My Darling Melissa

by Linda Lael Miller

  Quinn’s grasp on Melissa’s shoulders was sustaining her. “Why?” she whispered. “Just tell me why Papa hid from us—tell me why Adam kept such a secret!”

  “Papa had leprosy, Melissa,” Keith said, and now there were tears in his eyes, too. “He was afraid the rest of us would contract the disease, and so was Adam.”

  Melissa’s hand trembled as she reached out for a napkin and dried her eyes. A wild hope possessed her. “Maybe Jeff just dreamed all this. You said he had a high fever!”

  Keith shook his head. “I went straight to Adam, and he admitted everything.”

  “You’re not angry!” Melissa breathed, marveling. She wanted to find Adam and scream at him for keeping her papa from her when she’d loved him so much and needed him so badly. “I can’t believe you just accepted this! Adam and Jeff had no right to withhold a secret like that from us!”

  Keith went back to his chair and sank into it with a sigh. “I was angry, Melissa,” he said quietly. “But once I’d thought it through, I understood. I know you will, too, when you get over the feelings you’re having now.”

  Melissa thought of the mourning she’d done, the conversations she’d had with her father after his “death,” believing him to be something of a guardian angel looking after her. She threw back her head and screamed in fury and pain, then burst into ragged sobs. Never in all her life had she felt so betrayed. Or so alone.

  Quinn drew back, sensing that she didn’t want to be touched, and when she leapt from her chair and fled the room he did not follow her.

  Quinn felt almost as sorry for his brother-in-law as he did for Melissa. It had been a hard thing for Keith to come and tell his sister a story like that when it was obvious that he’d barely recovered from the shock himself.

  “She’ll be all right once she’s had some time to arrange all this in her mind,” Quinn said, taking a cheroot from the pocket of his flannel shirt. He struck a match and drew the aromatic smoke into his lungs.

  Keith nodded. “I know.” He smiled bleakly. “Melissa looks as fragile as a violet, but she’s tougher than your average coal miner.”

  Quinn chuckled ruefully. “Amen,” he said.

  “I know it’s early, and I’m a preacher,” Keith began with a sheepish grin, “but I could use a shot of whiskey.”

  Quinn brought a bottle and two glasses from a cabinet next to the sideboard. “I’ve been doing a little drinking myself since I met Calico,” he confessed.

  Keith laughed at that. “Does it help?”

  “No,” Quinn responded without hesitation. “Nothing helps. And it just so happens that Melissa and I have a secret of our own.”

  After he’d taken a sip of his whiskey Keith eyed Quinn speculatively and asked, “Oh? Like what?”

  Quinn tossed back his drink and poured a second before answering. “We’re not married, and I think she’s going to have a baby.”

  Keith set his glass down with a crash. “What?”

  Quickly, Quinn explained the misunderstanding that had taken place in Seattle. He was careful to point out the fact that he hadn’t known the justice of the peace was a fake any more than Melissa had.

  “But she believes you tricked her?”

  “She did,” Quinn answered sadly. “I don’t know if she still thinks that, because we can’t talk without fighting.”

  To Quinn’s surprise, Keith smiled. “You’re either loving or doing battle,” he guessed aloud, “and there’s no in-between.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “It’s the passion,” Keith said with a shrug. “You and Melissa have got to learn control, that’s all. The knack of it comes with time.”

  Quinn shook his head. He couldn’t imagine controlling what he felt for Melissa. It would be like trying to stop a train by stringing thread across the track.

  Twenty-three

  Melissa took refuge in Quinn’s study, curling up in a large chair facing the empty fireplace and covering her face with both hands.

  “What’s the matter, lady?” a small voice asked when Melissa’s deep, hiccuping sobs had abated.

  Melissa spread her fingers and saw a little girl of four or five sitting on the hearth, playing with a one-eyed rag doll.

  “I’m Margaret,” persisted the pretty child, clearly determined to strike up a conversation. A tiny, delicate finger waggled at her. “Your name is Calico,” Margaret went on, “and the end of your nose is all red from crying.”

  In spite of everything, Melissa had to smile. She dried her cheeks with the backs of her hands, heartened by the presence of the child. “My name isn’t Calico,” she said pleasantly. “It’s Melissa.”

  Margaret shook her head solemnly, fragile wisps of blond hair escaping from her braids catching the sunlight as she did so. “Mr. Quinn says Calico,” she insisted, and Melissa had a suspicion that the matter was settled in her mind. “Did Mr. Quinn make you cry?”

  Melissa shook her head.

  “My daddy makes my mama cry all the time,” Margaret went on, getting up and drawing close to Melissa, the doll dangling at her side. “He made her nose bleed once. Mama says we don’t have to live with him anymore—we get to stay right here in this pretty house.”

  Melissa’s heart twisted within her, and she forgot her own pain to put a gentle arm around the child. “I had a doll like this once,” she said, assessing the worn toy fondly. “I found her in a field, and I loved her best because she’d been lost.”

  Before Margaret could make a reply Becky appeared, looking harried and very much afraid of offending. “Don’t bother Mrs. Rafferty,” the woman said, shooing the little girl away with her apron.

  Melissa would have preferred for Margaret to stay, but she made no protest because it would have been wrong to interfere. Nor did she point out that she was not “Mrs. Rafferty,” for she needed the illusion of being connected to Quinn more than ever.

  The room was quiet after Becky left, filled with the masculine scents of tobacco and leather and bay rum. Melissa remembered her laughing, handsome father and wept inwardly, even though no tears trickled down her cheeks or swelled in her eyes. How bitterly she coveted those five years that had been stolen from her.

  She heard the door open presently and stiffened as Keith bent to kiss her on the cheek. “Ready to talk yet?” he asked.

  Melissa let out a sigh and forced herself to look at her brother as he drew up a hassock and sat down facing her chair. She didn’t speak or even nod.

  Keith reached out and took one of her hands. “I’m sorry, Melissa. Maybe Adam was right—maybe I should have left well enough alone. But I was afraid you’d find out on your own someday and hate us all for not telling you.”

  She bit her lip. The news Keith had brought had wounded her, and badly, but the hurt was subsiding a little now. Although she had not yet absorbed the whole thing, she was beginning to understand what a dilemma Adam had faced. She guessed that in his position she would have kept the secret, too.

  “Did Quinn tell you about our wedding and—and the baby?” she ventured to ask.

  Keith nodded. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, sweetheart. After all, you thought you were married. The question is, what are you going to do now?”

  Melissa had a headache. She swallowed and made a fitful gesture with one hand. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Keith asked, with big-brother sternness in his voice. “Any fool can see that you love the man, and you’re carrying his child. What else can you do but marry him?”

  “If you knew what I should do,” Melissa challenged with a lofty sniffle, “then why the devil did you ask, Keith Corbin?”

  He heaved a sigh and shook his head. “You’re as impossible as ever, brat. Now, are you going to let me perform a new ceremony before I leave, or do I have to go home and tell our brothers what’s going on with their baby sister?”

  Melissa winced at the thought of their reaction, but, love Quinn Rafferty though she did, she’d had more time to think,
and she had her reservations. “Are you aware that Quinn could legally take my inheritance from me, if I were his wife, and throw me out in the street?”

  Keith’s eyes snapped. “If I thought he was that sort of man, Melissa, I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to talk you into marrying him. Besides, Adam and Jeff and I would never let that happen.”

  Melissa was suddenly and poignantly aware that over the last month or so she’d grown from a spoiled child into a woman. She sat up a little straighter in her chair. “You’ve all got your own families and your own lives to live,” she pointed out. “It wouldn’t be fair to expect you to keep on looking after me until the end of my days. As for my marrying Quinn, I’m not going to do that until he proposes properly.”

  Keith stood up, shoving one hand through his hair in agitation. In the distance a train whistle sounded. “What do you want, Melissa? Does the man have to get down on one knee, spout poetry, and pluck daisy petals?”

  “I’ll know when he gets it right,” Melissa said, folding her arms. “And that’s going to take a while, so if I were you, Keith Corbin, I’d hurry up and catch that train home.”

  Distractedly, her brother took a gold watch from a pocket of his vest and checked the time. He closed the case with a click and reflected for a few moments, then said, “Today’s the fifteenth of April. I’ll be back in Port Riley in exactly one week.” He waved a finger under Melissa’s nose. “You, young lady, will either be ready to marry Quinn or come home to the bosom of your family. Is that clear?”

  Melissa’s temper flared. She shot out of her chair and caught hold of Keith’s arm as he would have started toward the door. “Wait a minute!” she cried. “You can’t deliver an ultimatum like that and then just walk out of here!”

  Keith touched her nose with an index finger. “One week, brat,” he repeated, and then he was gone.

  Melissa stomped one foot and gave a cry of frustrated fury when she heard the front door slam in the distance. She started after her brother only to run headlong into Quinn at the base of the stairs.

  He barred her passing as effectively as a brick wall.

  “Feeling better?” he asked solicitously.

  Melissa tried in vain to get around him. “No,” she answered. And then she sputtered, “Men! Do you realize that that arrogant brother of mine just ordered me to be married?”

  The set of Quinn’s face was solemn, though his dark eyes danced with laughter. “The nerve,” he said. “And just because you’re having my baby and the whole town knows we’re lovers.”

  Melissa gave another strangled cry of frustration and tried again to pass Quinn. Again he stopped her, this time by taking a hard though painless hold on her arm.

  “For once, woman,” he said, “I’m laying down the law. I’ve got to go back up the mountain for a couple of days, and by God, you’re going with me.”

  Mouth open, Melissa simply stared at him. Quinn had been impossible before, but never to this degree, and she didn’t know how to respond.

  “Get your things together,” he said, cupping her face in one hand and sending sweet chills through her by his touch, “and meet me at the depot in an hour. We’re taking the railroad car.”

  Of course, Melissa decided, she would defy him. She would pretend that she was going to fetch her nightgown and her toothbrush and her pens and paper, but then she simply would not come back. If Quinn wanted to drag her up that mountain, then he’d have to find her first.

  All these ideas were firm in Melissa’s mind, and yet when Quinn stepped into the car some sixty minutes later she was sitting primly on the velvet upholstered bench, her necessities stuffed into the bulging valise beside her.

  Quinn smiled at her obedience. “You know, Calico,” he said, “I half expected to have to search the county for you.”

  Melissa gave him a haughty, sidelong glance and squared her shoulders. “Aren’t you going to ask what changed my mind?” she queried.

  He came and moved her valise so that he could sit beside her on the bench. “Why should I?” he countered. “I already know.”

  “You do?” Melissa asked, her eyes round. She wished he’d go ahead and tell her, since she’d only been bluffing a few moments before and had no earthly idea.

  There was a loud clang outside, and the car gave a jarring lurch as the engine hooked up to it. Quinn put an arm around Melissa, ostensibly to steady her. “It’s instinct,” he said sagely.

  “Instinct?”

  “Yes.” He stroked her cheek ever so lightly with the fingertips of his right hand. “You want to chase down newspaper stories and write books in the daytime, but you need me in your bed at night.”

  Melissa had never wanted to slap anyone more in her life, and the knowledge that Quinn was absolutely right only made her more furious. “Any man would do, I’m sure,” she said, to repay him. And then she got up and dashed toward the door, meaning to make her escape.

  The train was already moving, and when Melissa stood on the platform and saw the ground flashing by in a blur she wasn’t foolish enough to jump. She reentered the car to find Quinn leaning against his desk, his arms folded across his broad chest, a cocky grin on his face.

  “Any man would do, would he?” he asked.

  Melissa tried to ignore Quinn, giving him a wide berth as she went around him to reclaim her valise and carry it to the opposite end of the car. She opened it and took out a small box containing pen and ink, along with a fresh pad of paper.

  She was once again in an embarrassing position. She could not settle at the desk to write, for Quinn was still standing there, and if she sat cross-legged on the bed he might draw unwarranted conclusions. In the end she went to the bench and sat down, although writing there would be an awkward, if not hopeless, proposition.

  Quinn laughed at her quandary and drew back the chair at the desk in a motion so graceful that it was worthy of a maître d’ in the finest restaurant.

  Melissa didn’t trust him for a moment, but she had no idea what she would do if she couldn’t take refuge in her novel, so she allowed Quinn to seat her at the desk. Out of the corner of one eye she watched him as he picked up the array of books she’d thrown at him the day before.

  After he’d restored the volumes to their shelf he selected one to read and went around the partition to stretch out on the bed. At least that was what Melissa imagined him doing.

  Cheeks burning, she kept her eyes on her paper and continued to write. After a while the task absorbed her, as she had hoped it would, and she forgot all her own problems as she created new ones for her characters.

  Presently, however, writing became impossible. The train was climbing, and the incline grew so steep that Melissa had to seal her ink bottle and put it away. Once she was sure her pages were dry, she tucked them into the back of her notebook and made her awkward way to the window.

  Looking out, she saw a sheer drop and a collection of tiny rooftops. She staggered backward with a little cry and then lost her balance.

  Quinn laughed as she tumbled ingloriously over his prone body to lie beside him on the bed. “Don’t fight it,” he said, rolling onto his side and looking down into her face with delight. “It’s fate.”

  If Melissa knew anything in that moment, it was that God was surely a man. No female deity would subject a woman to so many indignities. She doubled up one fist and slugged Quinn in the chest.

  He only laughed again and kissed her, and Melissa knew she was lost then. An hour later, when the engine came to a noisy stop on the edge of Quinn’s lumber camp, she had to scramble into her clothes.

  “You can help Wong in the cook shack,” he said generously as he handed her down from the little platform at the back of the railroad car.

  Melissa gave him a scorching look and walked away on her own to explore. In the distance she could hear the bawls of oxen and the rhythmic rasp of crosscut saws, but the camp itself was quiet.

  She sought out the new cabins and the schoolhouse first and was pleased to see that
several families had already moved in. She stopped to chat with a plain, friendly-looking woman working at a washboard. The housewife’s name was Elsa, and her man was a bull whacker; it was his job to drive the oxen that dragged the big timber down out of the woods.

  Melissa was at a loss to explain who she was or what she was doing in the lumber camp. There was really no point in being secretive, however—heaven knew, word would get around camp soon enough when it was learned that she was sharing Mr. Rafferty’s fancy railroad car.

  She excused herself and, kicking at the dirt, started off for the schoolhouse, which sat on the edge of a little clearing. A creek ran past the front door, and wildflowers bloomed orange and yellow and purple and pink in the deep, sweet-scented grass.

  Melissa was enchanted with the place, and she envied Dana her job as mistress of this small kingdom. She loved children for their laughter and their noise and their lack of guile.

  She was not surprised to see Dana sitting in the cool, shadowy interior of the building. The young teacher was perched on a child-sized chair at a tiny table, helping a solitary student with a problem of arithmetic.

  At Melissa’s entrance she looked up and beamed, gesturing for her friend to come inside.

  Melissa looked at the crisp, colorful maps and ran her hand along the spines of new books while she waited. Finally Dana sent the little girl home to her mother.

  “What are you doing here?” Dana demanded of her friend, closing the arithmetic book and rising from her chair.

  “Some greeting that is,” said Melissa, out of sorts. “I was practically shanghaied, in case you don’t know.”

  Dana smiled and rolled up the world map behind her desk like a window shade. “I would imagine Mr. Rafferty is trying to keep you out of trouble,” she said airily. “Well, never mind. Tomorrow is the first day of school—you can help me with the children.”

  Melissa forgot that she’d been dragged up the mountain against her will and reduced to thrashing about on Quinn’s bed like a strumpet along the way. She even forgot that she was hungry and needed a nap. “Really?” she cried, delighted. Then she frowned. “Schools all over the state are about to let out for the summer, and you’re just starting?”