“Don’t let her go!” the voice of Mom called.
“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” Hope asked in a small voice.
Where had the strong, tiny girl who was there a few minutes ago gone? She’d been brave, managed quite the climb before a slip.
“No,” he told her. “We’re going to climb down together.”
She held on fast.
Wyatt had to anchor his feet tighter to keep from sliding.
He inched closer to the ladder, Hope nothing but a barnacle on the hull of his frame.
“Sweetie,” he said once they reached the ladder. “I need you to let go.”
She held tighter.
“Hey,” he said in a voice only she could hear. “You climbed up here. Let go and just sit while I step on the ladder and help you down.”
Those doe eyes blinked a few times before her grip loosened.
He started to let her go and she clasped on.
Distract . . . get her to stop looking down.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Se-seven,” she stuttered.
“Really? I thought you were at least a teenager, climbing up here like you did.” Her grip let loose again.
Wyatt kept one hand on her as he positioned himself on the ladder.
“I’m just seven,” Hope said in a much calmer voice. “Gonna be eight in August.”
Once his feet were secure on the second step down the ladder, he waved Hope over.
She scrambled like she had earlier.
No fear.
“August is a good month for a birthday.”
Hope nodded as she turned her back to him and started a slow descent.
“My friend Lorna’s birthday is two days before Christmas. That just sucks.”
The second story passed them as they talked their way down.
“Christmas birthdays always suck.”
“Yeah.”
“Birthday gifts get lost in Christmas wrapping.”
“Yeah.”
Wyatt felt the ground beneath his feet before he lifted Hope from the last few steps. He hadn’t let go when Blondie clasped the kid to her chest like a life raft in a turbulent sea.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she scolded without an ounce of anger.
“She’s fine, Melanie. You’ve climbed trees higher than my roof,” Miss Gina said.
Wyatt took a step back.
So this was Mel . . . Melanie . . . friend of the town sheriff . . . old friend of Luke . . . owner of a car destined for destruction in the back of Grayson’s farm.
The woman who kept him locked in a cold truck half the night.
Her amber eyes found his over the head of her daughter and held.
CHAPTER FOUR
She wanted to kill her, hold her . . . strangle her . . . scold her . . . love her to death.
Good night, parenting was a bipolar disorder.
Melanie knelt down to her daughter’s level and clasped her face between her palms. “Don’t ever do that again. You hear me?”
“But—”
“No buts, Hope! What you did was dangerous and you could have gotten really hurt.”
“But—”
Melanie let her hands slip to her daughter’s shoulders and tighten. “Never again!” she yelled.
Hope’s big eyes started to moisten and her bottom lip started to tremble. Melanie wanted to comfort her but didn’t want her point to be lost.
“Hey, Hope.” Miss Gina placed a hand over Melanie’s. “Why don’t we go inside and make some lemonade?”
Hope nodded and took Miss Gina’s hand.
Melanie watched her daughter walk out of sight before the adrenaline of the moment dumped into her system all at once. Her head grew dizzy and her eyes misted over. Before she could fall, she went ahead and let her knees bend until she felt the damp soil under her butt.
“You okay?”
Melanie squinted up at the stranger who’d kept her daughter from what would have been a very painful fall and sighed. “I’m going to be gray before I’m thirty,” she said.
He ran a hand through his brown hair before releasing the tool belt from his waist and dropping it to the ground. He pushed up a spot of grass beside her and rested his forearms on his knees. “You have had a rough couple of days,” he told her.
“Boy have I ever.” It took Melanie a full thirty seconds to register his words. “Wait . . . how would you know about my week?”
The stranger smiled, flashing dimples, and reached out his hand to shake hers. “Name’s Jack . . . Jack the Ripper. I’m on a work release program out of Sing Sing. Save little girls to keep my parole officer happy.”
She placed a limp hand in his and peered close. It was the stranger from the night before, minus the rain-soaked coat and pissy attitude. “Oh, God. I’m sorry . . . I mean . . .”
Melanie clasped his hand tighter and felt a laugh deep in her belly. It didn’t take long for that adrenaline to release in laughter. “I’m sorry I kept you out in the rain. Thank you for all your help last night.”
“I couldn’t exactly leave you there.”
“Lots of people would.”
He had the kindest chocolate brown eyes. His hair was long on top, a surfer style Melanie saw a lot in California. He had a decent tan, considering he lived in Oregon, and he was thicker than a pencil pushing desk jockey.
Fit, definitely fit.
A byproduct of his job, she guessed.
Wyatt lifted her hand, which still held his. “Can I have this back?”
She released it as if he stung. “Sorry.”
“S’okay. You’ve had a hard couple of days,” he said again. “The name’s Wyatt, by the way.”
“Right. Jo said that last night.”
He rested his elbows on his knees but kept his eyes on her. “And you’re Melanie.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw your car at Luke’s shop. He told me you were old high school friends. I assume you’re here for the reunion.”
Melanie glanced up at the Victorian. “Yeah. I can’t believe it’s been ten years. I promised my girls I’d be here.”
“You have more than one daughter?”
She shook her head. “No, no . . . Hope is my only child. I mean Jo and Zoe. We were like sisters growing up. Couldn’t let them down.”
“Even if it killed your car.”
“Even if it killed my car,” she said matter-of-factly.
They both stared at the roof of the inn before the silence between them took weight.
Melanie felt Wyatt’s eyes before she confirmed with a twist of her head he was staring at her.
Something she hadn’t felt in forever stirred deep inside her. She couldn’t tell if he was flirting with only a look, or if the dimple that deepened on the right side of his cheek was something he always wore. He was younger than her, if she wasn’t completely off her game . . . and she had a kid.
Flirting wasn’t something a man who looked like him did with a woman like her.
So when his eyes flitted to her lips, and then popped back to meet her gaze, Melanie attempted to push to her feet. Her hands slid in the mud before she caught herself and stood.
“I should make sure Miss Gina isn’t spiking the lemonade.”
Wyatt laughed as he stood beside her. “The special batch is always in the red pitcher.”
A teenage memory of that red pitcher made Melanie smile.
“Well.” She extended a slightly dirty hand to him again, felt a buzz of current when he took it. “Thanks for not letting Hope plunge to an early death.”
His hand was warm . . . comforting.
“My parole officer would have sent me back if I had.” He winked.
Melanie released his hand and bit
her lip as she smiled. Maybe she had a little flirt in her after all. “I’ll be sure and tell him you were our hero.”
Wyatt reached for his tool belt and fastened it around his slim hips.
He caught her watching his slightly damp ass as he turned to look behind him before climbing up the ladder.
“Going . . .” She stumbled on her own feet as she scrambled away. “Check on Hope.”
Wyatt the Ripper . . . from Sing Sing . . . laughed as she disappeared inside.
The lemonade was from a powder and not nature’s fruit.
With vodka . . . it was perfect.
Jo turned up after her shift and poured from Miss Gina’s giant red pitcher while the three of them kicked back in conversation. The inn was quiet. Hope was asleep, sent to bed early for creating several wrinkles in her mother’s face.
Melanie smothered Hope with a hug before making her go to bed early. The thought of her daughter hanging on the edge of the three-story Victorian would live with her forever.
“I wanted to kill her.”
“You haven’t stopped holding her since she climbed off that ladder.” Miss Gina released a long stream of smoke from her lungs as she spoke.
They sat on the back porch, the twilight and several strings of white Christmas lights running across the length of the wraparound porch offering enough light to drink and chat by.
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to strangle her.” Melanie sipped her drink, laid her head back against the wicker chair, and closed her eyes. “I will never have sex without a condom again,” she declared.
Jo started to laugh. “I think I need to quote that.”
Melanie pointed her glass in Jo’s direction without opening her eyes. “You do that! I’m done. One kid is more than enough for me.”
“I can beat that,” Miss Gina said.
“That’s a shame,” Jo told their host. “You would have been the best mom ever. You never get mad . . . take everything in stride . . . why do you think we hung out here all the time?”
Melanie lifted an eyebrow and saw Miss Gina lift her glass. “Might have something to do with the giant red pitcher in my fridge.”
“It was more than that. We could be ourselves here.”
Miss Gina waved her cigarette in Melanie’s direction. “You remember that for your own daughter.”
That was different . . . wasn’t it? “I need to keep her safe.”
“Safe, not smother her.”
“The world is different than when we grew up.”
Miss Gina shook her head. “Not in River Bend. We don’t change here. Other than a few businesses that have gone under, and the occasional bust Sheriff Nosy gets herself into, this town doesn’t change.”
Jo didn’t bat an eye at Miss Gina’s dig.
“Bakersfield was crime central. I couldn’t let Hope walk to school alone.” So different from our childhood.
“Why are you there?” Miss Gina asked.
“It’s where I ended up.”
“Ended up is such a cop-out,” Miss Gina chided. “You’re an adult. Take charge, girl. How can you be a role model to that little girl if you’re the mom who ended up somewhere?”
The direct, cut-the-bullshit trait Melanie loved most about Miss Gina did a fair job of raising the hair on the nape of her neck. Even though she knew the woman was right.
“It wasn’t my plan—”
“Change the freakin’ plan.”
Jo sat silent until then. “She has a point.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“For a high school reunion,” Miss Gina reminded her.
“I might stay.” The emerging stars above started to pull down as two of the most influential people in her life stared in judgment.
“Might means shit in my book,” Miss Gina said.
“I don’t have a job here.”
“So get one.” Miss Gina wasn’t letting go.
“Fine!” Melanie sat high in her chair, the hair on her neck now a hard stone ready to ward off any impending doom. “I need a job, Miss Gina. Is the inn hiring?”
A soft lift to Miss Gina’s left eyebrow and a twinkle in her eye told Melanie she’d been outsmarted by the older woman. “I could use some help. Not getting any younger.”
“Good! This place could use some help.”
“It could.”
“Good!” Melanie wasn’t sure why she was upset. She’d managed a job while sitting on the back porch drinking spiked lemonade.
“Good!” Miss Gina finished her glass and poured another.
Jo lifted her glass. “Well, that was entertaining.”
“I’m a chef,” Zoe all but yelled at the TSA agent. “My knives are an extension of my hands.” She’d ship her pots and pans if they weren’t so bulky.
The man judging the contents of her checked bag looked as if he lived on McDonald’s and Budweiser—which she could relate to and appreciate—but he had no idea what her set of knives meant to her.
She’d learned, years before, to simply identify herself, the contents of her bag, and her reason for shipping her personal arsenal with every business or extended trip she took. A return to River Bend for a week away from her personal life she considered an extended trip. There was no way she wouldn’t find herself in someone’s kitchen cooking something while visiting . . . hence, the knives.
“What show did you say you were on?” The secondary TSA agent who’d been called over had his balding head bent over his phone.
“Warring Chefs, season one.” She didn’t bother telling the man about the dozen-plus other shows she’d been featured on since. Warring Chefs had made her . . . if Google was going to pick up any hits with her name, it was that.
The confusion on the agent’s face lifted and his eyes narrowed.
“You came in second,” he said, his voice flat.
Right! Thanks for the reminder.
“Can I get on the plane now?”
The second TSA agent waved at his colleague and her luggage was shoved back in her bag before being zipped up and moved onto the conveyer belt behind the counter.
Dallas to Eugene wasn’t a long flight, and thankfully she’d managed enough frequent flyer miles to sit in the first-class cabin. The fact that she was returning to her ten-year class reunion with a suitcase full of knives that had set her back well over a thousand dollars, and wearing a dress that cost over three hundred bucks, and heels that cost half that, wasn’t an accident.
She hadn’t been back to River Bend in seven years. Sheriff Ward’s funeral.
What a crappy week that had been.
A town in mourning, one of her best friends taking a swan dive off the deep end.
And Luke.
The real reason she never returned to her hometown. She kept hoping she’d hear about him hooking up with some lucky woman and making her a mama.
Maybe she’d learn of a Mrs. Luke on this trip.
Maybe Jo was avoiding the Luke conversation on their occasional phone calls in an effort to save Zoe’s feelings.
She wove through security, taking the fast-track service that came with a first-class ticket, and made her way to the terminal for her departing flight.
Airports had become her second home. Between guest spots on Chef Monroe’s weekly show, talk shows, and special events where she would slave away for hours or days on end for a charity event in a foreign country, Zoe was a seasoned traveler.
Her frequent flyer miles almost always upgraded her ticket, and when they didn’t, she would spring for first class if the flight was longer than a couple of hours. No one wanted to resemble a sardine after traveling if they could avoid it.
Zoe could afford to avoid it.
She stepped into her designated window seat, tucked her purse in the space provided in front of her, and slid the lap
belt over her hips.
The flight attendant handed her a glass of wine before the coach passengers boarded. For the longest time, Zoe thought she’d have a silent trip home, until halfway through the coach seating a middle-aged man sat beside her. He offered a quick hello and attempted to tuck his carry-on in the overhead compartment.
He sat with a little flourish. “I hate Dallas traffic.”
“Could be worse,” she told him as she glanced out her window at the baggage handlers loading the plane.
The man wore cotton pants and a T-shirt with a parka. He looked nothing like those in Dallas. “Compared to New York and LA . . . yeah, could be worse. But not much.”
“I take it you don’t live here.”
“Couldn’t pay me to,” he told her. “Live just north of Eugene. Ten acres of silent, wooded bliss.”
Dallas wasn’t Eugene—that was certain. But both cities had their share of traffic and issues. In terms of her line of work, Dallas offered more.
Even if the heat of the summers was starting to wear on her.
Even if she was itching to find another green pasture to explore.
Even if the moist, cool weather of the Oregon coast sounded ideal after years of avoiding it.
Even if . . .
It wasn’t long before the captain asked that everyone fasten up, prepare to depart Dallas, and for Zoe to lose feeling in her toes from holding her breath.
She didn’t mind flying . . . it was the destination.
Her Dallas hating, Eugene loving seatmate offered a look of sympathy . . . or maybe he was worried she’d puke on him. “You okay?”
“I’m . . . it’s been a long time since I went home.”
He wiggled eyebrows as the engines on the plane started to speed up. “Family drama?”
He had no idea. Her mother and siblings had actually been supportive over the years. Outside of her youngest brother, who was doing his level best to join her father in prison, everyone else stayed on the sidelines of her life and didn’t ask for much.
She’d flown the lot of them out to visit her two years ago. It was then she realized that a two-bedroom apartment wasn’t nearly enough space to entertain a family. How on earth had she grown up in a home, a double-wide, with only one bathroom and two bedrooms?
Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) Page 5