Elusive Echoes (14 page)

Melanie covered her face with her hands.
"She knew? Oh, I must have been such a disappointment to her."

"No, girl. Never that. She loved you. She
knew about your circumstances because DeVayne told her when he
tried to sell you back to her."

Mel sat on the ground and put her head on
her knees. "I'm going to be sick."

Justin laid a hand on top of her head,
rubbing lightly with his fingertips. "I'm sorry, girl. If she had
come to me, I would have helped her. By the time I found out,
DeVayne had disappeared with you."

Mel looked up. "Does—does Sean know?"

"No. But I think he should." Justin tilted
his head. "Is that what you're afraid to tell him? Is that what's
keeping you apart?"

Shaking all over, Mel nodded. "Mostly."

"Tell him," Justin said again. He held out
his hand to help Mel to her feet. After a brief hesitation, she
took it.

"Denny's been sending me letters. I only
opened the last one. I think—I think whoever adopted my baby, it
wasn't legal." She met Justin's gaze and saw only kindness and
understanding. "I think my fath—Nick sold my baby," she whispered.
The first tear fell, then the second.

First he swore, something she'd rarely heard
him do. Then, shaking his head, Justin pulled Mel into his arms and
cradled her against his chest. "Hush now," he whispered. "We'll
sort that out, too, girl. It'll all be okay."

****

Up at the house, Sean watched them from the
front porch. He leaned over the railing and craned his neck to keep
them in sight. What were his father and Mel talking about? Why did
Justin keep hugging her?

Crap! They were heading toward the house.
Together. He knew he'd have to face her sooner or later. He was
hoping for later. Looked like it was going to be sooner. But it
sure as heck wasn't going to be on the porch where it was obvious
he'd been watching them. He hustled his tail inside, closing the
door behind him a little harder than he'd intended.

Oh, well.

He turned away from the door and ran
straight into his sister-in-law, for once without the baby glued to
her shoulder.

Her eyes swept downward then up to his eyes.
"You look like someone rained out your baseball game. What
happened?"

Sean tensed. He didn't need
a family psych session. Not today. Not ever. So he put on his best
surly face and answered her. "
Nuh—thing
. Got that? Nothing
happened. Not a thing. Nothing's wrong."

Sandy rolled her eyes.
"Whatever you say, but your
nuh—thing
is my best friend and the
closest thing I'll ever have to a sister."

Okay, message received. Hurt Mel and my life
is over. Too late on both counts. Sister.

Sean looked behind him, just wanting to
escape. His nothing was also about to come in the front door, and
Sean had no intention of being caught arguing with Sandy about her
when she did.

"She's fine. I'm fine. We're all just
freakin' fine."

Sandy's eyes narrowed. "You're being an
idiot."

"Yeah, now that seems to be the consensus.
You, Dad. Whoever."

Sandy shook her head and
turned away. One hand on the banister as she started up the steps,
she looked over her shoulder. "This isn't who you are, Sean. And
it's not who you have to become. If you ever care to talk
about
nothing
, or
the fact that you're not
just freakin'
fine,
I'll be here."

Stunned, a little less blustery, Sean
watched her make dignified progress up the stairs. He managed to
duck through the dining room into the kitchen just as the front
door was pushed open.

Ryan stood at the range over a pot of chili.
He took one look at Sean and silently stepped to the back door,
pulled it open, and left it that way. Then he returned to his
cooking.

Sean stared. "What'd you do that for?"

Ryan lifted a shoulder. "Just being a good
big brother and helping you run away."

Casting his brother a scathing look, Sean
stalked to the door and gave it a shove closed. "Idiot."

Ryan's laugh dripped with derision. "No,
sorry. Only room for one idiot at a time here, and you've got that
covered for the day. Maybe the month." With a final stir, he put
the spoon down, lowered the heat under the cooking pot, and set the
lid in place.

"You know, boy, you can be all kinds of
stupid when you get one of these moods on, but I've never known you
to be a coward." Justin stood in the door to the dining room. His
mouth was pulled into a grim line. His blue eyes had gone hard and
taken on a gray cast. He raked Sean up and down with an openly
derisive look. "You think I didn't see you gawking at us off the
front porch?"

Sean glared. He should have known his
eagle-eyed father had spotted him. "Hey, Dad. Don't hold back or
anything."

"Oh, I'm holding back plenty right now. You
think you're the only one hurting here? You ran right over that
girl's feelings without a thought to what you were doing." Justin
walked to the range and lifted the lid on the chili pot, sniffing
appreciatively. He turned to Sean, only slightly more in control.
"Son, you have no idea what she's been through or why she's holding
back. And yeah, she's holding back. She wants to explain everything
to you, but she's hurting and afraid of what you'll think."

Sean clenched his fists. "So she doesn't
trust me. Doesn't trust what I feel for her." Didn't that just make
his day? He peered into the dining room, wondering where Mel
was.

"Well listen to the high and mighty Sean
McGee. Son, have you ever told her how you actually feel? Does she
have any reason to trust you? Because near as I can tell, you
didn't give her a proposal, you gave her an ultimatum."

Standing near the sink, Ryan snickered. He
stood up straight and went silent when their father threw him a
quelling glance.

Justin sat at the table and eased his legs
out in front of him with a sigh, apparently relaxing.

Sean knew better. His dad was setting him up
for the kill. He backed up a step and bumped into his strangely
silent brother.

"Melanie loves the heck out
of you, son. Why? I don't know. Because just now, I don't see much
lovable about you." Justin rubbed his jaw. "If you lose her, it'll
be because you threw her away. So now you have two choices. You can
go to her, ask her to tell you everything and listen to the whole
story, and then tell her what you feel for her. You can accept that
what she's offering is all she
can
offer right now. Or you can break things off with
her and miss her for the rest of your darn fool life. Those are
your choices. Period."

Sean looked at his feet. He felt like he was
eight again, caught lighting one of his father's cigars. Justin had
given him two choices then, too. Tell the truth and take his
punishment or lie and disappoint his father. And still receive his
punishment. He'd opted for not disappointing his father then and
his punishment had been tolerable, just some extra chores. Sean
worked at unclenching his jaw. Drawing a shaky deep breath, he met
Justin's eyes, and reeled backward at the anger he read there.

"Where is she?" he finally muttered.

"She's visiting Sandy and the baby." Justin
sat up straight, pointing a finger at Sean. "Go take a walk and
think about things before you go looking for her. And son, I'd like
to suggest the words 'I'm sorry' would make a good start to what
you have to say to her."

Justin turned to Ryan, effectively
dismissing Sean. "Does Joseph still have his detective
connections?"

"More than likely." Ryan pulled a sack of
corn meal from the pantry and set it on the kitchen counter.
"Why?"

"Got someone I need to find." He glanced
pointedly at Sean, obviously expecting him to leave.

Sean stepped onto the back porch and pulled
the door closed behind him.

****

He walked. He tried to think, to sort things
out. Everything was all mashed together between his heart and his
head and not much was making sense. Sean found himself at the main
road, then turned around and walked back. The fence along the drive
was new, replaced just the year before after a fire had burned it
and threatened the main homestead. Ryan had almost lost Sandy in
that fire.

Sean's love wasn't being threatened by fire.
It was being threatened by his own stubbornness, his sudden and
uncharacteristic impatience. From the time Ryan had settled down
with Sandy, Sean had longed for the same thing with the woman he'd
loved from the first time he saw her when they were children. He
hadn't told Mel how he felt and what he wanted, though. He'd just
assumed she wanted the same thing.

His dad had said Mel loved him. He could
only hope the old man was right. And he hoped it wasn't too late to
accept her on her terms.

Early evening sun slanted in from the west.
It would be dark soon. As he approached the main house, a feeling,
a particular awareness, made him look up. She was standing at the
top of the drive, watching him.

He wanted to beg her to forgive him. He
wanted to kiss her and hold her. He wanted to give her everything
she needed. He wanted to accept whatever she could give in return.
Mostly he just wanted to run into her arms. Instead, he walked the
last hundred feet at a normal pace. But he never took his eyes from
hers.

Mel's expression was completely bland, her
body language unrevealing. But her eyes held fire. It might have
been the heat of anger or hurt. Or passion. Or something else
entirely. But she wasn't freezing him out.

Only when he got close did her gaze falter,
but only briefly. Then she seemed to regroup, lifting her chin and
looking him in the eye. The late afternoon breeze ruffled hair the
color of summer sunshine, reminding Sean of when they'd met as
children.

She'd given him innocent comfort then, and
over the years, they had provided comfort for each other through
some really heavy stuff. Somehow, during the time she'd been away,
he'd lost touch with that special connection they'd had.

He wanted it back.

When she opened her mouth to speak, he
stilled her with two fingers on her lips.

"Mel, I'm sorry. I was a jerk. I lo-" He
stilled his panic, slowed his breathing and tried again. "I love
you." He dropped his hand. "I don't want to lose you."

Pain flashed in her eyes, followed by fear,
and yes, the shadows were there. How had he not realized that the
shadows were caused by deep pain; the kind of pain that shattered
hearts and kept them from ever becoming whole again?

Mel reached out, hesitated for a second, and
then cupped Sean's neck. Her thumb traced a back-and-forth motion
along his jaw as she held his gaze. "We were always friends first,
weren't we?"

Captivated by her touch, by the look in her
eyes, Sean could only nod.

"Somewhere, sometime, while I was away, I
lost that part of us. And when I came back, we didn't reconnect
that way." Her eyelids fluttered closed. Then she bit her lip and
opened her eyes again. "And that wasn't your fault. I think it's
harder to be friends than it is to be lovers. When I first came
back, I couldn't find the person I used to be. I didn't like who I
was and didn't want you to see who I'd become. I wanted you to
always think of me as–as your sunshine girl." A tear spilled
over.

Sean raised his hand and captured the tear.
For a moment, it glistened on his fingertip. "You are," he
whispered.

"I want to be. But there's more to the story
I started telling you. I need to finish."

Sean couldn't stop looking at her.
"Okay."

"Nick kept us in Oklahoma City for a year
when I was fifteen. I got a job at McDonald's without telling him,
and I hid all my money. And there was . . . a boy there. Glenn
Moss. We started seeing each other and—" She grimaced, then drew a
fortifying breath and continued. "I got pregnant."

Somehow, Sean had known this was coming. He
steeled his emotions against the pain and jealousy. Then, oddly
found he hadn't really needed to. It was good she'd found
someone.

Mel shivered. She stared off into the
distance. "We weren't ready to be parents. Oh, I would have. I'd
have sucked it up and raised the baby if I'd had any kind of life
to offer. But being dragged all over the country behind Nick, being
used in his scams and schemes. What kind of life was that for a
baby?" Her voice broke and so did the dammed up emotions inside of
Sean.

He pulled her against him and held on tight.
His tears mixed with hers. They stood that way, until the breeze
picked up and chilled them both. Mel pulled back and just looked at
him.

"Did you love him? The baby's father?" he
finally asked.

Mel closed her eyes. When she opened them,
they were just a little brighter with hurt that had been too long
suppressed. Slowly, she shook her head. "No. And he didn't love me,
either. He wasn't unkind. He was just a teenaged boy who wanted to
get laid and had no clue what love was. I . . . liked him. But it's
always been you, Sean. Was always meant to be you from the time we
saw that wild stallion together."

He didn't want to know. He had to know.
"What happened to your baby?"

She stood up straighter. "I hid my pregnancy
for as long as I could. I almost made it." Her voice broke and she
took a deep breath before she continued. "Nick had that stupid scam
with me being hit on by older men going on, and one of them got too
close, got his hands on me."

Sean's vision hazed red for a second.

"He asked how innocent I could be if I was
already pregnant." She gulped in air, trembling now.