Not having to talk also meant he was spared making up excuses about why he hadn’t gotten together with his father yet. And why he hadn’t managed to get himself to forgive him. It was a cause Bess championed even more heartily than trying to match him up with someone.
More like a crusade, really, he amended silently as he sat back and listened to Melanie charm the ruffles right off his aunt. But how was he supposed to forgive and forget fifteen years of neglect? Fifteen years of being without a father? Fifteen years of thinking that somehow, deep down, it was all his fault?
The simple answer was that he couldn’t. There was no point in even trying.
He looked at Bess. She’d taken him in when his father had gone off to lick his wounds and grieve, taken him in and never once thrown it up into his face that her life had become harder because there was someone to look after now. Someone who made demands on her time and space, however unintentionally and silently. Someone who gave her grief just because he couldn’t find any peace within himself and took it out on the world at large.
Bess had always looked after him, not that he gave her an easy time of it. There was a point during his teen years when it looked as if he’d wind up spending his adult life on the wrong side of prison bars if he continued on the path he was on.
It was Bess who had literally knocked sense into his head, boxing his ears with those small fists of hers. It was when he saw just how much she cared, how important he was to her and how much he’d hurt her because of the self-destructive path he was on that he’d taken stock of himself and finally straightened out.
So, if she made him a little crazy with her requests and her nudging him along to make peace with his father, he forgave her. She meant well. All the questions and minilectures were all couched in love.
He owed Bess a lot. A great deal more than he did the man who had given him life and walked out of it years later.
Lance had no idea what he owed Melanie.
His immediate response would have been “nothing,” but something nagged at him, refusing to allow him to let it go at just that. He didn’t know if it was the way she looked at him or the way she’d felt, her compact, firm body pressed tightly against his when he’d kissed her. Or maybe it was because when he was around her, he could almost believe that good things were possible.
Almost.
He wondered what made a woman like her tick. Where did she see all the good that she saw?
And why wouldn’t she just leave him alone?
What did she want with him, anyway? He’d given her no reason to believe that there was anything between them, or that there ever could be.
Yeah, right. Nothing except a kiss that had singed both of them and half a dozen yellow roses to prove what an insensitive guy he was.
What the hell was he doing, anyway?
He looked at the cola he was having and wished it was a scotch and soda instead. A double. Then maybe the questions rattling around in his head wouldn’t matter.
And maybe then he could stop smelling her damn perfume across the table.
The two women were getting on fabulously. He’d never seen his aunt so taken with anyone. He had to admit that McCloud seemed to have that effect on people, drawing them out into the light.
Like him.
Since his input wasn’t sought, he would have liked to have tuned the conversation going on around him completely out. But, like a man standing at his own execution, waiting for the ax to fall, he couldn’t tear his attention away.
And eventually, it happened. The ax fell. With a resounding thud.
“So then it’s settled.” Bess placed her hand over Melanie’s and smiled broadly. “You’ll come.”
Come? Come where? Lance looked uneasily from one woman to the other. It figured. The second he’d allowed himself to drift off, he missed a crucial piece of conversation.
“Come to what?” he asked suspiciously.
“Trust a man not to listen.” Bess shook her head. “To my birthday party. You probably forgot.”
There was no censure in the chide. Bess knew Lance had a great deal on his mind. But she had her own reasons for having a party this year. A reason that went beyond just wanting those she held dear around her.
“I know it might be foolish, throwing my own birthday party,” she confided to Melanie, “but at my age, well, I don’t really care about how things look anymore.”
“There’s nothing wrong with throwing your own birthday party,” Melanie insisted. “I think it’s a great idea. Who knows better what you want at your own party than you?”
“I do like this girl, Lance,” Bess enthused. That, Lance thought, was abundantly clear. “And you’ll come?” she asked again.
Melanie stole a look at Lance. It was obvious that he was far from happy about the invitation. He looked as though he would like nothing better than to have her just disappear.
She wasn’t about to disappear. “I would love to come, Bess.”
“Won’t you be busy?” Lance looked at Melanie pointedly, hoping she would pick up the hint.
The look on her face was pure, unfiltered innocence. Her blue eyes delved straight into his soul, unsettling him more than he wanted to think about.
“No.”
A strange sort of desperation clawed at him. He didn’t want her slipping so effortlessly, so seamlessly into his life. He didn’t want her there. Because if she was, he might start to get used to it, start to even expect it. And that would be the worst thing of all.
He tried again. “I thought you were holding a big tea party or something.”
He’d only partially read the flyer that was up on her show window, Melanie thought, surprised that he had noticed at all.
“No, that’s on the following Saturday.” She saw the curiosity in Bess’s eyes and quickly explained. “We’re celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Thief Of Hearts.” She smiled at Lance. “After, of course, I make sure that the store is fire safe.” Her eyes shifted to Bess. “Would you like to attend? I even have the jacket and vest Stewart O’Donnell wore in the hunting scene.” How she’d come by it was a story she was looking forward to sharing with Bess at leisure.
“My dear, I would love to attend,” Bess declared, one eye on Lance.
He felt as if someone had just slammed the door to his prison cell. The sound even echoed in his head.
“What did you think you were doing?” Lance demanded after he’d made certain Bess was on her way home.
“Could you narrow that down a bit for me?” Melanie requested. “Do you mean at the restaurant, or on the way back, or—”
He gritted his teeth. No one was that thick. “I mean from the minute you walked into my office.”
“Being polite to your aunt?” Melanie guessed at the answer he was looking for. “And it’s not hard at all, she’s a doll.”
“Yes, she is,” he agreed with her, “and I don’t want that ‘doll’ thinking that there’s something going on between us.”
Large, cornflower blue eyes looked up into his. “And there isn’t.”
She was mocking him, he thought, fighting the urge to tell her what he thought of her little act. Fighting even harder to keep from taking her into his arms and kissing that confident, impudent smile right off her face.
“No.”
She touched his face so lightly, it was as if it had been brushed by the wings of a butterfly. A smile played on her lips and in her eyes. “Liar.”
He’d had just about all he could take. “McCloud—”
She heard the warning note in his voice and ignored it. “Sorry, my lunch hour is over. I have to go and rescue Joy.”
And who, he wondered, banking down a feeling that wasn’t altogether that unpleasant if he stopped to analyze it, was going to rescue him?
Chapter Eight
“Hey, wait up.”
Melanie stopped and turned around, half hoping that it was Lance calling out to her. But the voice was too deep to belong to him.<
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And it didn’t. A firefighter she’d been introduced to by John Kelly named Able McCarthy was hurrying toward her.
He gave Lance a cursory nod before turning to Melanie. There was a pleased look on his ruddy face. “I talked to Kelly last night. He said he just got that vase you sent to him. Told me he thought you were being way too generous.”
The vase had been a prop in a pivotal scene of a musical. Its only real value was sentimental. Melanie grinned. “He always admired it whenever he came into my shop. He said that someday he wanted to buy it for his wife.” She knew he was still raising his grandson and that times were tight for the older man and his wife. “Tell him when you speak to him that I thought it was time ‘someday’ came along for him.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that.” With the air of someone who suddenly realized that he might be interrupting something, Able looked from Melanie to Lance, who had stopped to listen to the conversation, and then mumbled that he had to get back to work.
So, he wasn’t the only one she gave things to, Lance thought. Just how did she plan on staying in business? “You keep giving your stock away like that, you’re not going to make any money.”
It wasn’t hard to guess what he thought of her business acumen. Melanie shrugged carelessly. She was far more interested in the delight Kelly had expressed when he’d received her gift. “I’m not in it for the money.”
It was an entirely altruistic statement, and he didn’t believe her for a minute. Everyone was always in it for the money. “Oh, then what are you in it for?”
She heard the cynicism in his voice, and it bothered her, both because he obviously thought she was lying and because he couldn’t believe that there were people motivated by something other than cash flow and the accumulation of wealth.
Melanie lifted her chin, daring him to dispute her. “The pleasure.”
For perhaps a minute he could almost believe her. The light in her eyes had told him that was exactly what she was feeling when McCarthy relayed Kelly’s message. Either she possessed the world’s most generous heart—or she was just a fool. In either case, he would’ve hated to have been her accountant.
Lance hooked his thumbs on his belt loops, his eyes on hers. “Can’t bank pleasure.”
She begged to differ with that. It was all in the way you interpreted your ultimate gain. “Yes, you can. And, just like money in the bank, it grows.”
He had little to no patience with people who weren’t logical or practical. “You’re even crazier than I thought.”
The remark stung and she almost retreated. She really did have to be getting back. But something kept her rooted to where she stood, making her unable, and unwilling, to tear herself away. A strange yet familiar feeling wafted through her. She concentrated on it until she could grasp it and understand why it was nagging at her this way.
And then she remembered. “You know, I had a dog once.”
Lance groaned. This was what he got for lingering. He should have just let her get into her car and leave, without bothering to see her off.
“Is this going to be a ‘Lassie Come Home’ story, because if it is, I have to warn you that my lunch is liable to come up.”
She ignored the image and the sentiment behind it. “No, this is going to be a ‘Lassie Didn’t Want A Home’ story.” Melanie looked at him pointedly. “Or, at least, that was the way ‘Lassie’ behaved. Actually, it was a male dog and I called him Petey.”
The wind was teasing the ends of her hair around, blowing it toward him. He stepped back and tried to tell himself that he was completely unaffected by it and by the scent the breeze insisted on sending his way. Her scent. Vanilla and wildflowers. And something more.
“Fascinating.”
Melanie ignored the sarcasm. “Petey was a mongrel. He wandered into our backyard one day and snarled and barked at everyone who came near him.”
“My kind of dog,” he quipped. “Why didn’t you have animal services come and get him?”
“When you see the wizard, be sure to ask him for a heart.” She shook her head. The answer should have been obvious. “Because if animal services took him to the pound, no one was ever going to adopt him. After a while, they would have had to put him to sleep. Nobody wants a snarling dog.”
Except for her, he thought. McCloud would have wanted him. Probably too blind and too stubborn to realize the deck was stacked against her. “So you set out to tame him.”
Her eyes held his. “Not to tame him, just to give him what he needed.”
Lance tried to ignore the parallel that was staring him in the face. Or, at the very least, take offense. “Food,” he guessed.
“That,” Melanie conceded, “and love. He needed that more.” Just like you do, Lance. You need someone to care, to love you. “Someone had really done a number on him and it took Petey a long time to trust anyone.” As she spoke, her mouth curved fondly. “But he did. Finally. After that, he was like a completely different dog.”
Lance didn’t care for analogies, and he hated being preached to. That was Bess’s prerogative, and he only let her exercise it on occasion. McCloud had no business preaching to him. She hadn’t earned the right.
“So, what is this, some hidden message here? You’re telling me that you think I’m a dog?” His brows drew together in a dark line as he dared her to get out of this gracefully.
“No, but there are some very striking similarities here.” Unable to stop herself, she touched his cheek, lightly skimming it with her fingers. He didn’t draw away immediately. “I think you need a little kindness, Lance. More than that, to believe in a little kindness.” Her eyes begged him to listen. And to hear. “Let someone be kind to you, Lance. It’s all right if you do,” she said softly.
What was she trying to do to him? Make him believe in what she was saying only to get cut down again? To be left completely defenseless again? He’d already been there, and he had no intention of going there again, of living through it again.
“No, it’s not.”
She read between the lines. “What are you afraid of?”
He didn’t know what possessed him to be honest. Maybe it was the sound of her voice, lulling his senses for the briefest of moments. Maybe, when all else failed, the. truth would work. And make her back away.
“Of liking you too much.”
“Too much,” Melanie repeated, savoring the taste of the words on her tongue. The smile, soft and gentle, began in her eyes and filtered all through her before it worked its power on him and drew him in as well. “Does that mean you already like me a little?”
Yeah, he did, and he deserved to have his head examined for signs of mental deterioration. “What, are you switching from ‘Lassie’ to ‘Columbo’ now?”
She smiled up into his eyes until he found himself smiling too. Just a little. “Whatever it takes.”
Lance echoed the phrase like some dazed teenager, mesmerized by the light in her eyes. “Whatever it takes for what?”
She’d never believed in playing games, in being coy or hard to get. She wanted this man, and if the game was too hard, he wouldn’t stick around to play. She knew that without being told. So she loaded the dice and threw them, hoping for luck.
“To get you to kiss me again.”
All through lunch, watching her talk to his aunt, watching her lips move, he’d thought about nothing but making them move against his.
He felt like some damned idiot under a damned hypnotic spell.
Lance had no strength to even pretend to protest. “Hell, why didn’t you say so?”
She stood perfectly still before him, her face turned up to his. “You don’t react well to direct requests.”
“Neither do you.” The front of the station was deserted. He blocked everything else out of his mind. Except for the mouth that looked like ripe berries and honey. “Shut up, McCloud.”
She saw McCarthy peering out beside the main fire engine. Lance wasn’t the type who liked being observed. “But�
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“See what I mean?” Didn’t the woman ever stop talking? How could he kiss her if her lips kept forming words? “Shut up, McCloud,” he repeated, combing his fingers through her hair. “So I can kiss you.”
Melanie did as she was told, sinking into the sensation that she’d been recreating in her mind ever since his lips had first touched hers. She could feel the pulse in her throat throbbing wildly, like the mad flutter of a hummingbird’s wings as it tried to remain in place. Lance deepened the kiss.
It was just like before.
No, better. It was better than before.
A woman could get easily addicted to this, she thought, winding her arms around his neck.
He had to stop doing this, Lance thought.
Okay, in a minute. In just a minute he was going to stop doing this. He was going to stop fouling himself up and walk away from her. Really.
He was going to stop.
Just as soon as he tasted a little more of her lips, drank a little more from the well she seemed so intent on dragging him to, then he’d stop.
Cold turkey, he’d stop.
Just one second more.
Lance wrapped his arms more tightly around her, completely unaware of how his hands had come to be there. Last he remembered, his fingers had been in her hair.
And his mind had been lost from the start.
“Hey, Reed, get a room!” The hooted mandate echoed in his ears.
Reluctantly, Lance drew away from her. But not completely. Cold turkey was not what it was cracked up to be.
His heart still beating fast, he looked at her incredulously. “What is it about you that makes me forget things?”
She drew air greedily into her lungs. She’d completely forgotten to breathe. She’d forgotten everything except how much she loved the feel of his mouth on hers.
“Must be the taste of the lipstick I wear.” Dynamite, she thought, she was playing with dynamite. She knew what happened to people who played with dynamite. They wound up being blown to smithereens.
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