Perhaps some work would help her get her mind off Jake’s smile, his kisses, the way he made her toes curl when he touched her.
“Oh for crying out loud. Yes, he was good in bed—clearly from lots of practice!”
She snorted as she pulled out her laptop. Now she was openly talking to herself. Jake would certainly get a kick out of that. When she talked to him, she’d have to remember to tell him about it.
Except she wouldn’t be talking to him. She wouldn’t be going back to Bender, not while he was there. She could not—would not—be responsible for yet another man in her life turning to alcohol. Alcohol had destroyed her parents’ marriage and it had turned Raymond into something he wasn’t. Jake had been playful while drinking, but he’d also said he’d only had a drink or two. What would happen when he had more than a few drinks? And he inevitably would. They always did. No one ever fell off the wagon for just a drink or two.
He had a right to know why she walked out on him today, if only to avoid an awkward situation in the future in case she ever went home again. She couldn’t imagine that now, but she knew that with time and distance she would forget how she felt now. The last thing she wanted was for Jake to expect her to jump into bed with him whenever she came for a visit.
She began to type the letter.
As the sun rose on the third morning, she saved the document and stood up to stretch. For the first time since checking into the hotel, she pulled back the curtains. The window looked out over a nearly empty parking lot. Melanie smiled. It could have looked out over a nuclear dump and she still would have smiled. Nothing could dampen her elation.
The letter had morphed into a retelling of her history with Raymond, an attempt to explain to Jake why they could never be together again. She stopped avoiding her pain and even wrote about her trip home, complete with all the daggers and bitterness. It was a painful process that led to more tears, but at one point she was able to remember past the pain and write about unknowingly being attracted to her soon-to-be family member, highlighting the humor in the situation. Now, more than seventy thousand words later, along with a whole lot of caffeine and very little sleep, she had written a novel. “My novel,” she whispered. She clasped her hands and bit the knuckle of her forefinger to keep from screaming with excitement.
It was a rough draft and undoubtedly needed a lot of work, if she ever even tried to publish it, but it was done. Somehow she didn’t think she’d ever show this novel to anyone. It was too personal, too heartbreaking. Yet she had written her first novel, and if she could write one, she could certainly write more. The exhilaration that coursed through her was almost as intense as what she felt when she was with—
“No, I won’t think about that. Not yet.”
She shook her head as if to prove it to herself, then checked her cell phone for messages. The phone was dead, and it took her a moment to remember where the charger was. When she finally plugged it in, she groaned. Seventeen voicemails.
Several messages were from her dad, with him doing his whole nonchalant check-in that he had mastered long ago. He gave her a random update, like how Evelyn had moved his shampoo to make room for all her toiletries, then ended the message with some version of “hope everything is good with you.” It was his way of saying that he was worried about her and that she needed to call him.
A couple of messages were from work. They were worried about her. She hadn’t bothered to inform them of her change of plans. If she didn’t show up by 8 a.m., she would be out of a job. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was just after 6 o’clock and Chicago was another three to four hours away. Her dream had always been to be a writer; she couldn’t put that off any longer.
She wouldn’t put it off any longer. She was no longer an editor. She was a writer.
Two of the messages were silent. She sat on the corner of the bed and listened, imagining that she could hear his breathing, feel his heartbeat. But then he hung up, and the connection was gone. Gone without saying a word.
Just as she had done to him.
She slept for nearly two full days before finally checking out of the hotel and driving back to her tiny apartment in Chicago. During the drive, she decided what she would do. She had enough money saved up that she could live for several months—maybe even eight or nine if she were careful about expenditures. She would devote herself to writing full time for at least three months, then maybe find a part-time job if she wasn’t feeling confident. Three months. She could do that, right?
It turned out she could quite easily. She put her first novel aside and delved into a story about three elderly sisters, including all the imagined husbands they’d married and buried. That story turned into several more, and soon she had the outline of their antics as they traveled the world, carrying out special jobs that involved the removal of unfaithful lovers and husbands, somehow always managing to clear the way for true love. The irony that she was writing a romantic comedy was not lost on Melanie.
Energized by her writing and its new direction, she rarely left her computer. She tried to follow a more or less normal sleeping schedule, but she often woke in the middle of the night with an idea that she convinced herself she had to write up at that very moment. Eating occurred only when her stomach’s growling got too loud, and more often than not she ordered delivery food rather than taking the time to cook. Her only focus was on getting the draft of the romantic comedy done. An insistent power was driving her to finish, get the ideas out of her head before they disappeared forever.
With only two chapters left to write, an idea for a third novel burst into her thoughts. She scribbled down notes, then ordered Chinese delivery, racing to see how much of the final two chapters she could write before the food arrived. Just as she typed the first paragraph of the last chapter, the doorbell rang. She jumped up and did a little dance through her living room. She was nearly done, and that familiar ecstatic feeling was begging to be released. She threw open her door, singing, “Hello, Mr. Chinese delivery man!”
Except it wasn’t the Chinese food at the door.
“Hey, darlin’.”
Chapter Eighteen
Melanie felt all her energy dissipate. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, waiting. He nodded toward her apartment.
“Please, come in.” She said it with as much boredom as she could muster.
He meandered silently about the living room while Melanie watched him. He glanced at the coffee table full of pizza boxes and empty cans of soda, then looked up at her, his eyebrows rising in a question.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated.
“It’s been radio silence for more than a month.”
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and frowned.
“Look,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here, but your dad asked me to check in on you.” He huffed loudly. “And then when I stalled, my mom told me to get over here pronto. She’s a nice woman, but you don’t say no to her.”
Melanie remained silent, watching him from hooded eyes. He took a few steps toward her desk, glancing at the papers spread out on it.
“New book?”
She ignored his question. “So you expect me to believe that you came all the way from Nebraska just to check up on me?”
Jake looked at her and blinked. “No.”
“Right, so why don’t you tell me why you’re really here.”
“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t expect you to believe that I came all the way from Nebraska because I didn’t.”
Melanie waited for him to explain.
Jake shuffled his feet, glancing up at her. “Melanie, I live in Chicago.”
She stared at him for a moment, not moving. Finally, she said, “Bullshit.”
“Now why would I lie about something like that?”
Melanie shook her head. “You were driving a Nebraska truck. I saw the license plates.”
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��Ah, you caught me.” He smiled and shrugged. “Small towns are more amenable to listening to my proposals if I arrive in a local truck.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “Technically, the truck is registered in my mom’s name.”
She loosened her arms a bit. “What do you do?”
“Property manager.” He glanced down at her desk again, picking up a sheet of typed paper. “We build hotels, get them established, then turn them over to local management.”
He seemed distracted as he spoke, and Melanie realized that he was reading the page. She snatched it from him.
“Hotels? Wait—you built that new hotel in Bender?”
He frowned. “Yeah. Managed it for a while too. How else could I have gotten a key to your room?”
“You remember that?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
His frown deepened, his eyebrows furrowing together. “I’ll never forget that night. Trust me—I’ve tried.”
And there it was. He wanted to forget it, forget her. She bit down on her bottom lip, trying to stop the tears that she knew were coming. “You need to leave.” She turned her back to him. When he didn’t respond, she reached out to the door and opened it. “Please. I can’t be responsible for you falling off the wagon again.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
She jumped at how close he was behind her.
“You know what I mean. Just go.”
He walked around to stand in front of her, pushing the door closed. “Melanie, I did not fall off the wagon.” He enunciated each word.
Why was he doing this to her? “You said you had been drinking that night.”
“Yeah, I had a couple of beers in the hotel bar. I was trying to figure out whether I should kill Raymond or not for what he did to you.”
“Right, a couple of beers.”
“So?”
“So! And then you missed your morning meeting with my father.”
Jake’s eyes darted back and forth for a moment, then he looked at her and burst out laughing. “Melanie, I’m not in AA.”
She shook her head, confused.
“That was a meeting with the locals about turning over management of the hotel. I was only in town for the weekend, so we scheduled it for Sunday morning before church.”
Now it was her turn to frown. “But you missed it.”
“Yeah, because I didn’t want to leave you.”
“But you did.” This time she stepped away from him, putting more distance between them.
He murmured something under his breath and rolled his eyes. “Only because Trish’s idiot boyfriend was there. I didn’t want to wake you up, so I went to the lobby to call and postpone the meeting, except when I got there, one of our waitresses, Trish, and her boyfriend—you may remember him, he’s the one who cold-cocked me twice at lunch—were having a heck of an argument. I asked him to calm down, and he said he would, but I didn’t believe him.”
“For good reason, it seems.”
“Right? So I went back to the room to leave you a note, then went and sat in the restaurant at the table next to his so I could monitor the situation.” He rolled his eyes. “Worst three hours of my life, especially since all I wanted to do was be with you.”
Melanie’s heart fluttered at those words, but she forced herself to remain calm. “Wait a minute. You’re not sleeping with your waitress?”
He crossed his arms. “I don’t sleep with the help. Not like—”
“Not like me,” she finished for him, wincing.
Jake ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, look, I checked on you like they asked me to. Call your dad. Let him know you’re still alive.”
He was halfway out the door when she stopped him.
“You didn’t beat Raymond up?”
He turned back to sneer at her, then adopted a more neutral expression as he spoke tightly. “No, your precious Raymond is unharmed.”
Melanie swallowed past the lump in her throat and took a step closer. “And you didn’t fall off the wagon because of me?”
Jake shook his head.
“And you didn’t want to abandon me that morning?”
Jake stared at Melanie for several beats. “Is that what you thought of me?” He laughed until he was nearly doubled over. “Sweet Jesus, no wonder you ran away so quickly.”
His laughter was infectious, and soon Melanie was giggling at the absurdity of it all. She really had messed up everything, just not in the way she thought she had.
As her laughter died down, she said, “And you live in Chicago.”
“Yes, darlin’, I do.” He stopped laughing and looked at her with pure desire—a look she matched. “So did I really make you woozy?”
Melanie blinked several times, trying to grasp what he was talking about.
He held up the typed page he still carried, reading from it. “Seeing him step out of the truck, I finally understood what it meant to feel woozy—and it was a feeling I never wanted to forget.” He looked up at her and smiled. “Woozy, eh?”
“Oh, yes,” she said softly. “Very, very woozy.”
Jake stepped toward the door, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “How much do you have left on your novel?”
“What?” Melanie’s body was screaming about being denied the pleasure that was within reach.
He pointed at the desk. “Looking at that stack of papers, it looks like you’re almost done.”
“One chapter left.” Her brain struggled to shift gears. “Tying everything together.”
He looked at her, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw the passion burning in his eyes. A familiar warmth traveled the length of her body.
“You’ve got one hour. Get everything done by then.”
Melanie tilted her head to one side, her confusion obvious. Jake grabbed her in his arms and kissed her so deeply that her knees went weak and she sank into him. In that moment, all the desire she’d tried to ignore for the last several weeks came roaring back to life and it was ravenous. She wanted him—she’d always wanted him, and she’d do anything to have him, over and over again.
Just as quickly he pulled back and whispered to her in a husky voice. “When I get back, you’re all mine, Melanie Olson.”
He turned and walked out of the apartment, leaving Melanie clutching at the sofa for support.
Chapter Nineteen
Melanie held her first book release party the following spring in a small independent bookstore in a suburb of Chicago. Mostly older women attended the event, which started with Melanie reading a section from her novel. Afterward, she signed copies for her guests, thrilled by the steady stream of fans that left her hand tired and cramping.
“Nice work, Mrs. Published Author,” Jake said, sneaking a quick kiss on her cheek before sitting down next to her.
An older woman wearing a large pink hat stood next in line for an autograph. Jake winked at her, and she giggled coyly. “My, you’re quite the rapscallion, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” He leaned across the table. “I’m the inspiration for all the rapscallions in the book.”
“Oh I’m sure you are, sir.” She giggled again and handed her book to Melanie. “Now this is for my sister, Clara. She will think your story’s a hoot!”
“Thank you,” Melanie said.
“Just you wait until the next book comes out.” Jake pretended to be sharing an insider secret with her.
“Oh, I hope it’s soon.”
“It’s already printing as we speak.” Jake stood and walked around the table. He towered over the woman but bent down to continue their intrigue. “I tell you what. You give me your address, and I’ll make sure you get one of the first copies of the second book—before it even hits the stores.”
The woman’s eyes grew large with excitement, and she looked at Melanie for confirmation.
“He’s a man of his word, ma’am.” She handed the signed book back the woman, then smiled at Jake as he escorted her to the counter, w
here he took down her address while she told him how jealous Clara would be when she heard about this. Melanie shook her head, laughing at her husband, the flirt.
The bell at the door to the store jingled and Raymond walked in. Jake was still deep in conversation with the older woman, who was talking about her sister.
“Hey, Mel. See you finally published something.”
“Yes, I did. Did you want me to sign your copy?”
“Oh, you know.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I left my copy at home. I’m living here now, in Chicago.”
Melanie forced a smile. “Really?”
“Yeah, a couple of months now. Anna left me.”
He paused to glance at Jake. Melanie remained silent.
“So, uh, maybe I can stop by and see you sometime, get my book signed.”
“Sure, sure, let me just check with Jake about when our schedule is free. Jake?”
“Oh, you know? Why don’t I just buy another copy while I’m here, save us all the trouble?”
Melanie shrugged. “Your choice.”
Raymond headed to the checkout, nodding to Jake as he passed. When he returned, Melanie wrote “Thank you” in the book and signed her name. They shared a few more polite words, then Raymond left.
“Should I be jealous?” Jake said as he watched Raymond leave the store.
Melanie stood and planted a kiss on his lips. “Absolutely not.” She smiled. “In fact, you should thank him.”
“Thank him?” Jake nearly choked on the words.
“Of course. If not for him, I wouldn’t have returned for the wedding, and then I wouldn’t be all yours.” She raised one eyebrow and smiled at him in a way that she knew he couldn’t refuse.
He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his chest. “Darlin’, you drive me crazy.” He leaned forward to kiss her. “And I love you for it.”
He jumped up to run out of the store after Raymond, but paused at the door, then sauntered back to Melanie. “I’ll thank him later. For now, I want to hear more about how you’re all mine.”
Vibrant Heart: Book 1 in the Great Plains Romance Series Page 7