When Tessa had finished with her transaction, she grabbed her grocery bags and almost ran ran out of the store. out of the store.
Thoughtfully, Steven paid for the flowers and headed for his truck.
Once there, he got in, snapped his seat belt into place and then just sat for a while, staring through the windshield.
So Melissa had some emotional baggage, he thought. Didn"t everybody, himself included?
Cindy had done a number on him, back in the day. So had a few other women, though to lesser degrees. And as much as he loved Kim, he"d spent a lot of time wishing, as a kid, that his stepmother had never entered the equation in the first place. Why, he"d wondered privately, couldn"t his mom and dad have gotten married, and raised him together, like normal people, instead of shunting him back and forth between two very different worlds until he was old enough to make his own choices?
Finally, Steven had been forced to accept the pertinent facts. Life was messy. It was unpredictable. And 99.9 percent of the time, it didn"t make any d.a.m.n sense at all.
For all that, it was still good.
It was a gift.
The trouble arose, he reasoned, when he tried to swim upstream, against the flow.
He sighed.
It was a warm summer night. He was going to a country dance with a beautiful woman.
He decided to let that be enough, for the time being.
MELISSA FELT A LITTLE QUIVER of excitement in the pit of her stomach when she opened her front door to find Steven Creed standing on the porch, a bouquet of yellow roses clasped in one hand. of excitement in the pit of her stomach when she opened her front door to find Steven Creed standing on the porch, a bouquet of yellow roses clasped in one hand.
For a moment, she was a teenager again.
Wishing Ashley had stayed to meet Steven, instead of taking Katie home, she stepped back to let him in.
His gaze drifted over her in an appreciative way that didn"t rankle, as it would have with some men. "You look fantastic," he said.
Melissa smiled. You don"t look so bad yourself, cowboy, You don"t look so bad yourself, cowboy, she thought, letting her eyes speak for her. she thought, letting her eyes speak for her.
Steven shifted, looking somewhat uneasy. "I"m probably a little early," he said.
Still smiling, she took the flowers. "I"ll just pop these into a vase and we"ll go," she told him, leading the way into the kitchen.
There, she filled a vase with water and clipped an inch or so from the end of each of the rose stems, so they"d last longer.
"They"re from the supermarket," Steven said, from somewhere behind her. He wasn"t touching her, but he was close enough that she could sense the hardness and the heat of him.
Or was that her imagination?
"The florist"s shop was closed," he added.
She turned, holding the vase full of yellow roses, and said sincerely, "All roses are beautiful. Thank you, Steven."
A spark of something-possibly relief-lit his blue eyes. "You"re welcome," he said, and his voice sounded hoa.r.s.e. He crooked an elbow at her. "Shall we?"
Melissa laughed. "Let"s."
Outside, he hoisted her into the pa.s.senger seat of his pickup, his hands strong on the sides of her waist, stirring up all sorts of deliciously uncomfortable sense memories.
They kept the conversation light during the drive- Steven said his barn would be going up fast, because the contractor had talked him into a prefab, and the concrete foundation was scheduled to be poured on Monday. The house would take a little longer, he told her, but it would be livable in a couple of weeks.
"I guess that tour bus is starting to feel a little cramped," Melissa said, and instantly regretted the remark.
Talk about sense memories.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the slightest grin flicker across Steven"s mouth. "Actually," he said, "it"s pretty comfortable."
Melissa was relieved to see the Grange Hall up ahead. The building was historic, dating back to Sam O"Ballivan"s lifetime, and the never-painted walls were weathered by a century of hard rains, deep snows and long, ground-cracking dry spells. Thanks to Brad"s generosity, the place was much sounder than it looked, the roof solid, the dance floor level, the small stage equipped for live music and the productions of the local amateur theater group.
Tonight, cars and pickup trucks jammed the gravel parking lot, and there was a buzz of antic.i.p.ation in the air. The tw.a.n.g of electric guitars spilled into the sultry evening, a nearly tangible vibrato, and the whole scene reminded Melissa, in a bittersweet flash, of a time long past-back when she and Ashley and Brad and Olivia were kids, their mom not yet gone and their dad still young and vital.
How Delia had loved a community dance-looked forward to it all week long. Wore her freshly shampooed hair up in rollers all day Sat.u.r.day, and often squeezed the cost of a dime-store lipstick out of the grocery budget because, as she put it, a new shade always made her feel prettier. Delia had favored dresses with full skirts, the better for twirling, and she"d primp in front of the mirror on top of her bureau, as if she was practicing her smile for the upcoming occasion.
Or maybe she wasn"t practicing for the dance at all, but for the men she"d meet after she got on the bus one day and left Stone Creek-and her family-behind for good.
Melissa sighed. Delia was gone now; she"d died of hard living and the effects of long-term alcohol use a couple of years ago. By then, the woman had been a stranger for so long that the loss felt impersonal; Melissa had done the bulk of her grieving as a small child.
Back then, Melissa"s dad, a quiet man, thoughtful and maybe a little shy, had watched Delia"s antics with smiling admiration glowing in his eyes, as if he"d never seen a more beautiful picture than the one his wife made, spinning to make the hem of her dress fly out around her shapely legs.
Whole families had attended the dances in those days-not just the mothers and the fathers, but babies and kids of all ages, and old folks, too. Melissa recalled running wildly around the Grange Hall, inside and out, with her brother and sisters and a flock of other local children, until they all finally ran down.
As the evening wore on, the younger kids would collapse from sheer delighted exhaustion, one by one, and, lie down to rest on a makeshift bed, usually consisting of horse blankets or suit coats, to be carried out to the family rig around midnight, when the festivities ended.
For a moment, Melissa was back there-she could smell her dad"s aftershave and the fresh-air scent of the jacket he wore for dress-up, feel the warmth and strength of his shoulder, where her head rested. He"d carried her in one arm and Ashley in the other, and remembering brought a lump to Melissa"s throat and a sting to the back of her eyes.
Steven paid the modest price of admission-the money collected went partly to the band and partly to the local historical society-and she knew he"d picked up on her mood by the way his eyes narrowed slightly when he looked at her.
He moved nearer to her and, since the noise was intense, leaned close to her ear to ask, "You look a little peaked. Are you okay?"
She nodded, swallowed. She felt a little deflated, though, the way she always did when she remembered the demise of her parents" marriage and the vast emptiness left behind when it was over. "I"m fine," she told him, but it was herself she wanted to convince.
It was a long time ago, she thought. she thought. Let it go. Let it go.
Melissa was good at shaking things off-and it helped when she spotted Olivia and Tanner waltzing on the other side of the hall, lost in each other"s eyes, seemingly oblivious to the fast song the band was thrumming out and the dancers spinning and gyrating around them.
Her sister and brother-in-law were happy together, as were Ashley and Jack and Brad and Meg. There was no antilove curse looming over the O"Ballivan family.
When the band struck up a slow tune, Steven drew Melissa into his arms and claimed a s.p.a.ce for them on the crowded dance floor.
Melissa drew in the delicious, fresh-air-and-green-gra.s.s scent of his skin and hair. Reveled in the hard heat of him, though the sensation wasn"t about s.e.xual attraction-though G.o.d knew there was plenty of that-but instead came from a sense of being protected and even cherished.
Steven"s breath was like a balmy breeze against her ear. "I"m issuing a blanket apology, in advance," he told her, with a note of laughter in his voice. "I"ve never been much of a dancer, and if I step on your feet, please a.s.sume it"s unintentional."
She smiled, tilted her head back to look up at him. She could see the underside of his chin, the strong line of his jaw, but only part of his face. By then, the memories of her youthful parents had been carefully folded and tucked away in the softest places in her heart.
"You"re doing just fine," she said.
He drew back just far enough to look her full in the face. She saw tenderness in those periwinkle eyes of his, and something that glowed like light. "Thanks," he replied.
And they danced.
Dan Guthrie pa.s.sed, with Holly in his arms, and Melissa waited for the pang she usually got when she saw them together, but it didn"t come.
When the song ended, the crowd parted, women laughing and fanning their flushed faces with their hands, men looking relieved to get a break from dancing.
Dan and Holly, hands clasped, came right through the path that had opened for them and straight to where Melissa and Steven were standing.
"h.e.l.lo, Melissa," Dan said, his tone solemn, his eyes fond as they rested on her for that first moment. His gaze almost immediately shifted to Steven, and he put out a hand, the way men do when they introduce themselves to a stranger, and added, "Dan Guthrie."
Steven accepted the handshake. "Steven Creed," he replied. "Good to meet you."
Holly, a pretty thing, skinny except for the prominent baby b.u.mp pushing out the front of her cotton sundress, wore her blond hair pulled up into a ponytail that night. It bobbed near the top of her head. She couldn"t seem to stop smiling.
Dan slipped an arm around Holly"s waist and said, "This is my wife, Holly."
Steven smiled and said h.e.l.lo.
It was all so ordinary, Melissa thought. So comfortable.
She and Dan might have been old friends, perhaps one-time cla.s.smates, instead of former lovers.
"How are Michael and Ray?" Melissa asked, as Steven took her hand.
Dan grinned proudly at the mention of his young sons. "They"re growing like weeds," he said. "I swear, a bunkhouse full of hardworking cowpunchers couldn"t put away more food at a sitting than those two."
Melissa laughed, felt a whisper of tenderness deep in her heart, not for Dan, but for what they"d once had together, and for his children. She opened her mouth to make some comment she wouldn"t remember two seconds later, but a burst of happy laughter from near the entrance stopped her.
Tom and Tessa had arrived, Tom looking handsome in civilian clothes-jeans and a nice Western shirt-Tessa exquisite in a sundress with a blue print and ruffles.
Seeing Melissa, Tom grinned and pointed an index finger at her before pulling Tessa through the throng of Stone Creekers to approach the group.
Dan and Tom shook hands, and the music started up again, compelling Dan and Holly to drift off into the swirl of sweaty noise and motion.
Melissa and Tessa chatted briefly, but since conversation was almost impossible, they soon gave up.
She sighed, looking up at Steven, as the other pair moved away. "They make a great couple," she said.
Steven responded with a nod and then they, too, were dancing again.
After an hour or so, they stepped outside to get some fresh air and admire a sky full of stars. As the strains of a romantic ballad spilled from inside, Steven took Melissa into his arms and they waltzed in the shadows of the old building.
His smile was tender as he looked down at her. "I warned you about my dancing, didn"t I?" he drawled.
She laughed, enjoying the sheer masculinity he exuded, the controlled strength, the hard muscles of his arms and chest, the clean, woodsy scent of his cologne.
"You"re doing just fine," she told him.
And they continued to dance, even between songs.
For Melissa, it was a time out of time. They"d stopped, and she"d just tilted her head back for the kiss she knew was coming, when someone drove into the lot at top speed, tires flinging gravel in all directions.
"What the h.e.l.l-?" Steven muttered, still holding Melissa"s shoulders in his hands, but distracted now.
She peered through the darkness, saw Martine, who worked over at the Stop & Shop, jump out of her beat-up sedan.
"Help!" Martine yelled. "Somebody, help! help!"
The music drowned out her voice, but Steven and Melissa heard her plaintive cry, and they rushed toward her.
"Martine-" Melissa sputtered "-what on earth?"
"There"s been a robbery!" Martine choked out. "A man wearing a ski mask-he took all the money in the till and made me open the safe-he had a gun-"
"Breathe," Melissa ordered, taking Martine"s hands.
"I"ll get the sheriff," Steven said from somewhere at the fringes of Melissa"s awareness, and she nodded without looking at him.
"Are you hurt?" Melissa asked, and Martine shook her head, still half-hysterical.
"No-I did what he said-there was n.o.body else in the store, thank G.o.d-"
Melissa steered Martine, who was trembling violently by then, back to her car. Seated her on the pa.s.senger side.
Tom arrived quickly, with Tessa and Steven and several other people following. Melissa moved aside, and Tom crouched next to Martine"s car, looking up into her pale face.
"Tell me what happened," he said gently.
Martine repeated what she"d told Melissa. A man had come into the store, waving a gun and wearing a ski mask. She"d been so scared-certain he meant to kill her, he was so jittery-and she"d done what she was told. Given him all the money she had access to, including the contents of her own wallet.
Tom asked if she"d recognized the man.
Martine shook her head, bit down hard on her lower lip.
"What?" Tom prompted, very quietly. "Tell me, Martine."
"I was practically out of my head with fear, but-but something made me look out the window-I guess I wanted to make sure he wasn"t coming back-and I saw him get into a car and drive off." She paused again, looking miserably uncertain. "I can"t swear to it, Tom, but it sure looked like that old heap of Velda Cahill"s."
Melissa felt a tightening in the pit of her stomach.
Dear G.o.d. Byron? Byron?