38. Was That a Question?
Was That a Question?
Melody
He didn’t come. I don’t know why I expected him to. I’d kicked him out, regretted it immediately, and then made a ham-fisted attempt to make him stay.
Between the drama, the danger, and then being reprimanded about Marc—only to realize my little brother had changed from a bratty boy into a young man who helped and cleaned the house and was nicer to his younger sister—he had no reason to want me. To want this.
Almost two months passed, and life settled.
Marc and Miriam helped as I started physical therapy to get me back on my feet until I needed the wheelchair less and less.
Eventually, I went from sleeping on the couch on the main floor to occasionally being able to head up the stairs on the few days I felt particularly good.
Marc was still in the film club, and he was making friends who weren’t his piece-of-shit cousins—now ostracized for their associations with the actions of Ian Gray.
As it turned out, trying to fake your cousin’s suicide to get money had tarnished their family’s reputation in town.
The shine was off the apple, so to speak.
Miriam was busy with the cows and had convinced me to never sell them.
“You want to keep them…as pets?” I asked her.
“No! But…you know…they’re nice to have on the farm. It’s not like we don’t have the space.”
So we are keeping the cows, and they now all have names. Lovely.
The trusts for me and my siblings came in, and despite putting most of their shares away for their college, the low, low salary of $50,000 a year was still damn luxurious compared to what we had been living on.
Marc wanted to get a table saw for repairs around the house, starting with our parents’ old bedroom.
I told him to try something smaller first, like maybe making a new kitchen table.
I started looking into night school. Maybe I could finish my law degree.
It wouldn’t be Yale, but it would be something.
I could work as a paralegal. It would be better than working customer service where people screamed at me all night, and I would be able to save more to get the kids into the schools they wanted.
I was at the kitchen table on my laptop when we heard a honk on the driveway. Looking through the daisy window curtains, I saw a familiar orange truck. Familiar, but different. There was a huge cover on the bed.
The truck’s engine cut. A door opened and shut, there were footsteps on gravel. My heart leapt to my throat.
“It’s Greg!” Marc was at the kitchen door, looking at me with hope in his eyes.
My mouth hung open, and I didn’t know what to do. I was still in my pajamas and looked like a wreck.
Miriam turned to me. “Are you gonna be okay?”
I was already crying.
Why was he here? Maybe he had mail to drop off? Did Lotte send him over with vegetables? More importantly, why was I acting like this was something?
Marc scampered to the front door, and I heard it open wide, slamming into the wall because the door stop had been broken years ago. One more thing to fix…
I ran fingers through my hair, trying to comb out the nest growing on my head, but realizing it was useless. Anyway, he wasn’t here for me…what was I even thinking?
“Hey, son. I’m here to talk to Melody. She around?” His voice—his words!—made my knees quiver.
Where the fuck else would I be? I could barely walk, and I was still on drugs. I’d been mostly housebound, because I didn’t have a big, beefy man with long hair to carry me around like I weighed nothing!
“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen.” Marcus, you traitor!
I take back every nice thought I’ve had about him.
“Can I come in?”
God damn him. His footsteps pounded to the beat of my heart, and when I heard the ruffle of laces, for the first time ever, I wished he didn’t fucking respect the rules of the house to take off his shoes! Asshole!
Miriam rushed to the counter and grabbed a paper towel, returning to dab my face and wipe the tears. Then she pinched my cheeks.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“I’m making you look more…rosy. Less pale. It’s in all the Austen movies.”
Well, if it was good enough for Jane Austen…
I let her my sister continue.
When his shadow finally crossed the threshold, I was doing what anyone in a regency film would have done. I pretended to be busy.
I pretended I was just so engrossed in my laptop, I didn’t even notice the man I had dreamed about was finally hear!
Act cool, Mel. Don’t act like yourself. Act like someone who isn’t an obsessed fucking loser.
I typed and scrolled even as his sock-covered feet entered the edge of my vision.
Only when he cleared his throat did I look up.
And I wanted to melt. He was so handsome, and—What happened to his beard?
“Hi,” I breathed. Even clean shaven, he was still handsome as hell. Handsomer than he was with a beard. How was that possible?
In a silk shirt and nice trousers, he was just shy of business casual.
I was wearing teddy-bear pajamas and my old Yale hoodie.
Life sucked.
He took a step back, straightened, and fisted his hands at his sides like he was standing at attention.
Miriam hurried to the door and leaned on the frame, mirroring Marcus on the other side. They did a piss-poor job of hiding. I shot them a glare, and they ducked their heads aside only to slowly lean in again. Snoops!
“My name is Gregory Isaac Vedder,” he had amazing posture.
His shoulders were so square, his jaw so sharp he could cut.
His sleeves were folded up his forearms, his mouth-watering veiny forearms hypnotizing me as he held his hands out to his side.
“I was born in Belfree, Kansas. My upbringing was rough, and I don’t talk to my family anymore.
At seventeen, I ran away to join the United States Army and taught myself to read.
Since then, my life was being an operator—Special Forces—until I was shot and medically retired. ”
I straightened, wishing I could stand so I wasn’t looking up at him like a child staring at the prince on whom she had a crush.
He reached up, muscles straining against the forest-green linen shirt as he, probably unconsciously, pulled out the tie from his ponytail and ruffled his hair.
“I have no kids. I’ve never been married.
” Greg retied his hair as he continued. “I spent the last five years voluntarily unhoused. I rode the rails, traveled, prayed in the houses of other religions. I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out what I want to be happy and fulfilled, and I know that I want… is this.”
Miriam squealed. I slammed my fist into the drywall to shut them up, but then I heard Marc’s snicker and Miriam’s grumble.
“Can I sit?” He unclenched his fists and wiped his palms on his trousers, leaving a bit of darkness there. Were his hands sweating?
Why did that make me love him so much more?
He didn’t wait for my answer. He sat, and one knee moved a mile a minute as his foot bounced.
“I’m handy. I have built an entire house before.
I also come with a pretty substantial savings, a retirement pension, and 100% disability from the Army.
I come with Tricare Health Insurance, the Post-9/11 GI Bill that you can use for school, and if I were to become the legal guardian of Marc and Miriam, they could access it too, along with the Yellow Ribbon Programs in some states.
In state schools in New York, they might qualify for free tuition, I’m not totally sure.
I’m willing to give them everything I’ve got because I know that matters to you.
” His earnest green eyes stared at me. “What do you say?”
I blinked. “You’re…asking to take Miriam and Marc away from me?”
“What? No! I’m…Shit.”
There was a giggle from the other side of the wall, followed by snickering. Like children rather than the teens my siblings were supposed to be.
“Fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair, completely pulling it out of its ponytail again and letting it swish down to his broad shoulders. “I’m saying that…I want to help you go back to law school.”
He looked sideways at my screen, frowned, then shook his head.
“I mean to Yale Law.” He scratched at his jaw, and I wondered if shaving made him itch.
“I fixed up my truck. In the back is everything you would need to basically live in it. It’s got a bed—a pretty comfortable cot—and I installed a heating and cooling system attached to batteries, so you wouldn’t even have to run the engine while you slept.
It’s also damn secure—bulletproof secure—because I can’t…
I won’t let what happened to you happen again.
I also replaced the radio, so it actually has that CarPlay thing where it automatically links to your phone. ”
Another laugh from the peanut gallery. Damn kids.
“I still don’t understand what you want.” I did. But he had to ask. I couldn’t say yes until he asked.
“I want to help fix up this house, take care of the kids, and take care of the farm. I am never gonna be rich. Not smart enough for it, honestly. I’m a simple guy. But I don’t cheat, lie or steal, and I honor my commitments.”
“Okay…”
Just say it, damn it!
“I just…” He took a shuddering breath. “Do you want to?”
“Want to…what?”
Ask the damn question, Greg.
He dug around his pockets until he found what he was looking for.
Greg dropped to one knee and pulled out a diamond ring so big, it was flashier than anything the Grays had. Gaudier than anything I’d ever seen in a celebrity magazine.
The rock was going to blind me.
It was an iceberg. The one that took down the Titanic.
And I kind of liked it.
“You have to be shitting me.” I covered my mouth to stifle a giggle.
“I shit you not, baby. I’m here. And I’m asking.” He shook his head a little, still looking up at me from one knee. “Will you marry me?”
After all my internal bitching for him to get on with it, I had nothing to say. Words were not a thing anymore. What were words, again? I’d completely forgotten.
“I…I don’t want your money or your benefits. The carpentry’s nice, but…” I was breathless, my mouth was dry. I did not want to fuck this up.
But how could this be real? How could he be here right now, after all this time? He just shows up out of nowhere to propose? That was absolutely insane.
I heard several squeals of “What the hell, Mel?” from behind the kitchen threshold, and you know what? They had a point.
“I come with baggage—”
“I told you before,” he said with a teasing smirk on his lips. “That’s not a nice way to talk about your brother.”
I snorted, then covered my nose, because that was one hell of a way to ruin the mood.
“Marc and Miriam are going to be my priority until they’re done with college and can stand on their own two feet.”
“As they should be.”
“I need more than finances as a reason to be with someone.” My voice lifted at the end, because the truth was, I wanted to marry for love. And I was already in love. The kids loved him, too. But the question was…did he love us back?
“Tell me what you want, and I will do it. Bigger ring? A grander fucking gesture? Want me to skydive from a C-130 and land at the exact spot at the end of the aisle so we can get married? I’ll do it. Just name it.”
I suspected a bigger ring might actually cause permanent injury to my hand.
“We’ll put a pin on that skydiving thing, because I’m pretty sure that’d outdo the massive event that was Valerie Gray’s wedding,” I snickered. “But no. I just want…someone who…who lov—”
“I love you, Melody. I love your brother and sister, too. I want to be a part of this. A part of you.” He took my hand in his, letting the ring hover over my finger. “I’ll change my last name to yours, if you’d like. Just so I can share that part of my identity with you guys.”
“No,” I snorted, then covered my nose with embarrassment. “At this point, I’m pretty sure we’d rather become Vedders than stay Grays.”
I would want that, actually. To not be a Gray anymore.
A new life. A different sort of family.
To have someone that was mine. A person to hold on to, not to keep them, but to keep myself upright when life got hard. To have someone who could help keep this house from falling apart, and keep me from fucking up the children I’d orphaned.
With the prospect of relief, the weight I’d been carrying felt unbearable. But here he was, ready with his hands out to take it form me, and I was so certain that he could do it. He could carry this weight with me, or for me.
That life could be different.
“Is that a yes?” He smiled, and it was dazzling and brilliant and everything I could have ever hoped for.
It was too much for me to accept. I was shaking with happiness.
“Yes. It’s a yes.” Tears streamed down my face as Miriam and Marc ran into the room, and Greg hugged him so hard that he almost took him to the ground. Melody came to me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders, whispering a soft, “Congratulations.”
“Damn it, brat! I gotta get the ring on her first!”
My siblings stepped back, bouncing on their toes in excitement. They had every right to be, of course. This proposal was for them, too.
Greg took my hand, and with an adorably shaky grip, he put the ring on my finger.
I marveled at it. At him. At the kids.
This was it. This was my life. And for once, I didn’t hate where I was, or where I lived. I didn’t even hate the pictures on the mantle, though I didn’t know when the one of Luke had disappeared.
“Marc Vedder sounds pretty good, eh?” My brother had an arm around Greg’s waist, and Greg had him in a headlock while mussing Marcus’s hair.
“It sure does, son. Miriam Vedder and Marc Vedder sound really, really good.”
Get Greg and Melody's spicy Bonus Epilogueat
The series continues in High Speed, Tristan "Goose" Goss and Sheriff Dagny Whitlow's story.