15. Easy Choice
Easy Choice
Vedder
“Oh, my giddy Aunt Sally…” I said under my breath at the absolute chaos down Main Street. The sun was already setting, laying long, dark shadows on the asphalt.
Goose hadn’t responded to my texts, or my phone calls. Now I saw why. Ambulances, SUVs, a shuffling crowd. I shouldered past the gawkers, looking for Goose and Melody.
What the hell happened?
It took minutes—entire, long minutes—for my pea brain to figure out what the hell had happened.
Melody was sitting on the back of an ambulance, her face bruised, hair disheveled. Miriam was beside her, tears down her face.
I froze, unable to breathe, my eyes traced down her arm, over her shoulder, to the tear on the collar of her flannel shirt, and the scrape down her jeans.
Ian Gray hovered over her in his damn Volunteer Firefighter shirt, his lips pursed to the side as he fidgeted from foot to foot.
Sitting on the open back of an ambulance, she held her elbow in one hand.
“Melody?” I opened my door and left the damn SUV running as I rushed to her. I gave Ian a pointed look, and barked, “What the hell happened?”
He shrugged. “She got hit by a car.”
I wanted to smack him across the face.
“So why are you acting like she scraped her knee?” I was ready to get in his face. “Who the fuck did it? She got hit by a car, damn it. So why is no one in fucking handcuffs?”
Getting hit by a car merited a scream, a look of panic. Pitchforks and torches!
Ian was acting like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“She’s alright, brother. Calm your tits.” Goose grabbed my arm, pulling me in. “It looked intentional. Like they were going for the little sister, and Mel jumped in.”
I blinked at him. “The car was aiming for Miriam?”
Who the hell would have it out for a teen girl?
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Two attacks in a short amount of time. That was enemy action.
I shouldered past Goose to Melody, my heart pounding in my ears. “Darlin’, are you alright?”
Her phoenix eyes turned to me, and her face lit up as she weakly smiled, before rasping out an, “I’m okay.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” I wanted to stick her in a plastic bubble and never let her out of my sight again. “You wanna try that again, but tell me what hurts, this time?”
“Concussion is the worst of it. Got the wind knocked out of me. Landed on my arm wrong. It’s no big deal.” She shrugged, the winced. “Just a lot of bruises.”
She was struggling to breathe, and I’m willing to bet those “lot of bruises” were making it hard to exist.
I fell to my knees in front of her. She wasn’t even my girlfriend yet, but I didn’t care that this was too intimate of a position to be in for a man who hadn’t claimed her. I didn’t care that this was absurd.
My mom had only ever said one thing that resonated with me. One thing I took, even when it failed her again and again.
“When you know, you know.”
And she had known with Barrett. Then Julius. Then Lucas. She’d known that “Aunt Daisy” was put in her life to help her take care of her kids, and that we were all safe with the revolving door of assholes that she kept throwing in and out of our lives. Every single one of them had hurt us.
Mom didn’t know shit.
But I did.
I knew Melody was the one for me. I would not find a more perfect creature. Even now, with a bruise on the side of her forehead, arm clutched close to her body, and her shoulders hunched, the skin at her torn jeans red, scraped and raw, she was perfect.
“Tell me what happened.” I tucked a sweat-soaked strand of hair behind her ear.
“Some Cyphertruck blasted past the crosswalk and almost hit Miriam. I got in the way instead.” She is an absolute master of understatement. “It’s no big deal.”
It was an enormous deal. I hated that she wouldn’t tell me that she was in pain. She didn’t trust me. Or maybe it was everyone else around us she didn’t trust?
I’m willing to bet my life on the fact that Melody was the kind who never let anyone worry about her.
She wouldn’t admit she was in pain unless she had to.
Complaining never fixed the problem, so why waste your breath?
Why risk that people might judge you for being hurt?
I hated how well I understood that. How I’d learned that lesson, too.
God, it made me want to protect her even more.
“She says she didn’t see who did it,” Ian butted in.
“I was asking her!” I must have glared at him, because he stepped back, shrinking into himself. Turning back to Melody, I tried to relax every part of my body before trying again. “Tell me what happened, sweetheart.”
She swallowed and slumped, like the last of her strength was leaving her body. Defeated. “I saw the car. It was going to hit Miriam. I pushed her out of the way.”
There was something like disappointment in her eyes. I didn’t think it was because she’d managed to save Miriam. Perhaps it was because she had not, in fact, died. She was disappointed she’d survived.
“Your first instinct was to save your sister.” I whispered the compliment just for her to hear. “You’re fucking heroic.”
I meant every god damn word, and I was falling so hard.
I cupped her face, looking at her beautiful golden tan. Olive, beautiful, and so fucking different from my mother who wouldn’t have even noticed if I’d been hit by a car except that it meant I couldn’t do chores around the farm.
Melody was so full of love, it made me want to give her love as well. I had something precious in my hand, and the thought of losing her now, before I even got to kiss her, made me wild with fear, desperation, and grief.
“Between me or her, it’s an easy choice.”
Oh, my sweet Melody…
My heart sank down to my feet, burying lower and lower into the ground until I was six feet under.
“I’d like you to stop sounding disappointed that you survived, sweetheart.”
Her head popped up like she was surprised by my request. Had no one told her the world was better with her in it? I kissed her forehead, hoping I didn’t hurt anything tender, as she leaned into me.
“Everyone’s watching,” she said on a breath. “They’re going to think something’s going on.”
I chuckled.
“I think something is going on.” I watched her for any signs of protest. “Don’t you?”
Her phoenix eyes…damn them. I could curl up in them and never leave.
It felt like I’d always dreamed of her face without even knowing it. A delicate chin with curved brows. Soft, smooth, flat cheeks and a small nose. An expressive mouth that belonged to a silent film star.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The sparkle in her gaze and the light blush on her russet cheeks was answer enough. Melody felt it, too.
And just that bit of acknowledgement was enough for me. Enough that if I had seen some Cyphertruck going after her, I’d have pushed her out of the way and gratefully died in her stead. I think she understood.
“She won’t go to the hospital.” Miriam’s little voice broke the spell, and the whole world intruded on our moment.
The ambulance, the fire truck, the red brick schoolhouse at my back, and the traffic detouring on either side, redirected by Sheriff Whitlaw as people gawked on the sidewalk.
“She won’t?” I asked Miriam.
I knew what the kid was doing. She saw I had her sister’s attention. Wanted me to convince Melody to go.
Miriam was a good kid. I thought the other one would have been helpful too, but her brother was on his phone, scrolling.
Melody stared into the distance, at a little shop called Timeless. Jewelry? I’d seen it plenty when I went about town but never thought about going in—never really gave it much thought at all. She seemed to like it, though.
Interesting. I’d have to remember for later.
“I’m gonna get them home, then lie down.” She put her hand on Miriam’s bare forearm, and the sisters exchanged a look. A look I couldn’t quite read.
“Mellie.” Captain Lyons stepped forward, thumbs hooked into his belt. “If you’re not going to the hospital, I can’t stop you. But I would really recommend that you don’t drive right now.”
He had Ian Gray in tow. The kid had probably volunteered to drive one of the ambulances.
“You gonna have Whitlaw arrest me, Riles?”
The two looked and talked like close friends. I didn’t like it.
“Mels, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But if you’re not going to the hospital—”
“Why aren’t you?” I interrupted, turning to her. “You got hit by a car, honey. You should get checked for a concussion, or at least sprains and breaks. Your adrenaline…”
Her knee started bouncing.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
“Baby—”
“Don’t call me that!” She said it through gritted teeth, but I flinched at the rage behind it.
Fuck.
I shrugged it off. “I can take them home. You should get checked out.”
“We can walk home if we need to,” Miriam whispered.
“Over my dead body,” I said a little too fast for a man the kid didn’t know. “I’ll drive them home, then I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“No.”
“Melody!” I was annoyed beyond reason. But she was hurt. She could be very hurt. And it would be a damn emergency if no one took a look at her.
“I’ve seen plenty of guys walk away from a damn IED or damn missile attack only to drop dead later from injuries he didn’t know he had.
Didn’t know until hours, maybe even days, after the event.
Spare me having to find you that way.” I was being a real shit about this, but I was putting my foot down.
“Spare them from having to find you unresponsive”
She stared at me with absolute horror, like I’d just murdered her cat or something.
“We…” She looked at her brother and sister and swallowed hard. Then she fished her truck keys from her pocket. “Can you two get in the truck?”
Her brother gave a big sigh like he couldn’t be bothered to do that one little thing. The kid had a shit attitude. But I recognized that same. I once had the same when I’d finally exorcised my mother from my life.
Miriam, on the other hand, simply took the keys and left. Though, I swore she gave me a pleading look. Like she wanted me to do the right thing. To take care of Melody.
I hoped the look I returned gave her my vow that her sister would be safe with me.
As safe as Melody would allow.
Once her siblings were in the car, she looked at me and Captain Lyons.
“We can’t afford it.” Her voice was so small, and so heavy with absolute misery and hopelessness, my soul cracked in two. “Going in the ambulance, even just going for a checkup…I can’t…I can’t do it.”
That was all? There was an easy fix. But she kept going.
“Going into the ambulance down the road is at least $2,000. The stay, the X-rays…That’s everything, everything, I’d need to make it a month. I can’t miss a day of work, much less what I’d miss, then have to make up for in overtime. Do you know how much a teenager eats?”
“I’ll pay for it,” I insisted, placing her hand on my chest. “This is important.”
“No.” She recoiled, eyes furrowed in anger. “No!”
“Sweetheart…”
“No!” She interrupted. “I barely know you. Thank you so much for all the help you’ve given me now and in the past, but I can’t do this. I couldn’t even begin to repay you, and I don’t need it. I’m fine.”
She was not fine. She was run over by a car. That was far from fucking fine.
But I had overstepped.
Captain Lyons came up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. A quiet demand to stand down.
“Mels, don’t make it weird. Someone’s gotta watch you for at least 24 hours.
I’m cool popping a squat on a chair by your bed, but Lizzie’s gonna have to sleep on the damn floor, because Marc is a teenager, and it’s not that I don’t trust him, but I sure as fuck don’t trust anyone around my little girl. So…”
“I’ll stay.” I volunteered far too quickly. “I can watch you tonight.”
I was a fucking pervert. Like the vampire in that fucking teen movie where he watched her sleep. Because that was exactly what I wanted to do.
“It’s settled,” Captain Lyons said.
“It is not settled!” She looked at him, shocked. “I…I don’t know him. I can’t leave him alone in our house with Miriam and Marcus. I…I…”
Ouch.
Not an unreasonable reaction. But ouch, nonetheless.
“Hey, this is one of my guys. He’s EMT certified, and I know he’s competent as hell,” he said. I was touched the captain was talking me up. “I’ve got tomorrow off. You have my number. He tries anything, I’ll kill him myself, and he’ll end up floating face down in the lake.”
She winced. He didn’t notice.
“Is the key in the same hidey hole?” the captain asked.
“Yeah, it is,” she answered.
Why the fuck did he know where the spare key was hidden? Was I going to have to kill the fire chief? That’d be a real doggone shame, because I liked him.
“Rock on. He tries anything, I’ll bang him over the head with your mom’s big ass cast-iron pan.”
She snickered, and so did he.
What the fuck was going on here? I’d have to figure it out later.
“Okay,” she finally said, slumping once more.
Melody stared at me like she’d been pushed into a corner. Because she had.
Because I was not letting her go home alone.
Not with a busted head and probably more. A huge bruise was already spreading on her forearm. At least her pupils looked even; every time she faced the sun, her eyes turning amber as her pupils constricted and dilated as needed.
“I’ll take care of you.”
When she turned to me, suspicion was written in every line, every tension, and every curl
Who hurt you, sweetheart? Who made you wary like this?
And what do I need to do to fix it?