And now there was something else to look forward to: Spence was bringing dinner. Even before her father’s death, her social life had been pretty much nonexistent. She’d been dating a nice guy, but a year ago he had been transferred to another state. They’d kept in touch for a while, but their relationship hadn’t been strong enough to survive the separation.
Since coming back to Snowberry Creek, she’d been happy to renew her friendships with Callie and Bridey, getting to know one another again after living in different states for the past few years. However, both of them had new men in their lives. Other than the wedding shower for Callie a couple of weeks ago, Melanie hadn’t had a night out with her friends in ages. All in all, she was in sore need of some fun.
Granted, the debacle in the parking lot after the wedding hadn’t been any picnic, but hanging out at the bar with Spence had had its moments. His smile had definitely been the same, but it rarely banished the weariness in his eyes. She knew that look. The cause might be different, but she saw the same tired expression in her own gaze every morning when she put on her business suit and headed off to another day at the office. Pretending everything was okay was exhausting.
Other than seeing a few close friends, she did her best to avoid most people in town. All of their questions and comments might be well meant, but they’d quickly grown tiresome. She spent far too much time saying the same things over and over. My mother is fine. Yes, it was a shame about my father. No, the company isn’t for sale. No, I don’t know how long I’ll be in town. Yada yada yada.
At first, she’d appreciated the concern. Now she really wished they’d leave her alone. Bad attitude and all that, but it was how she felt.
She suspected Spence would run into the same thing once people found out he was back. They’d all want to know every little detail, even those he didn’t want to share. Maybe especially those. If anyone found out that she’d spent the evening at the bar with him, they’d be after her, too. Well, they wouldn’t learn anything from her. It was Spence’s story to tell or not tell; his choice, not hers, and definitely not theirs.
It had even been a bit risky going to Something’s Brewing that morning to pick up muffins. However, since Bridey had been Callie’s maid of honor at the wedding last night, it was a safe bet Bridey would have arranged for her assistant to cover the shop. Earlier, Melanie had discovered she had a voice mail from Callie. Evidently, she’d called during the time Melanie was at the bar, and asked why she hadn’t shown up at the reception. In return, Melanie left a brief message for Callie apologizing for not being there, but keeping the details vague. The happy couple would already have left on their honeymoon in Hawaii, but at least Callie would know Melanie had tried to return her call.
She hoped no one asked that question again, because she didn’t have a good answer. But rather than dwell on things she couldn’t control, she planned to finish her errands and then go home to work in the garden. The flower beds had always been her mother’s joy. Keeping them weeded and watered took time Melanie didn’t really have to spend, but to give up on the gardens felt like giving up on the idea that her mother would ever come home.
She gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make her joints ache. Here she was, a grown woman, one who had held down a well-paying job and lived a life independent of her parents. Now all she could think about was having her mother come back home and be the adult in the family. Shoving that idea back into the dark recesses of her mind, she concentrated on happier thoughts.
Like spending more time with Spence. Yeah, he was only coming over because she’d offered him a place to live and maybe out of gratitude for making sure he’d had a place to sleep last night. That didn’t change a thing. Regardless of his reasons, she was looking forward to the evening.
On the way back to the house, she stopped at the store and picked up milk, bread, some soft drinks, a few other things. After a moment’s hesitation, she went back and added a six-pack of the same beer that Spence had been drinking at the bar. After all he’d consumed last night, she couldn’t imagine him wanting more. If he didn’t want it tonight, maybe he would the next time.
Twenty minutes later, she turned down her street to see her father’s truck parked on the street in front of the house. She hit the brakes and waited for her pulse to slow down. In her head, she knew he’d sold that red pickup right before he died. But for a few seconds, her heart had forgotten. She’d spent so much time talking to his memory, it was as if her father was really back.
After dragging a deep breath into her lungs, she wiped her sweaty palms on her slacks and drove the rest of the way down the block. She had heard Leif Brevik had bought the used truck, so it meant he was waiting to see her.
She spotted him leaning on the railing at the far end of the porch. Normally, she liked the man, but today he looked pretty grim. No surprise after what had happened last night. Having Spence show up unannounced must have thrown him for a loop, not to mention Nick and Callie. Some wedding gift that was!
He’d spotted her and straightened up. There was no way to avoid him now, but this was not going to be any fun. She waved as she drove past the house to park in front of the detached garage in back. She figured Leif would follow her around to the patio. If not, she’d let him in the front door after she got the groceries inside. She grabbed the bags out of the trunk and started toward the house.
Leif was waiting for her by the bottom of the steps. “Here, let me take those for you.”
She handed off the bags and led the way up the stairs and into the house. “Just set it all on the counter. Help yourself to a beer if you’d like one.”
She made quick work of putting the perishables away and then fixed herself a glass of iced tea while Leif stood at the window, staring out into the yard. “Want to sit out on the front porch?”
He turned to face her, his dark eyes flat and his usual smile missing. “Sure. I stopped by because—”
She cut him off. “You’ve got questions about Spence and want to know if I have answers.”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”
The chairs on the patio out back were more comfortable, but she chose the front porch to give Spence some warning if he were to show up early. He might not be ready to face his friend again.
As she and Leif walked through the house, she was uncomfortably aware of the unhappy man walking right behind her, the sound of his footsteps uneven as he favored his left leg. From what she understood, he’d almost lost it at the same time Spence went missing. All three men carried scars from their time in the army.
Outside, she plopped down in the closest chair and motioned him toward the other one. Instead, Leif leaned against the railing right in front of her. He stared down at her for several seconds before twisting the cap off his beer. After taking a quick swig, he set it on the railing and crossed his arms over his chest.
“How long have you known Spence was alive?”
He packed a lot of suppressed pain and more than a hint of angry accusation into that one question. She understood how he felt, but none of this was her fault.
“I didn’t, not before last night. I was at the cemetery to take a picture of my father’s headstone for my mother. She wanted to make sure it had been done right. She’s still at her sister’s in Portland and was worried about it. I e-mailed it to her.”
Okay, she was babbling. Leif didn’t care about any of that. “I was about to leave for the wedding when I spotted a soldier standing over where Mr. and Mrs. Lang are buried. I thought he might be another member of your squad in town for the wedding who had stopped at the cemetery to pay his respects to Spence. I walked up behind him and offered to show him the way to the church.”
“Son of a bitch!” Leif winced. “Wheels saw his own headstone?”
Assuming Wheels was a nickname for Spence, she nodded. “Yeah, he did.”
And she’d nearly fainted once
he turned around and she recognized him. Luckily, Spence had caught her in his arms and held her close until her head cleared, but that would be their little secret. “God, Leif, I can’t imagine what that was like for him. What I don’t get is why wouldn’t the army have told someone that Spence was alive? If they did, why wasn’t the headstone immediately removed?”
Leif’s face looked as if it had been carved out of stone. “The army would have bent over backward to make sure the next of kin was notified.”
Then he let loose with a string of curses. “I’m betting they did let Spence’s uncle know, and the old bastard couldn’t be bothered to tell anyone else. I know for a fact that he didn’t say anything to his son, because Austin has been staying at Spence’s house with us. A while back, Vince caused some real trouble for the kid, and Gage Logan, the chief of police, intervened. Gage told him to stay the hell away from the kid or else.”
That matched up with what Spence had said. Back in high school, Callie had hated the way Vince treated Spence after he became his guardian. Vince had no use for him then, and it sounded as though that hadn’t changed.
Even if it made sense, it only added to her confusion. Spence knew better than to trust Vince to do the right thing and let everyone know the good news. At the very least, she would have expected him to call Callie. The two of them had been close since they were kids. She knew for a fact that he often spent his leave time from the military visiting Callie wherever she was working at the time.
“You never made it to the reception last night. Callie was looking for you, but you didn’t answer your phone.”
Leif’s blunt statement brought her thoughts to a screeching halt. She lifted her gaze to meet his. “I know I missed her call.”
Something she planned to apologize to Callie for in person after she and Nick got back from their honeymoon. “I did try to call her this morning, but last night there was someplace else I needed to be.”
He wasn’t buying it. There was no getting around telling Leif the truth. “I’m the one who brought Spence to the wedding. We got there too late to be seated, so we watched from the narthex. When it was over, Spence bolted back outside, and I went with him.”
She closed her eyes as the memory of those awful moments came flooding back. “When I first talked to him, he acted like his old self. Friendly. Normal, you know what I mean? That lasted until the service started. One minute he was fine, and the next he was so angry.”
Leif jerked his head in a quick nod. “No surprise there. A lot of us come back from deployment with a few anger issues. What happened after that?”
She frowned as she tried to replay the events in her head. “That dog found him. Spence seemed really happy to see him.”
Leif stood with his shoulders slumped and his eyes closed, as if the memories hurt. He didn’t speak again until after he took another drink of his beer. “Spence was the one who adopted the dog after he saved us from walking into an ambush. The mutt likes me and Nick, too, but Mooch really belonged to Spence. The two were inseparable.”
The former soldier opened his eyes and stared off into the distance, his jaw tight, and with a death grip on his beer. “I just wish Spence had been as happy to see me and Nick.”
What could Melanie say to that? She wished she knew some way to ease the bewildered pain in Leif’s dark eyes, but he was right. Spence’s fury had been impossible to miss.
Leif finally spoke again, his voice sounding rough. “You left the church to follow him.”
Again, not a question, but she answered anyway. “Yeah, I did. Considering how upset he was, I was worried about what he’d do next. It took me a while, but I finally found him at that bar on the outskirts of town. I don’t know the name of the place, but it’s a cinder block building.”
For the first time since they’d come out on the porch, Leif smiled just a little. “Nick and I just call it BEER because that’s what the only sign on the whole place says.”
She’d noticed that, too. “Yeah, that’s the right one.”
How much more should she tell him? “Spence made it clear he didn’t particularly want my company, but I ignored that and stayed anyway. At the rate he was downing beers, I didn’t think he should be alone.”
Leif’s expression was a little less grim. “That was nice of you, and I’ll let Callie know why you were MIA at the reception. She’ll be glad to know he wasn’t alone.”
He drained the last of his beer and set the bottle aside. As he did, he said, “I don’t suppose he told you anything about what happened, you know, over there. Where he’s been all this time. Hell, even where he is now.”
Melanie rose to her feet to stand next to Leif. She didn’t know him all that well, but it hurt to see him in such pain. Putting her hand over his on the railing was not much to offer in the way of comfort, but it was the best she could do. “No, he didn’t talk about what happened to him, and I didn’t ask. At closing time, Liam, the owner, offered to take care of Spence’s motorcycle for him, and I brought him back here for the night since he didn’t have any other place to stay.”
Leif’s temper slipped loose. “Damn him, that’s bullshit! He could’ve stayed at his own house. Did he think we would’ve kicked his ass to the curb?”
She so didn’t want to get caught in the middle of this mess. “I’m sure he didn’t think that, Leif. To tell the truth, I didn’t even think about dropping him off there. It was my idea to bring him here.”
That much was true, and Spence had been in no condition to argue.
“I honestly don’t know where he is right now, but I’ll tell him you stopped by when I see him again.”
Leif went on point, his dark eyes boring into hers. “So you will be seeing him again?”
She cursed herself for letting that slip, but too late now. “Yes, he’s supposed to stop by later. Do you want me to give him a message for you?”
“Damn straight I do. Tell that idiot to come see me or I’ll come hunting for him. I don’t know what’s going on in that thick skull of his, but he owes me that much.”
His anger drained away just as quickly as it had come. His voice was thick with emotion as if he could barely get the words out. “Damn it, Melanie, I thought he was dead. We all did. Obviously he’s got issues with us right now, and maybe he has a right to be angry. Tell him . . . tell him I’ll be around if he wants to talk.”
“I will, Leif.”
“Thanks for being there for him last night. I’m glad he wasn’t alone. I just wished he would’ve given us a chance to be there for him, too.”
Leif charged down the porch steps. She watched as he climbed into her father’s truck and drove away. The poor guy was clearly hurting, but then so was Spence. God, what a mess.
She had no idea what to say to Spence about Leif’s visit. Yes, he really should talk to his friends, but it wasn’t her call. She also didn’t want to get caught in the middle of it all. On the way into the house, she checked the time. At least there was still time to work in the garden. And who knows, maybe she’d be hit with inspiration while pulling weeds.
Stranger things had happened, not the least of which was having Spence Lang back from the dead.
Chapter 7
Spence started to slow down but immediately sped up again to zoom past the driveway that led to his family home without stopping. Rather than dwell on the past, he gunned the engine on his bike and tried to put some distance between himself and everything he wasn’t ready to face.
It was almost time to pick up something for dinner and head back to Melanie’s house. He hoped she hadn’t changed her mind about renting the cottage to him, because living in an apartment held little appeal. The thought of having other people right on the other side of a thin wall where he could hear them moving around at all hours made his skin crawl. It would be too much like being back in that cell again.
The wail of
a police siren jerked Spence back out of the past. He backed off on the accelerator and checked his rearview mirror. Damn, less than twenty-four hours back in town and he’d already drawn the attention of the cops. How fast had he been going? He had no idea, but no doubt the cop would be only too happy to tell him.
After pulling off onto the narrow shoulder, he shut off the engine and removed his helmet. Based on a lot of experience, he assumed the officer would want to see Spence’s driver’s license. He got it out and waited to see how much trouble he was in.
“Put that away, Spence. Even I’m not a big enough bastard to give you a ticket on your first day back in town.”
It took Spence a second to match the cop’s face with a name. He dismounted and stuck out his hand. “Gage Logan? Well, I’ll be damned. When did you get back in town?”
Gage gave his hand a firm shake. “After I lost my wife to cancer, my daughter and I moved back to town. I took over as the chief of police after Chief Green retired.”
“I’m sorry about your loss.”
Gage nodded as he studied Spence. After a few seconds, he slowly grinned. “You’re looking pretty good for a dead man. You caused quite a stir at Nick and Callie’s wedding last night.”
Spence tried to laugh but wasn’t very successful. “Leave it to you not to pull any punches, Gage. I take it you were there?”
“Yeah, I was.” Gage took off his sunglasses to give Spence a hard look. “Showing up unannounced like that came as quite a shock to folks. I don’t know where you’ve been, but I’m guessing they had phones there.”
Okay, so the man liked to play hardball. “Yeah, they did. I just didn’t have anybody I wanted to call.”
He waited for the man to rip into him over that, but he didn’t. Instead, Gage slowly nodded. “That’s what I thought. Look, I’m going to tell you the same thing I told your buddies Nick and Leif when they came to town. The pastor at the Community Church has organized a veterans’ support group that meets on Saturday afternoons. I don’t know what happened to you over there, but I’m guessing it wasn’t any picnic. If you find yourself having trouble dealing with stuff, come to a meeting.”
A Reason to Love Page 6