by Dori Lavelle
Ten minutes ticked by and she exhaled, started to breathe normally again. Maybe she had imagined it all. Maybe she was still dreaming. She picked up her purse from the bench as tension melted from her body. But when she looked up again, there he was, walking toward her. Her heart started to race and her knees weakened with panic, but she straightened to her full height and looked straight at him.
Today, he wore a crisp white T-shirt that showed off the deep tan on his arms, blue jeans, and the same cap and glasses he’d worn last time. He removed the glasses and held them. He’d worn glasses for as long as she’d known him, and she had found them sexy. The glasses he now wore seemed to be photochromic, helping his eyesight and at the same time offering him the disguise he seemed to be looking for.
For the first time since he’d shown up, she really studied him. He looked the same, yet somehow different. His grey eyes were not as clear as they used to be, as if polluted by his secrets. His aquiline nose and the shadow of his beard accented his rugged good looks. He was still lean and athletic, but he seemed to have lost some weight, perhaps from the stress of having to look over his shoulder.
Scott put the glasses back on. “Melisa, I’m so glad you came. I’ve been coming here every day, hoping you would be here.”
She nodded and sat, pulling her gaze from his. She stared at the lake instead, following the journey of a dry leaf as it floated on the surface of the clear water. “I’m guessing you want to talk.” Her voice was clipped.
He sat beside her and his closeness caused goose pimples to rise on Melisa’s arms. “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again. I’d have understood.”
“Were you the one who sent me the flowers?”
Scott nodded. “I was in Serendipity the week of your birthday. I didn’t have the courage to talk to you.”
“So you left?”
“I was in Madison for a few weeks. I had to come back. I had to talk to you.”
“Where are you staying?” Melisa didn’t bother thanking him for the flowers. She felt more disturbed about them than thankful. And there were more pressing issues on her mind.
“The Drawbridge Inn. You know it?”
Melisa nodded. She had more than just heard about it. After Scott had died and she’d sold the house to pay off her gambling debts, she’d spent two nights there. It had been affordable, clean, and Joan Drawbridge, the widowed landlord, had allowed her the privacy she’d needed. This was rare in a small town, where people made others’ business their own. But the Drawbridge Inn was the perfect place to stay if you were hiding something or going through a difficult time. The eyes of the few people Melisa had bumped into at the time had all been empty.
Joan asked no questions. The one time she had knocked on Melisa’s door was the first morning. She had brought Melisa a warm slice of apple pie, which she gave to all her first-time guests. Coincidentally, Melisa knew she bought the pies every Monday morning from Mel’s Delights.
Melisa had sat on her bed, her tears dripping onto the pie, which Josie—to whom she had sold her bakery—had baked instead of her. It had comforted her and at the same time punched a hole in her heart.
“I know the place,” she said to Scott, tearing herself away from the painful memory.
Scott nodded and paused before asking the next question, which she anticipated before the words came out. “You sold our house?” he asked simply, but his tone was cracked around the edges.
Melisa looked away from him again as she remembered the day he had bought it for her—her dream home—and spent months renovating it from top to bottom. It had been a charming family house with a picket fence, a porch, pine floors, and a fireplace.
They had been out for a walk the day they saw the house for the first time. It wasn’t for sale. But the following week, Scott had presented her with a gift-wrapped box with a photo of the house inside. He had made the tenants—an elderly couple—an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Scott had bought her dream home, and she had sold it.
She shrugged. “I needed the money.” He had no right to ask her any questions. He should be giving her answers. She was grateful when Scott nodded and didn’t pursue the subject further.
“Can I invite you to the inn for coffee?” His gaze swept the park, as if he was worried someone might recognize him. “We can talk there.”
“Scott,” Melisa said quietly, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. This”—she waved a hand between them—“this is not normal. I haven’t forgiven you for what you did to me. I don’t even know what to think right now. I feel like I don’t even know you.”
“I know.” He removed his cap, ran a hand over his short, honey-blond hair, and pulled it on again. “Do you want me to leave? I’ll do whatever you want. I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have. What I did was selfish. I can understand why you hate me.”
“I can’t keep you away from Serendipity. Don’t leave on my account.” Even if she didn’t say it, now that she’d had time to see past the shock, she realized a tiny piece of her heart was glad he returned. But she was still blind with fury.
“I don’t care about Serendipity, I care about you. I came back because I wanted to see you again.” He moved closer, and even though she willed herself to move away, she didn’t have the strength. Instead, she allowed him to close the distance between them, and melted into his arms. He tightened his grip around her and buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply.
She knew it wasn’t right. Anyone who saw them in each other’s arms would get the wrong idea. She was married, and her relationship with Heat was fragile right now. She couldn’t let him find out about Scott—he would see Scott as a threat. She had to keep it a secret from him until their marriage was strong again, strong enough to handle more bad weather.
But as much as she wanted to get away from Scott for the sake of her marriage, she needed answers. She pulled away. “You’re right. We can’t talk here. I’ll come to the inn.”
***
The Drawbridge Inn was a charming little cottage with a porch and a manmade pond. Multicolored flowers surrounded it like a protective shield. On their way to Scott’s room, they passed a woman with wild hair and a black eye. Melisa wondered if she was escaping an abusive relationship. Or if the teenage couple giggling and kissing next to the snack machine and studying each other’s fingers had eloped against their families’ wishes. The inn was definitely a place of secrets.
Scott’s room was two doors down from the one Melisa herself had occupied years ago. In her mind, that day was as clear as the lake’s icy waters. The smell of potpourri and candle wax reminded her of her darkest moments. The pain and fear she’d felt the night she’d checked in shot through her veins again with such force that she froze in her tracks and leaned against the nearest wall. She swore she could smell the alcohol that had been on her own breath.
“You okay?” Scott placed a hand at the place between her shoulder blades.
Melisa nodded, recoiling from his touch. Bitter bile forced itself up her throat and she fought hard to keep it down.
Scott nodded as if he understood her reaction. With an unreadable expression, he turned the key in the lock. The door squeaked as he opened it.
Melisa followed him inside on trembling knees and lowered herself into the nearest chair. The room was an exact replica of the one she had stayed in. It was furnished with a quilt-covered single bed, a shabby arm chair, a tiny TV set with the room number on a sticker in the top right corner, and the wooden chair she sat on. Flowery prints were supposed to cheer up the small, stuffy room, but they failed miserably. The air was thick with unspoken secrets, making it hard to inhale. She felt as if she were under water.
“Can I get you something to drink? I have warm beer and a coke,” Scott said sheepishly.
Melisa shook her head and shot to her feet. She pushed past him into the closet of a bathroom, where she fell hard onto her knees. She positioned her head over the toilet bowl just in time for the bil
e to find its freedom; it flooded her throat and mouth, making her eyes water. As she retched into the bowl, her body shook with repulsion.
It was hard to imagine she was once a drunk. Now, even on the days she would kill for a glass of vodka to ease the tension, her body rejected the very thought of alcohol. She had found that out one afternoon, a few months ago, while she was pregnant. She had walked past a man holding an open can of beer and the smell made her gag. She had blamed her reaction on her pregnancy. And maybe pregnancy had completely turned her off the liquid for good, which was both a good thing and a bad one. She had no intention of going back down that road again—the journey back to sobriety was too long.
However, alcohol had been an invisible safety blanket, something to get her through the hardest of times. Now she was forced to stand on her own feet, to deal with fate’s blows all on her own. But she was faced with so many things all at once, she had no idea how she was going to be able to make it through. She couldn’t lean on her husband because he reminded her too much of what they had lost and the decision he had made. She couldn’t lean too much on Carlene because she didn’t want to burden her friend. The one man she had once considered her shield, the man who had once made her feel the safest, had come back—but this time, he was the one hurting her more than anyone ever had.
Heat had always been the love of her life, the one who had gotten away. But Scott had been the one she thought would never hurt her. When they met and she was still getting over the heartbreak Heat had inflicted on her, Scott had been the balsam and the bandage to help her heal. Soon, she’d fallen in love with her protector. She had loved him so much—but in a different way from Heat. She had loved him enough to trust him with her life, her future, enough to give up what she thought she could have had with Heat and move on. Now, the tables had turned.
The man who, once upon a time, had been her whole world was alive, but only in the flesh. The Scott she had known and fallen in love with was dead and buried, along with their life together. That Scott would never hurt her.
Still, a voice inside her urged her to wake up and face reality, face the truth that the man who had once mended her heart had returned to break it. When she stopped vomiting, she wiped her mouth with toilet paper and stood on wobbly knees, empty inside.
“Can I do anything… get you anything?” Scott’s voice was filled with worry.
Melisa rinsed her mouth and turned to him with watery eyes. “There’s only one thing I want from you.” Her voice hardened. “Convince me why I shouldn’t walk out of here right now and call the cops.”
He nodded and turned to walk out of the bathroom with Melisa behind him. This time, he sat in the wooden chair and she went for the flowery armchair.
“There’s something I never told you.” He placed his hands on his knees and met her eyes. “I grew up with an abusive, short-tempered father who made my life hell. He beat my mother to a pulp almost daily. It took almost killing her for her to get the guts to leave him and start a new life. I never saw her again. My dad took it out on me. He was a monster. He hurt me for years, emotionally and physically. But no one could touch him. He was a respected policeman who everybody believed to be a good man. When I showed up at school with broken ribs or stitches, the teachers turned the other way.”
Melisa crossed her arms. “You told me your father was a fireman, just like your brother had been. Wasn’t that why you chose the profession in the first place?” Scott didn’t respond, and Melisa took that as his answer. He had lied to her. He didn’t even have a brother. She bit her lip and shook her head. How many lies did she have to brace herself for? “Go on.”
“One night, he came home drunk and furious about something and used me as a punching bag. When he was satisfied, he went back upstairs to his bedroom. Since I was used to the daily abuse, I waited until he fell asleep and went to the kitchen, where I found painkillers and his cigarettes.”
Melisa raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t a smoker, but I needed a few that night.” Scott sucked in a breath and exhaled. “I sat at the table and smoked three, maybe four. Then I went back to bed. Next thing I knew, Jack was shaking me awake and there was smoke all around me.”
“Jack? He lived with you? And he never intervened when your father…”
“No, Peculiar Jack, as everyone called him, lived next door. He kept to himself. The whole neighborhood stayed away from him, thinking he was eccentric. But he was old and frail, so I did some odd jobs for him. Sometimes when my father was on his abusive rants, I caught him watching out his window, but like everyone else in town, he never did anything. That night, though, he got me out of the house a minute or two before it collapsed. My father died in the fire.”
Melisa swallowed hard. “It wasn’t you who set the fire, was it? When you went to bed there was nothing out of the ordinary, right?”
Scott shrugged. “I might have set the fire.” He shifted in the chair and it squeaked. “I was blind with rage that night. I wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me. Something had snapped inside me. Before I went to bed, I toyed with the thought. Hell, I went as far as pulling out a box of matches and collecting all the alcohol he kept stashed around the house. I lined the bottles next to each other on the kitchen table. But I went to bed without setting anything on fire. At least I think I did. I’m not sure.”
A sudden chill spread through Melisa’s core and out along her arms. She wished she could clap her hands over her ears and stop listening to everything Scott was saying. He was like an onion, and each word he uttered unpeeled him, layer by layer, to reveal the person he really was. Someone she didn’t recognize. But how much more could a few more words hurt her already broken heart?
“What do you mean? You just woke up and the house was on fire?”
He nodded.
Melisa sighed and leaned back. “Then why do you think you could have done it?”
“I can’t remember, but at first the cops found evidence that I did. The bruises on my body from the beatings communicated that I had motive.”
“Scott, how can you not know if you set a fire? I don’t get it.” Melisa wasn’t sure what to think. Was he lying to her again? Why start lying now, when the damage was already done?
“As a child I used to sleepwalk, especially when I was distressed. Sometimes I did things I couldn’t remember the next day.”
“You never told me.” Melisa’s breath caught in her throat. “How could you not share such things with your wife?”
Scott’s shoulders slumped forward and he ran a hand across his brow to wipe away the sweat that had popped up. “I didn’t want to scare you. Anyway, there was an investigation, but they didn’t find any concrete evidence to show I had actually done it. In the end, they pinned it on my father. Since he was drunk, he might have forgotten to kill a cigarette before falling asleep.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I didn’t tell them about getting the matches and the alcohol. So they had to let me go.”
“But you had nowhere to go.” Despite her anger, Melisa’s heart ached for the abused boy Scott had been.
“Peculiar Jack took me in. I wouldn’t have known where else to go.” Scott gave Melisa a bitter smile. “I guess he was trying to thank me for all the gardening and other chores I helped him with for free.”
Melisa nodded. “That’s nice. You weren’t completely alone.”
“No. But then Jack had a heart attack a few months after I moved in. He didn’t survive it. Since he had no living relatives, he left me everything. Enough money to get me through college and live a few comfortable years. After his death, I applied for college here in Wisconsin. I wanted to get out of Boston.” He paused and clasped his hands in front of him. “Remember Heat, my best friend? We met at a summer camp and became instant friends. We kept in touch and he told me about Serendipity. It sounded like a nice place to hide.”
Melisa moistened her lips as her heart started to race. What would he think about her bein
g married to his best friend? He didn’t have to know. Not yet. “And you never told anyone what had happened. Not even me? Did Heat know?” Melisa combed her fingers through her curls.
“No, he didn’t. And I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of what you’d think of me. I wanted to forget about my father…and everything. I wanted a fresh start. When I met you, there was no looking back. You were my chance.”
“If Serendipity was the right place and I was the fresh start you’re talking about, why did you fake your death? Were you looking for another fresh start someplace else?” Melisa’s tone was made of steel.
Scott cleared his throat. “For all the years I was here, I lived with the guilt of possibly being a murderer—a murder I couldn’t even remember. It ate me up inside. I chose to be a fireman, thinking that in saving other people’s lives, I might be able to wash away that guilt. It never quite worked. Then I stumbled upon an online article and found out the case had been reopened. New concrete evidence against me had been found. One item was a journal of mine that had somehow survived the fire. The article didn’t state what was in the diary, but I know what I wrote. In a few entries, I wished my father dead. I ignored the article for while and then I couldn’t bear it any longer. I knew it was only a matter of time before they found me.” He removed his cap and placed it on his knees. His hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat.
“But it happened such a long time ago. Doesn’t the statute of limitations apply?”
“For arson, yes. For manslaughter, maybe. But I think there’s no statute of limitations on first-degree murder.”
“My God.” Melisa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why didn’t you ever tell me all this?”
“I didn’t want you to see how imperfect I was, Melisa.”