Elusive Echoes (28 page)

Sean entered the room for a closer look and
noted a couple of balled up pieces of paper on the edge of the desk
with another on the floor next to the trash can. He bent to pick up
the one on the floor when he spotted another page with the outline
of a stick figure. A very pregnant stick figure. A grin pulled at
Sean's lips and he chuckled quietly, emotions swelling in his
heart.

But then thoughts of Walt Blackstone's news
intruded and Sean sighed. He didn't want to think about vandalized
vehicles. He wanted to think of cozy nights and the prospects of a
family. The reality of the danger Mel was in, though, meant he'd
have to tell her in order to keep her safe. He'd talked to Walt
about the extent of damage while the state police had loaded
Ricky's truck and Mel's wrecked car onto flatbed trucks. They'd
been ready to go out to the ranch to pick up the Jeep as evidence,
but he'd informed them the damage was already in the process of
being repaired. That admission had earned him a steely-eyed stare
so he'd calmly dug out his cell and called Joe. The sabotaged parts
would be saved and Mel would still have her vehicle. The state cop
had shaken his head and muttered about compromised evidence.

Mel stirred again but still didn't wake up.
Sean suppressed the urge to smooth back her curtain of
sunshine-colored hair and kiss her awake. On top of the worry her
brother was causing, Mel had been keeping up with her late night
responsibilities in the bar. A twinge of guilt niggled at Sean.
She'd also been getting up early with him when he left her in the
mornings, often going out to the ranch with him. Usually so full of
energy, she must be exhausted to fall asleep at her desk.

He sighed and jammed his hands in his
pockets. For now, he'd let her sleep. Content in the knowledge that
he was sticking close and she was safe, Sean eased from the office,
pulling the door closed. She'd be ticked that he hadn't disturbed
her, but this was one of the busiest nights of the week and to go
into it already worn out couldn't end well.

As Sean passed through the main barroom, Ray
Dan Beckley and his band, Cowboy Blue, were setting up equipment
for the show later. Sean nodded a greeting to the musician. The
band was good. They could probably make a go of it traveling or
even cutting a CD. They were definite crowd pleasers, but they
seemed satisfied to work their various day jobs and spend Friday
and Saturday nights on the stage at Valentine's.

Charlie and Ricky were in the kitchen
prepping for the dinner rush.

Sean plucked a sliver of green pepper off a
vegetable platter and bit one end. "Hey kid, whose ride did you
borrow?"

Glancing up from chopping what appeared to
be a hundred onions, Ricky made a sour face. "Sandy's."

Sean winced. Her mini SUV definitely
screamed family rather than hot teenaged cowboy. "Why'd you draw
that one?"

"Da—ah, Dad's idea. It's got an alarm system
and GPS service."

Actually, the idea was genius. After Sandy
had been caught in the middle of an old feud, she'd found herself
pushed over a cliff in Justin's truck. The GPS tracking would have
been helpful back then and it had been a selling point when she and
Ryan had bought the SUV in preparation for their baby. Sean had no
further worries about Ricky getting home safely.

"Dad's usually on top of good ideas. So it
might cramp your style but you probably won't find yourself broken
down on the way home."

"Oh, man, it's got a
car
seat
in the back." Ricky scraped the chopped onions
into a plastic bin and moved on to cutting up lettuce for salads.
His hands were sure and steady as he drew the knife through each
head of lettuce twice then dropped the quarters into a bin before
grabbing another head.

Sean's lips twitched. As far
as he was concerned, that was just added insurance Ricky wouldn't
be following in his own footsteps and "
doing it
" in the car. "You'll live. I
think that's Dad's point."

Sean turned to Charlie. "Blackstone look at
your car?"

Her hands faltered over the strips of
chicken she was filleting. "He did. Everything checks out."

The tight band squeezing Sean's lungs eased
some. He was glad Charlie apparently wasn't being targeted but that
left him wondering and worrying about the reason behind the
tampering. Was it just a matter of opportunity or had the vehicles
been hit for a specific reason?

Charlie set her knife down, wiped her hands
on her long white apron, and walked slowly around the counter. Her
voice was quiet but firm. "Does this have something to do with Nick
DeVayne or the fact that his son was in here yesterday?"

Sean jumped in surprise. He rubbed the back
of his neck. "Mel told you about that?"

Charlie shot him a long considering stare,
the kind that said she quite possibly knew more than he did about
the situation and was trying to figure out how much to tell him.
Finally, she sighed. "No, she didn't say a thing. It only took one
glimpse at the man for me to know he's Nick DeVayne's son. Not only
looks like him but has the same arrogant, cocksure attitude."

Charlie steered Sean toward the door, her
eyes sliding in Ricky's direction.

Catching the look, Sean nodded
agreement.

"Justin hasn't said anything about this to
you, has he?"

Sean rocked back on his heels. "My dad?
What's he got to do with Nick DeVayne?"

"Very little actually. He was already
married to your mom, had Ryan, and you were on the way when Nick
came through. But we'd all been friends since we were kids. He used
to date Sylvia in high school."

Sean's jaw went slack. His dad and Mel's
mom? He shuddered. Something felt seriously wrong about that
arrangement. He didn't even want to think about what they'd done
while dating.

Charlie continued. "And I dated Todd
Mitchell before I met Henry."

Sean rubbed his eyes and dragged both hands
down his face. Oh, man, this was taking a seriously weird twist.
He'd always known this was a tight community, with more people
leaving than moving in. But thinking of his dad going on dates with
Mel's mother, maybe even sneaking in the window when he came home
after curfew—it was blowing Sean's mind.

"None of us were really involved with Nick.
When he and Sylvia took up with each other, they spent all their
time alone."

"Until he got her pregnant then left?"
guessed Sean.

Charlie let out a wry chuckle. "Oh, he did
so much more than get Sylvia pregnant." She sat on one of the bar
stools.

Sean sat next to her but said nothing.
Charlie commanded his full attention.

"He got Sylvia involved in some hustling up
in Jackson. She was in deep. Then she got pregnant and had a baby
girl. That was Mel. Nick tried to sell Mel out from under Sylvia,
had a buyer all lined up but turns out she was an undercover police
officer. Sylvia left Nick when Melanie was just a few days old,
after he got arrested for trying to sell the baby on the black
market. They thought she was involved. And because Nick had her so
deeply wrapped up in the scams he was pulling up there, Sylvia
almost went to jail. Justin went to your granddaddy for help, and
they got her a good lawyer. She came home and stayed with her
parents. Took up with Todd Mitchell—truth is, Todd had loved Sylvia
since high school himself. Sylvia settled down real well with him.
I think they were happy. He adopted her daughter and the rest of
the story you know."

Sean felt like his brain was
about to explode. "Oh, man. This is getting so—messed up." DeVayne
would have sold Mel. If he hadn't had the bad luck to try to sell
her to a cop, Mel wouldn't be here, wouldn't be
Mel
! He ran a hand through his hair,
shook his head, trying to clear it. "How much of this does Mel
know?"

Charlie shrugged. "I think she probably
knows very little."

"What do you think her brother wants with
her?"

Charlie shook her head. "I wouldn't be able
to hazard a guess. But, Sean . . ." She sent him a look filled with
warning. "It can't be anything good."

Sean slammed his open palm onto the bar.
"What is it with DeVayne and selling children?"

"Sylvia loved that girl. She might have
stayed with DeVayne if he hadn't tried to sell the baby."

A startled cry came from behind Sean. He
whipped around to see Mel standing in the hallway leading to the
office. Her face mirrored horror. There was absolutely no hope that
she hadn't heard what he and Charlie had been talking about.

Sean crossed the distance between them and
pulled Mel into his arms. She buried her face against his chest,
obviously still waking up. A shudder tore through her, mirrored by
the one assaulting his system.

"It's okay," he whispered. He smoothed a
hand over her hair as he talked. "It's okay. He wasn't a good man.
You already knew that. You're safe and he'll have to go through a
lot of people to even get near you."

The lie made Sean physically ill. Someone
had already gotten near her. Someone had tampered with her car and
she could have been killed. He had to tell her. But when?

Now, he realized. They had too many
misunderstandings between them as it was. Over Mel's head, Charlie
signaled that she was going to get back to work.

He leaned away from Mel just a little.
"Sweetness . . . can we go to your office and talk?"

A shiver shook her petite frame, but she
nodded.

****

From the seat at her desk where Sean had put
her, Mel stared in disbelief. "But I thought I just skidded in the
rain."

Sean paced the room. "You lost control of
the car but the skid wasn't caused by the braking. You had no brake
fluid by then."

"They tried to kill me." Mel couldn't keep
the tremor from her voice. Her composure was about gone. Struggling
to stay in control, she looked at Sean. He looked haggard, beyond
tired. Her heart gave a jerk. He hadn't signed on for her crazy
family problems. He was a rancher and a horse trainer. His life was
supposed to be about cattle and horses, getting married and having
a family. It wasn't supposed to be about sabotaged cars and babies
being sold. What had she done to him?

Suddenly Sean stopped pacing and swept a
gaze over her, warming the ice flow in her veins. "Whatever you
just thought about, don't think it again." He shook his head. "I
love you."

Mel bit her lip to stop her chin from
quivering. "But—"

"Now see, there's that look again. What are
you thinking?"

Mel sniffed down the choking feeling in the
back of her throat. Could she feel more miserable or pathetic? "I
was only thinking that you didn't sign on for the kind of crap I'm
bringing to your life."

He was at her chair in seconds. She barely
even saw him move to cross the room. He knelt on the floor and laid
his head in her lap. His arms slid around her and beneath her shirt
to lock at the small of her back. One restless thumb stroked back
and forth, sending vibrations along Mel's spine.

After a few breaths, he looked up at her.
His face was a mix of love and torment. "Mel, you are my whole
life. I've loved you from the time we were kids. I thought I'd lost
you once. If I lose you again—now . . . it'll kill me." His hands
flexed against the skin at the small of her back. "When you look
like that, say things like that, it feels like you think you should
disappear."

Shock waves rolled over her
in alternate bursts of hot and cold. Her stomach performed
flip-flops. He knew her better than she knew herself. She
had
been working herself
up to taking her troubles out of his picture and leaving him
behind. Panic entered his eyes, evidence that her thoughts were as
clear to him as they had been to her.

"Sean, no," she whispered. "I do sometimes
think I have more problems than you need in your life; that you
deserve so much better than me. But . . . I can't let you go." She
laughed softly. "I keep waiting for you to figure out that I'm so
not worth all this trouble."

Relief washed over his features; a
corresponding echo settled in Mel's heart.

"Mel." Sean's voice was soft. His eyes were
filled with emotion. "There is no one better than you. No one.
You're worth whatever it takes for me to be with you."

His hands traveled along her spine, and Sean
moved up in the same motion, stopping to lay his face against her
shoulder. Mel cradled him close, enjoying his warm puffs of breath
on her neck. She kissed the top of his head, inhaling the spicy
woodsy scent she associated with him.

They'd see this through, she knew, because
neither one of them had a choice. They had forged a bond more
powerful than time, distance, or the machinations of others from
the time they'd sat on a big boulder together as kids.

At a soft knock on the door, Sean stood and
gestured for Mel to sit still as he crossed the room to pull the
door open.

Mel straightened her blouse with slow,
precise motions, not particularly concerned about her rumpled
state. However, she stood as soon as she glimpsed Charlie. The cook
wouldn't interrupt unless it was for something critical.

"LeeAnn called in sick." Charlie's lips were
tight, her mouth set in a straight line.

Yep, it was something critical. Mel sighed.
"Okay, thanks for letting me know."

"I can stay late," said Charlie. "But I've
never been good behind the bar."

"Thanks, Charlie. I don't want to interrupt
your evening. I'll work something out."

The cook clamped her hands on her hips and
narrowed her eyes. "Melanie Mitchell, if I didn't want to do it, I
wouldn't offer. And you know it."