Mendoza's Return

by Susan Crosby

  The men finished up the pizza then Ross took off. Rafe decided to stop by Jeremy’s place to see the baby for himself since he had time before heading to Melina’s. Jeremy was performing a late, emergency surgery, Kirsten said, inviting him in. In the background, the baby cried.

  “I’d given up walking him and put him in the swing, but that hasn’t made him any happier. He’s gotten a little spoiled because Jeremy walks him a lot.” She looked askance at Rafe. “You wouldn’t be interested in trying, would you? I fixed myself a bowl of soup, and it’s getting cold.”

  For as much as he liked kids, Rafe hadn’t held many babies, if any at all. Maybe a long time ago. “Go eat. Relax,” he said, then walked to the swing and eyed the screaming infant. He lifted Anthony out then started walking and bouncing. His cries got louder. He had trouble catching his breath, he was crying so hard. So Rafe shifted him up to his shoulder and patted his back.

  The crying slowed, bit by bit. Finally he drew a few shaky breaths, tucked his face against Rafe’s neck and went to sleep. Rafe felt comforted himself, and happy that he’d been able to calm him.

  Kirsten wandered in, a bowl in her hands, a smile on her face. “He must like men’s voices better than women’s. Thank you. Can you stay until Jeremy gets home from the hospital?” She laughed.

  “Won’t he sleep for a while?”

  “If you hold him. If you put him down, all bets are off.”

  Rafe sat in a rocking chair, the baby’s warm body against his, a living reminder of what he’d expected to have with Melina. Four kids at least, they’d decided. They would’ve had two by now, if all had gone to plan. He was surprised at the depth of emotions he felt thinking about it. It’d been off his radar for so long, he’d forgotten.

  “You’re a natural,” Kirsten said, taking a seat on the sofa, pulling out baby clothes from a laundry basket to fold.

  Eventually Jeremy returned. They talked for a little while about the medallion’s connection to the Fortune family, then Rafe maneuvered the baby into Jeremy’s arms, feeling an instant loss of warmth—and peace.

  Rafe headed for Melina’s, parking on the side street as usual. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to have a talk with her. He hadn’t realized how cheated he’d felt for all these years since their plan had gone awry.

  Then again, maybe a little clearing of the air was just what the doctor ordered.

  Melina was more edgy than on any of the other nights since Rafe had started coming over. Before, she’d been excited and anxious. Now her nerves felt close to the surface and prickly.

  The plan was to talk. Would she learn things she didn’t want to know? Would he? Would tonight move their relationship forward or push it back?

  Maybe it would end it.

  The idea made her breath catch. If they talked, if they were honest with each other, he might walk out and never come back.

  That fear escalated when he knocked. She tried to steady herself, then went to the door, her knees shaking. He slipped inside her house quickly, as always, and shut the door.

  He looked different. More serious. As apprehensive as she, his emotions just as close to the surface as hers.

  She set her hands on his chest and looked him in the eye, something indefinable driving her to change their plans. “I think we should talk later.”

  He didn’t even answer, but swept her into his arms and headed up the stairs with her. With so much raw emotion between them, sex could either be mind blowing or devastating.

  But life without risk wasn’t life at all.…

  He laid her on her bed, followed her down and kissed her, not giving either of them time to come to their senses or change their minds. She felt no hesitance from him, no second thoughts, just need mixed with urgency. He was more aggressive and more driven, which was just fine with her. Soon, he let her take charge, her need just as powerful. She explored him. Cherished him. Welcomed him…

  Couldn’t get enough of him.

  She tasted, taunted and teased, enjoying all the textures of his body, all the hitched breaths and sounds of arousal. How powerful that was, to bring about such a response.

  She lingered, making the experience last, running her fingertips over him, following with her mouth, taking him almost to the brink several times, until he hauled her on top of him and helped her to lower herself onto him. She loved the sounds he made and the attention he paid to her body, so exposed to him. But he didn’t last long after that. Nor did she. It was a wild ride of abandonment, tempered with fear and doubt and a tiny bit of hope. Nothing like it had happened before, not to this degree.

  Would it ever happen again?

  She ended up draped over him, his arms around her, their slick bodies adhering.

  “Would you like to spend the night?” she asked, quietly, apprehensively.

  Then came the answer she’d dreaded. “Before we go that far,” he said. “Let’s do what we intended to. Let’s talk.”

  She rolled onto her side, facing him, dragging her fingertips along his neck, stalling.

  “You smell like baby powder,” she said.

  “I just came from visiting Jeremy and Kirsten.” He put a hand on hers, stopping her exploration. “The baby needed calming. For some reason, he took to me.”

  “Just like Elliot.”

  “Melina.” His expression was so serious. “Why are you evading?”

  Because I’m scared. “I don’t know.”

  He got out of bed, grabbed her hand and pulled her up. When they were dressed, they settled in on her couch downstairs. She sat at the opposite end, facing him, her knees up.

  “On the subject of Elliot’s attachment to you,” she said, finding a safe place to start. “I called Q when I got home, then I spoke with Elliot’s parents. Elliot knows about Asperger’s in theory, but he doesn’t really understand the complexities of it, so his parents work with him issue by issue as they come up. Baseball is a big-picture issue—physical, mental and emotional elements come into play.”

  “So, nothing can be done about his strong connection to me? It’s too complicated to try?”

  “They’ll talk to him about how it looks to the other kids when he’s not fully involved in the game, so that would be your cue. Remind him what his goal is. It should work. If not, we’ll try something else. It’s important that he doesn’t obsess about you, because it’s very hard to break an obsession, which you’ve probably guessed from how he’s always quoting your stats.”

  “His parents sure have a lot to deal with.”

  “Parents are the unsung heroes of the world, for so many reasons.”

  “Even temporary ones, like Kirsten and Jeremy taking care of a baby they have no ties to.”

  “Your mom would’ve done that,” Melina said. She rested her chin on her upraised knees, looking at him directly, wondering once more where this conversation—this long-overdue conversation—would take them, while still aching pleasantly from their lovemaking. “She seemed happiest when she was taking care of everyone.”

  “As do you.”

  His tone sounded matter-of-fact, and yet his body language was at odds with that, not nearly as relaxed. “I’m not totally selfless,” she said.

  “People like to talk about you to me,” he said, his eyes smiling at the absurdity of it all. “You are the champion do-gooder of Red Rock.”

  “Is that a compliment or a criticism?”

  “I guess it’s somewhere in the middle.” He held up a hand. “I know. I have no right to make those kinds of comments.”

  She thought that over for a few seconds. “It seems to me that this is the time for that, now that our initial sexual attraction has settled down.”

  His brows went up. “Settled down? That’s what you call—” he pointed toward the ceiling “—that?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t think I do. I want you as much now as I did our first time. Probably even more than then. It’s far from settled down for me. And I haven’t detected a
ny lessening of desire from you. Just the opposite, in fact.”

  “Wow. Okay. This really is going to be a serious discussion,” she said, even more worried about the outcome. “Yes, I want you even more than ever. But, there are walls between us, Rafe.”

  He nodded. “I’m looking to start the next stage of my life, Melina. I didn’t know that when I made the decision to come home. I thought it was to help my dad, and certainly that was number one in my reasoning, but I’m making a new life here. A complete life. I hadn’t realized how shallow my existence had been these past few years. As I told you, I’d had one goal in mind—success. I liked the money and prestige. I have a knack for buying and selling, and I don’t even know where it came from. It’s just instinct.”

  “How’d you manage to take the time to help Elliot?”

  “I made time. Put off some other things.”

  “Why did you?” she asked, since it didn’t seem to fit with running a successful law practice.

  He was quiet awhile, then, “Because you asked. I haven’t done anything I haven’t been paid to do for a long time. Maybe never. I don’t remember.”

  “It’s incredibly rewarding. Helping people,” she added. “If I hadn’t taken care of my grandmother for that year, I never would’ve known about this field of work—or how good I would be at it.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  Showtime, she thought. The beginning of what had become the end of their relationship. “You were with me when I got the news about her stroke. We’d been at Ann Arbor for, what, three months? Mom and Dad talked me out of coming home until Christmas break.”

  “Then you never went back to college.”

  “I couldn’t. You saw that. Gramps wasn’t in the best of health, so he couldn’t assume the load. My mom worked full-time. Angie and Stephanie were too young.” She leaned across the space between her and Rafe and touched his arm. “I missed you, but I found I really didn’t miss college.”

  “I loved every minute of it.”

  “I know. I did, too, once I found my calling and started studying in the right field. Not that caring for Grandma Rose was easy. It wasn’t. It was really, really hard, physically and emotionally. Plus Gramps was difficult to deal with. He was so afraid he would lose her. A year later, when she did die, he went into such deep mourning we thought he’d never come out of it. As I’m sure you’ve heard, I stayed on at his house for a year more.”

  “He seems to be okay now.”

  “He put up quite a fuss when I told him I was moving out, but it was past time. Mom and Dad have offered to have him live with them, and I imagine he’ll do that at some point. I’m not sure how well Mom will make that transition.” Melina smiled at the idea. Her father was hard enough to live with. “It was good of you to invite your father to live with you.”

  “It’s hard to see your parent become scared, or worse, dependent.” He laid his hand on her feet and squeezed. “I guess I finally understand what drove you to take such a drastic step, to quit college to care for your grandma.”

  “Do you? I don’t think I even really understood then. I just knew someone had to help, and I seemed to be the only one available. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago, after you got back, and I started reflecting on it all, that I realized once and for all that I wasn’t cut out to be a lawyer. I wouldn’t have been any good at it. I rationalized my leaving school because of my grandparents, when it was just as much my own desire.” Her eyes stung at the admission. “See? I’m selfish, after all.”

  She took a breath, then said what she’d been needing to say for years. “Being away from you was hard enough while I was helping them 24/7, but having you break up with me at the same time just about did me in.”

  He let go of her feet. His jaw went hard. “A lot of people have alluded to the fact I broke up with you. Melina. I’ve kept quiet about it because I wasn’t the one living here, and I understood you wanted to keep people’s good opinion of you. But since we both know that’s not how it happened, maybe it’s time you at least acknowledge that for me, if no one else.”

  His anger was palpable. She felt the heat of it travel to her, adding to her own. “What do you mean, you didn’t break up with me?”

  “You think I did?”

  What a ridiculous question. “Of course I do. I even have proof.”

  He sat up straight. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Prove it.”

  “You don’t know? Seriously?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask. You say you have proof. I want to see it.”

  She pushed herself up, her muscles bunched and taut. “I’ll be happy to,” she said, then she ran upstairs as her heart pounded.

  The time had come.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rafe got up, as well, then didn’t know what to do with himself, so he went into her kitchen and poured a glass of water, standing at the sink to drink it.

  This hadn’t been what he’d had in mind when he’d suggested they just talk tonight. He’d wanted to know about the past ten years. He’d wanted to know about her work. He hadn’t wanted to dig into the painful ending of their relationship.…

  Except it had to come out sometime, and the no-strings-affair wasn’t working. It wasn’t enough. So, it was time to clear the air—even if it muddied the waters.

  She came down the stairs and directly into the kitchen, handing him a picture frame. But instead of a photograph inside it, there was a typed note, a letter from him to her.

  Melina, I don’t know any other way to get through to you. I’ve been patient long enough. You’ve made decisions without taking me into consideration, and that says it all to me. So, I give up. I’m done. You made your choice. Good luck with that. Rafe

  He remembered every detail of the note now that he’d seen it again, reliving every emotion. Anger and betrayal surged through him anew as he realized what he held. “You framed it? You framed my note?”

  She crossed her arms. “Darn right I did.”

  His jaw hurt, sending shards of pain down his body. “I see I was wrong. Your silence back then didn’t say it all. This did.” He handed it back to her, then walked toward her door, not looking back.

  Suddenly she was there, behind him. “Oh, sure. Walk out. At least this time it’s in person, not by letter.”

  He spun around, trying to rein in his temper. She’d framed his note. Of all the— “That letter was a damned sight more effort than you ever put in. The least you could have done was return my calls. Even just one call.”

  Her brows drew together. “What? When?”

  “Oh, come on, Melina. Be honest, at least. I called for weeks.”

  “Only a couple of times.”

  Fury teemed in him. No one ever questioned his integrity. “Many times. Why would I lie to you? You didn’t own a cell phone then, but I left messages. I talked with your grandfather. You never called me back. Not to tell me what was going on, or how your grandmother was doing, or even when you were coming back to school. Nothing.”

  She shook her head. “My grandfather would have told me. I only remember two calls.”

  “I called. A lot. Then when I gave up and sent you the letter, all you did was send me back the promise ring in the mail, with a note that just said okay, I might add.”

  She crossed her arms. “I was too hurt.”

  “You think I wasn’t? I went through hell.”

  They stared at each other, tension crackling between them.

  “I guess it shows how wrong we were for each other,” she said, voicing aloud what he’d just figured out. “It would’ve ended at some point. Maybe not that soon or painfully, but sometime.”

  “Unlike you, I never saw my future without you in it,” he said honestly. “You were all I wanted.”

  “You think I didn’t feel the same? I applied to Michigan because of you. I didn’t want to leave home, but, even more, I didn’t want to leave you.”

  His gut clenched. “Why
is this the first I’m hearing about that? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She threw up her hands. “I was young and in love. You convinced me that it would be an adventure, and it was, but not in a good way for me. And, honestly, I would’ve made a lousy lawyer.”

  “So you grasped at the first opportunity to come back home instead of telling me, and letting us deal with it together?”

  “I was eighteen years old! I’d been sheltered all my life, Rafe. I got scared. You were enjoying yourself, and I wasn’t. I could see myself getting clingier all the time. You even made a comment about it.”

  Rafe thought back, recalling a vague memory that she’d become more and more dependent on him. “I didn’t know it was that serious.”

  “I didn’t know, either. I couldn’t make sense of it. I just knew I was worried all the time. So, yes, I guess I did use my grandmother as an opportunity to come home again. But I loved you, and missed you.”

  I loved you. Past tense. He didn’t know why it hurt so much to hear it put like that. “So you’re saying you were too immature?”

  “Without a doubt. Not that I acknowledged it then, but I’ve done so much soul searching since you came back. In retrospect, a lot has come clear to me. All these things I’ve just told you are new to me, too. I don’t think I wanted to look back, and having you here forced me to.”

  He saw desperation in her eyes, as if willing him to understand. As if begging to be held, too, but he was careful not to touch her, not knowing how he felt now. He looked at the framed letter again, and the stab of pain returned in full force. She’d kept the damn letter—framed. Who did that?

  “I need time to sort this out,” he said and saw her retreat, not physically, but emotionally. “I know we’ll see each other because of Elliot.”

  “Whatever.” She turned away.

  He had to go. Had to get away from…everything. He didn’t even say goodbye, but left. Outside the cool air felt good against his skin. Too restless to go home, Rafe drove to Red, hoping to catch his brother, not knowing his schedule for the week.

  When there was no one up front to greet him, Rafe took a seat at the bar.