Defying the Odds (8 page)

“
Whatcha
doing?” Hal asked as he opened his car door.

“Dropped my keys.”
Melody was still feeling for her keys, squinting past the tears and cold and darkness to find them. When her fingers closed around icy metal, she called out, “Found ’
em
!”

“Get home,” Hal called back, obviously determined to get home, get warm, and then
get
to sleep because he worked more than Melody did.

“Night, darling,” Judy said and then shut her car door.

Melody waved as Judy started her car. Her numb fingers searched for the right key as Hal’s car also started up. She found it and finally opened the truck door, knowing Hal was waiting for her to get into the truck before he left. She waved to him in assurance as she crawled into the truck and pulled the door closed. She locked it out of habit and then leaned over to the glove compartment. She used to have gloves in there last winter. There was always the vain hope they were hiding. After searching through the contents, she sighed, her breath a puffy white mist inside the cab. She was going to have to pay for new gloves.

There was no sense sulking about it. Melody moved to start the truck, reminding herself she’d been in a worse situation last winter battling her ex-husband for a divorce and always looking over her shoulder.

Only the truck didn’t turn over, and Melody leaned forward, half wondering if her dazed state had her doing it wrong. She turned the key in the ignition once more and was met with a cranking sound as the engine tried and failed to start up.

Melody turned and looked wildly to the employee parking lot, seeing Hal’s taillights pulling around the corner. Judy was already gone. It was too cold. They worked too hard. They didn’t hesitate to rush home.

“No
no
no
!” Melody leaped out of her truck, hoping to catch them before they turned onto the main road.

Her sneakers crunched in the snow, getting wet and soaked as she sprinted out of the well-shoveled parking lot and into the
snowbanks
. She waved her arms, calling out to Hal, but it was no use. She couldn’t catch him. Legs near frozen, lungs burning, face on fire, Melody started crying.

She was tired and lonely and she missed Clay. Life was officially too hard, and she didn’t want to play anymore. As childish as it was, she was ready to sit there on the slushy asphalt and sob. She was sick of looking on the bright side, and she was
really
sick of being broke.

With all her heart, she wished Justin would meet with an accident and die a horrible death for doing this to her. For what had to be the millionth time, she kicked herself for marrying him. Melody had never trusted Justin, not really, but her mother had been adamant. He was new in town, a regional manager at a big-name supermarket Melody worked at. He became obsessed with her almost instantly, and Melody’s mother couldn’t have been more thrilled. Justin was going somewhere. He could change their lives. They could finally stop struggling, but Melody resisted his advances until her daddy got sick. Then she would have done anything to make his last days a little nicer, and they were.

Justin was wonderful. He was supportive and helpful and a total gentleman. He helped fill out forms and paperwork that made Melody’s mind swim. He got her father the care he needed. He even helped pay for the more expensive nursing home rather than let her father spend his last days in the one provided by the government. He took Melody and her mother out to lunch a couple of times a week because he insisted they needed to get out and stop working so hard.

After a year of the nice treatment, Melody started to believe she was in love with him. It never felt totally right. It certainly never felt like it did with Clay, but she believed she felt something for Justin as he’d held her close while she’d stood there sobbing over her father’s casket.

So she married him.

And that’s when it all went to hell.

The company gave him a promotion, moving them to Columbus. He loved the big city and hated the small town where Melody had grown up. Free from the prying eyes of Blue Springs, a town much like Garnet, where everyone knew what everyone else was doing, Justin started to get mean. A bad day at work would lead to arguments, and then the arguments started to end with hitting. Not bad at first, but it escalated over the five years they were married, and Melody found herself oddly desensitized to the abuse because of the steady buildup. The rise was gradual enough, the overwhelming misery a slow burn. She was alone in their big house. She had no friends. She wasn’t capable of fitting in with the crowds Justin hung around with.

She had no car to escape, if even for a little while, from the unhappiness. Justin always drove. He controlled everything, and Melody stopped complaining about it rather than fight. When Justin was content, he left her alone. Her life became centered on making him happy, keeping his temper even-keeled and unruffled. She fucked him because the sex made him less combative. She cooked for him because when he was fed, he was lazy. She lived in abject terror that someone or something would set him off.
Which it always did, at least a couple times a week, no matter how hard she worked at avoiding it.

It wasn’t until she faced the problem of hiding bruises that Melody started to notice many women who’ve never been in an abusive relationship could be very verbal about spousal abuse. The target of their animosity was always the wife stupid enough to stick around. These women hadn’t lived Melody’s life. They couldn’t understand the conditioning. They didn’t experience the strange survival instinct that kicked in and forced her to bend to Justin’s will to stay alive and unharmed another day. They’d never felt alone and isolated and afraid of the judgment of others.

Melody knew if she exposed herself as a victim, that’s exactly what she would get.

And she was right.

Justin had taken her to the gynecologist to figure out why she couldn’t get pregnant. Much to her relief, they’d refused to let him into the room during the exam. The second she was alone, she’d begged for a refill on the birth control pills she’d been taking in secret. Justin had wanted a baby badly. He wanted Melody tied to him by blood and flesh, but there was no way she was going to bring a baby into the mess. She’d kill herself first.

Shocked by her adamancy for contraception, the nurse had asked if her husband hit her, and Melody confirmed he hit her all the time. She’d said it because she wanted to admit it to someone. She’d needed to hear herself air the shame out loud, and she’d
really
needed to make sure she got those birth control pills…

* * * *

The young nurse gave her a stunned look and then asked, “Why didn’t you just walk out when he started hurting you?”

Judgment.

It was predictable, and Melody was a little too scarred at that point to care. When the next words out of the woman’s mouth were, “I would never—” Melody hopped off the table, heedless of the blue paper gown and cover. She tossed both aside and started getting dressed.

“Wait, you can’t leave.” She reached out to stop Melody’s hasty escape.

Melody jerked her arm from the nurse’s grasp. “Can I get my pills or not?”

“There are protocols. I think we have to call the police. I know there are rules to be followed. Doctor Morrow knows what to do. Get dressed and I’ll get her.”

The nurse ran out of the room, obviously unnerved by Melody’s anger. She seemed frightened, as if she were about to get into trouble, which was odd…

* * * *

Little did Melody know that telling a doctor—or a nurse, apparently—you were a victim of abuse started a whole chain of events that ended with Melody living in an abuse center and filing for divorce. She was broke. She was scared. She was friendless and jobless and going through the messiest divorce in the history of the world because Justin didn’t want to lose her…but she was free.

The freedom had been so surreally beautiful after what seemed like a lifetime of being caged and afraid, Melody had decided right then she would do anything to hold on to that liberty. When Justin started stalking her after the divorce, Melody began reporting it to the police. When Justin called her, drunk, ranting that it was her fault he’d lost his job because he couldn’t survive without her, she called the police.

When Justin tackled her in a parking lot, threatening to kill her if she didn’t come back to him, she called the police. Then she packed up and left the small collection of friends she’d made. She said good-bye to the counselors and other women who had slowly gotten used to being beaten and raped and then miraculously got free like Melody had. She left her waitressing job and her dreams of starting her own center for abused women in Ohio and went on a search for a place to call home.

She’d wanted to go back to Blue Springs, but her mother still thought Justin was golden. She believed his stories about Melody being clinically depressed and unstable. Her mother was of the opinion that Melody needed to be medicated so she could go back to her normal, happy life with the perfect husband. The bastard was so charming he’d turned her own mother against her. So she’d looked for something just as good as home, ended up in Garnet, and realized she’d found something
better
.

If fairy godmothers existed, she’d have wished for a do-over tonight. She didn’t want a ball or a fancy dress; she just wanted one night with Clay and damn the consequences. It would have been perfect. She instinctively knew they were made to be together. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

Justin definitely deserved to die for this. He’d ruined her for something amazing, and it wasn’t fair. “Bastard,” she cursed, letting the anger at her ex-husband bloom because it inspired more self-preservation than sitting and crying. She trudged through the employee parking lot, her shoes sinking into the snow once more as she made her way around the side of the building. If she could make it to the front, she could flag down someone for a jump start. She wasn’t going to freeze to death; it just felt like it. “Justin, I hate you! I hate you more than anything! If I had a gun, I’d shoot you myself and I’d enjoy it!”

Cursing out her ex-husband helped her forget about the snow soaking her shoes and her legs being near frozen through her stockings. She made it to the front of the building and paused in shock.

She stared at the streetlamps shining in the customer parking lot. Snow danced like tiny fairies in the beams of light, silhouetting one very expensive SUV that by some unknown miracle was still parked in Clay’s usual parking spot.

With tears still streaming down her cheeks, Melody had a wonderful realization: fairy godmothers didn’t just exist; they actually granted broken waitresses their wishes!

Clay sat in his car while Keith Urban played over the radio. He sang a song about breaking up, which was probably the last thing in the world Clay should be listening to. His body was tense with need for Melody. His heart hurt for all the reasons he couldn’t have her. A lifetime of avoiding women, and now he’d found one he actually trusted and this happened. Clay would really like twenty minutes in a cage with Melody’s bastard of an ex-husband—without gloves.

He silently debated between going to the Cellar and beating on something padded or going home and beating off. He was leaning toward the Cellar, because even if Wyatt was working late, Jules wasn’t, and she’d know something was up with Clay the second he walked through the door. Then he’d have to hear advice he didn’t have the patience for, and he’d likely say something rude and snappy. Jules would probably punch him for it, which sounded harmless but was actually pretty fucking painful when you considered her running black belt collection. Jules hit low more often than not. All those damn self-defense classes she taught were starting to do away with her sportsmanship.

Yup, the Cellar it was.

What did it matter if he had to wake up in a few hours to train with Wyatt, who would be meaner than usual due to lack of sleep? Good, they could be mean together, because Clay was feeling pretty damn vicious himself. If he wasn’t careful, he’d start pretending Wyatt was Melody’s fucker of an ex-husband and likely send his best friend to Mercy General. One thing was certain:
Wellings
was in very big trouble with their upcoming fight, because Clay was ready to kill something.

“Clay!”

Clay pulled himself out of the internal fantasy of beating Melody’s ex-husband to death. He frowned through the fogged-up windshield, seeing Melody running through the parking lot. For one brief moment, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, but he reached for the handle of the door before he could make up his mind if she was real or not.