by Shirley Jump
Except right this second she didn’t care about the article. Her career. Her life in New York. All she saw across from her was the man she had loved more than any other on the planet, his eyes soft and happy, and the past erased between them.
“Evelyn, uh, said she’s been dating a younger man—he’s ninety-eight—for some time now and that being with him is part of what keeps her young.” Melanie took a bite of creamy, buttery mashed potatoes. They paired perfectly with the tender chicken marsala. Or so her taste buds said. Her brain had stopped functioning the minute she saw Harris smile.
“That’s pretty incredible,” Harris said, and the part of her that still cared what he thought was pleased he was impressed. They talked some more about her story as they ate, and the amazing meal Della had made began to disappear from their plates.
The wine was nearly gone, their plates almost clean, before Melanie circled the conversation back around to the fire. She almost didn’t bring it up, because she wanted to hold on to these light, fun moments with Harris awhile longer. To go on thinking about that kiss, about his joke about them moving in together and about how much she had missed him in the years apart.
But in a week or so, she was going back to New York. To her apartment and her bills and her complete lack of a permanent job. She couldn’t survive much longer on the little savings she had left. Reality had a nice way of smacking the dreaminess out of her head.
“The Kingstons are such a great family,” Melanie said, sliding the sentence in as a natural segue from their conversation about the town. “I was really impressed with how they have pulled together with the community.”
“They are great. One of those families who would give you the shirt off their back. Except now they need that shirt, and yet they are still giving back. Catherine baked cookies for the entire fire department, and John is giving all the volunteers free haircuts.” The sun was almost done setting outside his window, casting a bright swath of gold across the room and off Harris’s dark hair. She had fantasies of Greek gods for a second.
Focus on the article. On why you are here.
“Hopefully the article I’m writing about the fund-raiser will bring in more donations,” she said. “And if I added one about the fire...you know, sort of laid out what happened—”
“No.”
One word, succinct and clear. “But a little more publicity—”
“Just tell the bare minimum in the article about the fund-raiser, Mellie. Please. This family deserves their privacy. I thought I made that clear.”
Maybe she could talk to Harris later, after the fund-raiser article ran, and change his mind. She couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want as much publicity as possible, to help drum up the funds they needed. Surely Harris could see how that could change the lives of the Kingstons for the better. But that was a conversation for later, she decided, when he wasn’t so sensitive to the subject.
She buttered another piece of bread, even though she was full. Maybe if she kept the words flowing between bites it wouldn’t seem like so much of an interview? “How did you meet them? I mean, you weren’t in town that long the first time, right?”
“When I was here before, I was working on a house for a baseball player who built just outside Stone Gap. I needed a haircut, and when I was driving through town on my way to the job site, I saw John’s barbershop. I met him and his wife, and we hit it off. Then my mother died a few weeks later, and I...I was in a dark place for a while, and John was there for me.”
“I’m so sorry about your mother, Harris. She was such a sweet woman.”
“I felt so guilty when she died.” Harris stared down at his plate, as if the words he was seeking were buried beneath his potatoes. He paused for a long time, while the faint sounds of children playing carried in on the breeze. “My father was hard on me, but he was horrible to her. She couldn’t do anything right. She spent too much money on this, or went too cheap on that, or didn’t say the right things at the dinner table. When I lived there, I tried to take on as much of the brunt of his anger as I could, but when I quit working for my dad, my father disowned me. It was a brutal argument, and I wanted nothing to do with him ever again.”
Harris pushed his plate away and wrapped his hands around the stem of the wineglass. “Because of that I... I stayed away from my mom, too. I kept telling myself it was because he’d be furious if he found out she’d met with me and I didn’t want her to pay the price for me striking out on my own, but it was really because I just couldn’t deal with either one of them right then. Plus, I definitely didn’t want to run into my dad and hear his diatribes again.” He sighed, a heavy sound that spoke of deep regrets. “She was hurt and lonely, and though I talked to her often, she wanted me to visit. After I finished building the house down here, I promised to come see her. But she died before I could get home.”
His mother was only in her fifties, if Melanie remembered right. She’d met Harris’s mother a few times, when she’d stopped by his house to pick him up. His mother had been a slight, short, quiet woman, who clearly loved her son but rarely raised her voice above a whisper. The one encounter Melanie had had with Harris’s father—after school one afternoon when he picked Harris up from detention—had shown him to be exactly as Harris described him: brutal. She couldn’t imagine being married to a man like that, and frankly, Melanie was surprised Harris turned out so normal. That had to be his mother’s influence. “Your mother was so young, though. What happened to her?”
“Lung cancer. She never told me about it. I think she didn’t want me to worry.” Harris shook his head and let out a curse. “If only I had gone home sooner...”
She covered his hand with her own, her thumb trailing across his wrist. “You couldn’t have known, Harris.”
“I should have gone home.” He sighed. “I was a wreck after that, and John...well, he came and dragged me out of the bar and took me fishing, and talked to me until I got myself together. He took time off from the barbershop, time he couldn’t afford, and he was just there for me as my friend. After what...”
Harris shook his head again. He pinched the space between his brows. “I owe him. More than I can ever repay.”
After what... The words seemed to hint at something more, something Harris wasn’t saying. Something he didn’t want to say. There was a reason he kept resisting publicity on his heroism and generosity, a reason that seemed to go beyond being humble. “Did the fire department ever determine the cause of the fire?”
“They did.”
Melanie waited, silent. She took her time eating the bread, stalling. If she left a wide enough gap in the conversation, Harris would fill it. Over the years, she’d learned that if she just stayed silent, people got uncomfortable with the silence and filled it with words.
What was she doing? Manipulating someone she cared about? This was no way to get a story. No way to restore her career. Before she could say forget it, it’s not important, Harris filled the gap in the conversation.
“It was accidental,” Harris said. The daylight was growing dimmer, casting shadows in the room. “A candle got knocked over.”
“A candle did all that damage? Didn’t someone see it burning?”
The speaker changed to a slow ballad from the ’70s. Outside the window, there was the sound of children laughing, a horn honk, a lawn mower being shut down. The day was drawing to a close, and Stone Gap was settling down for the night.
“No one knew it was on the floor. When John knocked it over... What I’m telling you is not part of an article or a publicity piece or some fund-raiser promo. Is that clear?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
Harris steepled his hands and drew in a deep breath. “He was too drunk to realize what had happened. John had gone home, already plastered and depressed, but realized he didn’t want Catherine to see him like that again. He stumbled out of the house, and was getting
into his truck to head back to the bar when the flames caught on the living room drapes.”
John Kingston was drunk? That had to be why Harris had kept the story out of the media. Knowing Harris, he would protect his friend, and especially protect a family like that. One missed candle—and the Kingstons had almost lost everything. Except Harris—the Harris she had once been in love with and thought she would spend forever with—had been there and had saved them all. “How did you end up there at the right time?”
“John panicked. He called me, and before he even finished telling me what had happened, I was in my car. They don’t live that far from the inn, so I was there in a few minutes. I called 9-1-1 on my way, but I drove so damned fast, I got there before the fire trucks did.”
She could see it in her head—the dark night, Harris’s calm strength, barreling through the deserted streets of Stone Gap. Him pulling into that driveway, racing out of his car, assessing the situation, making decisions. “And then you ran into the house to get the kids and Catherine? Why didn’t John help?”
Harris shrugged, as if dashing into a house on fire was no big deal. “John...John was in no condition to do anything.”
Her esteem for Harris skyrocketed. She had known and loved a high school boy, but the man he had become—smart, brave, strong—was someone she could very easily fall for. She met his gaze and saw fierce protectiveness there. He was a man, not a boy anymore, the kind of man a smart woman scooped up.
Unless that smart woman had a story to write. A career to save. A life to salvage. She tore her gaze away from him and focused on straightening her napkin on her lap. “I’ve met John. He doesn’t strike me as an alcoholic.”
“He had a bad day. I don’t know what triggered it, but something reminded him of...” Harris drew in a deep breath, and when he released it, the air seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. “Of something that never should have happened.”
She wanted to ease the worry in Harris’s eyes, the hunch in his shoulders. Her hand snaked across the table to take his, but at the last second, she pulled it back. “That’s awful. He must have terrible guilt about that night.”
“He did, and he still does. He panicked when his family needed him most. But I know John, and I know if he’d been sober, he would have rushed into that house and carried them all out on his back. He’s just a guy who got off track for a while. And...for good reason.”
Hadn’t Della said something about John losing his business? Melanie made a mental note to do some research tonight. Maybe that was what had depressed him that night. And the shame of being drunk enough to start the fire without noticing—not to mention, too drunk to save your own family—that was a good reason for Harris to want to protect the family from the press.
Thank God Harris was there. Harris, always the one to relate, to care, to give someone else a break. He was the complete opposite of his father, who was brutal and cold, chopping up businesses like they were melons. If the two men didn’t look so much alike, she wouldn’t have even thought they were related.
Damn. Why did Harris have to be such a good guy? Why did he have to care so much? And why did she feel this connection weaving between them again?
“I can relate to that, too,” Melanie said softly. “The whole first part of my life was off track. And just when I thought I had it back on the right path...”
She let the words trail off. Finishing them would mean telling him about the miscarriage, the baby they’d almost had, the devastation that had made her shift and become more responsible and driven. The life they would have had together if that miscarriage never happened. It was too late for all that. Too late to start over. Too late to try again.
“Something came out of nowhere and knocked it off again,” Harris filled in when she stopped talking. “I get that. But I think you’ve always had it together a lot more than you think.” As if he’d read her mind, he took her hand, his touch warm and firm. “You’re an amazing woman, Mellie. I’ve always thought that.”
The touch added fuel to the desire already burning inside her. His fingers curled over hers, and in an instant, she was seventeen again and lying with Harris on a blanket under the stars. He’d held her hand up to the pale moonlight and traced her fingers with his own, sliding along her skin with slow, easy, practiced moves that were crazy erotic. They’d stayed there, making love over and over again, until the sun began to peek behind the trees and the town began to wake.
Harris’s dark brown eyes met hers. She could have looked away, could have gone back to her questions. Instead, she held his gaze, and when a question filled the space between them, she gave a small, short nod. Harris slid out of his chair, then took her other hand. She rose and stepped into his arms.
They began to dance, bodies moving in concert, stepping right, then left, back and forth, swaying closer and closer together with each step. The song on the radio was something by Norah Jones or Enya or someone like that. She couldn’t have named the tune if someone paid her. Every one of her senses homed in on Harris, on the feel of his hand on the small of her back, the security of his opposite hand holding hers, and the way they brushed against each other from time to time. Every time her body hit Harris’s, she noticed he had grown harder.
He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, slow, easy, tender. She stopped dancing and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer, deeper. She had missed him. Missed this. Missed being with a man who knew her body so well, he could have drawn a map of every hill and valley.
His hand slid between them, then over the top of her breast. She arched into the touch, cursing the clothes she wore, the slight distance they created between her skin and his touch. With one finger, he pushed the neckline of her dress to the left, then danced his fingers inside, under the lacy cup of her bra and over her breast.
When he grazed her nipple, she gasped. It was like setting off a ten-ton bomb in her midsection. All she wanted was more. Now. Right now.
Melanie pressed her pelvis to his, and there was no mistaking he wanted the same thing. “Harris,” she whispered, because she couldn’t think of another single thing to say.
“I have missed you, Mellie,” he whispered against her lips. “Missed touching you.”
“I’ve missed that, too.” Her eyes watered, and the words caught in her throat. Melanie Cooper, who rarely betrayed an emotion or lost her cool, was falling hard for Harris McCarthy all over again.
“I want you,” he said, “but only if you want this, too. We both know this isn’t anything perm—”
“I don’t care, Harris. I really don’t. Right now, right here, please...please don’t make me wait anymore.”
That was all he needed. He reached behind her, slid down the zipper of her dress, then nudged it off her shoulders. She stepped back and let the fabric tumble to the floor with a whisper. Harris’s gaze took in her lacy pale pink bra and panties, and a smile curved across his face. “Good Lord, you are beautiful.”
She stepped forward and undid the buttons of his shirt one at a time, revealing inch after inch of his muscular chest. She parted the cotton panels, then slid the shirt down his arms. In the years they’d been apart, Harris had grown taller, broader, more muscular. She danced her touch along the ridges of his abdomen, over the contours of his biceps.
He dipped his head to kiss her neck, and she nearly came undone. Harris trailed kisses along her neck, down the valley of her breasts, while he undid the clasp and let the lacy fabric drop. He kissed her breast, then took one nipple in his mouth and sucked gently.
An inferno of desire erupted in her. She didn’t want to wait, didn’t care about taking their time. She grabbed his hand, stepping backward until she hit the bed. They tumbled onto the mattress, then rolled over and between each other, shedding Harris’s pants, his briefs, her panties.
Then they were naked and sliding along each other’s bodies, coming closer and closer to h
im entering her. She knew how that would feel, knew the bliss that would sink into her with him. And knew that after this, she’d want him even more. She was playing with fire, and right now, Melanie didn’t care.
Harris grabbed a condom out of his wallet and slid it on. He braced himself over her, holding her gaze again for one long second. She surged up, grabbing him in a “stop hesitating” kiss, and he plunged into her.
She arched on the bed, then grabbed his back as he slid in and out of her in practiced strokes that somehow managed to hit every single nerve ending inside her. Harris hadn’t forgotten a thing. Not a single damned thing.
And when those strokes multiplied and the heat inside her built, and she came, gasping his name, clawing at his back, she thought how damned grateful she was that Harris McCarthy had a good memory.
Chapter Eleven
Harris lay in his bed with Mellie in his arms, her head on his chest, the sweet scent of her perfume filling the air between them, the moment as fragile as a china teacup and ten times more beautiful. He was almost afraid to move, lest she remember she’d vowed this was only a fling.
He understood that. When they’d been young and getting married seemed like something only old people did, he had let her go at the first hint of trouble, instead of sticking it out and working things out. But now, with the passage of time and the learning of lessons about the shortness of life, Harris didn’t want to let her go so easily again. He’d made a mistake that night they broke up, making assumptions and accusing her without letting her explain her side. He wouldn’t be a fool again.
They had a little over a week left here before she went back to New York. He hoped it would be enough time.
Because tonight, Harris had realized he had never stopped loving Mellie. And if there was a chance in hell, he was going to do his best to get her back.
* * *
Melanie sneaked back to her room around three in the morning, careful not to wake Harris. All those feelings of reminiscing and missing had been replaced with a flashing neon sign in her head: