Mel was going to listen to me even if I had to tie her to the bed.
Brodie, Jackson, and I had lunch at a small outside burrito cafe. Brodie said it was his favorite place to eat whenever he came up to Redding. While I ate the best damn burrito I’d ever had, I got an idea, but I was going to need the help of my brothers to pull it off.
Lucky for me, they agreed.
It was a long ride home, particularly when the rain started pelting down. We could barely see the road. I was glad we were in Brodie’s monster truck though with its large wheels and jacked-up frame. Some of the puddles we’d whizzed through with ease resembled small lakes. My truck was big, but not as raised as his, and my tires were more for street usage. After all, I did live in the city. There wasn’t much use for big-ass tires eating up my gas going up and down those hills. If we had been in a regular car, or even an SUV, we’d have gotten stuck.
We pulled onto the gravel drive heading up to the farmhouse. I was excited to see Mel, but somewhat anxious.
“The house is dark,” Brodie said. “There should be a light on somewhere.”
“Maybe the power is out,” Jackson suggested.
We all got out of the truck and made a beeline for the front porch. Even though we all ran, we still managed to get soaked. The rain came down so hard; it stung when it hit my skin.
Brodie turned the knob on the front door. It didn’t open, so he got his key out and unlocked it.
“Gabrielle?” He called out, but she didn’t answer. He hit the switch on the wall and the lights came on.
“Maybe she’s at my house,” Jackson said.
“Maybe, but she usually leaves a note,” Brodie said, checking around the living room for some sign of a message from Gabby.
“I’m going to go up and check on Melody.” I headed out the back door and ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. The door to the cottage was locked. I dug into my pocket, retrieved the key, and stuck it in the keyhole. I opened the door. The cottage was dark. I hit the switch on the wall and light illuminated an empty room. Mel was nowhere in sight. I ran back down the steps and caught Brodie and Jackson just as they were heading out the driveway.
Brodie stopped the truck, and I jumped in. “Melody’s not up there.”
“She’s probably with Lena and Gabby,” Jackson said.
I nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” I hoped.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” Brodie admitted. “Gabrielle always leaves a note if she goes out close to dark.”
It only took a minute, and we were coasting into Jackson’s driveway. Brodie cut the engine and we sat there looking at another dark house. Jackson glanced around. “Lena’s car is gone.”
We all got out and ran through the rain to his front door. Jackson unlocked it. We went in and Jack turned on the light.
“Lena!” he yelled, but, of course, there was no answer.
I glanced around at the chocolate-brown leather sectional sofa. One of the recliners had been left in the up position as if someone had left in a hurry, but that may have just been my imagination going wild with worry since Jackson hadn’t seemed too concerned about that and hadn’t mentioned it. A tall floor lamp in the corner illuminated the room with a soft glow.
“Woof, woof.” Rufus came barreling into the room, sliding to a halt when he reached Jackson.
“What’s up, boy? Where’s Lena?”
“Woof,” he barked at the mention of Lena’s name. Jackson scratched him behind the ears then took off up the stairs, calling out Lena’s name. Rufus plopped down and stretched out at my feet.
Jackson came back down, shaking his head. “She’s not here.”
“I don’t like it. I’m calling the bar. Maybe someone there knows where they are,” Brodie said and took out his phone, hit a couple of buttons, and said, “Hey, Derrick…yeah, it’s a hell of a storm. Have you seen Gabrielle or Lena…or Melody?...” He shook his head at us. “Okay. If they come in there, call Jack or me...Don’t know yet...Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep you posted.” He hung up.
“Nothing?” Jack asked.
“Nope.”
“I hate to be a pessimist here, but what if something happened to them. This storm is fucking nuts,” I said.
“Let’s go,” Jackson said.
“Where?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Come on Rufus. Let’s go find Lena.”
Rufus barked again and jumped to his feet.
“Man, I didn’t think that dog could move that fast,” I said.
Jackson grabbed Lena’s scarf off the hall tree. “Rufus is a hound dog, one of the greatest trackers this side of the Turtle Lake. If they’re in trouble, he’ll find them.”
“He’s done it before. Hopefully, he’ll do it again,” Brodie said and slapped me on the back. “Come on, little brother, Let’s go find our women.”
I smiled at the little brother comment, though the sentiment didn’t last long with me as my mind reeled with all sorts of possible catastrophes involving Mel and the other two women, who were my sisters-in-law.
We drove down a dark, narrow street a short distance from the house. The road soon turned to dirt. The headlights beamed, and up ahead a short distance stood what looked like a car.
“That’s Lena’s car,” Jackson said, pointing up ahead.
Brodie pulled up beside the empty vehicle and cut the engine.
“Thank God,” I muttered. “But where are they? I’m assuming they are all together.”
“They have to be,” Brodie said. “Gabrielle’s car and your truck are still at my house.”
“Right,” I agreed, though my stomach knotted and I wanted to hurl. The burrito I’d had earlier wasn’t mixing well with the angst of Melody missing. Possibly hurt. Seeing Lena’s vacant SUV didn’t help. But maybe we were close.
“Come on, Rufus.” Jackson held Lena’s scarf out for Rufus to sniff. “Go find Lena.”
Rufus took off running, and we ran after him.
“Why the hell are they out in this storm?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Brodie said.
Rufus ran to the grassy area by the lake, stopped, and howled. “He found something!” Jackson yelled. We ran toward the dog. Rufus stood on top of a blanket and a paper bag full of soaked cheese and salami. “It looks like they had a picnic.” He glanced over to his left. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“The boat is gone.”
“You have a boat?”
“It’s just a small fishing boat with an outboard motor.”
“An old fishing boat with an even older motor,” Brodie supplied.
“They must be out on the lake. I forgot to tell Lena that the motor was acting up. I noticed it a few days ago when I came out to fish.”
“Woof, woof, woof.” Rufus took off down the beach, barking. We followed him. About a mile down, Rufus stopped and pointed his face toward the water. He barked some more, and when we reached him, we heard screams and shouts coming from the middle of the lake, but we couldn’t see anything. The rain was coming down in buckets, and visibility was almost nothing.
“I see them!” Brodie shouted and waved his hands in the air. “Gabrielle!” He jumped up and down, and Rufus barked some more.
Jackson yelled for Lena. I kept shouting for Melody, jumping, waving. I was extremely excited and relieved that we’d found them. Though, we didn’t know how to get to them.
Jackson tugged his phone out of his pocket and pushed the slider over, then pressed another button. “Doc. We need your boat…Meet us at the fishing hole…Of course, the same old one…I know it’s raining…The girls are out in my old dinghy and the motor crapped out. They’re stuck in the middle of the lake…Okay. And Doc? Hurry, it’s fucking cold out here.”
By the time Doc arrived with his boat and we managed to get the girls in, it was completely dark. The rain had let up some, but it didn’t stop. The women were all drenched.
“Asher…” Mel slurred my name as I lifted her out of t
he dead boat and into Doc’s. “I’m so…c…c…cold.” Her teeth chattered rapidly. Lena and Gabby weren’t in much better shape. “I fe…fe…fell in. I ca…ca…can’t feel my toes.”
I wrapped a blanket around her and pulled her tightly against me. “You’re safe now.”
“Saffff,” she uttered, pressing her head against my chest and closing her eyes. God, her skin was red, almost as if she had a sunburn, and I was astonished at how cold her hands were when I covered them with mine. Her arms and cheeks were freezing, and I tried my hardest to rub some warmth into her.
We took them all straight to the emergency room. Lena and Gabby checked out okay, but Mel was so cold, they worried about her physical condition since she had fallen in the lake and had gotten soaked through and through. When they found out she was pregnant, they decided to keep her overnight. I stayed with her. They wrapped her feet and legs in heated socks and blankets and put some warm mittens on her hands, then covered her with more heated blankets.
She slept most of the time. I sat in the chair in the room and couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I couldn’t leave. This whole thing, being here in the hospital, reminded me of my mom and those last few days before she died. I couldn’t lose Mel. She was all I had. Everyone I’d ever loved had been taken away from me. I couldn’t lose her, too. Yeah, I had brothers now, but that love still needed to be earned. Nurtured. Love didn’t happen instantly just because you were blood. I couldn’t say I didn’t love them, but I couldn’t say that I did either. At least not yet.
I’d had something special planned for tonight with Mel, something to fix us. But it would have to wait. My babies—Mel and my actual baby—needed to rest and recuperate a little while first. So, I waited and watched.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Melody
I was rocking, gently. Lying on something, drifting with the current. No. No. Asher had found me. I was safe. I think. Dreaming maybe? A child’s voice called to me. “Mommy!” That was impossible. My baby wasn’t born yet. I wasn’t even very far along. “Mommy!” My eyes shot open. I looked up to a ceiling I didn’t recognize. I glanced around. The room was dark, and I struggled to move, but my legs were weighed down with something heavy or secured somehow. Panic took hold and I thrashed my arms to try to free myself.
“Hey,” Asher whispered close to my face and grabbed my arms, gently tugging them down onto the bed. “I’m here. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“Asher?”
He smiled at me and I swallowed. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. You were so cold and lethargic; the doctors wanted you to stay overnight.” I looked at the blue mittens on my hands and pulled them off. I didn’t know why I had mittens on, and I wanted to see my fingers, to make sure they were all there.
My palm instantly went to my abdomen as I thought of the baby. “The baby? What about the baby?”
“Our baby is fine.” He smiled. He’d said our baby. Had I heard him correctly? Okay, that did not slip by me.
I closed my eyes with relief.
“Asher, I…”
“Shhhh. Rest.”
“Is it tomorrow?” I asked, not wanting to stay in that bed any longer, but all I got was a puzzled looked from Asher. “You said overnight. So is it morning?”
“Almost.”
“You stayed here all night?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that all you can say is, ‘yeah?’”
He laughed. “Yeah.” He placed his hand on top of mine and looked down at our hands.
“I’m just so glad you’re okay. I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to you. I know this isn’t the best time…”
“No, don’t. I’ve been stupid.”
“Maybe.” He chuckled. “But let me finish. I’ve been sitting here all night thinking about things. Thinking about you, about us. I thought I’d lost you, Mel, and I couldn’t bear it. So, though this might not be the best time, I need to say this now, because I’m learning that you need to live life as if it’s your last day, last hour, last minute on earth, making the most of it, living it moment by moment, because you never know when it’s all going to be over or someone you love is going to be taken from you. Ever since you and I made love that first time, I’ve had trouble getting you out of my head. I mean, you’ve always been there, but it became different for me after that night. You had me completely undone. I became jealous about Alex to the point where I couldn’t think straight. After you’d gone to the concert with him, I saw the way he treated you the next night and I knew he’d hurt you.”
“He did, but not the way you think.”
I shook my head. “I know that now. I should have known then, but love has a way of blinding you sometimes.”
Did he just say love?
“And it makes you do and think things that you normally wouldn’t. The last time you and I made love …before we found out about this”—he splayed his fingers gently over my stomach and smiled—“I wanted to keep you there in bed with me forever and never let you go. I realized then how much I needed you in my life. I didn’t just say I needed you, I meant it. That night after we’d talked to Jackson and Brodie and revealed who I was, I had planned to tell you that I loved you, but then, when we found out about the baby, it just seemed like the wrong time and I didn’t know how to deal with it. The thought of Alex touching you turned me into a green monster, and I had horrible thoughts, to the point of forgetting that I was the one you slept with first. I hadn’t even taken into consideration the fact that you had the good sense not to be with Alex. I should have realized that when I knew you were home early from your date with him, but the news of Ted made things all messed up, and I didn’t even think about it. Then, when I saw him in the club, I knew he was crass, knew he didn’t give a fuck about the women he’d been with. But the more I remembered about watching him that night, the more I realized that I never saw him look at you, which if he had slept with you, he would have. So, I should have realized then that you turned him down. So, I’m sorry for acting like a jealous imbecile. I love you, Mel. Can you forgive me?”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks. The three little words coming from Asher’s lips were so unexpected. I knew he cared for me, we were very close, but love? He actually loved me? Only in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined hearing those words come from his mouth. Words I’d dreamed of hearing so many times. I bit my bottom lip.
“Mel? Do you forgive me?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Baby, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“Yes, I do. I’m sorry I treated you like shit all week and never let you explain your feelings to me. I was so hung up on my own that I forgot about yours and that’s inexcusable.”
“It’s very excusable after how I reacted.”
I sighed and propped myself up on my elbows. “I want to get up. I’m feeling better and I want to get out of here.” I sat up in the bed and swung my legs over the edge.
“Wait. I’m not finished.”
“What?”
“I’m not finished. I have more to say.”
“Okay.”
He reached into his pant’s pocket and pulled out a tiny black box then knelt down on one knee in front of me.
“Asher, what are you doing?”
“I’m asking you to marry me. I love you. I know this isn’t the most romantic place to ask you to marry me, but I don’t want one more second to pass by before I know the answer. Melody Grace Stevens, will you be my wife?”
He opened the small box and inside was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. A rather sizable diamond surrounded by a frame of smaller diamonds set in a gold band.
“My God, Asher, where did you get the money for that?”
“Don’t worry about the details, Mel, just answer the question.”
I looked up into his soft, green eyes and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I’ve always loved you, Asher.”
“You have?”
“Yes, my whole life, and I would love to be your wife.”
I threw my arms around him, and he stood, pulling us both up to a standing position before crushing his mouth to mine. The kiss started heavy, then went tender as he placed his palm over my stomach again. He eased back so that his face was an inch from mine. “I love this,” he said, smiling. “I’d planned to tell you that I loved you the night we found out about the baby. I had every intention of asking you to marry me that night—with or without a ring—but I held off. I didn’t want you to think I was asking because of the baby, though, because I think it’s nothing short of a miracle, and I’m so fucking stoked that you’re going to have my child, Mel. I just want you to know that I’m not asking you to marry me because of it. You have to believe that. I loved you way before that.”
“Me, too. I love you, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Asher
“All packed?” I asked Mel.
“Yep.” She stood in front of her suitcase with a bright smile on her face. God, she was beautiful.
By the grace of God, her morning sickness had seemed to subside. Good thing, because we were leaving in the morning. It had been four days since Mel had gotten out of the hospital, and like her, I was ready to head home. We dreaded telling her mom about the unplanned pregnancy—despite how happy we were—but knew we needed to. We decided to wait until after we told her about that and the engagement to plan a small wedding.
“I think it would be a good idea to have a plan set before we tell your mom,” I suggested.
“You’re probably right. We have the entire car ride home to figure it all out. I don’t need a big fancy wedding or anything.”
“What?” I scoffed. “Of course, we do. I mean, I do. I want it all, Mel, all the bells and whistles. The music, the dancing, the flowers, the flower girl, the ring bearer, the cake, the people. Not everyone, but some.”
Beautifully Undone (The Beaumont Brothers #3) Page 15