Here With Me

by Beverly Long

  She shook her head quickly. “No. I knew it would cause trouble between Louis and Grandmother, which would have ultimately caused trouble between Tilly and Grandmother. Tilly and Louis had been living here for about two years when this happened. Within twenty-four months, my grandmother had lost her husband and a daughter and son-in-law. I didn’t want to do something that would cause her to have a rift with her only living child.”

  “That was pretty grown-up of you.”

  It felt good to hear him say that. “Losing both your parents at one time forces you to be mature, whether you’re ready or not. When you love someone and they die, it changes you.”

  He sucked in a breath, almost like he’d taken a blow to the stomach. Had he lost someone special? “Did I say something wrong?” she asked, feeling bad.

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  She knew it wasn’t. Could tell by the stiff way he held his shoulders. She waited for him to say something else but he didn’t seem inclined to tell her any more.

  The need to touch him, to comfort him, was strong. She got up off the bed and walked over to him. Reaching up, she tucked a piece of his wayward hair behind his ear. She let her hand trail down the length of his strong jaw. His skin was warm against the tips of her fingers.

  “I’m sorry, George, if what I said makes you think about things you’d rather forget. I’d like to think I’m not normally so careless or hurtful with my words.”

  He stood as still as a statue. “You’re neither careless nor hurtful, Melody,” he said. “But you’re right. Losing someone you love does change you.”

  His voice was soft but she could sense the underlying tension in his big body. She didn’t know what to say to him, what would make it better. All she knew is that she didn’t want this man whom she’d known for less than a day, to hurt.

  The overwhelming urge to help him surprised her. Was it as simple as the innate need of one human to comfort another human in his time of need? Was it something more? How was that possible? They barely knew each other.

  He stared at her. They stood close. So close that she could see that he had a small white scar at his hairline and another one, an inch long but barely a hair wide, running horizontal under his full lower lip. She moved her hand from his chin and ran her index finger across both. “What happened here?”

  He closed his eyes and took two deep breaths. Then, very deliberately, he reached up, gently circled her wrist with his fingers, and lowered her hand back to her side. In the process, the back of his hand brushed against her slightly-rounded belly.

  He looked startled. “I didn’t mean to. . .” His voice trailed off.

  It was the first time she’d heard him grasp for words, and it made him seem unsure and vulnerable at the same time. It was an appealing combination and before she did something absolutely stupid, like touch him again, when he so clearly didn’t want that, she took a step back. She felt warm and off balance and she knew she needed to get out of the room. “I’m going to leave so you can get showered,” she said.

  He nodded. “That’s probably a good idea,” he said, his own voice sounding a little strained. He reached for the hat he’d put on the dresser and held it in front of him, waist-high, his hands gripping the brim so tightly that the tips of his fingers were white.

  “We need to finish our conversation, Melody. I’m not going to let your uncle cause you any trouble. It’s not right.”

  In one short day, she’d realized that George Tyler had a very strong sense of what was right and what was wrong. “Just ignore him. It’s what I do.”

  “I’m going to watch him,” he said.

  “Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult. If I know Louis, he’s going to be doing the same to you.”

  “Why is that?” His words were quick, like he didn’t like the idea of Louis studying him.

  “For one thing, Louis likes to think he’s in charge. That’s why he and Bernard don’t get along. Louis thinks that since he’s family, he should have more to say about how things get done. I heard him say once that he hates it that Bernard acts like the place is his.”

  “I’m not going to be acting like this place is mine,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  He almost sounded hurt. She wanted to tell him that while Louis was a lot of things, he wasn’t a fool, and that the man had no doubt already figured out that George wasn’t going to be easily dismissed. There was a rock-solid quality about the man.

  But she couldn’t tell him that. It was too personal.

  Not that it wasn’t sort of personal that she could somehow still feel the gentle grasp of his fingers around her wrist. Not that it wasn’t really personal that she could somehow imagine what it would feel like to have him hold her wrists the same way, her hands above her hand, his grasp pinning her to the bed, while they lay naked together.

  Thank god the man couldn’t read minds. He’d be running for the door.

  She’d been so lucky that it had been George Tyler on the beach last night, that he’d been there at a time when she needed him and he was willing to be here now, playing the lead in this rather absurd drama she’d created. She didn’t want to make him any more uncomfortable than she’d already made him.

  “Why else is he going to be watching me?” he asked again, bringing her back.

  “Louis doesn’t like stray dogs in his pen,” she said, for lack of a better way to put it.

  He cocked his head to the side. “As long as he behaves, I’ll just run the fence. If he treats you badly, I’m going for his throat.” Then, very calmly, like he hadn’t just threatened her uncle, he added, “And if you don’t mind, I think I will get cleaned up.”

  “Good plan,” she managed. George didn’t have to say much to get his point across. Whew. She resisted the urge to fan herself. She was living proof that hot flashes weren’t reserved for women in menopause.

  “I like your hat,” she said, rather inanely.

  He stared at her, so tall, so broad-shouldered. So silent. “It does the trick,” he said finally, his voice soft.

  She might be crazy but he looked a little warm, too. There was altogether too much heat in one small room. “I’ll see you later,” she said, backing toward the door.

  He nodded.

  She turned, opened the door, and got the heck out of there. She made it four feet before she stopped, turned so that her back faced the wall, and leaned her whole body against the smooth, cool plaster. She closed her eyes.

  Holy tomatoes. The man had her already wild hormones dancing. And no box step. They were doing the tango, with big dips and turns. They were wearing flashy red and three-inch spike heels.

  Her hormones understood that George was taking care of her. And furthermore, while it was such a girl thing to do, they knew, too, that she liked it. Which was crazy.

  She didn’t need anybody to take care of her. After her parents had died, and her grandmother had taken her in, she’d worked so hard to make sure that she wasn’t a burden. She handled things. Well. Always.

  But George made it seem like it was okay to let him take care of her. He made her feel—

  “What are you doing?”

  Melody opened her eyes and stood up straight. Tilly stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the railing, the other wrapped around a glass of red wine. She raised one professionally-shaped black brow. “Trouble in paradise?” she asked.

  “Pardon me?”

  She took a sip. “Did that handsome husband of yours lock you out?”

  “He’s taking a shower.”

  Tilly swirled the wine in her glass. “A man like that shouldn’t shower alone.”

  Something in her aunt’s tone made her snap. “I guess that’s my business.”

  Her aunt lifted one corner of her mouth, in a half smirk. “If you don’t take care of your business, someone else will.”

  Her aunt was somewhat of an expert on the topic. She knew the woman slept with other men. When Melody had first heard the rumors, she’d wor
ried for a long time that Louis would find out. She’d been a senior in high school, just weeks shy of graduation, when she’d overheard them fighting one night. She’d realized then that Louis knew—had known for a long time.

  The pair had hurled angry words at one another and it didn’t take her long to realize that Louis had had at least one affair as well. It had made her sick. It wasn’t the kind of marriage her parents had. It certainly wasn’t the kind of marriage she intended to have.

  As distasteful as it had been, it had been almost a relief to find out the truth. It had made it so much easier to accept that they didn’t care about her. They didn’t even really care about each other.

  “Did you want something, Tilly?”

  “Our guest has arrived. Your grandmother sent me up to tell you.”

  “We’ll be there in just—”

  “Fine,” her aunt said. She turned quickly and literally ran down the stairs. It took Melody a minute to realize that the telephone was ringing. Her aunt snatched it up and turned, so that her back faced Melody.

  Good grief. It wasn’t like she cared who Tilly was talking to. Melody looked at her watch. If they were going to make dinner, she needed to finish getting ready.

  She’d give him another couple minutes. She hoped George Tyler was the type who got dressed fast.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It took George at least three minutes to figure out how to turn on the shower. He felt silly standing there as naked as the day he was born, twisting and turning knobs, only to finally discover that there was a lever that also needed to be lifted.

  It was like the damn car—too much to remember.

  The water hit his shoulders and back, almost scalding him. He turned the right knob and got it to a warm temperature, which soothed his tired muscles.

  He couldn’t figure out what hurt more, his shoulder or his ribs. He rubbed the bar of soap between his hands and washed his hair first. Then, using the soap and the thick washcloth he’d found under the sink, he cleansed his body. Not knowing how long the water might last, he made quick work of it.

  He soaped up his still-half-hard cock. It had stiffened the minute Melody had reached up and tucked his hair behind his ears. And then when she’d run her fingers across his face, all he’d been able to do was think about kissing her a second time and it had practically sprung out of his trousers.

  When she moved away, he’d taken great care to hold his hat in front of him.

  He should have been relieved. It had been more than six months since his body had hardened for a woman, six months since he’d felt a woman’s softness. He’d wondered, after a spell of four months or so, when he’d been half-crazy with wanting to kill the men responsible for Hannah’s death, if it would ever happen again.

  Had told himself that he didn’t care. That he’d never bed another woman again. And now, here he was, acting like a stallion with a mare.

  Except some other man had already gotten her with child, had already planted his seed. Then he’d left her. No doubt she wouldn’t be welcoming another man between her legs.

  Even knowing that, however, did nothing to keep his cock from wanting. He just needed to make sure that he kept his need private.

  He turned the warm water off and rinsed off with cold. Then he stepped out, rubbed his hair almost dry with a thick towel, and pulled his new clothes out of the bag. He ripped the tags off. Damn, but things were expensive in this time. Melody hadn’t batted an eye at his clothes costing what would have been three months of wages. It hadn’t been just her. The store had been crowded with shoppers—mostly women—and almost all of them had been wearing trousers along with shirts that left their arms bare.

  He wondered if people used paper money anymore. Melody had slid some kind of plastic card into a machine and when he’d looked around, it had seemed like most everyone was paying in the same manner.

  He put on fresh underclothes and then pulled his new shirt over his head and stepped into the lightweight pants. He put on socks and slipped his familiar boots on. They felt solid and comfortable. He walked over to the big window and pulled back the lacy white curtain.

  Grapevines stretched as far as the eye could see. From this height, they looked like a mass of green, crawling up and over the hillside. Up close, from the back of his horse, he’d been able to see the delicateness of each plant, their thin trunks supported by steel posts and wood rods, and their vines, supported by rows of thin wire, spreading wide.

  He’d read books about how people turned grapes into wine. He just didn’t have any damned idea how it happened. He turned away from the window just as there was a soft knock. He opened the door. Melody stood outside, her hands together, the thumb and index finger of her right hand twisting the slim silver band she wore on the fourth finger of her left hand.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “You’re dressed.”

  “I don’t generally answer the door otherwise,” he said.

  She blushed, looking younger than her twenty-eight years. “I. . .uh. . .wanted to change before dinner and I didn’t really want to wait out in the hallway too long. It might look odd. . .you know. . .since we’re married.”

  He could still remember the first time he’d seen Hannah undress. They’d been married for all of three hours and had finally pushed the last wedding guest out the back door. He’d helped her that night, had slipped the tiny buttons through their holes.

  His hands had shaken. With fear. With delight. And until the day she’d died, he’d loved watching the feminine fussing that went along with starting the day and the nightly rituals that ended it.

  It seemed wrong, somehow, that he should share that with another woman. But it was her home, her room. “You shouldn’t have to wait out in the hallway like some naughty child. I can turn my back.”

  She looked at the timepiece on her wrist and stepped into the room. “Yeah, well, we’ll work on that. Right now, I’m just going to change in the bathroom and then we’re going downstairs. That woman who wrote the cookbook is already here.”

  “I wonder if Bernard is still pretending to be mad at her?”

  “So you picked up on that? He’s so funny when he tries to act as if it’s not important to him to have his wine, his baby, appreciated.” She walked over to the closet, opened it, and pulled out a blue dress the color of a North Dakota sky on a clear summer day. “This will just take me a minute,” she said as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  It took three. When she came out, he saw that she’d not only slipped the dress on but that she’d gathered her long hair up and pinned it with some kind of fancy silver clip. She looked lovely. The dress wasn’t tight but it did hug her belly and he had to tell himself not to stare. In his day, women hid their condition beneath skirts and petticoats. He’d always thought that was proper but he had to admit, there was something very attractive, almost seductive, about a woman who was with child.

  The dress stopped just above her knee and she wore no stockings. Her bare skin was tanned and he could not tear his eyes away from the gentle curve of her calf muscle and then lower still, to her slim ankle.

  He had a sudden vision of her naked in his bed, those legs draped over his shoulders.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Oh Christ, yes.

  “Jingle’s hungry,” she said.

  It was a good thing Jingle didn’t know what kind of thoughts he was having about the mother. George walked out of the room, grateful that she’d interrupted his thoughts. Another minute and he’d have had to eat dinner with his hat in his lap.

  ***

  Dinner at her grandmother’s had always been more formal than lunch and tonight was no exception. In fact, Melody didn’t know if it was her homecoming or Rebecca Field’s visit, but it seemed even more ornate than usual.

  The lights in the dining room had been dimmed and several sets of candles lit the long table. Light bounced off the crystal wineglasses and water goblets that anchored each place setting. A
vase of fresh flowers, flanked by two bottles of Sweet Song of Summer Reserve Cabernet, already opened, marked the middle.

  The chairs around the table were empty. Melody could hear voices from the family room so she led George in that direction. Louis and Tilly had claimed the couch. Her aunt’s glass was full and she balanced a plate of Brie cheese and crackers on her knee. Louis had switched from beer to wine but his glass sat in front of him, appearing yet untouched.

  Melody quickly figured out why. He was too busy staring at the woman across the room, who was having an animated conversation with Gino. At least she looked animated. Gino just looked uncomfortable, like he wasn’t at all used to having a gorgeous woman talk to him.

  And she was gorgeous. Rebecca Fields was tall, slim, and sort of exotic-looking. She had straight dark hair that reached her shoulders, and dark eyes. Her skin was pale with barely a hint of color except her lips, which were a soft shade of coral. She wore white slacks with a gold belt and a white shirt that had enough buttons undone that it was easy to see why her cable television show had men running to find their mixing bowls.

  She wondered if George liked to cook.

  If implants were flammable, this woman was in serious trouble. Or, if she leaned too far over. Oh, pardon me, Sir. It appears I’ve dipped my breast in your Crème Brûlée.

  She turned to see if George had noticed the assets across the room but found him already in conversation with her grandmother. She heard the word Brontë and knew Grandmother couldn’t help quizzing him about her beloved horse. She turned back toward Rebecca Fields just as Bernard walked into the room.

  He was wearing a suit. She hadn’t seen Bernard wear a suit since she’d graduated from high school. She wasn’t sure, but she thought it might be the same suit he had on now. She walked over to him.

  “Looking pretty spiffy, my friend,” she said.

  He shrugged. “It is your first night home.”

  It was but then again, over the years she’d had other first nights home and there’d never been a suit. No. Given the way his eyes had quickly searched out Rebecca Field, that damn woman, his sprucing-up had little to do with Melody’s homecoming and much more to do with a certain television celebrity.