Tyler kept one hand on the phone as he reached into the cupboard for two plates. He didn’t bother to tell her that he’d managed to find out what he needed by doing a little investigative research. Who was he to cut short their conversation? “No problem. What’ve you got?”
As she rattled off some dates and places, Tyler grabbed a roll of paper towels and headed back to the living room. Ryan had the television on and was surfing through the channels. The lid of the pizza box was open, but he hadn’t taken a piece out yet. Tyler handed him a plate and the roll of paper towels.
“You’re making me use a plate, man?” Ryan griped as he took the stuff from Tyler.
Tyler waved his hand at him, but Melanie had already heard his voice. “I’m so sorry. You’ve got company. I’ll let you go.”
“It’s not company,” Tyler told her. “It’s just Ryan.”
“You guys don’t get enough of each other at work?” she asked, a hint of humor in her voice.
“Actually, he showed up with pizza and pop. That was just too much temptation to turn down.”
Melanie laughed, and Tyler found himself smiling at the sound.
“Well, I won’t keep you from pizza. I just wanted to make sure I got you that information. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing. Do you want me to come by your office first?”
“It’s not necessary, but I wouldn’t mind if you stopped by afterward to let me know how it went.”
“Will do.”
“Enjoy your evening,” she said.
“You too.” Tyler ended the call and set his phone on the coffee table as he sat back down beside Ryan. “So? Movie or video games?”
~*~*~
Melanie turned her playlist back on then set her phone in the holder on the treadmill. She had only been halfway through her run when she’d realized she needed to phone Tyler. Normally, she didn’t interrupt her workout for anything, but in this case, she hadn’t wanted to forget again.
At least that’s what she told herself.
She hit the button to restart the treadmill and began to work back up to her normal pace for the ten miles she ran each day. Her arms pumped as her feet pounded a matching rhythm to the beat of the music coming from her phone. Slowly, the burn built in her legs. It was familiar and necessary.
She pushed through the scream of her muscles. Left. Right. Left. Right.
With her conversation with Tyler so fresh in her mind, Melanie found her thoughts centered on him even though she normally tried to clear her mind when she ran, focusing on nothing but the thud, thud, thud as her running shoes hit the surface of the treadmill.
But tonight, her mind drifted to Thursday and watching Tyler with Simon. The compassion on his face as he’d talked to the man. The understanding. The way he’d spoken to him. Not pushing. Not lecturing. Just…sharing. Encouraging.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
Dragging her thoughts away from Tyler, she tried to find something else to occupy her mind. The usual blank focus wasn’t going to work. Thoughts of Tyler were just waiting to grab her attention.
After church, she’d gone with Adrianne and Alex to their parents’ large home for Sunday dinner. The meal had gone much the same as previous ones. A little business discussion and then moving right along to questions on their relationship statuses.
Alex brushed aside his mother’s queries. He did it so well now. The questions from his mother didn’t even seem to faze him. She had no problem ignoring them either. Her position on relationships had been set for years, and she was resolute in her decision. That made it much easier to ignore her mother’s repeated attempts to set her up or coerce her into dating one of her friends’ sons.
Unfortunately, Adrianne wasn’t immune to their mother’s manipulations. That was probably because she actually did want to be in a relationship. She wanted marriage and kids. She just hadn’t found the right man yet. Sadly, that made her way too vulnerable to their mother. And it seemed that with her last child hitting the big 3-0, Pamela Thorpe was getting a bit more desperate.
As the ten-mile mark edged closer on the display, Melanie made the decision to push past it. Go for eleven. Just one more. She knew she could do it.
When the display showed she’d reached the eleventh mile, Melanie pressed the button to slow the treadmill while she cooled down. After a few minutes of walking, she hit the off button and slid backwards until she stepped onto the floor.
She bent over and braced her hands on her knees as she breathed deeply. Once her heart began to slow, Melanie did a few stretches before moving to her weight machine. It had never been her goal to look like she pumped iron so she didn’t do heavy weights, she just did a lot of reps of lower weights. She wanted to be strong without looking like a bodybuilder.
When she was finally finished with her workout, Melanie grabbed the towel she’d dropped on the weight bench earlier and mopped up the sweat on her face. Her short hair was now plastered to her head. Her body ached with that feeling of having been well-used. She loved that feeling. It meant her body was strong and able to move quickly, that it would be able to respond to whatever she needed it to do.
Draping the towel around her neck, Melanie left the exercise room, shutting the door behind her. She walked to her ensuite bathroom and turned on the Jacuzzi taps. While water flowed into the large tub, she took a quick shower to wash away the sweat in her hair and on her body.
Even as she loved the ache in her body after a workout, she loved the heat of the water as she sank beneath it, the jets pulsing against sore muscles. As the warmth soothed the ache in her limbs, the ritual of her evening soothed her mind.
She was ready. She was prepared.
Next time around, her body would not betray her.
Adrianne shot Melanie a dark look when she walked into the kitchen the next morning and muttered a terse, “Morning.”
Melanie set her briefcase on a chair and laid her jacket over the back of it. As she walked to the large refrigerator, she asked, “What’s got your panties in a twist so early in the day?”
Her sister lifted a mug to her lips and took a sip before lowering it back down to the counter. “What do you think?”
As she pulled out the fruits and vegetables she used to make her morning smoothie, Melanie glanced over at Adrianne again. “Mom?”
Adrianne’s eyelashes fluttered as she gave a single nod. A knot formed in Melanie’s stomach. She hated it when Adrianne got like this…or rather, she hated it when their mom pushed the buttons that turned Adrianne into this angry, insecure woman.
“You need to just ignore her comments, Annie,” Melanie said as she placed her stuff on the counter. She gave her sister a quick side hug before pulling out the machine to mix her smoothie.
“How exactly do I ignore comments like you have such a pretty face, darling. You just need to lose a little weight and you’d have no problem getting a boyfriend?” Anger and hurt rang loud and clear in Adrianne’s voice. “And you’re no help.”
“What do you mean?” Melanie frowned as she put her fruit, yogurt and kale into the blender. Her mother must have made those comments when she and Alex weren’t around because the two of them would have stood up for Adrianne in a heartbeat.
“Look at you!” Adrianne waved a hand at her. “Not an extra ounce of fat on you. Always eating healthy. No wonder Mom keeps harping on me.”
As she punched the button to mix everything together, Melanie mulled over Adrianne’s words. She didn’t do this in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. Frankly, she really couldn’t care less if a man found her attractive. Okay, so lately that wasn’t entirely true.
“I don’t have a boyfriend either,” Melanie pointed out when she shut off the blender. “So looking like this doesn’t really matter.”
The derision in Adrianne’s snort of laughter was unmistakable. “That’s because you don’t seem to want a boyfriend. Do you know how many times a guy has asked me if you’re available? Like I’m your DUFF or something?�
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Melanie picked up the cup she’d poured her smoothie into and turned toward Adrianne. “My DUFF? What on earth is that?”
“Your Designated Ugly Fat Friend.” Adrianne kept her gaze on the mug in her hands. “Why does it matter that I’m not a perfect size 2?”
“It doesn’t,” Melanie said. “And for the record, you’re far from my DUFF. You’re beautiful. And I mean that without a word of a lie. You need to just let Mom’s comments roll off you. You have dates, but you’re just picky. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t settle for some guy just to make Mom happy. You wait for the guy that makes you happy.”
Adrianne took a deep breath and let it out. “Sorry to vent at you. Just not a great start to a Monday when Mom calls first thing to find out how my date went last night. When I said that I didn’t think it would lead to anything further, she automatically assumed it was the guy shutting it down.”
“And it wasn’t,” Melanie stated.
“Nope.” She took another sip of her coffee. “He was a nice enough guy, but just not what I’m looking for.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yeah, like she’d believe me,” Adrianne scoffed. “She’d just figure I was lying.”
“Mom does love you,” Melanie told her. “I think she’s just getting so desperate for one of us to settle down, she isn’t thinking about what she’s saying. You’re the only one actively dating, so I guess you’re the one with the target on your back.”
“Why does Adrianne have a target on her back?” Alex asked as he walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffee machine.
Adrianne drained her mug and stuck it in the dishwasher as she muttered, “Same old, same old.”
“Just ignore her, sis.” Alex poured himself a cup of coffee and immediately took a big gulp.
Melanie wasn’t surprised that Alex picked up on what was bothering Adrianne. Even though they were twins, they weren’t any more genetically alike to each other than they were to her, yet they had this uncanny ability to know what the other was thinking. It had made Melanie feel left out a lot when she was younger. Now she just accepted it as part of the complexity of the relationships in their family.
“Well, see, that’s the thing,” Adrianne said as she picked up her briefcase. “I shouldn’t have to ignore things my mother says. She should love me enough to not say them in the first place.”
With that, she spun on her heel and stomped—as much as she could in heels—out of the kitchen into the hallway that led to the three car garage that was attached to the large house. Melanie hoped her sister’s day improved once she got to the office where there was no doubt she was a star at her job.
“So I hear you’ve been spending time with Tyler.”
Melanie knew enough not to rise to her brother’s bait. She turned toward him and took a swallow of her smoothie. “Yes. I asked him to come by the Center and spend some time with Simon. He’s still resisting any type of therapy.”
“Why did you choose Tyler to meet with him?” Alex leaned a hip against the counter and pinned her with his piercing blue gaze as his hand slid down the blue paisley tie he wore. “We have other people who have volunteered to come and talk with people like Simon.”
“Yes, we do, but I felt that in addition to the experience that Tyler could share with him, he’d do it with a lot more compassion and understanding than some of the other guys.”
Alex’s eyebrows lifted at that. “How would you know that?”
Melanie arched one of her brows back at him. “You forget that I was around him back when he was in the Center. Even back then he showed that side of himself.”
“And that’s the only reason you sought him out for this?” Alex asked as he topped up his coffee.
Melanie picked up the lid for her smoothie cup and twisted it into place. She gave Alex her best quizzical look. “Should there have been another reason?”
He stared at her for so long that Melanie was certain he would see past the façade she was trying to keep in place. Finally, he gave a shake of his head and sighed.
“Just know that if you were to show an interest in a guy, Tyler is one that I wouldn’t mind you having in your life. He’s a good guy.”
“Yes, he is. That’s why I contacted him.” She set her cup down on the counter while she shrugged into her jacket. “But it was for Simon’s sake. No other reason. We’re just friends.”
Then she grabbed her cup and briefcase and followed the direction Adrianne had taken a few minutes earlier. By the time she was backing her SUV out of the garage, Alex had climbed into his truck. With a toot of her horn, she headed down the winding driveway to the gate that slid open as she approached. She didn’t bother to close it knowing that Alex was right behind her.
As she drove, Melanie tried to keep her thoughts from going to Tyler’s visit to the Center later that day. First, she had to get through a meeting with her own staff and that was where her attention needed to be.
~*~*~
Tyler watched as the macro he’d written worked its way through the list of numbers on his screen. A year’s worth of telephone calls on four different numbers. This was probably going to take a little bit. In the meantime, he brought up the files that the research department had sent to him earlier.
Though Marcus hadn’t given him specifics, Tyler was pretty sure that this project was tied to the issues they’d been having at the company lately. The shooting earlier in the year had been the latest in a series of attacks on BlackThorpe. The first had been the thwarted kidnapping of Eric McKinley, which had been followed by an unsuccessful attempt to hack into the company network. Unfortunately, the shooting had been more successful with injuries to four people including Marcus and Alex. Marcus had still not completely recovered from the injury to his leg.
Though there had been no lives lost, it wasn’t hard to see that the attacks were escalating. It was possible that the next one would result in the death of someone. As Tyler looked at the four files that he’d been sent, he wondered if Marcus had an idea of who it was that was targeting BlackThorpe. Rumors were floating around with the most common one being it had something to do with the two guys who had initially started the company with Marcus and Alex, but then left.
Tyler could have done research to get their names, but he preferred to go into this with no prejudices. The four names on his screen belonged to four faceless people. He didn’t know their connections to each other or to Marcus and Alex. However, if there was a link somewhere, he’d find it.
But not right then.
Leaving the macro running, Tyler locked his screen so no one could come into his office and see what his computer was doing. With a groan, he got to his feet and stretched. The bruise on his hip was still giving him grief and almost had him walking with a limp. Was he really too old to be playing basketball at just thirty years of age? He didn’t remember injuries bothering him this much in past years.
He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged into it, checking to make sure his phone and keys were in the pocket. Before heading to the elevator, he let the receptionist for their floor know that he was gone, likely for the day. It was only three o’clock, but anticipating that he might go directly home from the Center, he’d come in around seven o’clock instead of his usual nine.
During his drive out to the Center, Tyler mulled over his visit with Simon. And Melanie. Yeah, he was looking forward to that a little bit more than he should be. As tempting as it was to consider breaking his “no relationship” vow to himself, he really didn’t like the idea of losing her as a friend if things went south.
Keeping in mind that Melanie had said she didn’t need to see him before he went to talk with Simon, Tyler walked passed the door to her office without knocking. He even managed to keep from looking into the office, but just barely.
CHAPTER FOUR
MELANIE CHECKED the time in the corner of her monitor and then glanced at her office door. She’d happen
ed to be standing next to Heather’s desk when Tyler had walked by earlier. He hadn’t paused or even looked into her office. Just strode right on past, his gait easy and sure. No one watching him would ever guess he was a double amputee with two prosthetic legs.
It had been about forty-five minutes since she’d seen him, so she figured any time now he could show up. She tried to curb the flutter of excitement that thought brought to life within her but then let out a sigh. Maybe it was time to take a vacation. Get away from all the happy relationships that were blossoming around her. Of course, there were at least two more weddings in the not-so-distant future, and it was highly probable that she would be invited to at least one, if not both, of them.
Was love contagious? It sure seemed like it was.
Though she’d justified asking for Tyler’s help to Alex—and it had all been true—it was getting harder to deny to herself that there was something more. And having Tyler around was the worst thing she could do for herself.
They were friends, just like she’d told Alex, but now... She couldn’t have Tyler in her life the way those feelings and emotions demanded. That didn’t fit with her relationship resolution. Would she need to step back?
Letting out a long sigh, Melanie tried to rein in her emotions. It was that blasted birthday/engagement party that Than had put on for Lindsay. Seeing them together had stirred something in her. Then seeing Justin and Alana had just intensified that feeling. She’d been able to brush it aside when it had first flared up when she’d attended Eric’s wedding, but then there had been Lucas and Brook, Trent and Victoria. Too much love was floating around to be healthy for her. It was impairing her judgment.
Which had led to the spontaneous decision last week to go by Tyler’s office after the meeting. She’d had another name and number scribbled on her notepad in her office, but in the end it had been Tyler she’d gone to.
“Knock. Knock.”
Melanie jerked her gaze to the door and felt her breath catch when she saw Tyler standing there. Hoping the tumult of emotions she’d been feeling wasn’t visible on her face, she stood up and smiled.
A Matter of Trust: A Christian Romance (BlackThorpe Security Book 3) Page 4