Love and Trust

by Jean Oram

  Tristen crossed his arms and glared at the man. If anyone was going to use cute nicknames and protect Melanie, it was him, not Biker Dude.

  “Okay, well. This is getting awkward.” Melanie handed the helmet to Ezra. “Thank you for letting me try Marley. She was awesome. But you might not want to let me do that again.”

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  Tristen leaned closer.

  “Because I’ll want one,” Melanie said, giving the biker a conspiratorial elbow nudge.

  “That’s my girl.” Ezra slung an arm around her shoulders with in a jingle-jangle of chains.

  “Melanie Summer! Was that you squealing those tires?” A small woman with a plume of graying hair strode up to the group, her finger waving.

  “Mrs. Star. How’s your sister in Blueberry Springs?”

  The woman brushed off Melanie, who was closing in for a hug. “Don’t you sweet-talk me, you young thing. Those two-wheeled contraptions are death traps.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Melanie said.

  “Well?”

  “She was doing me a favor, ma’am,” Ezra interjected.

  Mrs. Star cocked her head at the man in leathers, and Tristen found himself holding his breath. The pleats of her skirt flicked back and forth as she stormed over to poke the biker in the chest.

  “Don’t you go pulling a lovely, innocent young woman like Melanie Summer into your Hells Angels business, you hear?” She smacked Ezra in the gut with her handbag. “I’ll tell your mother what you’ve been up to.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The biker gave a small, submissive bow.

  “Now come with me. I need your help.”

  Ezra gave Melanie a chaste cheek kiss, then escorted Mrs. Star into a store nearby.

  Wow. Maybe the biker wasn’t so scary, after all.

  “I hope I’m like Mrs. Star when I’m retired,” Melanie said.

  Please tell him she didn’t really want that.

  “So full of energy. She’s awesome.”

  “And about to castrate a member of the Hells Angels.”

  Melanie laughed and steered him into the law office, her body bumping up against his as they went, no seeming awkwardness due to their night together. “I have something I want to show you.”

  He tried to remind himself that she likely wouldn’t be showing him what his gutter mind had imagined, but given the polka-dot dress she was wearing, he’d probably allow her to drag him to hell and back, with a smile on his face.

  Melanie was vibrating with excitement and he couldn’t help but think that maybe it was leftover adrenaline from her motorcycle ride with no leathers. The woman was nuts. Crazy. Insane. Energetic. Inspired. Smart. Creative. Sweet. Determined. Lovely.

  He loved her.

  Whoa. Stop that train of thought. He did not love her. He was simply intrigued. She was interesting and caught him off guard, and kissed and made love like a devilish whirlwind, that was all. Nothing more. Absolutely nothing more.

  “Check this out.” She unwrapped an old plastic bag and set a stack of papers and photos on her desk. He came around, perching on a corner of the desk, staring at her. She was gorgeous. Eyes sparkling and wonderful.

  She waved a photo in front of him.

  Right. She wasn’t an image he could get lost in for hours. She was real. He pried his attention away from the pearly skin of her long pale neck and glanced at the black-and-white photograph.

  “It’s Stewart Baker,” she said.

  So it was.

  Tristen placed Dot’s phone on the desk and angled the faded picture to get a better look at the background. “Is that your cottage?” The trees were short and the structure fairly new, but it was obvious he was looking at Trixie Hollow, with the rocky outcropping visible behind it.

  He shuffled through the rest of the photos. There were ones with Melanie’s great-grandmother and the movie star in couple-type poses, arms around each other, gazing into each other’s eyes. In the background of some was Heritage Row, looking rather spiffy and fresh. New.

  “What is this?” Tristen flipped over a photo of a baby, checking the back for a name.

  “It looks like my grandmother, but then all babies seem the same to me. I haven’t had a chance to check it against the photo my mom has.”

  Tristen squinted at the faded ink on the back, the swirly writing making it difficult to discern.

  “I keep thinking that maybe Stewart Baker was the father. My great-grandfather. But I don’t have proof.” Melanie handed him a stack of papers. “There are receipts, too. Stuff being commissioned.”

  Puzzling his way through the stack, Tristen couldn’t figure out if he was missing clues, or if he was still rattled from seeing Melanie ride a bike belonging to a member of the Hells Angels. Or maybe it was more due to the fact that he was waiting for her to mention their night together.

  “I can prove now that those letters are from the movie star,” Melanie said, “and that he and Ada had a romance of some sort. That has got to lend some significance to Trixie Hollow, right?”

  “I don’t know if your great-grandmother dating a famous person makes your property significant, Melanie. How does that provide cultural value?”

  She sighed heavily.

  The receipt he was holding felt thick compared to the other papers. Using his thumbnail, he carefully pried two thin pieces of paper apart. The hidden sheet held a drawing that made him close his eyes to refocus before looking at it again. Finally, he held it up to Melanie.

  “Isn’t this your teacup?”

  Melanie paled, her fingers shaking as she took the sketch. She swallowed before reverently placing it on the desk in front of her. “An assessor said it was one-of-a-kind and had likely been commissioned approximately a century ago.”

  “By Stewart, apparently. A nymph cup for Nymph Island, possibly? A place where his lover stayed?”

  “I found this in the archives over at the land title office.” She handed him a photocopied deed to Nymph Island with Ada’s name on it. “Do you think Stewart gave her the island?”

  Melanie’s eyes glittered with excitement and Tristen focused on the papers again, trying not to think about the last time he’d seen her eyes glitter like that—while moving over top of him gloriously naked.

  With these new clues, you could connect the random dots, make a few assumptions and possibly end up with an argument for cultural significance. But there were some pretty big leaps on the path to making this all into a claim, and he believed the heritage board would want a solid, indisputable trail.

  “You know that pursuing these leads might uncover secrets from the past?”

  “I know! It’s so exciting.” She pulled an envelope from her desk drawer. “I almost forgot. This is for you.”

  He accepted the envelope, opening it in front of her. It was a check. The full cost of the teacups. “What is this?”

  “It’s not right for you to buy them in order to give them back to me.” She wouldn’t meet his eye and he knew it was about something more.

  “I wanted to buy them. I did. I wanted to give them to you. I did.” He handed the check back to her, but she wouldn’t accept it. “What’s the real issue here, Melanie? Is this about me and the Rubicore fight?”

  “No.”

  “Then take it. I know you need it. I won’t miss it.” Yep, that was the wrong thing to say. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean…can’t I help you out?”

  “Money only complicates…things.”

  “Things?” He had a feeling she was hinting at their night together, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “I’m not keeping the money.”

  “Yeah?” He ripped up the check. “Try and force me to take it.”

  Her shoulders dropped a hitch. Then she sat in her chair, got out her checkbook and wrote him a new check. She handed it to him, one eyebrow raised in challenge.

  He could be a jerk and rip it up like he did the last one, or he could find a new and more creative way to help her
out. If he put his mind to it, he bet he could find a way to get that three grand for the teacups back in her pocket—one way or another.

  He took the check and pocketed it with a grin. “At least you aren’t fighting Rubicore anymore.” He paused as something clicked in his mind. “Wait. You aren’t going to try and block Rubicore with this heritage claim, are you?”

  Her eyes shone with the truth.

  “You said you were out, Melanie. Done.” His voice was too loud, too harsh.

  What was with this woman?

  She wouldn’t meet his eye, cheeks flushed. “I changed my mind.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. The old squeezing sensation in his chest was back.

  “I’m going to claim heritage significance for Trixie Hollow and put in lots of info about Heritage Row. It’s called that, so why on earth wouldn’t they protect it as a heritage site?” She waited for him to look at her. “But no, I won’t actually make a direct claim involving the other cottages.”

  Melanie smiled, and he had the distinct feeling she’d done something. Something he didn’t know about.

  “So how did the cup end up in a shop?” She was changing the subject on him. “What happened? If it was for the cottage, why didn’t it stay there? The family has owned the cottage for the duration of this cup’s existence. And what about this other stuff Stewart had commissioned? The receipt lists an entire tea set and all I found is one cup. Is the rest still out there? Did he actually give it to Ada, or did something happen?”

  Tristen sighed, letting her redirect his attention away from her and whatever she had up her sleeve. He sorted through the photos again, trying to pull out a thread from a fuzzy memory. “I watched a documentary on him. It said he used to do charity work up here. Left his family back in Montreal.”

  “Charity?” Melanie perked up even further. She had one of those dreamy looks women got when they saw a happily ever after unfolding. Which only meant any hiccups along that road would toss her all the more and make her blind to anything in the way. Such as the truth. Whatever that was.

  “He was married, Melanie. Had kids.”

  She wasn’t listening.

  “Then maybe the Stewarts can answer the last of my questions,” she said.

  Tristen placed a hand on her arm. “Mel, hold up a sec. What if they don’t know? This could not only change the way you see your family’s past, but it could also alter the way Stewart’s family sees their own. And even the way Canada, as a country, views the old star.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking it through. Finally, she sighed. “People have a right to live a happy, blissfully unaware existence, don’t they? I can’t make this claim without revealing secrets, can I?”

  She had that defeated look again, and Tristen tried to ignore the taunting voice in his head pinning the blame squarely on himself.

  “Melanie?” A man stood in the doorway, his face grim. “Can I have a moment?”

  “Sure.”

  Melanie excused herself and Tristen took Dot her phone, weaving through the office’s few cubicles to find her. The reporters, who on Sunday had been as thick as a swarm of mosquitos in Algonquin Park, had faded away, and he felt okay again with Dot working here. Although, with Melanie back in the fight, he might have to broach the topic of his daughter finding a new place to complete her work experience, since things could easily heat up once more. Not a fun prospect. At all.

  A few minutes later, he spotted Melanie heading back to her office, her face pale. He caught up to her as she stuffed items in her shoulder bag. He grasped her hands, holding her still so he could figure out what was wrong. Her fingers felt small and fragile in his and the overwhelming urge to protect her took over. “What’s happened?”

  She pulled away and began stuffing the few personal effects she kept on her desk into her bag. “I’m being investigated for slander and my license has been temporarily suspended. Effective immediately.”

  It looked like it was time to let the monster out and take charge of things once and for all.

  * * *

  Tristen paced outside his daughter’s room and thought about what he was going to say. He needed to kick Dot’s girlfriend’s father’s butt. And doing that would likely undo the tentative bond he and his daughter had built over the past week. It was going to be a long haul to the end of August after this little chat. Really long.

  Doubting himself, he turned to leave just as the bedroom door swung open. Dot, hand on hip, gave him an unimpressed look. “What?” she asked.

  “What? Nothing.” He quickly moved back.

  “You’ve been pacing outside my room. Do you need love advice or are you grounding me?”

  “What? Why?”

  “What? Why?” she mocked.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?” she asked innocently.

  Man, she was good. “Dot, I have to do something and you’re not going to like it.”

  “You’re marrying Melanie? Because that wouldn’t be so bad. Unless you keep buying her horrible cups.”

  The thought of marrying Melanie with Dot’s approval had, surprisingly, sent his mind off into a happy little meadow where it began frolicking and singing.

  “Dot. I have to fight Rubicore.”

  His daughter gave a halfhearted shrug and pushed past him. “Are there any of those blueberries left?”

  That was it? No Tilt-A-Whirl open for business today to give him the most terrifying ride of his life?

  In the kitchen, Dot dumped the last of the blueberries into her hand and, tipping her head back, dropped them into her mouth. Trying to understand women and their moods was like trying to tag a ghost.

  “You’re not upset?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “You eat like a kid. Wipe your mouth.”

  “I’m a kid for another five months and six days. I’ve got to live it up. With the responsibilities of voting and the ability to get wed without parental permission, as well as drink alcohol in some of our provinces, I should live it up while I can. My days of being a carefree dependent are numbered.”

  “It might get nasty between us and Rubicore,” he warned.

  “Sink your teeth into them, Dad.” She had her head in the fridge now and was rooting around. “Kill them for what they’re doing to Melanie.”

  “The fudge is in the crisper.”

  “The crisper?” She turned, her lip curled up in the same way it used to when she was a baby and someone talked goo-goo-ga-ga at her.

  Tristen patted his midriff. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  She unwrapped a square of chocolate, popped it in her mouth, then another. That would be one way to put it out of mind—just let her devour it.

  “What happened to you and Samantha?” he asked.

  “She was experimenting.” Dot’s scowl deepened as she rolled her eyes, clearly disgusted.

  “Oh.”

  “I know, right?” She turned, livid all of a sudden. “Who pretends to be a lesbian?” Her eyes grew damp. “I mean, it’s hard enough. It would be like me going slumming just to see what it was like, then turning around when I had slum friends and saying, ‘Nah, just kidding. I don’t like your way of life, after all. Enjoy! I’m heading back to the easy path, where everyone loves me and nobody looks down at me’.” She was crying full force and Tristen froze, stunned by her revelation. He closed the space between them and squeezed her tightly, wanting to take her pain and fill the hollow spot within her with love.

  He stroked her hair, surprised at how soft the shorn bit at the back was under his palm. Despite the makeup and perfume she still smelled like his daughter.

  Dot pushed away. “It’s so hard finding someone.” Her bottom lip folded in pain and she crashed back against his chest.

  “It is.”

  “You met Mom in high school—what do you know?”

  “Yeah, okay.” He’d give her that one. What did he know, truly?

  “The odds were i
n your favor, too.” Dot broke contact again, glowering at him, and he tried not to smile. She looked like a lost tyke with her cheeks wet and her lips pouty from the injustice of her lot in life.

  “We all lead lives of quiet desperation.” He buffed his knuckles on his chest and let out a loud sigh as though hard done by. “It’s my lot in life to carry the burden of being so devastatingly handsome.”

  “The odds are in your favor because you’re not gay.”

  He tipped her chin up with a finger. She’d stopped crying, but frustration still had her in its grip. “I’m always here.”

  “Right here in the kitchen?” She gave him a cocky scowl.

  That was his girl.

  “Yep.” He grinned. “Right here. Just waiting for you to need your old man. I might not always be able to say the words you need to hear, but that doesn’t make them any less true.”

  She swallowed hard. “I know.”

  “Good.”

  “Now go crush Samantha’s dad so bad he has to use a catheter to take a piss.”

  Tristen ran a hand through his hair uncomfortably.

  “Metaphorically, Dad. Yeesh.” Dot rolled her eyes, scooped up the last of the fudge and disappeared back into her room.

  He let out a long breath.

  Things were probably going to be okay between him and Dot. But Melanie? That was a whole different story.

  CHAPTER 13

  Tristen pulled out a stool at the granite island and poured Melanie a glass of lemonade, smiling as he recalled the nickname the bikers had given her only a week and a half ago, when she’d rescued him. He set the tall glass in front of her, wondering if she needed something stronger after the way Rubicore had proceeded to run her career and credibility off the tracks in a mere handful of days. He could probably use something stronger himself, considering he was about to reveal his hidden side to Melanie.

  He was surprised how nervous he was. But he’d been plotting and organizing things behind Melanie’s back for days and it was time to let her in on what he’d done.

  He’d already hurt everyone he cared about once. Why not again, when this time he’d be on the right side? He needed to protect them from Rubicore, whose leaders were gearing up for a grand slam.