by Dawn McClure
Irrational anger hit him out of nowhere. Yes, he missed her. But she’d left to go live in the big city, and apparently she liked it there more than she did here, even with family and friends around—him included. She had no plans on returning home, and he’d best not forget that. This woman managed to break his heart once, and when she left, she took his heart with him.
“I have to get going,” he said, turning on his heel and heading toward his truck. They could stand there and continue on with their awkward conversation, but he doubted she wanted to and he knew it would do nothing to convince her to come home.
Shit. Where had that thought come from? He’d never really held out a hope she’d return, and he wasn’t the type to pine over a person who didn’t return his feelings. Her coming home for good had never been in the cards. He knew that better than anyone.
He couldn’t allow himself to be led by his heart, because the same damn thing had happened with Ben. Mike had warned him not to get too close to Ben unless he knew his relationship with Jessica was more than solid—that it was forever. But instead of listening to his older brother, he’d started taking Ben to games and out to pizza. Shortly after that he’d started taking him to school and attending school activities that he was involved in. He sure didn’t have a biological father that was going to be there, so John had stepped into that role.
Hell, he’d jumped into that role. Asked them to move in just to give the kid a decent place to live. He’d felt sorry for Ben in the beginning, because his dad had run out on him and his mom. He knew what that could do to a kid. He’d seen what it had done to Mel and how it had affected her. He’d wanted to protect Ben from that.
As the months went on, John had been spending more time with Ben than he had with Jessica.
Again, his brother had warned him that Ben wasn’t his child, and he’d never have a say in Ben’s welfare if Jessica decided to bail. She seemed happy enough. Where would she go? And to who?
Well, the answer came a few short months ago. Ronnie was his name. Apparently he and Jessica had been talking over the phone during the day, when John had been at work. He’d never thought to check her cell, because he’d never considered that she was unhappy.
When she told him she was going back to Texas he’d broken down and cried, right in front of her. Something he hadn’t even done when Mel had left. He’d felt the same powerlessness that he had when Mel had boarded the plane to California, but when she’d gone off to college, there had still been hope that she’d come back. At least that’s what she’d said she was going to do.
But Ronnie wanted his family back. Said he’d do anything for them, and Jessica had run back to Texas and had taken Ben with her.
He had to stop thinking with his heart. Mel was going back to California, and in all actuality, even though they’d promised each other so much when they’d been younger, they’d been kids. Yeah. It was best just to jump in his truck while his pride was still intact.
“I’ll pay for the jacket,” she called out.
John, a hand on the door to his truck, shrugged it off. “Jacket’s on me.”
Small price to pay to be able to drop the subject and leave. He’d already lost one person he loved a few short months ago. He didn’t need the wound opened again.
_______
Mel wasted no time in getting back into the warm house and the sweet smell of cinnamon cookies. The deep, rumbling sound of John’s truck faded into the distance as she closed the door to the house. She frowned at the back of the door, deep in thought.
John had been borderline rude, taking off as though the gingerbread men her mom had made last night were chasing him off the Edward’s Ranch. Not that she wouldn’t have done the same thing if given the chance. She still couldn’t breathe right, not since she’d believed that sweet blonde girl was John’s child. What a rotten sense of humor he had, teasing her like that. Then again, he probably hadn’t thought it would bother her.
Why was it bothering her?
My God, she’d stood in front of him, staring at Sarah—a little girl who resembled him in an unimaginable way—unable to utter a single syllable. Hot, jealous indignation had slapped her unexpectedly. Questions she wanted to ask but dared not to fought against her loss of voice.
Why had no one had ever told her John had a daughter? Was this his only child? Where was the mother? Who was the mother? Why had no one told her any of this? Countless questions had tangled themselves in her mind, and she’d stood there like a statue. Conflicted and torn—over John.
“Mel, you didn’t tell me you’d taken pictures at the café! Wow! Our website traffic hit the roof since this morning!”
Mel, startled at the sound of her mother’s voice, snapped out of her musing and headed into the warm, welcoming kitchen. There, seated on padded wooden stools at the kitchen island was Garrett, Heather and the little girl who’d nearly given her a heart attack—Sarah. Her mother stood at the island with her laptop opened while the kids enjoyed warm cookies and cold milk.
“Mom, it’s not even nine in the morning.”
Her mom shrugged but kept looking at her laptop. “Cookies are just flour and butter. No different than a donut. Right guys?”
The kids all nodded, their mouths full.
Mel felt a little stupid standing there. She’d known John’s brother Mike had a child, but her brain had been working at half mast when she’d come face-to-face with the little girl who resembled her uncle so dramatically.
Mel had to clear her throat before speaking. “My boss wanted me to run a series about coming home to a small town for the Christmas holiday. The café is gorgeous, so I took a few pictures and linked them to your website from the magazine’s Instagram.”
She’d known the readers of the magazine would head over to her mom’s website. She also knew those readers would buy some of the merchandize listed on her mother’s website. Like Cindy had mentioned, women were into that DIY, rustic country stuff. Mel, snuggled under blankets last night in her old childhood bed, with her laptop on her lap, had been surprised to see the amount of handmade merchandise on the café’s website. Hopefully the blog mention on BDI’s Instagram would boost her mother’s sales.
“I always knew you had a talent for writing, but your pictures are beautiful as well. Wow, the lighting and the colors truly look amazing.” Her mom looked up from her laptop, a huge smile on her face. “You take beautiful pictures! Can I put a few of these on my website?”
Mel missed that smile. Missed her mom. She made a vow to herself to come home at least twice a year. “Of course. Let me give you some of the shots that I didn’t put on BDI’s social media. That way we won’t be stepping on the company’s toes.”
Her mom brushed back a few strands of hair. “Sarah told me the joke that she and John played on you.”
Mel had often gushed to her family over John and how they’d one day get married. She’d done it all the time when they’d dated in high school. Now, every time she came home, her mother had to mention John at least once and wiggle her eyebrows. This time, though, with Liam’s proposal in the back of her mind, Mel was far less resilient to the teasing.
Sarah’s cheeks turned a little pink, but she boldly said, “I think Miss Mel likes Uncle John.”
Mel laughed nervously, looking from Sarah to her mom and back again. “What are you? Six?”
Sarah held up a hand with all her fingers and her thumb out.
“So you’re five?” Mel glanced between her nephew and niece, to gauge their reactions to this little five-year-old girl, but they were too busy eating cookies and chugging milk. Garrett was six and Heather was eight, and they both acted their age. Sarah, though, was leagues beyond them. “And just what do you know about girls liking boys?” she teased, coming to steal a cookie off Sarah’s plate. She wasn’t about to let a five-year-old girl intimidate her.
Sarah looked up at her with huge, blue eyes, so much like John’s it awed her. “I know boys try to impress girls, and girls like th
at. And I can tell when a girl has a crush on a boy, and you have a crush on my uncle John.”
Okay. Wow. Mel looked at her mother in shock. Her mom’s face was so scrunched from trying not to laugh that Mel couldn’t help but snort. Was this little girl for real? She gave Sarah her attention again. “Is that so?”
Sarah nodded her head once, picked up a cookie, and took a dainty bite. She waited until she’d chewed and then she said, “He likes you too.”
It took a few seconds before the obvious hit her: Mel had just been schooled by a kindergartener. Great way to start the day. As if the bone-rattling tackle and little-girl-surprise wasn’t enough. Mel quickly ate her cookie decided not to continue the conversation. She had a sneaky suspicion she’d lose. “So, uh, mom, I have to get some pictures for tonight’s blog. It’s a series leading up to Christmas morning and I have to blog once a day. You have any idea on where I could go or what I could write about?”
Her mother headed toward the sink and started to load the dishwasher. “What’s Cindy looking for?” she called over her shoulder.
Mel shrugged. “Small town holiday cheer. Rustic. Large family. That kind of thing.”
“What if we take the kids sledding on those old sleds we have in the garage? There’s enough snow on the hill behind the barn to get a couple of good pictures. Besides, we’re supposed to have a few snow flurries in about an hour. I bet that’d make for some great shots. You know which ones I’m talking about? Those old Flexible Flyer sleds. You and John used to sled on them all the time.” Her mom winked at Sarah, who giggled.
Mel looked between her mother and Sarah. Nice. They were collaborating now. Mel ignored them. “Yeah, I know which sleds you’re talking about. Sounds like a plan to me. Oh, by the way, I’m meeting Maryann for dinner tonight. Thought I’d take her out and catch up.”
Maryann had been her closest friend before John had butted her out of Mel’s number one spot in Mel’s freshman year of high school. Married with three children, Mel doubted Maryann held any grudge, but boy did she use to.
Mel headed back into the hall and shrugged out of John’s loaner jacket—which was now permanently her jacket. She’d have to remember to drop by the hardware store and pay for it before she left. She had a feeling John wouldn’t be so excited at seeing her. Not after the way he’d left.
She rolled her eyes, still thinking about his little joke with Sarah. Liam had never interacted with his nephews in the same manner that John had with Sarah. John and Sarah reminded her of co-conspirators. They must be very close, and it wasn’t hard to see that John had a way with kids.
Yet another quality he had that she hadn’t been actively looking for. Yes, she wanted children, but did she want them with Liam? He didn’t strike her as the type who’d drop everything at work to go watch his son’s T-ball game or his daughter’s dance recital. She could already see Liam’s father expecting him to work, even if it meant less time with his family.
John? John wouldn’t just attend a game or a match. He’d be expecting his extended family to be there in the bleachers, and it wouldn’t surprise her if he coached the team as well. In a small town like Pine Grove, the young dads usually coached the sports teams. She could see John now, a brightly-colored team T-shirt on, a ballcap pulled low on his forehead, bending at the knee to coach some little kid how to round third.
The front door burst open and Tim walked inside, the cold South Dakota air trailing him. “What are you smiling about?”
She hadn’t even realized she’d been smiling. She immediately quit. Why, when it came to John Harrison, did every hormone and ovary stand up and take inventory? It had always been that way. He was a yes sir, no sir kind of guy, where Liam expected to be yes sir’d and no sir’d. Liam was more of a go-getter and a pleaser, whereas John seemed more concerned with the people around him, asking on a daily basis how he could help out whoever crossed his path.
She didn’t answer Tim. He hung his dirty jacket next to hers and heaved out a breath. “Well, he’s gonna do it,” he said with a shake of his head. George and Brian followed in behind him.
“Do what? Who?” she asked.
Brian, who stood just behind Tim, his cheeks bright pink from being outside said in a rush, “I’m going to propose to Jessica on Christmas Day.”
Chapter 7
Driving home after having dinner with her old high school friend, Mel felt understandably reminiscent. Cindy had urged her to come home and close this chapter of her life—whatever that meant—but seeing pictures of Maryann’s kids and her husband Paul had put Mel in the strangest mood. She’d missed so much while she’d been building a life out in California, like seeing her friend’s lives unfold. Their families build. And what had Melanie shown Maryann? No pictures of kids, that was for sure. No surprise birthday pictures. Nothing of substance.
She sure as hell hadn’t shown her the pictures she’d taken at Renee’s dress-burning party.
She’d thought about showing Maryann a picture of Liam, and bragging that he was going to ask her to marry him, but she’d taken her phone out and gone through her photos, only to find a slew of selfies and numerous pictures of her friends. Nothing of her and Liam.
Maryann had built a life and Melanie didn’t have one. Am I really that shallow? All selfies and no pictures of my boyfriend? She cringed as she drove. Closing this chapter of her life was forcing her to read the chapters she’d written in California, and they held so little substance that it hurt to turn the page.
In fact, ever since she’d come home, she realized she’d been calling it just that—home. Not Pine Grove or South Dakota, but home. Right on the heels of that word came thoughts of John.
Maybe Cindy was right. She’d never closed this chapter of her life, and that was why she felt the way she did when John was around. Giddy and excited…oh, hell. She didn’t want to analyze their relationship while she drove home through the darkness of the quiet countryside.
He’d likely already picked up Sarah, seeing how it was well past nine at night. Or maybe Mike had picked her up. Either way, Mel wouldn’t be running into John again tonight, and that was both a relief and a disappointment. She wasn’t sure which way the scale tipped, and she wasn’t going to think too hard about it.
Like the harvested fields she was passing—utterly dark since there were no city lights for several miles—she felt as though someone had come in and cleared her out. Wiped her clean. Hallow and shallow, that was who Melanie Edwards had become.
One thing was for sure: she was no closer to an affirmative yes or a definitive no when it came to Liam’s proposal. She was leaning toward no, but they made too much sense to merely go with her gut instinct. Even if she’d come home and realized that Liam wasn’t the man for her, she still wouldn’t drop everything and move back to Pine Grove. She had a job in California. A future. A life—as shallow as it seemed to be.
All she had here was a basket full of memories and a possible future as a small town paper columnist that would bring in maybe ten thousand bucks a year. She had to remember that reality before she romanticized everything in Pine Grove, which was becoming easier and easier to do as the hours passed.
While she and Maryann had dinner, a few friends back in Cali had sent her pictures of the charity gala they’d been attending tonight back in Los Angeles. Their dresses had sparkled in the light of the expensive chandeliers of whoever’s flat they were in, holding bubbling glasses of pink champagne, rubbing elbows with the elite…and Mel had been happier sitting across from her old friend in a small diner, looking at pictures on her phone of her adorable kids, the coat John had given her hanging on the back of her chair, washed but certainly nothing that could go back on the rack.
Just before she’d left to meet Maryann, her suitcase had been delivered. She’d taken her jacket out of the luggage, held it up and looked at it, and set it right back into the suitcase. It was just too much. She’d convinced herself that the coat she’d washed was better suited for a quick dinner out
in Pine Grove, not an eight-hundred-dollar cream-colored coat that had been on sale.
Her gaze was drawn to the road that led to John’s ranch as she passed it. She’d never been to his new place, but her mother had told her where he was located. One-hundred and forty-third street, a few miles down. Once Mel had passed his street sign, she forced her thoughts elsewhere.
When she got home she’d write up the blog post that would go live in the morning. Her mother had the best idea that day of getting shots of the kids sledding down the hill behind the barn. A few snow flurries and some pine trees dusted with snow had created the perfect backdrop and atmosphere. She’d title the blog, Fearless at Any Age, get a release from Mike and Tim, and put up that shot of Sarah, Garrett and Heather going down the steep, snow-covered hill, laughing and bundled up like little frozen cherubs with bright pink cheeks.
If that didn’t hit the readers in the feels she didn’t know what would.
She pulled into her mom’s driveway, the distinctive crunch of packed snow under the tires filling the cab of the rented car, when her breath caught. John’s truck was parked in front of her mom’s three-car garage. What was he still doing here? Shouldn’t Sarah be at home, already tucked into her a nice, warm bed? Tim’s car was also there, as was George’s Jeep. She parked next to John’s truck and cut the engine. She snagged the rearview mirror down so hard it creaked, and checked her makeup. Making a few swipes under her eyes, it hit her what she was doing and for whom, and she righted the mirror and quickly got out of the car.
Most of the lights on the first floor of the stately two-story house were on, illuminating the bushes and walkway in front of the house with muted yellow light. Her mother had forgotten to leave the porch light on for her, but there was plenty of light emanating from inside the house to keep her from stumbling around.
When she opened the door to the house laughter and loud voices met her, along with the smell of buttered popcorn and nachos.