CHAPTER SIX
Bradford’s behavior confirmed what Gage knew: Bradford was an asshole. Even if it wasn’t a date, dude should have walked Melanie to her car.
Gage pushed through the double doors.
Melanie paced across the covered boardwalk in front of the bar. A late-model truck roared up the alley from the parking lot. Gage recognized it as Bradford’s. He floored it, tires squealing as he sped onto Main Street.
Melanie spotted Gage, her arms crossed under her breasts, face reflecting anger and misery. The glint of tears infuriated him.
Her long look reached him—unspoken but raw—and something clutched in his chest. He didn’t want this. Didn’t want what she stirred up inside him. He was finally starting to get his footing again.
But instead of walking away, he crossed to her.
“What the hell did he say to make you cry?”
“Nothing.”
She took a breath and held it for a second, the kind you took when you were trying to stop crying. “Dammit. I hate crying. It’s stupid and weak.”
He didn’t agree but let it pass. “I’ve learned that when women say ‘nothing,’ it usually means something.”
“I guess ‘nothing’ means I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough. Take a walk with me.”
Her gaze flew to his and gave him a glimpse of swirling emotions. He wanted her to agree more than he should.
“I’d like that,” she said, and the tightness around his heart eased.
They strolled along the covered boardwalk that was part of the town’s charm.
There were only a few other couples out, probably because it was so damn cold.
Their breath puffed in front of them before being whipped away in the stiff breeze.
They passed closed shops, their glass windows reflecting lights that twinkled like stars under the overhead rafters.
They passed the hobby shop and Melanie jumped, grabbing his arm. A leering vampire hung from a post, bony fingers extended.
“Holy shit, that scared me. The old guy from this shop freaked me out the other day with the demon bats.” She motioned up and Gage tipped his head back to look.
“Cool decorations.”
“Not cool. I like fun Halloween, not creepy Halloween.” She shivered but released his arm.
“I dig the community buy-in.” He shrugged when she glanced at him. “This town goes all in to celebrate holidays.”
“I see that now. I didn’t appreciate Sisters when I was younger.”
“You were a kid. Kids take their hometown for granted.”
“True. But I value it now. Downtown is charming, and I like how the shopkeepers coordinate the seasonal decorations.”
They stopped before the lighted window display for Retro Days featuring vintage Halloween costumes. “Oh my gosh. I wore a Velma costume from Scooby-Doo like that one when I was in fourth grade. It’s the second time tonight I’m feeling ancient. I swear fourth grade wasn’t that long ago.”
“Mateo’s mom owns this place.”
“Antonia? Really? She was so fun when we were kids.” Melanie looked wistful.
“Matty, Delaney, Keeley, me—we were all in the same class through elementary school. Mrs. Reynoso was always one of the room moms. She had a way of making every kid feel special. I’ll need to stop in to say hi when she’s open. ”
She blew on her hands and rubbed them together. Gage took her hand in his and tucked it into his pocket.
She gave him a side-eye look but didn’t pull back. He didn’t want to examine too carefully why her fingers twined with his felt exactly right. They reached the end of the commercial district and crossed the street to the other side. The wind was picking up, cold enough to cut through you.
Holding hands, even for warmth, took this thing between them a big step past simply being neighbors. He didn’t want to be attracted, but that didn’t seem to matter because everything about Melanie appealed to him in a way that made her impossible to ignore.
Another issue? Gage needed to come clean and tell her what he knew about her past. He withdrew their clasped hands from his pocket and drew her into a sheltered alcove. They were standing close enough that if he wanted to kiss her, he’d only need to tip down his head.
Who was he kidding? He’d wanted her mouth from the first time he’d met her. She must have read his mind because her big brown eyes went wide and more than a little wary. But she didn’t step back.
“Look, Melanie, I need to give full disclosure.” He forced himself to let go of her hand.
“About what?”
“Shane Keller and I have been friends since college. Through him I’m friends with Walker and Sawyer and their wives.”
“What does—” Her tone cooled. “Oh, I see. With you being FBI, they told you what happened to me and about Walker being sent to prison.”
“Yeah, they did. I wasn’t positive that Melanie was you until Sawyer confirmed it.” He shrugged. “It didn’t seem fair that you didn’t know I knew what happened.”
“Thank you for telling me.” The warmth had disappeared from her face.
He should have let it go, stepped back from his attraction, kept their relationship superficial.
But he couldn’t. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“You mean knowing I was raped during my senior year of high school? Or that Walker went to prison because I couldn’t convince a jury it wasn’t him? That doesn’t change what you think of me?”
“Why the hell would it? The sheriff framed him, and it was his lawyer’s job to prove he was innocent, not yours.”
She lifted her chin even as pain flashed across her face. “Walker lost over two years of his life behind bars. The predator who assaulted me was free to terrorize others. I should have tried harder, done more. Something.”
“Jesus Christ, Mel. You were a traumatized kid. The victim of a horrific crime. That wasn’t on you. Not the sheriff, not the jury, none of it. You did what you could to survive. You and Walker were both victims.”
She stayed stubbornly silent. He shook his head. “There are assholes out there who deserve blame, but not you.”
They’d drawn closer, breaths mingling. Her red lips tantalizing. Gage wondered if she felt the same surge of warmth around her heart he did.
There were a lot of reasons he should keep his distance.
She had a kid who didn’t deserve to be hurt if a relationship didn’t work out.
The most recent nightmares notwithstanding, he was only now feeling like he’d recovered from the operation against the cartel, mentally and physically, to the point where he was fully functioning.
But lately, he’d been watching his friends fall in love, raise babies, build lives that didn’t feel temporary. And for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to want that again.
Want her.
The fear was still there, lodged like a bullet under his ribs—fear of losing, of failing, of loving someone too much.
But standing here, her eyes searching his, none of that seemed to matter. Melanie lit something bright inside him, something he’d never experienced before that pushed back the darkness. Something hopeful. The feeling was intoxicating and made it impossible to step away.
He tilted his head. “You want to tell me why you were crying?”
“No. You want to tell me why you and Chase hate each other?”
“No.” He thrust his hands back in his pockets to combat the urge to touch her again. “How about I beat the shit out of him for being a dick?” The tears he’d seen earlier still pissed him off.
“I think you’d like that, so I’m sorry, but no. Chase didn’t make me cry.”
He watched her steadily, not saying a word. The tactic usually worked. People had a compulsion to fill the silence.
Her gorgeous eyes narrowed. “I’m on to you, Special Agent Landry, but you win this one. I’m not a crier. I hate crying. But being in Sisters, talking with Chase earlier this week and then tonight, it brought what happened closer to the surface than it had been.
“Addy’s the center of my world and focusing on her has helped me move on from that time in a way that’s healthy for me.” She lifted her shoulders. “I knew coming back would be difficult, especially seeing people from when I was growing up. Talking about the night I was assaulted hit me hard.”
“He brought it up? Maybe I’ll beat the shit out of him anyway.”
She smiled at him for the first time and revealed twin dimples. God dammit. Since when did he have a thing for dimples? He had a set of his own and had been gratified when they’d morphed into creases as an adult. On Addy they were adorable. On Melanie? They were sexy as sin.
“Don’t beat the shit out of him. I brought it up, not Chase.
“Why did you?”
“Because he was one of the guys there that night, at the bootlegger.”
“What the hell’s a bootlegger?”
“Didn’t Walker and Delaney tell you we’d been at a bootlegger the night I was assaulted?”
“They said there’d been a party.”
She shrugged. “A bootlegger is a party, but not at someone’s house. Kids would get together in the hills away from adult supervision. We’d have a campfire, play music. There was definitely underage drinking. That’s a bootlegger. Didn’t you do that kind of thing when you were a teenager?”
He shook his head. He’d been too busy doing what he could to keep his sister alive and working to pay bills to do typical teenager things.
“There were a lot of kids there because it was going to be the last bootlegger of the year. It was October and getting too cold to be outdoors like that at night. We had a big fire going. I’d had to beg my mom to borrow the car so I could meet my friends there.
She made me swear on everything holy not to drink or smoke weed or anything.
She didn’t want me driving under the influence.
A bunch of upperclassmen from the high school were there, along with some like Walker who’d graduated in the few years ahead of us.
It was fun, until it all came crashing down. ”