“You okay?”
Melanie squinted up at the stranger who’d kept her daughter from what would have been a very painful fall and sighed. “I’m going to be gray before I’m thirty,” she said.
He ran a hand through his brown hair before releasing the tool belt from his waist and dropping it to the ground. He pushed up a spot of grass beside her and rested his forearms on his knees. “You have had a rough couple of days,” he told her.
“Boy have I ever.” It took Melanie a full thirty seconds to register his words. “Wait . . . how would you know about my week?”
The stranger smiled, flashing dimples, and reached out his hand to shake hers. “Name’s Jack . . . Jack the Ripper. I’m on a work release program out of Sing Sing. Save little girls to keep my parole officer happy.”
She placed a limp hand in his and peered close. It was the stranger from the night before, minus the rain-soaked coat and pissy attitude. “Oh, God. I’m sorry . . . I mean . . .”
Melanie clasped his hand tighter and felt a laugh deep in her belly. It didn’t take long for that adrenaline to release in laughter. “I’m sorry I kept you out in the rain. Thank you for all your help last night.”
“I couldn’t exactly leave you there.”
“Lots of people would.”
He had the kindest chocolate brown eyes. His hair was long on top, a surfer style Melanie saw a lot in California. He had a decent tan, considering he lived in Oregon, and he was thicker than a pencil pushing desk jockey.
Fit, definitely fit.
A byproduct of his job, she guessed.
Wyatt lifted her hand, which still held his. “Can I have this back?”
She released it as if he stung. “Sorry.”
“S’okay. You’ve had a hard couple of days,” he said again. “The name’s Wyatt, by the way.”
“Right. Jo said that last night.”
He rested his elbows on his knees but kept his eyes on her. “And you’re Melanie.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw your car at Luke’s shop. He told me you were old high school friends. I assume you’re here for the reunion.”
Melanie glanced up at the Victorian. “Yeah. I can’t believe it’s been ten years. I promised my girls I’d be here.”
“You have more than one daughter?”
She shook her head. “No, no . . . Hope is my only child. I mean Jo and Zoe. We were like sisters growing up. Couldn’t let them down.”
“Even if it killed your car.”
“Even if it killed my car,” she said matter-of-factly.
They both stared at the roof of the inn before the silence between them took weight.
Melanie felt Wyatt’s eyes before she confirmed with a twist of her head he was staring at her.
Something she hadn’t felt in forever stirred deep inside her. She couldn’t tell if he was flirting with only a look, or if the dimple that deepened on the right side of his cheek was something he always wore. He was younger than her, if she wasn’t completely off her game . . . and she had a kid.
Flirting wasn’t something a man who looked like him did with a woman like her.
So when his eyes flitted to her lips, and then popped back to meet her gaze, Melanie attempted to push to her feet. Her hands slid in the mud before she caught herself and stood.
“I should make sure Miss Gina isn’t spiking the lemonade.”
Wyatt laughed as he stood beside her. “The special batch is always in the red pitcher.”
A teenage memory of that red pitcher made Melanie smile.
“Well.” She extended a slightly dirty hand to him again, felt a buzz of current when he took it. “Thanks for not letting Hope plunge to an early death.”
His hand was warm . . . comforting.
“My parole officer would have sent me back if I had.” He winked.
Melanie released his hand and bit her lip as she smiled. Maybe she had a little flirt in her after all. “I’ll be sure and tell him you were our hero.”
Wyatt reached for his tool belt and fastened it around his slim hips.
He caught her watching his slightly damp ass as he turned to look behind him before climbing up the ladder.
“Going . . .” She stumbled on her own feet as she scrambled away. “Check on Hope.”
Wyatt the Ripper . . . from Sing Sing . . . laughed as she disappeared inside.
The lemonade was from a powder and not nature’s fruit.
With vodka . . . it was perfect.
Jo turned up after her shift and poured from Miss Gina’s giant red pitcher while the three of them kicked back in conversation. The inn was quiet. Hope was asleep, sent to bed early for creating several wrinkles in her mother’s face.
Melanie smothered Hope with a hug before making her go to bed early. The thought of her daughter hanging on the edge of the three-story Victorian would live with her forever.
“I wanted to kill her.”
“You haven’t stopped holding her since she climbed off that ladder.” Miss Gina released a long stream of smoke from her lungs as she spoke.
They sat on the back porch, the twilight and several strings of white Christmas lights running across the length of the wraparound porch offering enough light to drink and chat by.
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to strangle her.” Melanie sipped her drink, laid her head back against the wicker chair, and closed her eyes. “I will never have sex without a condom again,” she declared.