“No maybe about it. Look at me. I found Jake in the middle of my own personal hell. That man almost had to walk through fire to convince me that we were meant to be together. Then, my brother-in-law, Cain Turner nearly broke my sister Faith’s heart before he found his way back to her after he was deployed overseas. But they finally did. They’re married now and have a baby girl. And remember Patience?”
“Oh, yeah. Patience was the McKinnon handful as I remember it,” Melody reminisced, recalling the beautiful blonde. “She had indigo streaks in her hair the last time I saw her.”
“Well, she’s still a handful, but the streaks in that crazy woman’s hair are red this week,” Harmony returned dryly, rolling her eyes. “She’s also married to Cain’s brother, Abel, and they have a household of triplets. Those two danced through the flames of hell before they finally found a home in each other’s arms. I guess my point is that sometimes love is a hard earned commodity, but when you find the right one, Melody, it’s so totally worth it,” Harmony shared quietly.
“We’ll see,” Melody offered with a sigh. Frowning, she turned her brown eyes back to Harmony. “You didn’t mention Honor. How is that sweet young lady doin’?” she asked gently. Everyone in town knew the horror that Honor had faced a few years’ back. Kidnapped after a high school football game and gang-raped in the woods, news of Honor’s horrifying ordeal had even reached the papers in Knoxville. Her grandmother had been good friends with Orla McKinnon, Harmony’s aunt. And Melody knew from what her grandmother had shared that Honor had physically recovered, but still remained slightly withdrawn to this day. Still sweet as the day is long despite her trauma, yes. But the open, extroverted girl she’d been before that long ago day had died in the woods. Meeting Harmony’s eyes now, Melody could tell something was wrong, but she didn’t want to pry.
“She’s…. had a really rough year. I’m sure you heard about Tanner’s part in what happened to her all those years ago,” Harmony noted with a shaking voice, averting her eyes from Melody’s.
“Hey,” Melody said firmly, squeezing Harmony’s hand now. “Like you just told me, that is not your fault. But, yeah, Granny mentioned that to me before she passed away.”
“I’m still having some trouble believing that I’m not responsible for what happened to her, but Jake reminds me every night that we need to leave the past where it is and concentrate on helping Honor now,” Harmony admitted with a faraway look in her eyes. “At any rate, I’m not sure you know it or not, but Patience and Honor got in a car wreck month before last. It was pretty bad. Touch and go for both of them for a while. Patience had the triplets early, and Honor was impaled in the wreck. There were some internal injuries.”
“I knew there was a wreck,” Melody whispered. “I had no idea how bad it was.”
“It gets worse,” Harmony sighed. “The brake line on Honor’s car had been intentionally cut, and someone helped nearly get them killed by running them off the road that night, too.”
“Oh, my God! That must have been terrifying for all of you.”
“It was,” Harmony affirmed with a jerky nod.
“So…wait. That means somebody tried to kill Honor?” Melody asked as the big picture began to form in her mind. “Intentionally?”
“Yeah. Patience was collateral damage, but Jake and Zeke believe that Honor was the primary target. They think it’s tied back into Honor’s rape and the men they never caught.”
“Good God! Harmony, I can’t even imagine what y’all are going through right now. My problems don’t even seem like problems anymore. Are Honor and Zeke…. Did they ever…” she trailed off. Ninety-nine percent of Paradise County knew that Sheriff Ezekiel Monroe was in love with Honor McKinnon. The man had never bothered hiding it, and he never denied it when asked. Honor, understandably, had issues after everything that happened to her. Melody had hoped that maybe the couple had overcome their obstacles.
“Oh, if only I could convince that obstinate little miss to stand still and hear how much Zeke loves her, Honor would be wedded and bedded by now,” Harmony complained about her youngest sister, pulling a giggle from Melody. “She thinks she’s not worthy of him because of what happened, Mel.”
“Well, that’s bullshit,” Melody returned sharply, pursing her lips. “If anybody deserves their happy, it’s your baby sister!”
“Preaching to the choir, my friend,” Harmony declared with a sigh. “But we McKinnons can be a stubborn lot when we take a notion in our head. It takes a lot to change our minds.
“That sounds like a Reardon trait, too. Are we sure our families aren’t related?” Melody asked as she laughed.
“Probably we are. I think the McKinnons are kin to half of Tennessee.” Leaning her head back against her leather desk chair, Harmony stared at her friend. “You know I didn’t tell you all that stuff to bring you down right? I just want you to know that all of us…every single one of us… is screwed up in some way, but each of us deserves a happy ending. Maybe now that you’re home, you’ll find yours.”
Melody smiled tiredly. “I’d settle for Hooks and Books being a thriving success. Love… I don’t know if it’s in the cards for me.”
“You haven’t seen anybody you might be interested in since you’ve been back. A little birdy told me that you were helped with some nasty car trouble by a wickedly hot hunk of a man this morning. Flat tire, was it?”
“Oh, my word!” Melody exclaimed, her brown eyes widening. “Is there anything in this town you don’t know?”
“I’m part-owner of the only decent restaurant in town, honey. Not much gets past the McKinnon girls,” Harmony disclosed with a mischievous smile. “Patience pays for good gossip with pieces of pie. I expect Honor to kill her any day now,” she added with a giggle. “Now, who was the hottie?”
“May I remind you that you have your own very hot hunk,” Melody teased, pointing at the picture on the wall behind her friend. “He’s hanging right there, remember?”
“Uh huh, he’s always watching over me. He also knows I love a good romantic mystery. So, back to the impeccable piece of man-meat that helped you this morning. Who was he?”
Melody quickly filled in her gal pal on the coffee chaos and flat tire fiasco that had consumed most of her morning. She finished with, “Honest to God, Harm, I didn’t know whether to kiss him or kill him by the time my car was fixed. And I have not a single clue who he even was, but he knew me. He knew my name was Melody.”
“Ooooohhhhh, intriguing,” Harmony squealed excitedly.
“No, Harm. The word you’re looking for is creepy. Maybe scary. Definitely disconcerting.”
“He rescued you from a flat tire and bought you coffee,” she countered hopefully.
“It was crappy coffee that I reimbursed him for by shoving money in his pocket. And I could have changed that tire,” she argued, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. “He was one of those He-man, Master of the Universe types. Definitely not my type.” Although, she had been engaged to Skeletor so He-man would be a definite improvement. When had she began thinking of men in terms of cartoons from the 1980s? Good Lord, this was ridiculous.
“Honey, the last type you had didn’t work out so well,” Harmony noted gently. “Maybe we should reevaluate the type of man you gravitate toward.”
Melody shrugged before admitting, “Okay, you might have a point there. The guy today was still an asshole though. He used the c-word, Harm. Out loud. In front of me.”
“Honey, from what you described, that barista was a c-word,” Harmony declared with a decisive nod.
“True,” Melody confessed under her breath.
“You liked him,” Harmony said softly, her lips tilted up in a small, knowing smile. “A lot.”
Melody sank her teeth into her lower lip guiltily because, let’s face it; she was busted. “He was… different,” she conceded softly.
“Different isn’t bad,” Harmony stated cheerfully. “In fact, where you are concerned, I think different is ju
st what the doctor ordered.”
“Hmmm,” she hummed. “Maybe. But I’ll probably never see him again. He probably just heard somebody say my name while I was at the café or the bank or something.” Although, she was pretty certain that if she’d been in a building with him, she’d have known it. He just had the kind of energy around him that couldn’t be ignored. Plus, he was huge. There really wasn’t any missing a man that had to be every bit of 6’4”. The stunning man had been massive… and those eyes. Nobody could ever forget looking into those hypnotic eyes of his. They were like twin pools of blue yumminess.
“You’re daydreaming about him again,” Harmony accused, her voice slightly raised to get the other woman’s attention.
“Was not.”
“You totally were.” Harmony grinned happily, unwilling to let her friend slide. She was excited to see someone as nice as Melody beginning to come back to life after a bad breakup.
“Whatever,” Melody said dismissively. “So, it’s getting late. Do you think you have everything you need for now?” she asked, as she slid a check across the desk toward Harmony.
Harmony tried to push the check back at Melody. “I told you that you’re my friend. I don’t charge my friends.”
“Listen, we’re both businesswomen. We both need to get paid for the job we do. Take the check to the bank and put it in your account, Harmony McKinnon Stone. Don’t think I don’t know how lucky I am that you’re even managing to fit me into your schedule. I’ve had my ear to the ground, too. You’re a right hot commodity in these parts.”
This time Harmony rolled her eyes. “I plan parties. I don’t exactly fly rockets.”
“Don’t diminish what you do. You host frickin’ events, girl. You’re an up and comer, and I’m lucky to have you on my team.” Melody grimaced as she glanced down at her watch. She’d already been at Harmony’s house two hours, and her friend’s kid would be home from school any minute. “I’ve monopolized your afternoon, chick. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not,” Harmony snorted. “It was nice to catch up and get some girl gabbing in between business talk. I can’t do that with most of my other clients.”
Melody laughed as she stood from her chair. “Well, I’m gonna scoot on out of here. I’ve got a contractor coming in tomorrow to look at how much it will cost me to renovate the back office of the store and the builder is coming to show me the first shelving units and get my approval to continue. It’s gonna be a busy day.”
“Well, call me later. We’ll get together to finalize your guest list and get some more gossip time in. We’ve still got about two months to tweak this day and make it perfect for you. Plus, hopefully, you’ll have more information on your Mystery Man next time we chat,” Harmony said longingly.
“He’s not my anything, Harm, but that sounds good,” she said as her friend followed her to the front door of Harmony’s house. “Thanks again. For everything,” she added meaningfully, giving the taller woman a hug.
“Call me anytime you need to talk, Mel. I mean it,” Harmony said as Melody stepped out into the sunny, but chilly December afternoon.
“I will,” Melody assured her before hurrying to her parked car. Climbing inside and tossing her purse into the passenger seat, she started the engine, gave Harmony one last wave, and pulled out onto the road, wincing at the rougher ride the vehicle offered on its spare tire. She knew she needed to have it repaired ASAP, but she was exhausted. She wanted a sandwich and a nap, in that order. Then, maybe she’d drive over to the 24-hour garage out by the interstate. Surely they could get her fixed up, right?
Mindlessly navigating the country road, Melody made great time as she drove through exceptionally light traffic toward her grandmother’s home – well, her home now, she supposed. Turning onto her residential street in just under fifteen minutes, she smiled as she saw the stately two story house at the end of the street. “Home sweet home,” she murmured, frowning as she passed a familiar black truck parked a short distance down from her house. Braking in the middle of the road, she turned to look over her shoulder.
“It can’t be,” she said out loud, staring at the shiny F150. Of course, coincidence was not a word that appeared in her vocabulary often. Reaching for the cell phone she’d dropped in the center console when she started the car, she thumbed through the contacts until she reached Harmony McKinnon’s name and pushed send.
“Hello?” Harmony’s soft voice greeted her with a tinkling laugh. “I didn’t expect you to call so soon, Mel. Did you forget something here, hon?” she asked curiously.
“Uhmmm, no,” Melody returned as she pulled her car into her driveway and stared through the opened curtains of her living room’s picture window to see a familiar giant sitting on her couch eating potato chips by the handful. And was that a Great Dane happily chewing on one of her shoes beside him? Please Lord, let this be a dream, she prayed silently, tightly closing her eyes for a full ten seconds before reopening them and finding the huge animal looking out the window at her. She then moved her stunned gaze to where her asshole of an ex-fiancé sat as he watched her from the confines of his luxurious red Porsche, which was ever-so-conspicuously parked in front of her closest neighbor’s driveway. Silently, she asked herself how this had become her life? Two stalkers in one day? That had to be some kind of record. “I’m gonna need to ask a favor,” she said tightly. “Call your attorney brother-in-law for me. I think I’m about to commit a double homicide.”
“What?” Harmony balked loudly, her friendly voice suddenly blaring in Melody’s ear.
“Let’s just say that my ex-fiancé is sitting in his car across the street from my house, watching me. And that mystery man from this morning? He’s sitting inside my house on my freaking couch getting potato chip crumbs all over the place! With a freaking DOG, Harmony!” Melody stated, her voice shrill as she neared hysteria.
“Where are you?” Harmony asked sharply, her voice growing worried.
“In my car,” Melody replied, her chest tightening as her eyes volleyed from one intruder to the other, a killing rage slowly descending over her.
“Stay there,” her friend ordered sternly. “Do not move. I’m calling the Sheriff on my landline now. Zeke will have you some help out there, lickity split, honey. You’ll have a police officer there before you know it.”
“I don’t want the cops for this, but I will need an alibi! Because I’m gonna kill somebody,” Melody yelled, her anger like a pressure cooker inside her head. She was going to blow sky high any moment now, she thought as she watched her ex slowly climb out of his car and begin walking toward her. Taking a deep breath, Melody could tell by the set of Bradley’s classically handsome face that he wasn’t going to go away easily. “Tell Zeke to hurry, Harmony, because I can’t promise I won’t kill Bradley Weller in the next ten minutes. And, for the record, I was serious about an attorney. I think I’ll need one at my bail hearing,” she growled before disconnecting the phone, pulling the small concealed handgun she carried out of her purse, and shoving open her car door. Climbing from behind the wheel to face her most current nemesis, Melody shook her head at him.
“You need to stop right where you are, Bradley,” Melody warned as she faced her former fiancé. “I don’t know why you’re here, and I don’t care,” she continued to state, still standing behind her open car door as she stared furiously at her former lover. “You just need to turn around and leave the way you came. Now.”
Her urge to growl only increased when she saw that infuriating placating smile begin to curl her ex-fiancé’s lips upward. There went her nap, she thought bitterly as the man took another step toward her. She supposed the other uninvited interloper inside her home would have to wait while she got rid of her first nuisance.
As talented as she was with her gun, she unfortunately doubted she could kill two men at the same time, although she wasn’t necessarily averse to trying.
Chapter Four: Two Stalkers, One Bullet
“You just need to turn around a
nd leave the way you came. Now.” Her order was clear, concise, and non-negotiable, and yet, Bradley Weller still stood there in front of her, only the metal door of her car separating them.
“Baby, just give me a chance…” Bradley began, his eyes darkening earnestly as he met her cold gaze.
“No.”
“What?” he asked, his angular jaw dropping at the sharpness in her tone. Melody rarely denied him anything, and his expression conveyed his surprise that she was denying him now. “Darling, give me a moment to…”
“I. Said. No. I advise you to leave now before the police arrive and I won’t press charges for harassment, Brad. Choose to stay and you do so at your peril. I’m sure your parents will love it when you call them to make bail,” she noted blandly, though her eyes glittered dangerously.
“What? You can’t be serious,” Brad balked, shaking his head at the woman before him. “Melody, this isn’t you. This isn’t the way you are. You’re a kind, loving woman that forgives easily. I know our current situation is all my fault, darling, but…”
Melody smiled. Not the sweet, loving smile she had once awarded him, but instead it was a cruel smile that never reached the deadened eyes that stared at him emotionlessly. “This is me, Bradley. The new me. The ‘me’ that you made when I found out my life with you was a total lie. This is the ‘me’ that was created when I walked into our dining room and found you rutting like a wheezing pig with my so-called best friend. This is the only me you get to see now.”
“God, I’ve hurt you so much, Melody,” she heard him whisper raggedly, his good-looking face twisting with regret. It was an act, and she knew it, but he did a really good job at looking crushed by her. Asshole. He deserved an Oscar nod for this little performance, she thought as she watched his eyes fill with crocodile tears.
Melody released a hollow laugh. “Hurt? Not even close. You humiliated me, Brad. You betrayed me. And for a while, I thought you had eviscerated me. But now? Now, I realize that you did me the biggest favor of my life. You showed me your true colors and you saved me from a lifetime of pain. So, no, I’m not hurt. Not anymore. I’m just done. Done with us. And done with you,” she informed him evenly, her head held high as she finally stepped out from behind the car door, closing it with one hand as she held her gun at her side. “Now, you need to go,” she reiterated, gleefully noting the astonishment in his eyes when he noticed the gun she held in her hand.
Tangled Hearts (Passion in Paradise) Page 5