by Dawn McClure
He was still recounting how beautiful Mel had become when he heard her call out his name.
Stopping at the end of the alley, which was so narrow his shoulders almost touched each brick building, he turned to her voice. Mel jogged across the street, tiny ankle boots clicking against the cold pavement, until she reached the mouth of the alley, and then those ankle boots slipped on the snow and she pitched backward, one leg flipping up in the air, arms flailing in every direction.
Somehow she managed to gain her balance without falling on her ass. He couldn’t quite figure that one, considering she’d nearly been horizontal when she’d unceremoniously pulled that acrobatic stunt.
She regained her balance and looked down at her feet while he made his way toward her.
She looked up when he approached. “Guess I forgot how to walk in the snow. Well, run. Whatever.”
He took her by the elbow and helped her out of the alleyway and back onto the cleared sidewalk. After that last bit of snow they’d had the other day, the sidewalks had been shoveled, but the snow in the alleyways were knee-deep or better for someone her height. With his bare palm on her sweater, he could feel just how thin the material actually was. “Didn’t you bring a jacket?”
“Oh, I’m going right back inside,” she said, protesting the offer of his jacket by holding up her hand. “My winter jacket is on its way to Baltimore right now, but the airline is going to deliver my luggage as soon as they get it back.” She held up his red bank card and wiggled it. “You forgot your card. I thought about going to the mall with it, but then I remembered that Pine Grove doesn’t have a mall.” She snorted, then looked a little embarrassed that she’d snorted.
He shrugged his right shoulder back into his jacket and took his card, all while she stood in front of him rubbing her arms with her hands. “Thanks. You know, we have a few jackets in the hardware store. They’re camouflage and I doubt they’re your style, but it’ll keep you warm until you get yours back.”
Even when she’d been a country girl born and bred, camouflage and hunting hadn’t been her style. She’d been a bit of a hybrid. He couldn’t imagine she’d be thrilled to wear that type of clothing now at all, but it made no sense to run around without a jacket in this kind of weather.
“Oh, it’s fine. My mom said she has another at the house. Not exactly a winter coat, but she said it’ll do until my coat arrives. I’ll just make sure to stay inside, which really isn’t going to be all that hard considering I’ve grown to hate the cold.”
He was already taking out his keys to the store. “This’ll get you home, then. No purchase necessary. Just bring it back when you’re done.” What the hell are you doing. Just let her go. This is all kinds of awkward.
Those ankle boots of hers made loud clicks on the empty sidewalk as she hobbled behind him. “John, seriously, you don’t have to do this. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s no trouble.” He unlocked the door and then ushered her in the hardware store, wishing he’d just left it alone. One minute he wanted to get away from her, and the next he felt responsible for getting her warm and comfortable. He knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but helping people was etched into his DNA. Not only was it a big part of his job at the store, but he’d always had a protective streak the size of Texas when it came to Mel.
He’d felt the same way towards Ben, right from the start. From the moment Jessica had introduced them, Ben had captured his heart. The first thing the kid had asked him was if he was a fan of football. Ben hadn’t been able to look straight at him when he’d asked. He’d kept his gaze on his worn tennis shoes. John had told him he was a big Viking’s fan. Ben had lit up like a Christmas tree.
After that, John had taken him to several Viking’s games and bought him official jerseys. They’d been pals ever since. Well, until his mom had up and taken him out of the state.
He hoped someone was taking him to football games in Texas.
He cleared his throat. Better not to think about it. And it was a good thing he’d offered to get her the jacket, since he’d accidentally left the lights on in the shop, something he hadn’t done in years. Made him realize just how big of a hurry he’d been to get over to the café.
John made his way to the jackets they carried in the back of the store, shouldering through a few racks before he found what he was looking for. The jackets were made for hunters, but they always stocked one of those pink camouflage types that the women liked.
He took the only one they had for women off the hanger and grabbed a matching hat and a pair of gloves off the bin above it. He handed them to her with a look he hoped didn’t allow room for argument.
Then again, Mel was Mel. Instead of just saying thank you she was going to give him trouble. But just when she opened her mouth, she snapped it shut, her gaze getting a faraway look. For a full ten seconds she seemed to zone out completely, her hazel eyes unfocused and lowered, and when she finally focused on him again, she smiled as though she just figured out a way to cure world hunger. “Thank you. This is very sweet of you.”
Wait. Where was the ornery little shit she’d come to be? With a frown he couldn’t mask, he muttered, “You’re welcome.”
“I’ll bring it back as soon as my jacket arrives.” She glanced at the price tag but left it on, then shimmied into the sleeves. She stuffed the gloves and hat into one of the large pockets. The jacket swallowed her petite form. Once she had it on, she smiled up at him again. “Thanks. I’m warmer already.”
Yes. He could fall for Melanie Edwards all over again, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to happen tonight. He quickly ushered her to the door, feeling that need to get away from her surface again. “Well, you stay warm. There’s a storm coming, so make sure you and your mom prepare for that.”
“Have a good evening,” she said.
He didn’t look back at her as he wished her the same while shutting the front door of the shop. He pulled his cell out of his jacket pocket to text his brother. When the screen popped up he saw that he’d missed a call from Jessica. That brought him up short.
She hadn’t called him since the day she’d moved, so the sight of her name jacked up his heart rate. Had something happened to Ben? Did they need something?
Holding the phone in his cold hand he fought the urge to call her back. Nothing good could come of bringing her back into his life other than Ben. They were a package deal, and for a long time now, John had realized that he’d only kept Jessica around because of her son.
That hadn’t been right. Not very Boy Scout of him.
Instead of texting his brother a nastygram, he slipped his cell back into his pocket and closed up the shop for the second time that night. He headed out the back door to his truck, wishing he didn’t have so many chores to see to before he could hit the rack.
For some reason he figured he’d have a hard time getting some shut-eye tonight. This time it wasn’t just going to be over a child he wanted to provide and protect, and who was suddenly out of reach. Mel, who’d once captured his heart so fully he was quite certain no other woman would ever do the same, would be only ten minutes down the road from him.
Yeah, he sure had learned the hard way. Life was rarely simple, and it sure as hell never went according to plan.
_______
Decked out in her new, extra-large, revolting pink camouflage winter jacket, Mel crossed Main Street and headed back to the café. Of course her ankle boots didn’t match the jacket at all, and the hunting jacket that would scare away every deer within a five-mile radius was several sizes too big, but she didn’t mind. Here in Pine Grove, South Dakota, people didn’t really care about fashion, which was a good thing, since the jacket absolutely hung on her. The bottom of the jacket went all the way to her mid-thighs and the sleeves went well past her hands.
The material smelled like old wood and oil, a familiar scent that brought back memories. Whenever John had picked her up for school, or dropped by the café to see her after work, he�
��d always smelled like old wood and oil—just like his father’s store. When she’d first walked into Harrison’s Hardware, as John held the door for her, that familiar scent had brought back more memories than she’d cared to recall.
Feeling a little like she was drowning in the jacket, she slipped her cell out the back pocket of her jeans and brought up Cindy’s number. Cindy answered on the second ring.
“Well, are you freezing your ass off yet?”
“Unfortunately most of my ass is still here and stuffed in my jeans, but I think I’m starting to realize what it is about Liam that holds me back.” The epiphany had been more of a slap in the face than a realization. Apparently for the past few months she’d been oblivious to the fact that Liam didn’t possess this quality. She hadn’t much thought about it until she’d seen it in action.
“Wow, that quick? You’ve been there for what, all of ten seconds, and you think you’ve nailed down why you want to dump your perfect match?” There was a chuckle on the other side of the phone, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of Cindy making coffee. “Oh, this should be good. If you prove yourself right, we’ll stick you on the global warming and world hunger committees.”
Underneath Cindy’s snotty exterior was the heart of a true friend. It had taken Mel a few months to figure out that Cindy just had a way with words. A bitchy way. “Have I told you lately how funny and witty you are? And by the way, I’ve been here for nearly an hour.”
“Not enough time to run into that boy you were always talking about.”
Mel smiled to herself. She’d arrived at the front door of the café, but instead of going in, she pretended to admire the Christmas decorations. No longer a victim of the frigid air, she didn’t feel the need to hightail it indoors to stay warm, thanks to John. “That’s where you’d be wrong. I did run into him. Actually, he’s the one that caused this epiphany of mine.”
There was a long stretch of silence, and then Cindy’s voice, which was deeply laced with skepticism, came through the cell. “Let me get this straight. You’ve been in the Pine Grove cornfield only long enough to sneeze and you already ran into John? Sure. Try to convince me you didn’t make that happen. I’ll wait.”
Mel laughed, realizing how crazy that must sound to someone who’d lived in the suburbs their whole life. Cindy was as country as poured asphalt. “His family owns the hardware store across the street from my mom’s café, so it’s really not a stretch. And no, I didn’t seek him out. He came over to the café to drop some receipts off to my mother. She does business at the hardware store quite often.”
Although her mom had looked a bit weird when John had given her the receipts. As though she didn’t know what they were for. Had he used an excuse to come over and see her? She doubted it. “Anyway, what I was calling you about—"
“Does he look the same? Is he fat? What’s the deal? Married with three kids?”
The deal was he was better looking now than when she’d known him in high school. He had a beard on his face she didn’t quite care for, and he’d filled out as men tended to do as they got older. No longer tall and skinny, he was tall and built. His navy-blue Harrison Hardware collared shirt hadn’t hid a damn thing when he’d slipped out of his jacket to hand it to her. She’d been a little more shocked at all that muscle than surprised that he’d offered her his jacket. And he looked wiser, too, if that was possible. He seemed so much more mature than he’d been, which also wasn’t a stretch. Last she’d seen him he was only twenty. “Are you going to let me talk?”
“I’m sorry.” There was a dainty sniff over the line. “Proceed.”
“He offered me his jacket, Cindy.” She said it with such dramatic awe laced into her voice that she was disappointed with Cindy’s lame comeback.
“What, you didn’t bring one?”
Mel quickly explained why she didn’t have her winter jacket, clearing herself of any stupidity before she went on. “Do you remember when Liam and I went to Tahoe last April? It was our first trip as a couple. Anyway, I brought a light jacket because the weather was supposed to be mild, but duh, mild in the mountains is thirty, possibly forty degrees. So there we were, snowshoeing on a trail, me freezing to death in a thin windbreaker, and Liam tells me that I’ll soon warm up from all the exercise and I won’t be cold anymore.”
When Cindy said nothing, Mel continued, quickly stating what should have been obvious with her story. “He never offered me his jacket, Cindy. Even when he knew I was cold.”
“And that’s why you don’t want to marry him? Because he’s stupid?” There was a pause. “I mean, I get that. I wouldn’t want to marry an idiot either.”
Mel was quickly losing her patience. Didn’t Cindy understand? “I’m thinking it was less stupid and more…inconsiderate. Of my needs. The first thing John did when he saw that I was little less than an icicle was to offer me his jacket. Even when he knew I was going to be heading back inside shortly. And he didn’t stop there. When I refused his jacket he ushered me into his hardware store and lent me one right off the rack. Told me I didn’t need to pay for it, I could just bring it back.” She hadn’t wanted to take his jacket, because he’d have been cold. But she couldn’t rightly refuse this jacket. She’d have looked like an idiot heading back into the cold with the thin sweater she was wearing.
“So you’re looking for chivalry in Liam?”
Mel looked up at the dark sky, the stars much more pronounced here than in Los Angeles. She considered that for a minute. Why wouldn’t she want that attribute in the man she would marry? Shouldn’t chivalry be a given? “Well, yeah. Chivalry. I guess it’s a quality I tend to like in a guy. Who doesn’t?” And now that John had reminded her of the quality, she realized she hadn’t seen it much in Liam.
Cindy grunted into the phone. “Chivalry, check. I’m not sure that’s a crazy breakthrough. Hell, I’m a hardcore feminist, but if my ass is cold I better get handed a jacket from the guy I’m dating. So, is this a moot point? Is Liam even going to propose to you anymore?”
Not on Christmas Day, which was a relief, but a little glitch in his plan couldn’t stop a man like Liam completely. “Yeah, he’s going to propose on New Year’s Eve. At least that’s what he…” she trailed off, flinching at what she’d almost said, but Cindy had already caught on and didn’t let it go.
“You snooped on his texts again.”
Mel wasn’t a snooper. At least she hadn’t been until Liam. “Glanced.”
“Snooped.”
Mel cleared her throat. “I might have snuck his cell into the bathroom with me before I left for South Dakota to see what he’d planned, but it’s not a big deal.” To Cindy it was a big deal, because she said it signified a trust issue. To Mel’s way of thinking, she’d just been preparing for what was to come. Who wanted to be left in the dark?
“Red flag.” There was a dramatic sigh on the other side of the line. “So, have you told your mom about Liam?”
There hadn’t really been time, and truthfully, she hadn’t even given it thought. She’d mentioned Liam once or twice to her mother over the phone during the past few months and had casually mentioned that they were dating, but never made it sound serious. Because at the time they hadn’t been.
Now? She didn’t know what to say. “Why?” she asked. That one-word question sounded so bad, even to her own ears, that she quickly amended, “I mean, I guess I will. Of course I will. The time just hasn’t been right.”
“Another red flag. Why wait? Shouldn’t you want to gush about him? You kept talking about how people in love gush, so per your own vision and understanding of love, you should have tackled your mother with how Liam was going to propose to you the moment you two were alone in the car.”
“I’m too old to gush,” she argued, knowing damn good and well that wasn’t true. Just last week she’d gushed to Cindy about how awesome her new jeans and turtleneck looked together. Actually, in hindsight, Mel had been more ecstatic about that little purchase than she’d been at findin
g out Liam had planned on proposing.
“You just gushed that John offered you his jacket.”
Mel cleared her throat. There was that too. Seemed she was the type to gush, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “No, no. That wasn’t gushing. That was a…well. That was…”
“I’ll wait.”
Cindy always could see straight through her. “I was explaining a quality I think Liam is missing, and John had merely been the catalyst for that epiphany. Liam is so used to feminists who don’t even want a man to open a door for them, I can see why the quality is a little dusty, but all I have to do is mention to him that I like it when a man looks out for his girl. I grew up in a small town and I was raised differently. I like chivalry.”
Mel could hear Cindy typing on the other end of the line. Cindy cleared her throat. “I’ll start a list. We’ll hand it to him before he proposes on New Year’s Eve just so he can make an educated decision on whether or not he should proceed with the promise of nuptials. I’ll make room for a signature.”
Mel shook her head. “Really? An educated guess? Why are you being such a smartass about this?”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing? I mean, you’re speaking of Liam’s proposal and his personality like I should start a spreadsheet in Excel. Let’s weigh this and that and systematically figure out why you’re not thrilled that he’s going to propose. That way we can fix him before he does. Then—and only then—you might just say yes.”
Mel swallowed. That was exactly what she was doing. Suddenly it all seemed so calculated.
Love wasn’t supposed to be calculating.
The door to the café opened and her mom popped her head out. “You ready? I parked in…hey! Where’d you get that jacket?”
Oh Lord, her mom wasn’t going to let it go once she found out John had given her the jacket. Still, she couldn’t exactly lie. “John.”