The screened door slammed a few times,
and people resumed what they’d been doing before she’d made a
spectacle of herself.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand in
his and towing her in the direction of the barn.
He deposited her on the sofa in his
office and crossed to the mini fridge. Grabbing a soda from the
fridge, he popped the top and shoved it into her trembling hands.
As if on autopilot, she sipped the drink and curled her feet under
her. She seemed to be staring at a spot across the room, and she
hadn’t said a word since they’d finished the song. He didn’t have a
clue what was going through her mind, but his raced with a million
questions.
Several minutes passed, and her hands
remained unsteady as she sipped at the soda.
“You have a beautiful voice,” he said.
“Have you taken singing lessons?”
She turned to him, her eyes wide.
“Good Heavens, no. Mom wouldn’t have ever allowed something like
that.”
Hank chuckled. “Well, you are your
father’s daughter. That’s for sure. You surprised the hell out of
me. And everyone else, too.”
Her face flamed, and she turned
away.
“You really don’t know, do
you?”
She sat silent as stone, staring at
something across the room. How could she not know?
“You have a stunningly beautiful
voice, Mel. But rest assured, no one here will push you to use it.
You just took us by surprise. Do you play any
instruments?”
When she spoke, her voice was flat.
“No. Mom didn’t want me to have anything to do with the
business.”
He nodded. “I forgot about your
mother. I suppose the voice could come through her just as well as
from your father.”
“
Yes. Mom has a beautiful
voice.” She glanced at Hank. “I used to sing with Daddy when I was
little girl.”
He doubled over with
laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she
asked.
“Oh, honey, I’m not laughing at you.
Well, I guess I am. You call Earl Ravenswood, Daddy? It’s cute.” He
wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “To me, it’s the same as
calling Queen Elizabeth, Mumsie. I don’t think I’ll ever get used
to your casual acceptance of something so
extraordinary.”
She laughed along with him
for a moment then quieted. “Hank, that’s what he was to me, just
Daddy. It’s taken me most of my life to understand and accept I
have to share his memory with the world. Most children who lose a
parent grieve, and then they move on. They never hear his voice
again, and the only images they see are the ones
they
have. The photo on
the mantel, the family album. But everywhere I go, I’m reminded of
my father. People sing his songs, and they feel they have a
connection to him even though they never met him.”
Hank winced, her remark hitting home.
He was one of those people who claimed a part of her father’s
memory for himself.
“Driving down the road, I
hear Daddy’s voice on the radio. I can’t even have a burger at
Smitty’s without hearing his voice.
Really
hearing it, not some ghost of
a memory. His image shows up in the most unlikely places, with or
without my release to use it. Every newspaper and magazine, every
television station has a file of photos and film of
my
father, and they drag
them out at least once a year. That’s what I deal with every
day.”
He understood. He still missed his
mother every day. How much more difficult would it be if he had to
live with the daily reminders Mel did? And she’d been a child when
her father died. He admired her ability to function under the
circumstances because he wasn’t sure he could do half so well if
their situations were reversed.
“People like me sing his songs. I’m
sorry. I never thought of your loss from your point of view. How do
you deal with it?”
She uncurled, planting her feet on the
floor, with her elbows planted on her thighs, she rolled the soda
can between her hands. “I tried running away from it. I went to a
small, little-known college, after that, when things didn’t work
out in San Diego, I moved to Willowbrook. I thought I could live
far enough under the radar the reminders wouldn’t be a daily issue.
I was wrong.”
“I messed that up for you, real good.
I don’t know what to say, Mel. I love you, but I can’t change who I
am or what I am.”
“I don’t want you to change who you
are. I would never ask you to. I know I can’t run from who I am any
longer, but I don’t have any kind of plan for going forward
either.”
“Will you still document the recording
session? I think it’s important for you to be the one to chronicle
our project. It seems right”
“I’ll try. I know you and the band
want to honor Daddy’s music, so I’ll try. He’d want me to
try.”
Hank stood and pulled her to her feet
and into his arms where she belonged. “He’d be proud of you, I know
he would. I’ll be here for you and so will Jonathan. If it gets to
be too much, let me know.”
“No more singing.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips. “No
more singing,” he agreed. “Come on, let’s get some barbeque before
it’s all gone.”
Mel pushed her conversation with Hank
to the back of her mind, choosing instead to focus on enjoying the
evening. Everyone, it seemed, tried their luck at the karaoke
machine, even the kids, who had the most fun of all. Jonathan and
Henry excused themselves early to meet up with Henry’s friends at
the bowling alley. Mel wished them luck at the lanes, shaking her
head as they left.
“Uncle Jonathan is having the time of
his life,” she said to Hank.
“I’m glad. Dad thinks he’s great. I
can’t believe they’ve gotten on so well. You’d think they’d known
each other for years.”
People began to leave, and Hank walked
Mel to her car. Alone for a brief moment, he trailed a finger along
the curve of her jaw to her chin, lifting her face to his. He
kissed her, his lips undemanding. “Do you want me to follow you
home?”
“No. I’ll be fine. I’ll bring Jonathan
out in the morning. I suppose since you’ve included him in the
recording, he’ll be here a lot longer than the week he originally
planned.”
He continued to stroke her jaw, his
fingertip their only contact. He traced the shell of her ear, and
down the long column of her neck. Her pulse quickened at his touch.
His finger skimmed her collarbone and down across the swell of her
breast just under the v-neck of her shirt. All it would take was a
word from her and he would stop, but his touch was magic, wrapping
her in a warm blanket of sensuality and need that stole her
words.
“He’ll be here most of the summer.
Will it be a problem?” His voice flowed dark and sweet over her
senses.
“Um. No.” What were they talking
about? She had to leave before she did something else she would
regret tonight. She forced her feet to move, and his hand dropped
away.
“Goodnight, Melody.” He leaned in the
open window and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was brief—a
simple front-porch goodnight kiss—and he walked away.
She closed her eyes and let her head
fall against the headrest. She sat there until her breathing evened
out and she remembered her destination.
Warm Texas air blew through the open
windows. The occasional passing car reminded her she wasn’t totally
alone on her journey home. She took several deep breaths in an
effort to clear her head. Snippets from the day flashed like a bad
movie through her brain.
The walls she had spent years building
around her heart were crumbling at an alarming pace and it was all
because of Hank Travis. He’d forced her to confront issues she’d
long ago confined to cold storage. It wasn’t just the RavensBlood
cover album. It was Hank himself. He said he loved her, and she
believed him.
No one she had ever known would have
dared to laugh at her relationship with her father, but Hank had.
His laughter made her realize she had elevated the relationship to
more than a simple father-daughter connection. Somehow, over the
years it had become more—a fantasy. For years, her father’s status
overshadowed the simple relationship they’d shared, and she’d lost
touch with the more intimate memories.
With his laughter, Hank had reduced
the unique circumstance of her birth to its most simplistic terms
and given her permission to accept it herself. Yes, Hamilton Earl
Ravenswood was her father, but who was she, besides the little girl
who had caused his death? No one understood the burden she carried.
People blamed her for what happened. How could they not? It was
true. She loved her father, and he’d loved her, and because of that
love he was dead.
Hank hadn't mentioned it, but he
would. Eventually. He just hadn't put it together yet.
Chapter
Nineteen
Mel slipped into her favorite
nightshirt and, with a cup of chamomile tea, slid under the covers.
The day’s events had her mind reeling with memories and unanswered
questions. One question, always the one she’d wanted to ask but
never had the nerve to, lodged in her brain and wouldn’t go
away.
She tried to find the answer in what
she knew of her parents' marriage. To say they had a strained
relationship was a gross understatement. Diane and Milton
Ravenswood had disagreed on just about everything. The one place
they found common ground was in their unconditional love for their
daughter. They’d married in order to give their child a name, but
to her knowledge, they never lived as husband and wife, unless it
had been in those few months before she was born. The only thing
they’d shared was her.
Mel had spent summers in England with
her father, and he made infrequent trips to California, usually
around the holidays. Her mother had facilitated the nightly phone
calls from her father. Those began when she’d been an infant and
ended on the eve of her tenth birthday when her father called from
Denver to tell her he would be at her party the next
day.
Hoping she would find the courage to
ask the question she desperately wanted the answer to, she placed a
call to her mother.
She exchanged pleasantries, inquiring
about Diane’s gardening hobby, the weather, and other mundane
topics. Before her courage could desert her, Mel blurted out the
question nagging at her.
“Mom? Why didn’t you tell me about the
plane crash when it happened? Why did you let the birthday party go
on?”
A cavern of silence gaped across the
phone line and she thought she’d gone too far.
“I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t
believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted Milton to come
walking through the door, present in hand, and tell me it had all
been a mistake.”
Her mother sniffed. Could she be
crying?
“I didn’t really believe he was gone
until the party was over. When he didn’t call or come to the party,
I knew it was true. He wouldn’t have disappointed you for any other
reason.”
For once, she glimpsed the agony her
mother had gone through, hoping and praying for her husband to walk
through the door. Maybe she didn’t really understand her parents’
marriage after all. Had they been in love? The pain in her mother’s
voice indicated a depth of feeling she had never considered. Had
her father felt the same about her mother? And if so, why had they
lived apart?
* * *
Mel stumbled into the kitchen in dire
need of a caffeine fix. The first rays of sunlight, golden and
cheerful, streamed through the window. Jonathan sat at her small
breakfast table with a teacup in one hand and a copy of the Gazette
in the other. He glanced up when she came in.
“Have a cup of tea, luv. You look like
you could use it.”
He poured her a cup and slid it across
the table where she sat with her forehead propped in her
hands.
She sipped the tea and groaned.
“Thanks.” She savored the bittersweet drink, strong, the way he
preferred it. “Why is your tea always better than mine? I swear I
make it the same way you do.”
“You rush yours. You have to be
patient with tea. Impatience is an American trait, I
believe.”
Mel rolled her eyes at him. It was an
old argument between them—one she knew she would lose. Needing more
than tea to get going she fixed a bowl of cereal and returned to
the table. She took a few bites before the question running like a
train through her head spilled out.
“Did Daddy love my mother?”
“Why do you ask?”
She toyed with her cereal, her eyes
downcast. “I was talking to Mom last night and she said something
that made me think she was in love with him. I was just wondering
if he felt the same way.”
“Yes. He loved her until the day he
died.”
Mel dropped her spoon.
“Really?”
“Really. From the minute Milton laid
eyes on her, she was all there was for him. He would have married
her, with or without you coming along. You just rushed it a
little.”