His Melody (14 page)

Her fingernails dug into his neck before she moved her hands up over his hair. Her hands moving over his bristles of hair gave him an almost hypnotic pleasure. He lost himself deeper in the kiss. He wanted to stay there, locked with her all night, showing her without words how much he wanted her and wanted to fall for her and use his mouth for anything but talking. He moved his hand under her nightgown and groped her thigh, massaging his fingers into it.

She moaned against his lips, and he deepened his caresses. He moved his lips over her chin, down to her throat. Nibbling at her neck. He slipped his hand farther under her nightgown. His fingers played lightly over the heated flesh of her inner thighs.

He didn’t want to think. He probably couldn’t have if he tried. All he wanted was
her
.
Under his fingers, his tongue.
Touching her was the only thing that mattered.

Melody pulled back with a gasp. “What was that?”

“Huh? What?” Austin murmured, still in a fog of desire. He started to pull her in for another kiss when he heard it, too. Someone was crashing around in the living room. “Shit.” There was only one person who could sound like a heard of elephants moving through that house even when he was trying to be quiet.

Donnie entered the kitchen just as Melody was climbing off Austin’s lap. Melody rearranged her nightgown and hugged her arms over her chest. Donnie looked at them for a moment. Austin sent him a glare that dared him to say anything. For a moment, it seemed as if Donnie would comment on the situation. Then he headed for the breadbox on the counter nearest the refrigerator. He reached into the fridge for meet, cheese, and mayo. He brought everything over to the island in the center of the kitchen.

All he ever did was eat, but he remained skinny as a rail. He’d never been able to put on weight no matter how hard he tried. He took that off Mom.

“Y’all couldn’t sleep either, huh?” he said as he began making his sandwich.

“Too hot,” they both said at the same time. She looked away from him, but he caught a grin at the corner of her lips.

“Yeah.” Donnie slapped his sandwich together. “Wish I had some fried taters to go with this,” he muttered.

Austin looked at Melody. She kept glancing at him and then looking across the kitchen in the direction of the large window above the sink whenever she knew she was caught. He had a feeling she was having just as much trouble with words as he was at the moment. His mind was nowhere near conversation about sandwiches and potatoes.

“How about that watermelon Regan brought over?” Donnie rubbed the spot where his belly would be if he had one. “Mm, mm. I wish I had some more.” He paused for a minute, maybe thinking about the watermelon, maybe not. Then he said, “I reckon me and my knucklehead brother helped that watermelon come to be, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Austin said. He wondered why Donnie was being so friendly. Especially after the way he’d tried to get Austin’s goat earlier. It had to be a trap.

“Yeah. We help Regan out when we can.” Donnie looked straight at Austin when he spoke his next words. “We owe her a lot.”

Austin couldn’t disagree with that. “We sure do.”

Donnie went into a story about a watermelon seed spitting contest that ended with him getting chased clear across town by the mayor’s ornery dog. Melody couldn’t stop laughing. Austin barely listened. For one thing, he’d heard the story more times than he cared to count. For another, he was wondering what Donnie was up to. He was sure Donnie wasn’t done sticking his nose where it didn’t belong yet.

Donnie put the bread and mayo away after making a second sandwich. Knowing Donnie, he’d take that one back upstairs. “I’ll see y’all in the morning. Well, later this morning, I guess.” He headed upstairs with his second sandwich.

Austin turned to Melody, trying to think of something to say. With one look at her, he could tell the moment they’d shared earlier was over.

“I guess I should go up to bed, too.”

“Okay.” He stroked her hair as a substitute for stroking something lower on her body. He had to get his mind on something besides her. And what she would look like completely naked. Only that little scrap of a nightgown kept him from finding out.

She pressed her forehead to his for a brief moment. “I’m leaving in a few days. This…It’s not a good idea.”

“I know,” he said, desire making his voice husky.

She moved his hand from her hair to her lips and kissed his fingertips.

He clenched his teeth, it taking all his strength not to pull her back in for something that maybe neither of them would have been able to stop. “I thought you said it was time for bed.”

“It is,” she said, but she didn’t sound any more ready to leave than he was to see her go.

Their eyes met. When he saw the expression on her face in the semi-darkness, the same kind of longing he felt, he nearly grabbed her to finish what they’d started.

“Are we still going running in the morning?” she asked. “Well, in a few hours now, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he said. He could have done with a few miles right then. “Six o’clock sharp.”

“I’ll be there.”

“It’s kind of cool that early in the morning,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t show up to run in a sports bra and
itty bitty
shorts. He was having enough trouble behaving. As it was, he’d already broken his promise to himself to keep his hands to himself. If he didn’t get away from her soon, she might find herself minus a nightgown.

“I can barely imagine that right now,” she said.

She surprised him with a hug.

“Good night, Austin,” she said, letting her hands linger on his lower back.

“Night, Melody.” He backed away so his hard-on wouldn’t press into her stomach.

She ran her hands up and down his torso and then over his sides.
Sheer torture, but in a good way.
Then she headed for the stairs.

He hoped that engine for her car would hurry up and get to Sweet Neck because he had to get her out of there before they did something she’d regret. He’d already ruined enough lives. He couldn’t add her to that list of unfortunate people.

If something started up between them, it could only end badly. There was no way he was getting in another serious relationship or leaving Sweet Neck again. Not even for Melody.

Chapter Seventeen

Melody was on the phone with Jen, trying to explain why she couldn’t come home yet. She’d been in Sweet Neck for over a week, and Jen was getting antsy about it. She kept trying to convince Jen that she was fine, and that she’d be home soon, but Jen wasn’t having it.

“Okay, obviously you’ve temporarily lost your mind or something, so I have to come down there and rescue you,” Jen said. Melody could hear her fidgeting with something in the background. It sounded like tiles plinking. Jen was probably working on a new mosaic collage. They were a hobby of hers. She knew a guy who specialized in bathroom renovations, and she was always getting discarded tile from him. Sometimes, she went to art stores and even hardware stores, but she liked making recycled art much more. She called it her artistic and environmental contribution to the world rolled into one.

In fact, art was how she’d met Jen. They’d been in a pottery class together held at a local community college in the evenings. Melody had taken it for fun and out of curiosity. Jen had real talent for visual art, though.

“No, Jen, really. I’m fine,” Melody said.

“You’ve been down there for two weeks. That’s not okay. I’m coming this weekend.”

“Don’t you have your dance class?” she asked, trying to derail Jen’s plan. Jen taught a dance class on Saturday mornings.

“I’ll cancel the class. This qualifies as an emergency. I’m coming to get you, and we’ll figure out how to get that scrap metal you insist on clinging to back to Atlanta later.” Under her breath, Jen added, “You should have kept the Range Rover.”

“You know I heard that, right?”

“Oh. Did you think I didn’t want you to? You
should
have kept it.”

Melody rolled her eyes even though Jen couldn’t see her through the phone and said, “I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that, but I can’t figure out why you’re staying there, Mel.
Some weird sense of duty to this guy who’s fixing your car?
Some kind of post-losing your job melt down? I have no clue.”

“When you say it that way, it sounds crazy.”

“That’s because it is. I’m coming. You can’t stop me.”

“I’ll be home soon. The car is almost fixed.”

“What, you trying to keep Grayson Meadows all to yourself or something?” she teased.

Melody bristled. “His name is Austin. And no.”

“Oh. Oh Melody.” Jen paused for dramatic effect as she often did when she was about to say something inflammatory. “You like him. Don’t you?” Her tone was both accusatory and teasing.

“C’mon, Jen,” Melody said, her ears on fire. “Don’t revert to grade school. What are you going to do next? Sing about us kissing in a tree?” But as she reprimanded Jen, she thought back to the kiss she and Austin had shared the night the air conditioning had gone out. Over a week later, they hadn’t come close to another moment like that. It was like he went out of his way to avoid her. They went running in the mornings in near silence and then lifted weights in an outbuilding behind the main house in the same kind of quiet. At work, he’d spend as little time as possible in the office. Most of the time, when a customer needed ringing up or when one of the three mechanics needed something from the office, Austin would send Donnie or Avery into the office to do it or get it.

“…Melody? Earth to Melody?”

“Oh. Sorry, Jen. What did you say?”

“Girl, I know you. Okay, I’m definitely needed there. I have to see what the deal is down in Sweet Neck,” Jen said with an exaggerated—and really bad—version of a Southern accent.

“There’s no deal, Jen.”

“Saturday morning. Ten A.M. I’ll be there. You can’t stop me. Now, you
gonna
give me the address of Grayson’s garage for my G.P.S., or do I have to look it up online? ‘Cause you know I’ll do it. I know how to use Google, and I know it’s called Holt’s Garage.”

She knew. Although there’d be no website for Holt’s, Jen could probably find an online listing with the garage’s address.
 
With a resigned sigh and a smile at the thought of her tenacious little friend, Melody gave Jen Leigh Anne’s address as well as the address for Austin’s shop where she would most likely be Saturday at ten.

#

Melody ran outside Saturday morning when Donnie told her that Jen had arrived.

She ran over to her petite friend and grabbed her, not realizing just how much she’d missed her until that moment.

“When you said you were in the sticks, girl, you weren’t kidding,” Jen said once they were done hugging and saying their hellos. Jen wore a red and white print dress. She held her favorite pair of oversized sunglasses up near her forehead as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing while looking through them. Her silky dark chocolate brown hung loose over her shoulders. She wore strappy gold sandals on her tiny feet. She’d painted her toenails red to match the dress.

“I know,” Melody said with a grin. “But it’s really not that bad.” She thought of Austin as she said that.

“So where’s Grayson?” Jen asked in an exaggerated whisper. Her big brown eyes grew even wider.

As if on cue, Austin walked out of the garage, wiping his hands on his trademark dirty rag and squinting against the sunlight.

“You must be Jen,” he said. “I’m Austin. I would shake your hand, but I don’t want to get you all dirty,” he said.

Jen was clearly
star
struck. “Grayson, I mean Austin, I mean nice to meet you. I already met your brother.” She was babbling just as she did any time Melody introduced her to the up-and-coming hopeful future music stars their label had snagged or that they were courting from other labels.

Austin smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Donnie. I have a sister, too. She’s in the middle of a battle with a busted carburetor right now. Otherwise, I’d introduce you. You’ll meet her later on, I’m sure. You’re staying with us, right? Mom mentioned something about that.”

Jen’s red and gold dangling earrings swung wildly as she nodded, her face still lit up with celebrity love.

“Well, I should get back to work. Mel, why don’t you knock off for the rest of the day and go with Jen?” He looked at her in a way that made her heart thud so hard it hurt. This was the most he talked to her all week, but so what? Why was she acting so love struck? No. She wasn’t going to use that word. Not even in a seemingly harmless way like that. Not a word to be thrown around—or even in her vocabulary—when it came to Austin Holt.

“You sure?” Melody wanted to draw out this conversation for as long as possible. She wanted to hold his gaze, hear his voice. The irrational part of her that’d gotten her into all the trouble she’d ever been in over her short, young life so far was at work. She had to give that part credit for one thing, though—it’d also been responsible for most of the fun she’d had so far in life. Her ex-husband was the exception that proved the rule, though.