Elusive Echoes (32 page)

With a sad little laugh, Mel shook her head.
"Trust me. He won't."

Joe eased his way out of the kitchen and Mel
shook her head. They'd find out. Sandy spread her fingers apart,
and Mel moaned, wishing her hand was as numb as her emotions. But
at least the sterile saline was cool against the burns. Mel buried
her face in the crook of her other arm while Sandy worked on her
injured hand.

****

Standing alone in the night, Sean watched as
the stable burned itself out. He turned at the sound of his name
and watched Joe's approach.

"Sandy sent me out here. Mel needs to go to
the hospital."

Sean's already rocked world threatened to
fall apart completely. Mel had looked fine when she'd turned away
from him and walked up to the house with Joe. Multiple disastrous
scenarios rolled through his brain in the space of one heartbeat;
at the forefront of all of these, the possibility of her
pregnancy.

"What. . ." He cleared his throat. "What's
wrong?"

"Second and third degree burns to her right
hand." Joe's voice was calm but his face reflected urgency.

Mel's betrayal, so recently revealed, stung
deeply. Sean didn't want to hear her rationalizations for why she'd
chosen to work with Dennis DeVayne AKA Dallas Northrop. The fact
was, she'd kept it from him that her brother was the man staying at
the Cross MC. The man who'd set fire to a stable filled with
horses, apparently in an attempt to kill the heavily insured horse
he'd brought with him to the ranch.

As he looked over at the blackened,
smoldering remains of the building, wisps of flames still
occasionally sputtered, only to be put out by a blast of water from
the volunteer fire department's pumper truck.

Everything he'd been trying to build, for
himself, for them . . . just gone. And Mel may as well have lit the
match that took it all away.

Bitterness welled inside, spilling over into
Sean's voice. "I'm busy here. She'll have to find someone else to
take her."

"Sandy's hoping you'll convince her," said
Joe. "She doesn't want to go at all."

Sean hardened his heart against the need to
run to the main house. He shrugged, turning back to the ruined
stable. "That would be her choice, then, wouldn't it?"

"No, I'm not sure it is." Joe shook his head
with obvious disapproval, and then turned to walk back to the
house, leaving Sean to stay or follow.

He stayed.

"Sean?" Ricky's uncertain voice came from
the darkness. Sean hadn't even been aware of him standing there.
"What's wrong with Mel?"

"Nothing, just a couple of burns."

"Joe said she has to go to the
hospital."

Sean lifted a shoulder. "She'll find someone
to take her."

Ricky's eyes went wide. "What's up with
that, man?"

"I can't take her. I have work to do here."
Putting a decisive end to the conversation, Sean moved toward the
smoking ruins, seeking Ryan. His brother was in that mess somewhere
performing mop-up with the VFD.

"What happened, Sean?" Ricky's voice
challenged across the distance between them. "You got in her pants
and now she doesn't matter as much?"

Sean froze, red clouding his vision.
Whirling around, he stalked back to the teenager. "You don't know
what you're talking about."

"I know you say one thing and do another. So
what's the deal? Isn't she as good in bed as you thought she'd
be?"

It was one taunt too many. Without conscious
thought, Sean's hands clenched into fists and he swung on the
kid.

But Ricky was quick and ducked to the side.
He bobbed in the other direction on Sean's second swing. Then he
stepped back a pace.

"I've been dodging fists my
whole life." His blue eyes glittered like chips of ice. "Never
figured I'd have to dodge them
here
." Casting a look of revulsion in
Sean's direction, Ricky stalked toward the house.

He couldn't have scored a more direct hit if
he'd actually thrown a punch.

Bile pushed into Sean's throat as his world
began to crumble away in large chunks. Finally, he managed to
speak. "Where are you going? We have work to do."

"I'm going where you should
be going,
big
brother
!" Ricky called over his
shoulder without stopping. "To the hospital with
your
girl."

****

The nerve block was wearing off, and with it
went the pleasant numbness. Mel inhaled sharply as the nurse
finished wrapping her hand.

"I'll be right back with your discharge
instructions."

"You need something for the pain, girl?"
Justin stood next to her, a fierce protector.

"I'm good." There was only one thing that
would take her pain away, and Mel was pretty sure Sean wasn't going
to show up. "What time is it?"

"Eight," said Joe, currently slumped in a
chair near the door with his eyes closed but apparently not
sleeping.

Ricky, Joe, and Justin had taken turns
sitting with her while a plastic surgeon had examined her and then
cleaned and treated her wound. Ricky had often been sent on coffee
runs for Joe and Justin, though Mel suspected that was more to
spare him from seeing the ugly wound or hearing her moans than
because they actually wanted more hospital swill.

"I'm keeping you from the ranch."

Justin snorted. "It's not going
anywhere."

The nurse returned with discharge papers
just as Joe's cell phone beeped. Mel watched him answer it, looking
for a sign that maybe it was Sean calling to check on her.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice sounding
dubious. Then he left the room.

Paperwork and prescriptions in hand, Mel was
beyond ready to leave. But when Joe returned to the little room,
the look on his face told her something else had happened.

"I need to talk with you a minute before we
get going."

"Ricky and I can go get your prescriptions
filled." Justin picked up the paperwork and they left the room.

"Mel, that was Ben Jamison on the phone."
Joe urged her to sit on the edge of the bed again. "He found your
father."

"Nick? Denny said he died last April."

Joe slowly shook his head, his kind tawny
eyes holding hers.

With a sinking stomach, Mel knew she wasn't
going to like the rest of the story. "Where is he?"

Joe ran a hand through his thick brown hair
and swallowed before looking back at her. "Right here in Jackson.
In a state-run nursing home. Right in this complex, in fact."

"Nursing home!" Mel was suddenly glad she
was sitting.

"He's in the advanced stages of liver cancer
and probably doesn't have long to live."

Why would Denny have told her Nick was
dead?

To keep her away from him so she would think
Denny was the only way to find her daughter. And she had walked
right into the trap. Mel wished she could say she was sorry, but
she found herself with no sympathy. "Is he—can he have visitors? I
need to ask him. . ."

"Mel, I'm sorry." Joe looked away, drew a
deep breath, then met her eyes again. "The cancer has caused
dementia. He doesn't even know who he is. He probably won't
remember anything about your daughter."

"Oh." Mel bit her lip, trying to push back
the disappointment.

"She has to try!" Ricky stood in the
doorway. His face showed intense emotion. He glanced at Justin's
stony expression and tempered his tone. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean
to eavesdrop. I don't know the whole story, Mel. But if you have a
little girl somewhere, you have to try to find her."

Justin laid a hand on Ricky's shoulder. "I
agree with the boy. She'll never know if she doesn't try."

As one, all three men looked at Mel. She
nodded. "I want to see him."

****

Sean kicked a piece of
burned wood. A twisted piece of metal that had once been a
horseshoe was still nailed to it. Sean remembered Ryan nailing it
up above the doorway when they'd been kids. It was supposed to be
lucky.
Yeah, right.

He looked at his watch. Almost nine. His
body screamed for rest, but Sean kept on moving. Watering and
feeding the stock. Checking the horses. The vet would be out later
to make sure, but miraculously, they all seemed to be in one piece
with no major injuries.

Ryan helped with cleanup, but Ricky and Joe
were still in Jackson with Mel. For the third time in fifteen
minutes, Sean checked the call log on his cell. Nothing. No one had
called to tell him how Mel was. Mel hadn't called to let him know
she was okay. What if she wasn't okay?

"Hey, here's a novel idea. Why don't you
call her?" Ryan stood across the burned stables staring at Sean
with a knowing look.

"Maybe because I don't care."

"That's not true," said his brother. "Why
don't you let her explain?"

Sean shook his head. He kicked at another
board. "There's nothing to explain. She lied about her brother. She
knew he was here, pretending to be someone else, and she didn't say
anything."

"Ever consider she may have had a reason?"
Ryan picked up a charred board and tossed it onto a growing pile of
similar boards.

Sean shook his head, picked
up the burnt two-by-four at his feet and pitched it on top of the
pile. "There's no reason good enough for
this
." Except maybe Mel might have
thought there was. He couldn't stop replaying her voice in his head
when she said she'd do anything to make sure her daughter was
okay.

"If you think she burned the stable down,
you really are an idiot."

"I know she didn't burn the freaking stable,
Ry." Sean kicked another blackened board. "She was with me. The
perfect alibi. You were there. You heard what Northrop—DeVayne
said. She was in on her brother's scam, knew what he planned to
do." He stopped to take a deep breath, then continued through
gritted teeth. "She was supposed to keep me busy and away from the
stable last night."

"Well, she didn't do such a good job of
that, did she?"

Sean's retort was interrupted by the beep of
his cell. Turning his back on his brother, he popped it open,
quelling his disappointment when he saw the number for the
sheriff's office.

"Some folks in here want to speak with you,"
said DC.

"Mel?"

"Nope. Far as I know, she's still in the
hospital with bad burns to the hand," said the sheriff. "You got
the state police, feds, and representatives from the California
Racing Commission and California Thoroughbred Breeder's Association
all wanting a statement from you about DeVayne. They want to
inspect the horse in question, too. Thought I'd give you a heads-up
they're heading your way."

Sean's lips twisted and he chuckled without
feeling any humor. "Outstanding. Send 'em on."

****

Nick DeVayne had never led a particularly
healthy lifestyle. Even when Mel had been with him, there had been
nothing robust or fit-appearing about him. But her memories of the
chain-smoking, booze-drinking, too-skinny man who was her
biological father did nothing to prepare her for the wheezing,
wasted human wreck lying in the hospital bed.

Dark veins showed through pasty yellow-white
skin, which draped over prominently pointed bones. An oxygen tube
was connected to his nose. Even lying very still seemed to take too
much energy. The room stank of vomit and urine. It was a room
filled with death and decay; a room where no hope could possibly
survive. And yet . . . Mel was desperately in need of just a
glimmer of that commodity.

Trembling so hard she staggered when she
walked, Mel stepped into the room and stood at the foot of the bed.
The man lying before her barely resembled the father who'd
tormented her. If she hadn't been told he was Nick DeVayne, she'd
have passed by without recognizing him.

"Nick?" she spoke softly, though she wanted
to scream at him, force him to wake up and give her the information
she needed.

"Huh? Who's that?" He opened his eyes and
squinted at her. The sclerae were deep yellow and muddy appearing.
"Who're you?" His voice sounded rough, like he'd just come off a
month of hard drinking. His words were slurred but Mel couldn't
tell if that was because of his current mental status or because he
was missing most of his teeth.

"It's Melanie," she said softly.

"Melanie, huh? I need more ice chips."

Joe picked up the cup on his bed tray and
left the room.

"Do you know who I am, Nick? I'm Melanie,
your daughter."

"Yep, I had a daughter named Melanie once.
Ran out on me like her no-good mother did." He punched a button and
the bed began to move up into a reclining position. He peered more
closely. "So you're her?"

"Do you remember you came to Orson's Folly
to get me when I was just a little girl?" Melanie swallowed hard as
the memories assaulted her.

"Yeah, I remember you. Should have left you
where you were. Always more trouble than you were worth."

Joe re-entered the room and placed the cup
of ice chips on the tray in front of DeVayne. The sick man popped
one into his mouth and sucked on it like hard candy.

"Do you remember the things that happened
when I was with you, Nick? The things you made me do to make other
men like me?"

"I remember you were no good at any of it.
And that you let one of the marks get you knocked up."

Mel gritted her teeth. No point in arguing
with him. She'd let him believe that to protect Glenn and saw no
need to disabuse him of that now. She was only here for one reason.
To find out what he'd done with her baby. "Nick, when I had the
baby, you took her away. You were going to sell her. Do you
remember who you sold her to?"