My Darling Melissa (9 page)

Jeff, Katherine’s second son, was as tall and blue-eyed as Adam, but he had his mother’s fair hair. He was bent over a map he’d rolled out on a nearby table, studying it and occasionally shoving one hand through his hair. His annoyance and frustration were evident in every line of his body. His wife, Fancy, was at home on that chilly spring night, recovering from the recent birth of their fourth child.

Katherine was secretly worried about Jeff and Fancy; although they tried to put an encouraging face on matters, there was a certain strain between them. Something was very wrong.

Catching herself up short, Katherine redirected her attention to the matter at hand: Melissa’s disappearance. Although she was, of course, very concerned about her youngest child, she was not nearly as upset as her sons were. Melissa was twenty-two years old, after all, and she’d been to college and traveled in Europe as well as the United States. Although Katherine knew that her daughter could be impulsive—her flight from the church on Saturday had been evidence enough of that—she was also convinced of Melissa’s native good sense.

The door of the study opened, and Keith came in. Katherine gave her youngest son a fond look. Here was her handsome diplomat, her soft-spoken peacemaker. She’d ceased making comments like that aloud long ago, for Adam and Jeff had invariably looked at her askance and remarked that their little brother had a hell of a right hook for a parson.

At his entrance there was a brief silence and then an eruption of energy.

Adam stopped his pacing, and Jeff let the map roll shut, forgotten. Banner sat up a little straighter in her chair and exchanged a beleaguered look with Katherine.

Keith had called this meeting, and he was taking his sweet time in explaining why. He took off his plain black hat, revealing a head of glossy light brown hair, and then removed his coat and gloves. All the while a smile lurked on his lips.

“Melissa’s fine,” he finally announced. “Just like I said she would be.” He took a folded piece of yellow paper from his coat. “When I got home this wire was waiting for me.”

Keith carried the missive across the room and laid it on the surface of Katherine’s desk. She opened it immediately and read aloud, “‘No need to worry about me. I’m no longer a spinster. I’m discovering life. Love, Mrs. Quinn Rafferty (Melissa).’”

“Mrs.—?” Adam bit out, glaring at Banner as though all of this were somehow his wife’s fault. “Who the hell is Quinn Rafferty?”

“I’ll tell you who he is,” Jeff boomed out, fairly shaking the light fixtures with the force of his fury. “He lives in Port Riley and runs a piss-ant sawmill!”

Both Katherine and Banner flinched slightly.

“And he married my sister!” Jeff raved on. “The bastard—I’ll break his knees! I’ll use his eyeballs for marbles!”

“Shut up,” Keith said gently. His eyes met with his mother’s for a moment, twinkling. He was enjoying this.

Personally, Katherine thought that this Rafferty fellow couldn’t be any worse than Ajax, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Banner got out of her chair. “I think I’ll go over and look in on Fancy,” she said, by way of excusing herself. She gave Jeff a tentative, questioning look as she passed him but went out without another word.

Adam had snatched up the wire the moment his mother laid it down, scanning it as though he thought she’d made some mistake in reading it the first time. “What else do you know about this Rafferty?” he asked Jeff.

“I know he’ll soon be walking with his feet pointing in the same direction as his ass” was Jeff’s immediate response.

Keith grinned at that image and gave his mother a reassuring wink. He perched comfortably on the edge of her desk and folded his hands. “Now, if everybody has expressed his shock and concern, maybe we can talk about what we’re going to do.”

Katherine wondered what any of them
could
do, if Melissa was actually married to this man, but she spoke up. “I won’t know a moment’s peace until I’m satisfied that Melissa is safe,” she said.

Adam waved the wire in a delayed fit of agitation. “What the devil does she mean, ‘I’m discovering life’?”

Keith held up both his hands, palms out, and order was momentarily restored. “I think,” he began calmly, “that Mama and I should take tomorrow’s train over to Port Riley and find out what’s going on.”

Jeff was standing at the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a brandy, which was appropriated by Adam before he could raise it to his lips. After giving his elder brother a scorching look he filled another glass. “This is no job for Mama,” he said. “After all, she’s a woman.”

Katherine felt the beginnings of a headache throbbing in one temple. “Jeffrey,” she replied, “I will not be treated to one of your idiotic masculine diatribes. If you cannot assist us in our dilemma, then kindly leave this room.”

Jeff sank into the big barrel-back chair that had been his father’s favorite. He looked most put-upon, but he held his tongue.

“What Jeff was trying to tell us, in his awkward way,” Adam pointed out with wry sarcasm, “is that he wants to be there when Melissa explains this mess she’s gotten herself into. And so do I.”

Jeff nodded somewhat sullenly and took a sip of his brandy.

Katherine sighed. “Good heavens, if you all go storming over there, you’ll overwhelm her,” she said, rubbing her temple with the fingers of one hand. “Not to mention her poor husband.”

“Husband.” Jeff huffed the word out in a mockery of the very idea.

Keith spread his hands. “We know where Melissa is, and that she’s all right. The rest is academic.”

“I intend to find that out for myself,” Jeff insisted, and he still sounded surly. He’d been patently impossible lately, and Katherine wished that he could be transformed back into a little boy again, just for a few minutes, so that she could spank him.

Adam was still glaring down at the telegram. “ ‘Discovering life’?” he repeated.

Katherine stood up, feeling weary. At times like this she missed Daniel all the more poignantly. “It’s settled,” she said. “We’ll all travel to Port Riley on the morning train.”

With that she left the study.

* * *

At the end of the day Melissa still had a job, although just barely, if the lecture she’d gotten from Mr. Rimley was any indication. She was so tired that she stumbled off in the direction of Quinn’s house, and if she hadn’t had to pass Kruger’s Mercantile on the way, she would surely have forgotten to buy gloves.

When she arrived at home Quinn met her in the middle of the walk. He was wearing no tie or coat, and his shirt was open halfway down his midriff. “Where have you been?” He bit out the words.

Melissa lifted her gaze from the matting of dark gold hair on his chest to the snapping annoyance in his eyes. “I’ve been working,” she answered, almost too tired to say the words. “You were right—it’s very hard.”

His manner softened at her answer, and he muttered her name in a tone of despairing frustration before reaching out to take her hands. When she winced in pain he drew back far enough to look at them, and a soft but explosive curse word escaped him.

“I’m all right,” Melissa said woodenly, starting around him.

Quinn shook his head in bewildered wonder and ushered her quite solicitously toward the front door. Once inside he led her into that exceedingly masculine room where she’d planned to read the newspaper that morning.

Seating her in a chair near the fireplace, where a blaze was burning low, he turned up the lamp and then knelt at her side to take a closer look at her injured hands.

Melissa felt an inexplicable, wounding tenderness; she longed to bend down and kiss the top of his head.

“My God,” he breathed as he rose to his feet and went over to a cabinet to begin rummaging through drawers and along shelves. “What were you doing?”

“Shucking oysters,” Melissa responded sleepily as he came back to her again, carrying a white metal box in his hands. She was touched to see that it was a first-aid kit.

Quinn dropped to his knees again and began cleaning the cuts on Melissa’s hands with a gentle deftness that twisted
her heart. When he’d treated them with disinfectant he lifted audacious brown eyes to hers and said, “You don’t have to do this.”

Melissa’s eyes burned with tears. “Yes, I do,” she answered. “My brothers—”

Quinn shot suddenly to his feet. “Damn your brothers!” he bellowed. “Your brothers have nothing to do with what we’re talking about!”

Melissa lowered her head, and a teardrop fell on one of her hands. “You’re right,” she confessed in a small, broken voice. “It’s myself I’ve got to prove something to, not them.”

He sighed heavily and shoved a hand through already rumpled hair. “I’m trying to understand,” he told her raggedly. “I’m doing my damnedest to understand.”

“I know that,” Melissa said softly.

His manner and the sound of his voice were still brusque. “Just sit there,” he ordered with a halfhearted gesture of one hand. “I’ll go and get you some tea or something.”

“Thanks,” Melissa sniffled. She would always remember that it was in that homely, ordinary moment that she realized what had happened. By some strange turn of fate, some miracle, she had fallen in love with Quinn Rafferty.

A pile of ledger books on his desk indicated that he’d been going over his accounts, and Melissa smiled to herself. She was married to this man, for heaven’s sake, and had no idea what he did for a living.

It was obvious from her sumptuous surroundings that Quinn had more going for him than the single sawmill that Jeff held in such contempt.

She stiffened as another possibility occurred to her. Quinn had told her outright that her fortune would give him almost unlimited financial power. No doubt his desk was strewn with ledgers because he was planning that expansion he’d mentioned.

Despair swept over Melissa as the full import of her situation struck her. She loved a man who had married her for her money.

She looked down through a blur of tears at her mended
hands. Any tenderness Quinn showed her was probably just business, not real affection.

Just then he reappeared holding out a glass of white wine. “Here, love. I think this will serve better than a cup of tea.”

Melissa was torn between conflicting needs—one compelled her to slap the glass out of his hand, the other made her want to hurl herself into Quinn’s arms and beg him to hold her close.

In the end she simply thanked him, reached for the glass, and took a small sip of the wine. It was a good chablis.

Quinn had noticed the change in her manner, she was sure of that, but he made no comment on it. Instead he built up the fire and went back to his desk.

Melissa expected him to be bent over his accounts again, but when she looked up she saw that he was leaning back against the edge of the desk, his powerful arms folded across his chest, watching her.

“I’ve been going over this in my mind for the last five minutes,” he said gruffly, “looking for a way to say it without setting off that formidable temper of yours.” He paused, drew a deep breath, and let it out again in a weary rush. “I don’t want you to go back to the cannery. In fact, I forbid it.”

Melissa took a gulp of the wine. “It would probably have been better if you’d left off the part about forbidding me,” she said calmly.

Quinn chuckled ruefully. “My life was so simple before you came along. I didn’t have to pick and choose my words, or rack my brains figuring out what devilment you might be up to—or sleep alone.”

Melissa glanced toward his desk and took another draught of the wine. “And you didn’t have the means to—how did you put it—’expand your holdings.’”

There was a terrible silence, then Quinn asked, in a low and bitter voice, “What’s the matter, Melissa? Were you enjoying my presence a little bit? Maybe thinking that you might not have made such a terrible mistake after all?”

Melissa set her wine glass aside and rose slowly to her feet. Her leather gloves, bought to protect her hands while she
shucked oysters, slipped, forgotten, to the floor. “I didn’t make a mistake,” she said coldly, “and neither did you. We both knew exactly what we wanted.”

A look of sad frustration moved in Quinn’s handsome face. “Melissa—”

“You wanted collateral, and I wanted a chance to prove that I can make my own way in the world.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m very tired, and I’m due at the cannery early tomorrow morning, so I believe I’ll have my supper and retire. Good night, Mr. Rafferty.”

“Good night,” Quinn responded, his voice as rough as gravel, and he returned to his ledgers and his plans.

Quinn ate a light meal at his desk, served by the disapproving Mrs. Wright, and the clock on the mantelpiece was just striking eight when there was a knock at the front door.

Admitted by the housekeeper, Mitch entered the study with his hat in his hand and a baleful, sympathetic expression on his face. “Having trouble, old friend?” he asked, glancing at the ledgers before he took a chair near the fire.

The word “trouble” brought Melissa immediately to mind, but Quinn realized soon enough that his friend hadn’t been referring to her or to the attending situation. It had more to do with the account books. “You’re not thinking that I’m having financial problems, are you?” he ventured.

He was getting tired of people making him feel like a social-climbing pauper when he owned a thriving timber operation, numerous stocks and bonds, and half interest in the new hotel being built at the end of Simpson Street.

Mitch cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed, and looked down at his boots for a moment. “This morning your wife asked me for money,” he said miserably. “She was wearing a dress that looked like it came out of a rag bag and trying to get into your railroad car.”

Quinn let out a long breath and sat back in his swivel chair. The nape of his neck ached savagely. “She asked you for money,” he marveled, glaring up at the ceiling.

“She said she had some, but it was locked up inside the car.”

Nodding wearily, Quinn opened the top desk drawer on the right and took out a cash box. “How much?”

“Sixty-five dollars. It isn’t that I’m worried about the money, Quinn—”