He lifted her hand and kissed it gently. "And now, I've had time to let all the words you said to me along with a lot of lectures from Annie show me the error of my ways."
She could almost picture Annie's hands propped on her little hips explaining to her daddy why she knew and understood things he didn't. She was eight, after all. "What did she say?"
"The princess reminded me of how happy she—we—had been when we were with you. Every day she told me how much she loved me, and every day I've replayed you telling me you loved me. Every night, when I check on Annie, I keep thinking of those nights I found the two of you asleep on your bed. You both are so beautiful, and the angelic look on your faces as you slept helped me realize that while I might not be at a place where I believe I deserve you…"
"Daniel…"
"Hear me out, please. I might not believe I deserve you, but I know you both deserve the man you believe and want me to be. On my way home from work today, I stopped by my old shrink's office and made an appointment."
The tears wouldn't be held back any longer. As they streamed down her face, she pulled him into an embrace. She kissed his cheek and neck, before whispering in his ear. "I'm so happy for you. I know that wasn't easy. I love you so much."
He pulled out of her embrace, just enough so she could see his face. "I'm sorry that I didn't say this to you sooner. I love you, Melodie Alexander. Not just fairy tale love, but honest to goodness, real life, impossible to truly live without love. I've never met anyone like you, and, for the first time in my life, I've found true love."
She melted in his embrace the moment his mouth covered hers. The passionate heat from the kiss seared her very soul and branded her forever his. White-hot need sliced through her body as the tip of his tongue slid across her parted lips, deepening the connection. So very good!
Needing air, she reluctantly dragged her mouth from his. "God, I've missed you." To prove her point, she kissed him again between her words. "When I…thought I'd…never see you…again."
Finally, his hands cupped her cheek and held her motionless for a moment. "How did you find me?"
"Evelyn."
His eyes widened in surprise. "Big sister whose shadow you've lived in your whole life, Evelyn?"
She smiled. "No, big sister who my brave knight took head on and convinced her with his Southern charm and skill her little sister was a woman who deserved her respect. You earned her respect. Something I've tried my whole life to do and you managed it in one evening and on your first try."
The arrogant grin returned. "She thinks I'm hot shit, doesn't she?"
Melodie chuckled, "More like you rank better than average for your gender. That's the best compliment you'll get from her."
He moved closer. "Good thing I'm so into her little sister, or I might decide to prove to her I'm a helluva lot better than average."
"Oh, I already told her you were much, much better than average." She turned her head enough to kiss his slightly calloused palms. "Tell me I can stay, at least until we can figure this out."
Before he could say anything further, the door swung open. "Daddy, I'm home!"
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Daniel tried to shift his focus from Melodie's question to his daughter. Holy shit, she really wants to stay. She's not just saying the words. She's backing it up with action. She deserved the perfect answer, but first he needed to tend to Annie. "Welcome home, princess. How was school?"
"School was…Miss Melodie?" The backpack dropped unceremoniously to the floor as her eyes shifted between the two adults.
"Mel came for a visit—"
"I came to say how sorry I was I didn't get to say good-bye and see if you would forgive me."
"I know." Annie proclaimed even though her face indicated confusion.
Melodie moved to kneel in front of Annie. "I've missed you and your daddy a lot. So much, in fact, I had to come see you both."
She nodded. "I know."
Daniel smiled. His eight-year-old daughter still knew everything, despite having so much more to learn. He admired her more and more every day. "Mel was talking to me right before you came home. She asked me if she could stay with us for a bit while we tried to figure out if we could maybe be a family someday. What do you think?"
Annie narrowed her eyes, focusing them on Melodie. "Will you read me bedtime stories and make Daddy laugh? He likes you. And I really want to play with Jason again."
Tears started their descent down Melodie's cheeks again. "Those are all very important things I want to do for you and your daddy."
Annie moved over to Melodie and pulled her into an embrace. "Don't cry, Mel. Daddy and I want you stay, and we can prove it."
Annie looked at him. "Did you show her, Daddy?"
Melodie wiped the tears from her eyes. "Show me what?"
He took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom. Without saying a word, he opened his closet and waited for her reaction. He wasn't disappointed. Those beautiful green eyes widened, and he swore the dullness covering them during their last encounter began to fade away.
Next, he pulled her over to the dresser and opened the top two drawers. Her hand squeezed his tighter. Finally, he led her to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet.
"Daniel, why? You cleared half your closet, half of the drawers in your dresser, and are only taking up half the space in the bathroom. Why?"
He scooped Annie up in one arm and used his grasp on Melodie's hand to guide them all to the king-size bed, depositing Annie beside him. "Annie and I had a lot of time to talk on the way home. She remained insistent she knew you were going to come visit us since, and I quote, a lady simply couldn't live without her knight. After a few days, she convinced me that in order to prove my love, I needed to make room for you in my—in our—lives."
Annie piped up. "I told him he needed to get rid of some of his stuff so we'd have room for yours."
Tears trickled down her face, even as those beautiful lips began to smile. Not exactly the reaction he'd wanted. "Don't cry, Mel. I'm not good with tears."
Melodie's smile formed completely. "I know." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "This may be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me."
Momentarily forgetting Annie was sitting right next to him, he threaded his fingers through her soft waves and pulled her mouth to his in a crushing kiss. The hands of time turned back and filled his heart and body with pleasure as his tongue slid between her parted lips. She tasted lemonade tart, with the slightest hint of sweetness. Damn, she tasted good. The heat from her body infused him with warmth and fueled in him the desire to make her world as happy as she wanted to make his. He needed her. He loved her.
"Eeeww, gross!" Annie's exclamation broke them apart.
Daniel laughed as his forehead rested against Melodie's. "You know, princess, the couples in the fairy tales always kiss in the end."
Annie threw herself backward on the bed and put her hand over her forehead in dramatic fashion, "I know!"
Daniel kissed Melodie again, this time with less intensity. "Though it was Annie's idea, I agreed because I knew you believed me."
"Believed what?" She kissed him again as her hand slid to the back of his neck, holding him close.
Like I'm ever going to leave or let her leave again.
"Believed I wanted more—so much more than one night."
* * * * *
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* * * * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicole is a debut author with her contemporary romance series, Heroes of the Night. She has been an avid reader and lover of books from a very young age. Starting with Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, and Black Beauty, her love for mysteries grew and expanded to include romance and suspense. A Midwest girl, born and raised, her stories capture the
love and laughter in her real world heroes and heroines.
To learn more about Nicole, visit her online at: http://www.nicoleleiren.com
* * * * *
BOOKS BY NICOLE LEIREN
Heroes of the Night:
More Than One Night
Heating Up the Night (short story in the Killer Beach Reads collection)
* * * * *
SNEAK PEEK
If you enjoyed this Heroes of the Night novel, check out this sneak peek of another exciting novel from Gemma Halliday Publishing:
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
by
STACEY WIEDOWER
CHAPTER ONE
The It Girl
Amelia, October
Amelia Wright stared hopefully at the blank screen in front of her.
What’s wrong with me?
The words were in there somewhere, she knew—locked away in her head like droplets in a thundercloud, ready to pour out when conditions were prime. She imagined a sky filled with raining consonants and vowels, and the corners of her mouth twitched.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Her forehead dropped onto her keyboard, and when she lifted it back up a trail of sevens traced across her screen. Amelia let out a sharp laugh. Well, that was something, at least. Seven times what she’d had before.
This writer’s block thing, it was new. When she’d written her first two books her thoughts had flown so fast her fingers could barely keep up. The stories had burned a hole through her until they’d forced their way out, and from the beginning they’d taken on a life of their own. It had almost seemed out of her power.
But now, now she couldn’t get words on the page to save her life. It felt that way, too—like life or death. She had a sudden, comic strip-style vision of her tiny home office as an execution chamber, her laptop as executioner. Well, Mel, you’ve really dug a hole for yourself this time. Her smile was sardonic. No pun intended.
This, from the new It Girl in publishing. Her eyes flashed toward the ceiling as she sucked in a deep breath. Somebody had actually written that about her, in a New York Times article her publicist had emailed her that morning. Her novels were “taking the country by storm.” She was “the next Suzanne Collins or Veronica Roth.” Her books were the next franchise, hers was the next household name, and her fans would “camp out en masse” for the next installment of her “provocative series.”
Oh, if those fans could see me now.
She choked out another laugh and then shivered, mortified by the thought. Her deadline was no laughing matter. She had only three months left to turn a draft in for the series to stay on schedule, and so far she’d written…a trail of sevens.
Amelia shook her head. She’d known going in that this book would be harder than the others—known it and prepared for it. Her eyes swept over the pages stacked beside her, which were filled with notes and plans and outlines. The rational part of her brain responded to them. It said, “Let’s go, Mel. You’re ready. You can do this.”
But it wasn’t her head that was holding her back.
She closed her eyes and winced as the familiar face flashed behind her eyelids. She let the image float there, resisting the urge to shove it back into the dark recesses of her memory the way she’d trained herself to do for all these years. After all, hadn’t she asked for this? Hadn’t she known what she was getting herself into?
No. No, I didn’t think this through at all. And now I’m stuck.
In more ways than one.
She turned her attention back to the vast, white screen, one finger slowly tapping the backspace key to erase the single line her forehead had managed to type, as if that were the key to erasing her problems. But she knew better. As her thoughts traveled to the secret she’d kept so well—the secret that stood between her and the third novel in a four-part series she was under contract to complete—she knew it was time to face the facts. This part of the story was harder to write because the story was true.
And it didn’t have a happy ending.
* * *
Tick, tock, tick. Twenty minutes clicked by on the clock that hung just inside the door of Amelia’s home office. Usually the noise didn’t bother her—usually it was drowned out by the furious flight of her fingers over the keyboard—but today its measured beats were enough to break her focus.
She listened to the sound of time slipping away, gazing at the arrangement of mismatched frames on the wall across from her without actually seeing it. She jumped when her phone started to buzz, interrupting her reverie.
“Thank God.”
Her arm grazed the stack of papers as she reached for the phone, sending the top two pages fluttering to the floor. She grabbed for them and missed as she glanced at the screen, and then she smiled. “Reese Spencer.”
Of course.
Of course Reese had picked this moment to swoop in and send a rescue ladder down the eye of her shame spiral. It was like she had a sixth sense for it—Amelia had always had this tendency to drag herself down, and Reese was always there, saving her from herself, hauling her back up. It had been that way since they were six years old, and Amelia’s mom, Brooke, had failed to show up at the end of library story hour. Reese had begged her mom to wait, and she’d sat with Amelia on the curb in the hot July sun for forty-five minutes before Brooke had arrived on the scene, breathless and apologetic.
She’d never found out what had caused her mother’s distraction that day, but she’d always imagined, looking back, that it involved some guy she’d met at Walmart or the dry cleaner’s or the bank. With Brooke, it always involved some guy…
Anyway, things had turned out fine, just as they always did. Back then the world seemed to take care of Amelia when her mom failed to. And that day, and for many days since, Reese had been the world.
She replaced the papers on the pile and answered the call. “Hey, Reese.”
“Hey, Mel. How’s it coming?”
She glanced at the blank screen. “Oh. Um, fine.” She gulped. “Great.”
“Really? Have you had your burst of inspiration then? Are you right in the middle of it? Probably not, right? I mean, you answered.” Reese paused just long enough to breathe, but not long enough for Amelia to respond. “Are you ready for a break yet? I could totally go for a latte.”
Amelia smiled in spite of herself. Oh, Reese. What would I do without you?
Now there was a question with an obvious answer. She’d sit in this chair for hours on end, staring down a blank screen as if it were the barrel of a gun.
“A latte, huh?” She wrinkled her nose. She really needed to work—but then again, what she’d been doing all morning hardly qualified as working. “Yes, please. Get me out of here.”
“I knew it,” Reese said. “Meet you at Otherlands in fifteen? Then maybe we could go shopping. Ooh, you know what? Let’s go check out that new vintage place on Madison. Or, oh, shoes! I need a new pair of black work heels.”
Amelia blew out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“Stop right there. Definitely shoes…you know me. Give me an hour though. I’m a mess.”
“Yeah, right.” She could practically see Reese’s eyes roll through the phone line. “Like you’re ever a mess. Your mess puts the rest of us to shame.”
Amelia smiled wryly, thinking about that blank screen and all the reasons she couldn’t fill it up. She was a mess all right, in more ways than one.
There were some things even Reese didn’t know.
* * *
“You’re going out tonight,” Reese declared over their steaming, mismatched mugs.
Amelia watched as a guy with long dreads streaming out of a Rasta hat unloaded three packets of Sugar In The Raw into his grande to-go cup. He studied the coffee bar setup on the ancient, crackle-painted baker’s rack for a few seconds and then grabbed a spoon from the dirty pile, stirred, and stuck it into the clean. Her lips twitched as she tried not to smile. She’d done it before, too.
She breathed in the conflicting, familiar scents of espresso and ammonia that permeated Otherlands, her favorite coffee shop in Midtown Memphis. Around her, scattered rows of hand-painted tables were crowded with shabby, vintage chairs, no two alike, and local art hung gallery-style on three turquoise walls. The fourth wall, all glass, had a view out onto the busy streetscape, and the shop’s handful of customers were bunched around it with their mugs and laptops.
Her eyes flitted back to Rasta man as he snapped the lid onto his cup, adjusted his backpack, and headed for the door. This was one of her all-time favorite places to write, but also, on days like this, to people watch.
Reese waved a hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her daze. “Hellooo? Mel? Did you hear a word I just said?”
Her eyes widened. “Hmm? Oh, tonight?” She wrinkled her nose again. “Um, sure, I guess. I don’t have any plans.”
“Well, there’s a shocker.”
“Hey.” She stuck out her lower lip. “There’s a reason I haven’t been out much, you know. I’m not totally antisocial.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re on deadline. But even ‘New York Times bestselling authors’“—Reese made air quotes with her fingers, and Amelia smirked at her—”need a date every once in a while. Even if it’s just with their bestest friend.” She fluttered her perfectly lined and mascaraed lids over her bright-blue eyes.
Amelia groaned. “Stop with the puppy dog act. Fine. Yes, I’m in. I’ll go out tonight, and I even promise to have fun. How’s that?”
Reese smiled. “That’s just what I want to hear.” She looked Amelia in the eye. “Now, about that deadline. How’s it coming?”
Amelia glanced away, shrugged. “It’s coming.”
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