3. Chapter Three
Chapter three
M elody woke up early and headed to the Wilde Wind Ranch to get answers to the questions that nagged at her through the end of her shift last night and into her dreams. It was the first thing she’d thought about when her eyes opened this morning.
Why didn’t Dad tell me he’d kept in touch with Fox?
What really happened the day my father found him?
She knew Fox had been seriously injured, but her father had been vague with the details because he didn’t want to scare her even more than she had been for her friend.
Thoughts about whether he was hurt or hungry, sad or lonely, afraid and hiding used to tie her in knots all the time, especially after he left. Now, she wanted to know everything that happened from the last time she’d seen him until now. But she didn’t want to ask him about that traumatic event that changed everything for him. She didn’t want to make him relive it.
Someone else knew what happened that day. And her father wasn’t going to give her a watered-down version again. She wanted the truth. Everything, including what Fox meant about her father keeping in touch with him all these years.
She parked at the house and walked in the front door. Her mom and dad were in the kitchen, standing close together. Mom loved music. It was always playing in the house and car, usually to her mom singing along. Today, it was old-school Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day.”
Neither of her parents was singing. Their stares were filled with guilt and trepidation, so she dove right in.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew where Fox was all this time and that you kept in touch with him?”
Her dad leaned on his forearms on the counter and met her gaze straight on. “I owe you an apology.”
“I don’t want an I’m sorry . I want an answer.”
“You were devastated when Fox left town.”
“Of course I was.” She’d stayed in her room for days, wouldn’t speak to anyone, cried a river of tears, barely ate, and didn’t participate in school until her teacher told her if she didn’t, they’d hold her back for another year. “Fox hated me for what I did. I didn’t get to apologize. I didn’t know what happened to him. I never saw him again.”
“We tried to protect you.” Her mom’s eyes filled with the apology Melody didn’t want. “You were so young. We thought it best not to tell you all the terrible things that happened to him, but focus on the fact that he was going to live somewhere better. After he left, you grieved, but you didn’t ask any more questions.”
“Because I thought you didn’t know anything more once he left. Every day I wondered if he was okay.”
Her father rubbed at the back of his neck. “We should have told you everything long before now. We just didn’t want you to hurt for him.”
“Hurt for him? Since the moment I knew he was being hurt to this very day, I ached for him. It never stops. It is a part of me. That boy…he was mine.” The pain throbbed anew. “You always told us it was our responsibility to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves.”
One side of her dad’s mouth kicked back in a half grin. “I was mostly talking about the horses and cattle on the ranch when I was trying to get you kids to do your chores, but your heart is so big you knew I meant to take care of those who are vulnerable.”
“He was my best friend. He needed me. And I didn’t help. Not in the way he needed me to.”
“You couldn’t stop what his mother and father were doing to him. You needed help. And when it mattered most, you did the right thing,” her father praised.
“You never told me what happened when you got to his house. All you’d ever say was that Fox had been taken to the hospital. You never said why. I heard the gossip around town, but could never be sure what was true, assumed, or flat-out false.” Her parents had only placated her with benign statements that he was going to be okay and that he was going to be placed with someone who would take care of him. Not exactly a lot of specifics in those inadequate assurances. “I want to know everything now.”
Her mom frowned. “He told your father not to tell you. Maybe it’s best if you ask Fox.”
She shook her head. “I won’t make him relive that.” She turned her gaze to her dad. “Please. I’m not a little girl anymore. I don’t need you to protect me from this hard truth. I want to know, so I can be the friend Fox needs me to be.”
Her dad let out a heavy breath. “I found him in the barn. He’d been there for hours. Probably all night. He was nearly frozen to death, barely conscious. He was so terrified his father would kill him.”
“Fox told me last night that I saved his life. Is that true?”
Her mom and dad shared a look that spoke volumes between them.
Her dad met her gaze and gave it to her straight. “If I hadn’t gone there to find him, and his parents left him out there even an hour longer, he’d be dead. He had major organ damage from the beating he’d taken. A lacerated spleen and liver.”
“He was bleeding internally?”
“Yes. Along with several broken ribs, a broken wrist, a black eye, contusions all over his back and legs from being kicked, and…” Her dad couldn’t seem to finish.
“And?”
“Bruises around his neck from where his father had choked him.”
She tried to breathe, but it was so hard when it felt like she was suffocating on the immense sympathy she felt for Fox and the fury she wanted to unleash on his parents. “Was it all his father? Or did his mother hurt him, too?”
Wade rubbed his big hand over the back of his neck. He’d never raised that hand in anger to any of his kids.
She’d known his disappointment. She’d been punished plenty with extra chores and lost privileges. Never, not once, had her parents ever put their hands on her in violence.
Her dad sighed. “His mother broke his ribs when she literally kicked him again and again to get him out of the house.”
“Did Fox tell you all this?”
“He asked me to stay with him while the police and social worker interviewed him. He said he felt safe with me because I was Melody’s dad and you swore to him that I would never hurt you or him or anyone. He trusted me, because he believed in you, sweetheart. Because of that trust and how incredibly proud I was of you, I looked after Fox the best I could over the years. I made sure that if he was ever in another bad situation, I got him moved someplace better. I made sure he knew that the person you sent to help him would help him no matter what, whenever he needed it.”
“Why didn’t you just bring him here to live with us? He could have had a real family who loved him.”
A pained look came over her mom’s face. “We wanted to, but the system is complicated and his parents fought the charges against them. His father swore he’d get Fox back to his mother.”
“I don’t know why when they treated him like they didn’t want him at all.”
“He was theirs,” her father said simply, though it made no real sense. “The threat to Fox was real. Your mom, me, the police, the social workers, everyone knew the best thing for him was to get him as far away from his parents as possible if he was going to have a chance at finding a normal life. If he was too close and his father found him…” Her dad let her fill in the nightmare that would have been. “Unfortunately, foster care isn’t perfect. He had a couple of good homes, but he got moved a lot for different reasons. I checked in with him once a month. If something seemed off, or he revealed he was unhappy and not being treated right, I contacted his case worker and made sure he got moved somewhere else. I hoped it would be better. It wasn’t always.” He shared another of those looks with her mom. Melody recognized it now. Their shared pain and regret.
They’d had four kids of their own to raise.
“I’m so grateful for what you did for my friend.”
Her dad didn’t look at all relieved to hear her say that. “We wish we could have done more for him, but it just wasn’t safe for him here.”
Her father had to think of the safety of his family, too, because she knew Fox’s father didn’t spend as much time in prison as he deserved. There’d been a deal struck and Fox could have very well paid the price if his father got his hands on Fox again.
She wondered if it was safe for him to be here now. Did he come back to face his abusive mother and his past? Was he hoping for a reconciliation and an apology or something from his mom? Because Melody didn’t see that happening.
After what his mother did to him, why had he come back to help her?
“Is that all?” she asked them.
Her father took a deep breath as if bracing himself to say the next words. “Nearly seventy bone fractures by the time he was eight. Several of those bones, like his wrist, were broken multiple times.”
“They didn’t just hurt him. They tortured him.” It made her stomach tight and sour. She tried not to throw up.
The quiet only amplified their resounding unspoken yes .
She put her hands on the island and hung her head, trying to breathe and think about everything she’d learned and reminding herself he got out. He was safe. He survived.
“Melody? Are you okay?” Her mom’s hand was gentle and warm on hers.
She stood to her full height and wrapped her mom in a big hug. “Thank you for being my mom. You’ve loved me so well it never occurred to me that a mom could hurt her child that way. I know that’s na?ve and stupid, but that’s the safe space I got to live in my whole life because of you.”
Her mom had tears in her eyes when she squeezed her hard, then let her go, so Melody could wrap her arms around her dad. “You are safe and strong and confident and encouraging and never treated any of us girls like we were weaker than the men on this ranch in any way. You always make me feel like I can do anything.”
“Because you can. And when you do, it’s with that big heart of yours. You act like nothing bothers you, but we know you feel things deep.”
Most people thought she was the life of the party. And she was a lot of the time. She liked to have fun.
Some guys thought because of that they could use her and walk away and it didn’t hurt.
She’d gotten tired of that and stopped dating because flings were fun in the moment, until you were back to being alone. She wanted something real. Something deep. A connection that could stand up to the good and bad and everything in between.
Two people who had that were standing right in front of her. Her parents’ marriage wasn’t perfect. They argued. They had issues. But they worked through them. Year after year. Change after change in their lives. Because nothing stayed the same.
Not even Melody.
She’d changed a lot since she and Fox were grade school friends.
Now she wanted to find out if that little boy and girl could be what they were—and more—now.
Because the other thought that had crept into her mind last night had come when she reflected on why none of the guys she dated ever lasted. What about them hadn’t worked for her?
The answer had stunned her.
They weren’t Fox, the boy who had always treated her like she mattered, like she was not just important, but necessary in his life.
No one had ever come close to making her feel that way again.
Her dad brushed his hand over her head. “I didn’t tell you about Fox because you seemed to have moved on after he lashed out at you. I thought about taking you back to see him, but Fox was just not in a good place. I made a mistake. I should have given you both a chance to talk and say goodbye before Fox went into foster care. I didn’t know you were still carrying the guilt and pain of losing him until I saw the devastated look on your face when you saw him last night.”
“Remember I told you about the guy I’ve been talking to online?”
Her mom gasped. “It was Fox?”
“He wanted to get to know me again. Now that we have over these last many weeks, he wants us to be together again.”
Her mom proceeded with caution. “You were really interested in him. Are you still, now that you know it’s Fox?”
She thought about the sexy as hell kiss she and Fox shared last night. She’d kissed a lot of other men. None of those kisses were as scorching hot as the one Fox laid on her. “Yes. When I talked to the mystery guy online, there was something so familiar about him. Now I know why. It was always so easy to be me with him. I felt that when we talked now. It’s why I waited so long to give him an ultimatum about meeting in person. I really didn’t want to lose what we had online, even though I wanted more.” She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and checked the time. “I have to go. I’m meeting him for lunch.”
“Tell him I’d love a chance to catch up with him. He’s welcome at the ranch whenever he has the time.” Her dad tugged her hair.
This time she didn’t want to keep things fun and flirty and casual. She wanted Fox to be her Mason, her Layla, the ones her sister Lyric and brother Jax couldn’t live without. Melody wanted to be the one Fox couldn’t leave. Not this time.