Gently he pushed her from him. He looked down and rolled a tiny stone under his shoe. “There’s a reason I needed you to know this, Melanie. Maybe this is too much, too soon … Maybe you need time to sort this out?”
“What is it, Joel? Please, tell me what’s going on?”
He took her face in his hands and his gaze pierced her. “Melanie,” he breathed, “will you marry me?”
Joy rippled through her like the breeze over the prairie grasses. “Joel … Oh yes … a thousand times yes.”
He drew her to him again. His tender kiss was a healing salve. Finally, he ran a warm hand down her arm until he found her fingers and knit them with his own. They began to walk slowly, hand in hand, their fingers entwined, as their hearts had become. Her heart soaring, Melanie leaned her head on Joel’s shoulder, contemplating how hallowed a gift his love was.
They walked along the deserted country road until the light waned. Together they mourned the sorrows each had known. Yet Melanie rejoiced that this day that had had such a rough beginning had become a memory she would cherish forever.
Joel was invited to supper at Melanie’s the following evening, and before he left her house, he knelt with Melanie in front of Jerica, and together they shared their happy news.
“We have something to tell you, Jerica.” He smiled as Melanie’s eyes shone with tears of happiness.
“What is it?” Seeing them both on their knees, the little girl giggled, but the tight knit of her thin eyebrows told him she knew something out of the ordinary was afoot.
Melanie looked at Joel, then to her daughter. “Joel asked me to marry him. And I said yes.”
Through the window of the little girl’s wide-eyed gaze, Joel could almost see the wheels turning. She looked from him to her mother, mouth agape. “You mean … I’ll have a daddy now?”
“Yes, you will, sweetie,” he answered, surprised by the catch in his own voice.
Jerica flung herself at him, almost bowling him over. “You’ll be my daddy! Daddy … hey, Daddy …” She practiced the unfamiliar appellation. The sound of it on her lips sent a thrill through the core of his being.
Melanie put a warm hand on his cheek and looked at him with such love in her eyes. “You’ll have the most wonderful daddy in the world.”
He pulled Jerica closer and nuzzled the top of her head with his chin, his eyes locked with Melanie’s. “Yes, I’ll be your daddy, sweetheart. And the only thing that makes me happier is that I’ll be your mommy’s husband.” He leaned to plant a kiss on Melanie’s cheek, sandwiching Jerica between them. “We’ll all be a family—together.”
The joy in their laughter warmed his heart like nothing had in many years. He kissed them both good-night—these beautiful girls who would soon belong to him—and drove back to his apartment. In the shadow of darkness, he tried to ignore the terrible truth that nagged at his conscience. But it wouldn’t go away.
He had made a decision months ago. It had seemed right at the time, but now he found himself wrestling with the question all over again. Melanie was going to be his wife. Didn’t he owe her the truth? He’d asked that question a thousand times since the day he realized he was in love with her.
Voices warred in his head, and a chill went up his spine as he recalled the stern warnings of John Toliver, inspector with the U.S. Marshals Service. “You want to stay alive, Bradford? You tell no one. You got that? We’ve never lost a man who followed the rules. Never. But you do the Lone Ranger thing, and all bets are off.”
But he was out of the Federal Witness Security Program now, no longer compelled by the rules of the U.S. Department of Justice. He argued with himself. In this little Midwestern town where people didn’t even bother to lock their doors, who would believe him if he did tell the truth? The whole scenario would likely be met with bemused skepticism. It was the stuff movies were made of. If people knew anything about the witness protection program at all, they had the notion that WITSEC existed to protect Mafia thugs—criminal rats who agreed to squeal on their mob buddies in exchange for life outside of prison and a guarantee that they wouldn’t meet up with a hired assassin in a dark alley some night. For the most part, the perception was true. But the sad fact was that, of the more than six thousand witnesses to whom the program had offered sanctuary over the years, something like six percent were innocent, law-abiding citizens like himself. Men and women who’d had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—unwilling spectators to crimes that now demanded justice.
Joel wished with everything in him that he wasn’t a walking encyclopedia of Justice Department statistics—that he wasn’t himself a statistic. His had been a long journey—one for which he had no desire to keep a scrapbook. As it was, he revisited the terrible events far too often in his dreams.
Bile rose in his throat as his mind toyed with the memories. The reward for his sacrifices had been a hung jury. An evil man had gone free, and Joel’s testimony no longer held any power. The attorney for the defense was apparently confident that the prosecutor would not ask for a new trial.
Thankfully, Silver Creek was the end of the line for him. He’d had no contact with the U.S. Marshal’s office since before he’d moved to Silver Creek. Though he would always use the identity WITSEC had provided, he no longer reported to the inspectors. For all intents and purposes, he was out of the program, and he didn’t care if he never heard the term WITSEC again as long as God gave him breath. His unsolicited association with the agency had tied a thousand knots in his life. And he feared that he would never be completely untangled from the mess. Nothing—not even the very name with which he’d been christened—would ever be the same. He couldn’t go back.
True, there wasn’t a price on his head anymore. No one was looking for him now. Tim had seen to that. But God forbid something should change and they should trace him to Melanie …
A vision of Victoria Payne floated before him, and he shuddered involuntarily. If Melanie was ever faced with being interrogated on his account, Joel didn’t want her to be able to answer one question. He didn’t want her to even know the name of the man being hunted. And in truth he wasn’t that man. Not anymore.
Melancholy settled over him like a cloak. He fought to shake it off, scrambling to recall the scriptures that had offered him comfort and justification in the beginning—Old Testament stories of godly men and women who’d found themselves in circumstances like his and had been commended for their necessary deceit. The prophet Elisha, who lied to the Syrians when they came to his doorstep to kill him. The mother of the infant Moses, who hid the child and served as his wet nurse under false pretenses. Jonathan, who deceived his father to defend the life of his friend David. And Rahab, the prostitute whose guile had saved the Israelite spies. Joel thought of the braided cord that hung from the mirror in his car, much as the scarlet cord had hung from the window of Rahab’s house in the biblical story. That cord had been a symbol of her faithfulness. It had gained her favor with God and saved her life and the lives of those in her household. Rahab’s actions had earned her a place among the parade of the faithful in the New Testament book of Hebrews. Joel had taken that scarlet cord as his own reminder that God had not abandoned him. No, God had spared him.
But spared him for what? he wondered now. A life of loneliness? of never feeling he could be close to anyone? A lifetime of keeping secrets from the people he loved most? What kind of life was that?
He shook his head. He should be grateful. Today of all days he should feel God’s favor on his life. After all the tragedy, all the sorrow, he’d been given a fresh start, a precious daughter-to-be and a woman who loved him.
It was for her own sake that he couldn’t tell Melanie. He pounded the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. He would not dwell on the past. His past—the history of Joseph William Bradford—had died so that Joel Ellington might go on living.
He’d known enough of death in his lifetime. Living was what he intended to do now.
Sun
day night, Melanie called to give her parents the happy news. She ended up crying like a baby on her end of the line while her mother sobbed with joy on the other.
“Oh, honey, we’re so happy for you,” her mother said through her tears. “Have you called Matt and Karly? What does Jerica think? Have you set a date?”
“Whoa! One thing at a time, Mom,” Melanie laughed. “I’m calling Matt as soon as I hang up. Jerica is over the moon. And we’re thinking about April for the wedding. Things will settle down a little at work for both of us by then, and we thought that would give everybody plenty of time to schedule flights.”
“Well, you know your dad. He’d be out there on the next red-eye if that’s what it took.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Melanie smiled into the phone.
Erika LaSalle, too, burst into tears when Melanie announced her news after dinner at the LaSalles’ the following evening, but Melanie wasn’t altogether certain that these were tears of joy.
“Erika, what is it?” Melanie pushed her chair back from the table in the formal dining room and went to stand beside the older woman’s chair. Feeling awkward and helpless, she put a tentative hand on Erika’s arm. She was thankful that Jerica had already been excused to play outdoors. And thankful that she’d decided not to invite Joel today. She had suspected that her news might be somewhat bittersweet for her former parents-in-law—reminding them as it would of her and Rick’s happy announcement seven years ago. But she hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from Erika. She turned to Jerry for help, but the look on his face was one of equal gloom.
“I’m sorry, Mel.” Erika fluttered a slender hand, tacitly asking Melanie to wait for a new wave of tears to pass. Finally she composed herself. “I’m happy for you, honey. Truly I am. I just … I don’t want to lose you—either of you. You’re all we have.” She broke down again.
“Melanie, we want you to be happy …” Jerry interjected.
“It’s just that … already we don’t see you nearly as much as we used to. And now Jerica’s talking about changing her name and—”
“What?”
“Jerica told us that … she’s going to be an Ellington now,” Jerry explained.
“Oh no … You misunderstood. Yes, Joel and I told her that after the wedding we would be a family, but I would never take the LaSalle name away from her. Jerry, I would never do that.” She pulled out a chair and sat down beside Erika. “Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you two. I’ll always be grateful for the short time Rick and I had together, for the fact that he gave me Jerica. I’ll always be grateful for my happy memories of him,” she said tearfully, “and especially for the fact that Rick brought you both into my life.”
Erika dabbed with her dinner napkin at the rings of mascara under her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mel. Just … just give me a little time to adjust to this news. Since Rick died, you and Jerica have been the only thing keeping me going. I know I’m being selfish, but … I just can’t stand the thought of losing either one of you. And now … I feel like I’m losing you both at once!”
Melanie thought she understood. And she couldn’t deny it. The truth was they hadn’t eaten a Sunday dinner with the LaSalles in six weeks. Her Sundays had belonged exclusively to them before Joel came along.
She had intended to invite them to dinner with Joel some evening, but her time with him was so precious that she kept putting it off. She didn’t know what to say now. There was no denying that things would be different once she and Joel were married. Already they had talked about moving to the other side of town, closer to the church and Jerica’s school. And they wanted children together; they were both certain of that. Of course, those children wouldn’t have the same connection to the LaSalles that Jerica did. The new family she and Joel and Jerica formed would compel new loyalties and would consume much of Melanie’s time.
She hadn’t considered how these things might make Rick’s parents feel. Now she realized that, in a way, it must feel almost as if they were losing their son all over again.
“Oh, Mom …” Melanie had rarely used the endearment since Rick’s death, but it came naturally from her lips now.
She put her arms around her mother-in-law. “Of course you won’t lose us. I’ll still be at By Design. And you will always be Jerica’s Grammy … Nobody could ever take your place.”
She looked to Jerry, sought to include him in her tribute. “Jerica loves you two more than anything in the world. I would never try to keep her from you. Never!”
Jerry scooted his chair back and stood to embrace her. “We’re happy for you, Mel. We truly are. It’s just a little hard to remember …” He cleared his throat, and Melanie saw tears glistening in his eyes.
Erika rose now and put an arm around Melanie. Biscuit pattered into the room, his toenails clicking on the wood floors. The dog cocked his head and stood looking up at them as if to ask, “What is wrong with you people?” Looking down at his bewildered eyes, they all laughed, and the somber mood was broken.
But as Melanie drove home later, she realized that she had been far too wrapped up in her own little world these past weeks. She had more than just herself to think of. Rick’s parents were an important part of Jerica’s life, of her heritage. Erika was right. Her and Jerry’s memories of the past and all their hopes for the future were wrapped up in the precious little girl who shared their name. She must remember to respect that. And she must be certain that Joel understood and honored it as well.
Twelve
As the holidays approached and the year came rapidly to a close, By Design was deluged with work. It seemed that every client had decided that this was the year to do an elaborate more-than-just-a-card Christmas greeting. In addition, one of the company’s largest accounts was doing a major revamp of its corporate identity and had chosen the holiday season to unveil the new look. Every designer was working overtime to meet the deadlines, and when the designers were swamped, Melanie was doubly swamped.
She hated the extra hours Jerica was spending at the day care center, and she hated that her time with Joel had become so rare. However, one mixed blessing of the firm’s workload—aside from the financial boon—was that there were many candidates for entry in the annual regional design competition. It had always been Melanie’s task to select the pieces they would enter each year, and she spent many an evening at the office helping fill out entry forms and assemble displays.
Amidst all this, Christmas seemed to get lost in the rush. The holidays came and went in a whirlwind, and when Melanie went back to the office after New Year’s Day, she breathed an audible sigh of relief as she and several of the designers enjoyed the luxury of milling leisurely around the coffee pot.
“Isn’t it great not to be on deadline?” Suzanne Savage joked. “The only thing we have to worry about now is what to wear to the Addy awards.”
Silver Creek didn’t offer many opportunities for glitz and glamour, so the advertising awards presentation—known as the Addys—was a highlight of the year for the By Design crowd. It was a chance to dress to the nines, mingle with designers from other St. Louis area agencies, and for many of them an opportunity to strut their stuff professionally.
Melanie glared at Suzanne and pulled at her hair in mock distress. “You had to remind me? Couldn’t you just let me enjoy one measly day in oblivion before bringing that up?”
“Sorry, Melanie,” Suzanne laughed. “I take it you don’t have your dress yet?”
“Are you kidding? Last year I was still shopping the morning of the Addys.”
“I don’t think my nerves could handle that,” Sena Baker said.
They chattered on about the sales the local department stores were having, and finally, the staff meandered back to their posts. Nursing a cup of black coffee, Melanie went up to her office daydreaming about the upcoming gala.
“Wow! You look gorgeous!”
Melanie twirled in front of Joel, basking in the compliment. The sleeveless above-the-k
nee velvet sheath she wore was simply a dressier version of the little black dress every woman was supposed to own. But she was pleased with the way she had turned out tonight. Darlene had done her hair in a sleek upsweep. And with simple diamond earrings and strappy heels, she felt very feminine and pretty.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she told Joel, reaching out to straighten his bow tie.
“Well, I feel like I’m headed for my high school prom,” he lamented. “I’d like to get hold of the guy who invented these zoot suits!”
She laughed and her spirits soared in anticipation of a glamorous evening in the city with Joel.
“I can’t wait to show you off,” she told him, as he pulled the Taurus onto the interstate, headed into St. Louis.
“Same here,” he said, giving her another appreciative once-over. “Did I mention that you look ravishing tonight?”
She giggled. “Only about a hundred times.”
When they arrived at the America’s Center where the event was being held, Joel let out a low whistle. “Good grief, valet parking? What have I gotten myself into?”
“Hey, you’re a big-city boy. You should be able to handle this,” she teased.
He turned the keys over to the attendant and came around to escort Melanie. The night was cold. Overhead the lights of the city shivered in folds of navy silk, as though they, too, had dressed for the event. Joel and Melanie followed the crowd to the hall where the awards ceremony was being held. They checked their wraps and fell in line with the crush of other attendees at the buffet table.
The room was elegantly decorated, with pillar candles under glass chimney lamps providing the only light on the dining floor. Already the room was choked with cigarette smoke, which swirled artfully in the flickering light. In front of the stage, a small band played mellow jazz.
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