Elusive Echoes (13 page)

Mel's reserve had come up again and Sean
wondered why. She and Olivia had been pretty tight when they were
kids. Liv showed no sign of recognizing the guardedness, and Sean
wondered if he was just being sensitive.

"I put Sean's check on your desk," Liv said
to Colt. "You left it on the kitchen table last night."

Sean closed his eyes, hoping Mel hadn't
heard.

"What check?"

Crap!

"Sean left a deposit on the Jeep for me to
hold it until you could get here," said Colt.

Mel looked between the three of them,
probably guessing that something was going on. "Oh, thanks, Sean.
How much do I owe you?"

Sean rubbed his jaw. Keep it casual, he
reminded himself. "Just twenty-five dollars."

"Fifty," Colt said at the same time.

"Which one of you can't do the math?"

Sean shot a look at Colt. "He's right. It
was fifty. He only asked for twenty-five but I already had the
check written."

Mel pinned him with her gaze for a long,
uncomfortable moment.

Because he wanted to shuffle his feet in the
dirt like a seven-year-old caught with an extra cookie, Sean forced
himself to remain absolutely still.

Mel's eyes narrowed briefly. Finally, she
shrugged. "Okay, then."

****

Mel knew good and well something was up.
Sean's nervous tell of freezing like a deer in headlights had her
on full alert. She'd figure it out soon enough. She always did.

Back on the trail again, she watched him.
Poor Ginger spooked at just about everything. Sean wasn't having a
very good ride. He'd been right about Lacey, though. She was a real
sweetheart. Mel had fallen in love with her.

"You feel up to a detour?" asked Sean when
they were nearly back to the Cross MC. "Just a short one. I want to
show you something."

She followed him around a stand of
yellow-leafed cottonwood trees and onto a small rise overlooking a
gently rolling field. The afternoon sun turned the tall grass
golden. The field was rimmed by pine trees, outlined by wood and
wire fences, and along one fence a rough two-rutted trail wound in
from the main road. Distant mountains formed a backdrop for the
cottonwood trees with their dwindling yellow-gold leaves.

"What is this place?"

His smile seemed a little less sure. "Do you
like it?"

"I do," she breathed, awestruck. "It's so
peaceful and pretty."

Sean dismounted, looping Ginger's reins
around an old log, before turning to catch Mel as she slid off
Lacey. His hands lingered on her hips. Unable to resist, she leaned
toward him. He pulled her close, raising his hands to cup her face.
He looked deep into her eyes, then slowly bent and brushed his lips
across hers. It was one of his emotionally devastating
feather-light kisses that caused her heart to race and always left
her wanting so much more. When he pulled back, she sighed.

"I've loved this place since I was a kid.
Dad's been saving it for me." Sean pulled Mel around to stand in
front of him, easing her back against him and crossing his arms in
front of her at her waist. He turned them both. "I want to build a
house here someday. Over there by that one big cottonwood." He
turned them again. "And out that way, I'm going to put up a horse
barn so I can keep the rehab stable going from here." He turned
then again. "And over there, a play yard with a swing set."

He was showing her a future he wanted to
share with her.

"Oh, Sean." Just for a moment, Mel wanted to
believe. She wanted to believe they could do this, have this piece
of heaven together. Then she retreated, knowing as soon as Sean
found out her secret he probably wouldn't want anything to do with
her.

"We should probably get back." She slipped
from his arms and headed for the horses.

She almost made it. But he grabbed her hand
and she came to a dead stop. Slowly, he pulled her back toward him,
turning her around and looking into her eyes. "Please don't do
this. Don't shut us down again, Melanie."

"I'm not shutting anyone down." Suddenly,
Mel didn't know what she was doing or why. She was afraid and
apparently hid it so well that the man she loved didn't even see
it. She opened her mouth to tell him. When the words wouldn't form,
she closed it again.

He held her gaze for a long time. Then he
shook his head. "You already have." He let her go, turning away,
but not before she saw the hurt and confusion in his gaze.

"Wait!" Mel caught up with Sean next to
Ginger, just before he swung into the saddle. She laid a hand on
his shoulder. His muscles tensed beneath her touch.

"I don't know who you are anymore, Mel." His
hand fisted around the saddle blanket. "One minute I see the girl
I've always loved. The next you're all closed off." Slowly, he
relaxed his fingers. "I brought you here, showed you this place
because I thought—" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter." He took
hold of the saddle and prepared to mount the horse.

Mel put her hand over his, stopping him. "It
does matter. It matters a lot. I don't want us to fight like
this."

"Is there an
us
, Mel?" He turned,
fixing her in his pale green stare. "Because lately it doesn't feel
like it. I thought after this morning you might—" A spasm of pain
rolled across his features. Abruptly, he dug in his pocket and
pulled out a small brown box. "I brought you here to show you what
we could have, a dream we could build together. But if there's no
us, there's no dream. Here. This is never going to belong to anyone
else." He thrust the box into her hand. "I wanted to give this to
you, right here, where I wanted to build a life with you. I thought
we had something this morning. I thought we finally reconnected."
He shrugged. "Guess I was wrong. All you wanted was a physical
hookup after all."

The sound of her slap filled the meadow
before it was absorbed by the pine trees surrounding them. Mel
raised a hand to her mouth, horrified at her behavior. "Sean. . ."
She reached for him but he evaded her touch with a step
backward.

"If you ever feel you want more, if you ever
decide you want to marry me, put my ring on and come find me." He
turned away without bothering to mask the flash of disgust on his
face.

Mel closed her eyes. This time she didn't
stop him. He climbed into the saddle, wheeled Ginger around and
took off toward home at a fast gallop.

Mel looked at the box in her hand. She
traced a finger around the edge but didn't open it. Finally, she
shoved it into her pocket. Then she mounted Lacey and steered in
the direction of the ranch.

Chapter Eight

Sean wasn't at the stable when Mel arrived.
Ricky was grooming Ginger, who finally looked worn out and less
skittish. Mel felt Ricky's gaze on her as she removed the saddle
from Lacey's back. He continued to brush Ginger, keeping his
thoughts to himself, though clearly he was having thoughts.

"Do you want me to take care of Lacey for
you, Mel?"

Surreptitiously dabbing at her tearing eyes,
she shook her head. "I can take care of my horse, Ricky, thanks."
She picked up the grooming mitt and began to use it on Lacey.

The horse's neck was warm. Mel pressed her
cheek there, breathing in the horsey scent. Lacey nuzzled her as if
to commiserate.

"You're such a sweet girl. I don't know how
anyone could have hurt you, but I promise I never will." Tears
spilled from her eyes and rolled over her cheeks, moistening
patches of the horse's hair.

The hand on her shoulder was warm and firm.
Startled, Mel looked up with Sean's name on her lips. But it was
Justin's kind eyes looking at her with concern. Hastily, Mel
scrubbed the tears from her cheeks. Ginger was back in her stall
and Ricky was gone, and Mel wondered how long she'd been hugging
her horse and crying.

"I guess it's silly to cry over a horse when
she's not being mistreated anymore."

Justin continued to look at her in silence.
Something inside Mel squirmed just a little under his scrutiny.

"Even sillier to cry over a man with a foul
temper and mean with it," he finally said.

So he'd seen Sean. Mel couldn't let the
blame for her mood fall on the man she loved. "It's not like
that."

Justin took the curry mitt from her hand and
set it in the tool bucket. "Let's go for a walk and you can tell me
how it is."

"Lacey needs—"

"The boy'll take care of her."

Mel's smile felt shaky. "Ricky went and got
you?"

Justin's answering smile was wide and sure.
"We met halfway. My second son came up to the house all butt-hurt
and acting like an idiot. It doesn't happen often, but when it
does, no point in talking to him. I figured there'd been words
between you two." He settled an arm around Mel's shoulders and
steered her into the yard.

They stood without touching at the back
fence, near the trailhead. Justin said nothing, just looked out
over the pasture. That squirmy feeling in the pit of Mel's stomach
returned.

"He's not an idiot. I hurt him. Very deeply,
I think."

Justin set a foot on the bottom rail of the
fence, keeping his eyes forward. "Do it on purpose?"

"No," she said on a long sigh. "He's
not—we're not in the same place. I don't think we're even reading
the same map. And I know he doesn't understand why."

He turned his head and Melanie found herself
trapped in his stare. "Got a problem with telling him why?"

"I started telling him. But it's
complicated, and telling him got—complicated." Mel laid her head
against the top rail of the fence.

Justin's arm slid around her again. For the
first time since Todd Mitchell had died, Melanie felt safe in the
arms of fatherly love.

"It's going to be as complicated as the two
of you make it," he said. "Did he react badly to what you told
him?"

Mel looked up again and met Justin's eyes.
"No, he was sweet, and he got—and we—" Heat rushed into her
face.

Justin's eyes twinkled. "So you got ahead of
yourselves."

Smiling in relief, Mel turned and gave
Justin a hard hug. "Exactly. Well, almost. And he saw that as us
making a connection. So today, he took me to this really pretty
place where he thinks he wants to build a home with me." She pulled
the box from her pocket. "And he gave me this."

Justin regarded the box, his brow furrowed.
"He just gave that to you? He didn't ask a question to go with
it?"

"I think he was going to. But we were
fighting by then. He told me I was shutting us down. And I was. I
didn't mean to. I don't want to. He just shoved this in my hand and
told me it would never be anyone else's. I didn't open it. I don't
even know what it is."

Justin took the box from her hand and lifted
the top. With a sigh, he closed it again. "It's the ring I gave his
mother the day he was born."

"Oh," whispered Mel. Justin held out the box
and she shook her head. "No, that's not mine. He should have never
given it to me."

Justin picked up her hand and pressed the
box into it. "But he did give it to you. If you don't want it, you
need to give it back to him yourself."

Mel looked at Sean's father. He was right.
He shouldn't be the messenger. She nodded and closed her fingers
around the box.

"Before you do that, though, you need to
tell my son the rest of your story. Because I don't think you're on
different maps, just different highways." He laid his hand on her
shoulder and waited for her to look up at him. "Sometimes highways
meet and become the same route. Sometimes, you have to find a
connecting road. How you do it's up to you." He laid his arm over
her shoulders again and gave her a quick hug.

"Do you know that Todd Mitchell wasn't my
real father?"

Justin gave her another one of his
considering looks. This time she braced against the squirming
sensation.

He shook his head, looking a
little sad. "Todd Mitchell was a good friend of mine. I'll wager
he'd have something to say about you thinking he wasn't your
real
father."

Mel squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath,
then opened them again. "Sean said almost the same thing. But my
real father was a man named Nick DeVayne."

Justin ran a hand over his jaw. "Nick
DeVayne. Now that's a name I never thought I'd hear again."

"You knew him?"

"He raised some trouble through here years
ago."

"He isn't a nice man," whispered Mel.

Justin chuckled without
humor. "No, girl, that he is not." He turned her to face him. "But
that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with
you
. I meant what I said. You are
Todd Mitchell's daughter. No biological connection's gonna take
that from you."

"I was with Nick for almost five years."

This time, Justin's laugh was genuine. "Have
you met our Ricky? He was with his blood kin for a lot longer than
five years. What do you think of him?"

Mel smiled. "Ricky's wonderful."

"And so are you, Melanie Grace
Mitchell."

He said it so simply. If
only it really was that simple. "I told Sean about a lot of it. But
not everything. I did some horrible things—
one
—really horrible
thing."

"Is this about the cons DeVayne ran that he
got you mixed up in?" asked Justin. "Or is it about that baby you
had when you were—what, fifteen?"

Mel's legs were suddenly the consistency of
wet spaghetti, long and skinny, and very limp. She would have
slumped to the ground if not for Justin's steadying hand.

"How do you know about that?"

Justin heaved a deep sigh.
"Your
real
father,
Todd Mitchell, and I were best friends growing up. His mother was a
second ma to me. After she had to send you off with DeVayne, I
visited with her a couple times a week."