“Leave her alone, Betty.” Hank steered
his four-legged friend in the other direction.
She opened cabinets until
she found a plate and dumped the contents of the bag onto it. The
dish made a satisfying
thunk
when she dropped it in the middle of the table. An
old-fashioned style doughnut bounced off and rolled to the floor.
Betty Boop pounced on it, disappearing with the purloined
treat.
“I brought doughnuts.” She removed her
hot chocolate from the microwave, hyper aware of the man leaning
against the refrigerator watching her every move. “Today is the one
and only time I’ll do it for the duration of our
project.”
She took a seat and rummaged through
her purse for her voice recorder. She slammed it down with enough
force to rouse the dog from under the table—probably hoping to
catch more flying pastries. Hank took the seat next to hers. She
scooted her chair back until her thigh bumped the table leg. “I
don’t take notes. If you have a problem with being recorded, speak
up now.”
“You can record anything you want,
except my music. I have contractual obligations regarding my
creative process. I’m sure you understand, Melody.”
She faltered.
Coincidence. A lucky guess. That’s all it
was.
Her tongue felt like sandpaper, but
she managed to force words out. “My name is Mel.”
“If you say so, Ms.
Ravenswood.”
Oh God.
Her heart raced. Her vision blurred, and her
throat closed. A black fog swam through her mind, threatening to
take her under. She couldn’t breathe. She’d had panic attacks
before, but that didn’t make this one any less frightening. She had
to get out, away. Why hadn’t she listened to her instincts earlier?
She stumbled to her feet. Trembling legs miraculously carried her
to the door.
He stood and moved in her direction.
As she gripped the doorframe, she raised her hand to fend him off.
She sucked in the fresh air wafting through the screen door. Oxygen
flooded her system.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Can I get
you anything?”
“Leave. Me. Alone.” Beyond the
screened door, wide-open spaces promised relief. “I have to go.”
She flattened her palm against the cool wire mesh.
“Please,” he begged. “Don’t go. I
won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
All she had to do was push
and the screened door would open. Escape was that close. She gazed
longingly at the quiet vista beyond. Her brain told her to run, to
get as far away from Hank as she could, but her limbs betrayed her.
Telling Cathy had been easy, maybe because it was her decision and
she trusted her friend to keep her confidence. But being found out
by a virtual stranger was different. It was what she lived in fear
of every day—that someone,
everyone,
would discover her secret,
and the peace she’d constructed with such care would
shatter.
He knew and soon everyone in
Willowbrook would know, too. She would have to leave, find another
place to live, reinvent herself all over again.
“How did you find out?” she asked,
envying the nondescript sparrow pecking at something in the grass
outside, able to fly away at the slightest threat.
“I ran an Internet search on your
name. If I can do it, anyone can.”
She slumped against the doorframe. He
was right. Anyone could do it. The only person she’d been fooling
was herself. A quiet life in a small town wouldn’t be possible
because someone would always figure out her secret. She’d been
impossibly stupid and naïve.
“How did you find out about me?” he
asked.
“I researched you in the newspaper’s
archives, and then I searched the Internet.”
“I guess that makes us even.” He held
her chair out. “Come sit down, and we’ll talk.”
This time, her legs responded. She
crossed the room and sank into the chair, her body numb with fear
of the havoc his knowing would unleash on her life.
He pushed her hot chocolate
closer to her. “Here, have something to drink. You’ll feel better.”
His voice, velvet smooth and laced with concern helped to calm her
and the warm liquid easing the tightness in her throat. Her life
was out of control, and she was drinking hot chocolate with the man
who held the key to her future.
Unbelievable.
He resumed his seat and slid a
chocolate frosted doughnut under her nose. “Eat.”
She stared at the
confection.
“Can I get you anything
else?”
She shook her head and reached for the
doughnut. She ate mechanically, tasting nothing. She couldn’t look
at him. With downcast eyes, she could see his hands, knew he drank
his hot chocolate, and selected a sugared doughnut for
himself.
Hank tossed the last bite to Betty
Boop. He dusted sugar from his hands and crumpled his napkin,
throwing it across the room for a perfect two-pointer into the
wastebasket. “I’m sorry I blew your cover, Melody.”
The chocolate helped, or maybe the
numbness and fear were wearing off. She raised her eyes, fixing him
with a laser-sharp glare. “Don’t call me that. No one calls me
that.”
He held his hands up, palms out.
“Okay, Mel it is.” He shifted in his seat. “Look, I’m sorry I
sprung it on you like the way I did. I can’t tell you what a
surprise it was…. Well, it blew my mind when I realized who you
were.”
“I just bet it did.”
“Hey, I understand you want your
privacy, and you’re entitled to it. If it’s any consolation, I
didn’t find any recent photos of you.”
“That’s just swell, Hank. I feel so
much better. You understand why I want to be left alone, yet you
went to the trouble of researching me on the Internet.” She shook
her head. “I came to Willowbrook to live a quiet life, to be my own
person…not the daughter of a ghost. You don’t have any idea how
much I wanted this new life to work. And it would have, too, if you
hadn’t been here.”
“What have I got to do with
it?”
“Think about it. The paparazzi know
you’re here. They’ll come hunting for you, and guess who else
they’ll find?” She shook her head. “This is just what I was trying
to avoid. Ever since I inherited, everyone thinks they have a right
to know where I am and what I’m doing. I just want to be left
alone. I have to leave, move somewhere else. Some place far away
from you.” She was on the verge of a breakdown, she could feel it
coming, building like a summer storm. She swiped away tears before
they could spill over and run down her cheeks.
“You can relax,” he said. “I’m not
going to tell anyone who you are. You can go on being Mel Harper of
the Willowbrook Gazette for the rest of your life if it’s what you
want.”
“Easy for you to say. You aren’t the
one the paparazzi are hunting.”
“What do you mean,
hunting?”
“Ever since I turned twenty-five, I’ve
been a wanted woman, so to speak. They almost caught up with me in
San Diego. So I left.”
“Tell me.”
“It was awful.” Thinking perhaps he
could understand, she told him how she had practically been forced
from her home the previous year.
“I’m so sorry. Sometimes reporters
don’t know when to quit.”
“You can say that again.” Enough about
her. It was time to find out what was really going on. “So, what’s
the deal with the interview? You don’t like reporters any more than
I do, so why am I really here?”
He smirked. “You don’t see the irony
in your situation? You’re a reporter who hates
reporters.”
“I don’t hate all reporters, just the
ones who don’t respect people’s privacy. I’m a journalist with a
conscience. I only write about people who want to be written about,
and since you aren’t one of those people, we’re back to the
original question. Why am I here?”
“It was the only way I knew I could
get you to come out here to see me. I’m serious about the interview
though. Spend thirty days with me, record whatever you want, with
the exception of my music. When the time is up, you’re free to do
whatever you want with the material. You can write a book, a
magazine article, a piece for the Gazette, or nothing at all. I
don’t care.”
This, from a man who avoided reporters
like they were plague-carrying vermin? There had to be more he
wasn’t saying. “If you really want publicity, why not call someone
from one of the fan magazines? If I write an article about you, it
will bring all kinds of attention to me. Attention I don’t
want.”
“You’re good at what you
do.”
He hasn’t heard a work
I’ve said.
“Let me be clear. All I want is
to live in a quiet little town and write about the everyday lives
of the real people who live there. I don’t want notoriety. If I
wanted recognition, don’t you think I could have bought myself a
position at a big publication? I could buy my own magazine or
newspaper if I wanted.” She sneered at him. “I could buy
you.”
“I read some of your work. You don’t
need to buy yourself anything. Your writing is clear, concise, and
compassionate. People like you. You tell their stories in a way
that makes them seem special. Everyone deserves to feel special at
some point in their lives, even if they live in the middle of
Nowhere, USA.”
Smart. Hitting her where it would do
the most good—right in her pride. “Thank you,” she said, sure he
was softening her up for something big.
“You’re welcome. Now, for the reason
you’re here.”
Here it
comes
. She stiffened her spine.
He placed his hand on her arm,
anchoring her to her seat.
Oh, this can’t be good if
he thinks I’m going to run.
“I don’t need any
publicity. I don’t
want
any publicity. I want to get to know
you.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“I think we should get
married.”
What? Oh no. No. Not going
to happen.
She yanked on her arm, but he
tightened his grip—not enough to hurt, but firm enough she wasn’t
going anywhere until he let her. “You’re nuts. No one told me you
were nuts.”
“Not nuts. Practical.”
“Practical?”
Practically insane.
She
tugged on her arm again. “Let me go.”
“Calm down and just listen to me for a
minute.” He stroked her arm with his index finger, sending little
jolts of current skittering up to her shoulder and down her spine.
“I think we could be good for each other. Besides the physical
attraction, and don’t try to tell me there isn’t one, I think I
have something you need. And you have something I need.”
“I
need
to get out of here.”
“Just hear me out. Please? I think we
can make a relationship work. You said you wanted a quiet life. I
lead a quite life…most of the time. When I’m on tour, you can stay
here, or you can come along. Whatever you want to do.”
She stared at him. “You’ve actually
given your scheme some thought? Like, you think it’s logical.
Sane.”
“I know it sounds bizarre, but I’ve
given it a lot of thought, and I think it could work for both of
us.”
“Bizarre?”
“Okay, insane.” He leaned toward her.
“All I’m asking is one month of your time. After thirty days, if
you can’t stand the sight of me, we go our separate ways, no harm,
no foul. You’ll see. I’m right, and in a few weeks, you’ll know it,
too.” His smile was disarming. He sat back, crossing his arms over
his chest.
She snatched her arm away the second
he released her. She clamped a hand over the spot where his hand
had been. Her skin was still warm, the heat radiating through her
body. Her mouth hung open. Her mind raced to digest his
words.
“Come on, Mel. What do you
have to lose? Give me, give
us
, a chance. I want a wife and kids.
If you don’t want kids, that might be a deal-breaker.”
“I want kids,” she heard her other
self say—the one that lived in an alternate universe where this
conversation was normal.
“See, we have something in common
already.”
Insanity. That’s what we
have in common.
She mentally tried to pry
herself out of the chair, but her alternate-universe self remained
fascinated by what he was saying and refused to budge.
“You want to live in
obscurity in Willowbrook, and it just so happens, so do I. It’s a
match made in Heaven.” He smiled again. “Turn on your recorder, and
I’ll tell you my life story. I want you to know exactly what you’re
getting.”
He reached across the table and
pressed a button on her recorder. “Interview with Henry Barret
Travis, Jr.”
He’s
insane
. Or maybe she was because she still
sat there while he rambled on about piano lessons, his mother, and
the unspeakable pain of losing her to cancer when he was in
college. He talked about his father’s endless support, whether he
was on a basketball court or a stage. He talked about the years he
spent at Harvard, and how his band, BlackWing, came into being, how
they played frat parties and local clubs to help pay their way
through school.