his machining company in his basement twenty years ago, and built it to a workforce of forty dedicated people. John’s company, the main supplier to a local automotive manufacturing plant, had been in the way of a much bigger, much more profitable alliance between the automotive company and a competitor’s machining business. The owner of that other business had been one of Phillip McCarthy’s clients—and he had offered a substantial payment to Phillip for convincing the automotive company to switch suppliers.
