Melissa was covering all kinds of ground looking for her men. She imagined she must have looked like a crazy person but she wanted to straighten out her love life once and for all. When she was sure that every street was covered, Melissa moved on, hoping one of them would come out of a building unexpectedly. Melissa was so intent on her search that she didn’t even recognize Lynn as she came out of a shop loaded with bags.
“Well, hello, Ms. Yard. Is everything okay? You look a little . . . frantic. Is that a cat in your bag?”
Melissa grabbed Lynn’s arm and talked right over her.
“Have you seen two guys walking toward a hotel eating coconut slices?”
The expression on Lynn’s face was akin to someone who was listening to a conference in a mental institution.
“Do you mean the men that were with you last night? Tall, dark, and handsome and his pretty companion blond Prince Charming. Well, as you know them, Joshua and Christian?”
Melissa nodded franticly.
“I made Joshua’s hotel reservation. Liz was going to do it and then an emergency came in to her hospital so I did it for her.”
Melissa was looking at Lynn like she was about to lose her control.
“He’s staying at the Bulgari.”
Melissa’s head went light when she realized the hotel was three miles in the other direction. She had run right past it, knowing it was too big for her to search through. Melissa ran to the main road and hailed a cab, demanding the hotel so fast the cab took off like lightning. Lynn stood, thinking success really did make people crazy.
~ ~ ~
Melissa took the time of the cab ride to calm herself down. She took cleansing breaths and began to build and rehearse a meaningful speech for Joshua. She wanted to make sure all her thoughts were not jumbled or confused. Hopefully if she said everything the way she actually felt it, Joshua would understand her thought process on their future together.
When the cab stopped in front of the hotel, Melissa’s knees turned to water and her mind went completely blank. She handed over the bills without really seeing what she gave through the security window. She fluffed her hair and hoped she had a reasonably calm expression on her face. She walked up to the front desk with confidence that was a complete façade and asked if a phone call could be placed to Joshua Bates’ room. The desk manager smiled and did not know his call would be sealing the happiness of the frazzled-looking woman in front of him and the furious-looking man who had stormed to his room an hour ago.
“He would like to know your name?”
Melissa smiled. “Tell him it’s Melissa.”
The desk man didn’t even have a chance. Joshua had heard Melissa’s voice and was already on his way downstairs. He made it in record time. Melissa had barely sat down in the lobby before Joshua was walking off the elevator.
“Well, that was very quick.”
Joshua stopped a foot from her and said nothing.
“So I have a whole speech planned out and I do not want to give it here in the lobby, though it is very nice.”
Joshua nodded and took her elbow. They rode the elevator to his floor in a rather awkward silence and Melissa loathed the fact that she had made it awkward. They walked into his room and Melissa was struck by the view. The city line was encased in a fluffy cloud the heat had yet to burn off. She turned when she heard ice hit glass.
“I know you don’t drink coffee and I doubt you’ve had any caffeine today.” He poured her favorite soda over the ice and the fizz made Melissa relax a little. The first jolt of caffeine into her system cleared a lot of the blah out of her brain.
“When you and Christian walked off, I thought my heart was going to fall right out of my body it was in so many pieces. I need you to listen to me so I can put my heart back together and it looks like heal yours as well.”
Joshua opened the sliding door to his balcony and invited her to sit down in the gorgeous morning sunshine to pour out her heart. She sat down across from him and looked out over the city. It was fascinating to watch it wake up.
“When you guys walked away, a woman the age of the dinosaurs had me sit down in her booth and gave me worldly advice. To make the conversation short, she told me that even if I was a big success that it did not matter at all if I came home to nothing. So I said in a rather haughty tone, that the life I have suits me and why should I have to change it just because another human being has walked into it? This little lady pretty much told me I was a dolt and that I should be the one to change because coming home to nothing is never a healthy thing. I told her you make me feel like lightning and that I do want what you want but I just don’t want it right now. I was saying how—” She broke off when Joshua held up a hand.
“Say that again.”
Melissa huffed out a breath and stood. She knelt in front of Joshua and took his face in her hands.
“What you make me feel is how the sky looks when lightning bolts through it. Bright and energized and beautiful. I love you so much and in five or six years, we can get engaged, get married, and I will gladly pop out a couple of kids. I want all of that. And I want it all with you. I just do not want it right now.”
Joshua leaned forward and kissed Melissa. It was one of the sweetest kisses that they had every shared. Melissa felt as if the anvil that had been sitting on her chest for the past year dissolved. “She said you would listen if I found the right words to say.”
“Have you felt like I was pressuring you?”
Melissa got up and leaned against the balcony railing. “It’s not just you. I have felt like a boulder was sitting on my chest. The pressure has been coming from my mother to get married, my brother to come home, my employees to make sure their jobs don’t go up in smoke, and then you came along with the proposal and stuff. I was waiting for my lungs to pop.”
“Why hasn’t there been more communication? Jesus, Mel, call me. Talk to me. If I had even a glimmer about how you felt I never would have brought my grandmother’s ring with me.”
Melissa whipped around, her eyes as big as saucers.
“Don’t give me that look. I had every intention of making sure it was on your finger before we went back for Christmas, but if you need to wait for whatever reason’s you have, then fine. I personally do not want to wait—” He broke off when Melissa jabbed a finger in the air.
“That statement right here. You do not want to wait. How on earth are we supposed to have a good relationship if you want us to be one way and I want us to be another way?”
Joshua came to stand next to her and took her hands. “It’s called I want to be with you so I can make some compromises. I already want to stay here in a more permanent fashion, no pun intended, so can you help me pack up my stuff so we can go home to make some pancakes? If we can get all the cat hair off the strawberries in that bag?”
Melissa laughed and together they rounded up the produce and the feline and made their way over to her home.
~ ~ ~
Feeling both nosey and slightly alarmed, Liz swept into the hotel lobby, intending to march into Joshua’s room and take Melissa away from whatever fight they were in. She veered off when she saw Conner sitting at one of the hotel’s breakfast tables. He was looking broodingly into his coffee cup and Liz could not pass up the opportunity to bug him.
“What exactly did that cup of coffee do to you, making you look so broodingly annoyed?”
Conner looked over and the glance was a mix of a bunch of different emotions.
“Well, apparently the coffee is very bad here.”
“It has nothing to do with the coffee, you weirdo. Christian just left that very chair. Apparently, he has come to term with the fact that he and Melissa won’t be together and that my mother is just a meddling pain in the butt, so he has decided not to renege on the contract we have with each other an
d cost me millions of dollars in a lawsuit.”
“This is the circumstances of the brood? You should be smiling.”
Conner shrugged. “I wish I hadn’t been involved with this whole situation in the first place. Christian storming into my office, furious, my mother meddling, my sister not playing her role and fighting our mother, throwing a suit at Christian and finally Christian coming to me, relaxed and telling me to forget the whole thing because now he is fine. My head hurts from trying to keep everything straight.” He looked up at Liz’s silence and found her studying him like a two-headed rat. “What?”
“You sounded like the bratty middle child who came home to find the younger sibling ate your cookie.”
Conner scoffed and went back to brooding.
“Seriously. You have absolutely no right to blame anything on Melissa. All she has done is try to live her life the way she wants to, not the way everyone else wants her to.”
Conner looked over with a look so bland he looked like a cup of pudding. “Then she shouldn’t have accepted her position in her family. If she really wanted to be such a black sheep, she should have set off on her own a long time ago.”
Liz’s expression turned from quiet speculation to wild outrage.
“What? Did you just hear the words come out of your mouth? How can you be so disregardful of your own flesh and blood?”
“Because that flesh and blood has caused me an incredible number of headaches.”
“Well, Conner, I’m so sorry to be a bother.”
Liz watched Conner wince as they both turned to see Melissa and Joshua walking hand in hand with Joshua carrying the sack of food and the cat snuggled in Melissa’s arms.
“Nothing I just said has been any secret to you. Since that day in the lawyer’s office I have made my feelings about this new life of yours clear and how much of a pain in my ass it’s been.”
Melissa narrowed her eyes and strode out of the hotel, saying nothing. Joshua and Liz trotted after her.
Her father had always told her to shrug Conner off because he had tunnel vision and really only saw the path of his own future. When she had come off the elevator and rounded the corner, she had been excited to see Conner, to see if it was possible to start patching things up. She was going to invite him to fix-our-sibling-bond pancakes and then she had heard the last sentence come from his mouth. Melissa knew instinctively that until her mother was satisfied that Melissa was married and Conner was settled in his own life choices, their bond would never be truly repaired.
“So, what are we going to do to shrug that big moron and his tiny little brain off? No offense, Mel, since he is your brother.” Liz looked over at the bundle in Melissa’s arms and realized it was purring. “We have a cat now? I thought that was a coat. Aww, he’s cute!”
“I was going to invite that big moron to our pancake breakfast but now I hope mother sets him up endlessly with all her friends’ single daughters. For months of endless blind dates.”
Liz laughed out loud. “God, I always forget that you have one of the most evil minds I know. Fashion princess be damned.”
Melissa shrugged and was greeted to yet another surprise of the morning. Her mother was sitting on the steps to the house.
“You have a key. Why are you sitting out here?”
Anna was again sliced by how hard her daughter sounded toward her. “I felt it was inappropriate to invade your home. Plus I rang the bell and no one answered so I figured I’d just sit and think. It has been an eternity since I did that.”
Melissa opened the door and gestured for her mother to go in. She made a face at Liz who steered Joshua into the kitchen.
“I always loved coming to this property. It has always felt so grown up. We have a lot of things to talk about, you and me. I’m wondering if you will even give me a chance to explain things to you.”
“Well, I appreciate that. However, we can’t have this discussion around other people.”
Melissa laughed as she heard the front door open. Joshua’s rushed, “Hey!” and then the sound of the front door closing loudly. The resulting quiet sounded like an explosion. Anna shook her head and sighed. She sat across from her daughter and steeled herself for the lengthy conversation ahead of her.
“I guess we should start with what you found out about our past before you left California. I know for a fact you have one burning question. Everything you read is true. When your father found that journal, he took it to experts on that time period and had all the dots connected. It was a difficult time for him, trying to understand how he could come from such violence. He tried to make it right, donated to every Native American organization he could find. He traced the blood lines and when he found the family, they did not believe him, thought he was crazy. The bloodline was much diluted in this family but it was the last of them from the man who had been wronged.”
“That family’s last name is Bates, isn’t it?”
Melissa laughed as Anna lifted a brow and nodded. “The night I met Joshua’s family, his mother told the exact story I had read in that book. Joshua is the next generation of the native my ancestor killed. Why is my life such a hot mess?” Melissa suddenly felt the house start to beat madly around her, as if it pulsed to get her to realize she needed to do something urgently. She made a mental note to make sure she spoke to Joshua’s mother again. As soon as the thought registered in her brain, the pulsing Melissa could feel stopped.
“Well, that’s a very interesting turn of events. Maybe they’ll have a better reaction to you than they did your father.” She took a deep breath and looked her daughter in the eye. “Now to address everything else you’ve hurled at me in the last few days.”
Melissa started to get up, but Anna threw a hand up.
“No, you don’t. Sit down and let me say what I have to say.”
Melissa kept her seat but brought her legs up under her, suddenly feeling too exposed. “To start, I want to apologize for being a meddling pain in your ass. I hate to use such language, however it is warranted in this instance. I know how amazing you can be, Melissa, I saw it the other night. That event? It was spectacular. The place I was coming from was that you were going to feel that joy and not be able to spread it to anyone. I know Joshua was there, but he’s not a permanent person right now. Don’t give me that look. I know you don’t want permanent. I want to be clear that I will never understand why being alone does not bother you. I’ve been without your father for almost a year now and I wake up every day confused that his side of the bed is empty. So, I’m sorry that I kept butting in and ruining everything. I hope in some way you were able to fix things.”
“This morning has been a wild ride. I’ll tell you this, Joshua and I are together, permanently with plans of engagement, wedding, and kids. In like five or so years. Don’t you give me that face. He had every intention of proposing the night of my event. Yeah, that got your attention. I’d have said yes too, but you show up with Christian and all hell broke loose. By the time I had everything worked out from that little surprise, I had my whole speech planned to keep the ring off my finger. And it worked.” Melissa giggled at the look of utter frustration and downright anger on her mother’s face.
They sat and talked as the morning sun got stronger through the window. A lot of the issues Melissa had been dealing with on her own were shared and her mother offered advice on every single matter they talked about. Melissa, in turn, listened to Anna and felt guilty about ignoring her mother when the woman really needed a shoulder. It was if they were really talking to each other for the first time. Melissa took Anna through the house and out to the back garden. She called Liz and said the coast was clear. The pair was sitting in the backyard shade when Anna dropped a bomb on Melissa.
“You know, your father planted that oak there in the center of the yard when you were four. He saw how much you loved
the one in California and immediately called to have one planted here. I thought our gardener was going to have a stroke. You played in this one as much as the one at home.”
“He gave me two trees. He left me so much and yet what I’m most grateful for is a plant. I have been missing all the time I spent up in the branches at home. When the air is that clear because you’re so high up, the brain does amazing things. All the designs from my event were sketched in the tree at home. I wonder what this one will help me create.” She looked over when the door opened, and Anna saw love transform her daughter’s face. Anna looked over at the man reaching for Melissa’s outstretched arm and knew he was going to treat her very well. She stood.
“You must be Joshua. I want to extend an apology to you as well. I sometimes have a big nose and use it to meddle into the lives of my children. I’m very glad the things I did didn’t stand between you and Melissa.”
Joshua did not have the heart to be as callous as he remembered wanting to be toward this woman. He took her hand and charmingly pressed a light kiss to her knuckles. She laughed and was happy in her daughter’s choice, which caused a huge weight to fall off her shoulders. Melissa watched that boulder fall to the delicate Italian stone of the patio and decided to call her brother.
When Conner arrived, accompanied by a sheepish Christian, the villa rang with laughter and the sounds of a noisy bunch of people sharing a meal together in the warm evening sunlight. Joshua made a mountain of pancakes. Christian filled the table in on the events leading to their bruises. Melissa entertained the group with the story of her encounter with the market woman.
When Anna, Christian, and Conner left, Liz bid Melissa and Joshua goodnight and went upstairs to soak in her huge spa tub and fall face-first on her bed before endless shifts at her hospital started again. Joshua and Melissa were alone in the living room, snuggled into the corner of the massive, cushioned nook built into the floor. The sun had set, and just for the hell of it, they had lit a fire and were drinking after-dinner wine.
Heartbeat Echoes Page 21