Lost Melody (6 page)

She sighed. As she suspected, Cathy
wasn’t buying it. Her behavior was not going to be easy to explain.
Women all over the world fell at Hank Travis’ feet. “I don’t know.
My place?”

“Okay, but you better come up with two
things when we get there. Something decent to drink and an
explanation.”

“I’ve got wine,” she said. “The
explanation is a bit more complicated.”

Cathy rubbed her hands together and
bounced in her seat. “Oh, this sounds good. I can’t wait to hear
it.”

Mel rolled her eyes. This was not the
way she imagined telling her friend, but she hadn’t planned to tell
her at all. But with Hank Travis in Willowbrook, it was only a
matter of time before her secret came out. Maybe Cathy could help
her find a way to keep a lid on it.

Cathy followed her through the tiny
bungalow to the kitchen, which like Hank’s, was decorated in
mid-century modern, but unlike his—what you saw was what you got.
The appliances were original, except for the small microwave she
couldn’t live without. She opened a bottle of wine while Cathy
selected two crystal wineglasses from the cabinet. A few minutes
later, the women curled up on opposite ends of the sofa.

“Do you want to tell me what happened
at Smitty’s?”

She twirled her wine glass. The golden
liquid swirled inside the cut crystal. She had thought about what,
if anything, she should tell her friend and come to the only
possible conclusion. If in six months Cathy hadn’t mentioned Hank
Travis lived in her hometown, she likely wasn’t going to spill
Mel’s secrets either. Nevertheless, she felt the need to hear her
say it before she told her everything.

“If I tell you something, can I trust
you not to tell another living soul?”

“Of course you can. You know I
wouldn’t talk about you behind your back.”

“I know…it’s just….” She took a deep
breath. “This isn’t something I tell everyone. In fact, there’s
only one other person in Willowbrook who knows what I’m going to
tell you.”

Cathy sat up, leaning in. “What? What?
Now you have to tell me. I’m going to bust if you
don’t!”

Her hands shook as she
placed her wine glass on the coffee table. She had told a few
people her secret over the years but only out of necessity. Telling
Cathy was different—she didn’t need to know. But Mel needed someone
to confide in, someone who might understand or at least sympathize
with her plight. There was no way her friend could
really
comprehend her
dilemma, but perhaps woman-to-woman she might understand where she
was coming from.

“Seriously. This is for
your ears only. I don’t want the whole town to know.”
Though they will soon enough
.

Cathy crossed her heart and made a
show of zipping her lips and throwing away the key. “Not a word. I
promise.”

“I’m not who you think I am. My real
name is Melody Ravenswood.” There, she’d said it out loud and the
roof hadn’t come crashing down and flash bulbs hadn’t gone off. In
fact, Cathy appeared confused. Not the reaction she expected—at
all.

“Okay. And you are telling me this
because…?”

“My father was Hamilton Ravenswood.”
Still no recognition. She tried again, this time using her father’s
title and the name he used on stage. “You know…Earl Ravenswood.
Lead guitarist for RavensBlood.”

Recognition dawned across her friends
face. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes became saucers. “You’re
kidding, right?”

She shook her head. It was a truth
she’d hidden her entire life. And she’d come to Willowbrook hoping
to bury it, once and for all.

“Okay.” Cathy’s eyebrows knitted in
confusion. “But what does that have to do with Hank?” She didn’t
seem the least impressed, or worse, curious about her revelation,
which eased her mind about telling her.

She wrapped her arms around her bent
knees. “I don’t know. It just…does. Up until today, I thought he
was a farmer, or to be more specific, I thought he might be growing
pot in his barn. I searched the newspaper archives, figuring if he
was growing pot, maybe he’d been in trouble before. I couldn’t
believe what I found. It was too close to home, you know? Anyway, I
was still reeling when I got to Smitty’s, and instead of finding
you there, I found Hank.” She reached for her wine and took a
fortifying sip. “He wanted me to stay and play pool with him and
his buddies.”

Cathy nodded. “Randy and Chris. The
three of them play a lot of pool at Smitty’s.” She paused to drink
her wine. “Does he know who you are?”

“I don’t think so. After the way I
acted, he probably thinks I’m some kind of psycho. Maybe that’s a
good thing.”

“What makes you think so? Lord, woman,
Hank Travis is a prime, Grade A catch.”

“Not for me he isn’t. The last thing
in the world I want is to be involved with someone like
him.”

Cathy smiled. “There isn’t an
unattached woman in the county who doesn’t want to be involved with
Hank, the Hammer, Travis, even if it’s only for one night. Judging
by your reaction, I’d say you aren’t immune to him
either.”

She couldn’t control the heat creeping
from her chest to her face. Denying her attraction would only
confirm Cathy’s suspicions, and as she had pointed out, a person
would have to be dead not to see Hank’s appeal. She wasn’t dead,
but she wasn’t like other people either. There were things she
needed to consider.

“He’s a famous musician. I’ve avoided
them my entire life. I came to Willowbrook because I thought I
could lead a normal life here…away from the paparazzi. If I’d known
he lived here, I never would have come.”

“Anyone in town could have told you,
but as a rule, we don’t talk about it much. He’s just Henry Jr. to
most of us. When he’s not on tour, he keeps a pretty low profile
out at his grandparent’s farm. Since he detests reporters….” She
grimaced and Mel waved off her concerns. “Sorry. Anyway, not too
many reporters hunt him up here, so it’s easy to forget he’s
anybody other than Knobby Knees Hank.”

She laughed. “Knobby Knees? You really
call him that?”

“Sure. He played basketball in junior
high. He had the biggest knees and the skinniest legs you ever saw.
He was in my graduating class. We teased him about it for years. I
think it may have been the deciding factor in him giving up sports
to join the band. Anyway, it seems to have worked out for him. He
wasn’t any good at basketball anyway.”

“At least it explains the donation his
father made to the band program.”

“Yeah. Good article, by the
way.”

“I can’t believe I interviewed all
those people, and not one even hinted they knew Hank, or the real
reason behind Henry’s donation. Just goes to show what kind of ace
reporter I am.” She shook her head in disgust.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Like I
said, Willowbrook doesn’t drool over celebrities, especially if
they’re one of us.” She topped off their wine glasses. “So, why
couldn’t we have a drink at Smitty’s?”

“I know this sounds stupid. We didn’t
exactly hit it off. Like you said, he doesn’t much like reporters.
But I agree, he’s a fine specimen. I thought so even when I was
convinced he was a criminal.” She shrugged. “I’ll admit to thinking
he was hot, and I guess deep down I thought maybe…well, that flew
out the window as soon as I figured out who he was.” She sighed,
remembering the rush of feelings when she saw him standing in the
back of the room. He fit in seamlessly, but all the same, she’d
picked him out instantly, and he had done the same with
her.

She hated everything he represented to
her, but when his blatant gaze had gulped her down like a cold beer
on a hot day, she’d almost forgotten her strictest rule in
life—stay away from musicians. It had been an easy rule to live
by…up until she met Hank Travis. When he’d touched her, the same
zing of awareness she had felt the night before jolted her back to
sanity. She had run before she’d done something stupid.

Cathy deserved an explanation, and
even though she had just confided her deepest, darkest secret to
her, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her friend how her body
tingled when Hank turned his gaze on her, or how his touch
short-circuited her brain. She settled on a partial truth—the one
that really mattered. “I just couldn’t stay in there with him. I
couldn’t exactly explain to him why I was so mad, not without
telling him who I was. Besides, I don’t socialize with musicians,
especially famous ones.”

“Why not? He still has knobby knees
and skinny legs. He’s just as human as the rest of us. Other than
the leg thing, he’s a prime male specimen, one of the few single
ones in town.”

A bone deep chill slid along her
spine. “I can’t be involved with someone in the music business. I
saw what that kind of life did to our family. All the traveling,
the paparazzi, the fans.” She waved her hand in an all-encompassing
wave. “My mother couldn’t take it anymore, so she left my father
and took me with her. My father wouldn’t give up the
business.”

She inhaled deeply. The scars from her
emotional wound still had the power to topple her if she let them.
“The traveling eventually killed him.”

Cathy scooted across the sofa and took
Mel’s hand in hers. She waited for the pity, but what she got was
sympathy and genuine concern instead. “I’m sorry. Your father died
in a plane crash didn’t he? Somewhere in Colorado?”

She nodded, fighting back the tears
she only shed in private as she filled in the blanks for her
friend. “They were doing a concert in Denver. It was my tenth
birthday and he promised to come to my party. He chartered a small
plane, so he could leave right after a concert.” She took a
shuddering breath. “His plane went down in the Rockies. It was just
him and the pilot. They both died.”

“I’m so sorry.” Cathy squeezed her
hand.

“There’s more.” She had never told
anyone about that day, but Cathy’s quiet concern made her feel at
ease.

“It’s okay, you can tell
me.”

Maybe talking about it would make the
memories less volatile. Keeping her thoughts bottled up inside,
sometimes she felt like she might explode. Maybe if she pulled the
cork on the bottle and let everything out it would be less
deadly.

“Everything started out fine. I loved
tea parties, so Mom made High Tea for me and my friends.” She
closed her eyes, remembering the party decorations, the pile of
brightly colored wrapping paper torn from gifts, the laughter.
Everyone wore pretty dresses with hats and gloves borrowed from
their mothers for the celebration. “He was supposed to be there
before the party started, but he wasn’t. Mom told me he was running
late.

“‘
He’s always late,’ she
said. Mom never missed an opportunity to remind me how
unpredictable my father’s schedule was. Anyway, the party went on
as planned. She didn’t tell me the truth until all my friends had
gone home. I laughed and played games while my father was dying on
the side of a mountain.”

Mel sucked in a fortifying breath.
“I’ve never really forgiven her.”

“Oh, honey,” Cathy cried, pulling her
into a bear hug. “It must have been awful for you.”

“Pretty much.” She reached for the
tissue box on the end table behind her. After yanking a few out for
herself, she offered the box to Cathy, who did the same. “Well,
that’s my story. You can see why I have a rule against getting
involved with musicians.” It was a damned good rule, one she had
every intention of living by, no matter what. If she had learned
anything from her parents’ marriage, it was that musicians would
break your heart.

Cathy dried her eyes and settled back
on her end of the sofa, pulling her bare feet under her. They sat
in silence for a few minutes. Mel finished her wine, refilled her
glass, and topped off Cathy’s while she waited for her to figure
out which of her million questions she should ask first.

“So, why, exactly did you move here? I
mean, why didn’t you stay where you were?”

Her heart raced as memories of the
incident in San Diego came flooding back. Thanks to a casual
comment from the building’s security guard, she and her mother had
managed to escape out a rear exit and avoid the paparazzi waiting
in the lobby. Just like when she was a child, on those rare
occasions she went out in public with her father, the vultures
circled their prey. She knew it was only a matter of time before
someone added up all the clues and came up with the correct
conclusion—Mel Harper and Melody Ravenswood were the same
person.

“I had a close call with the paparazzi
in San Diego. My inheritance came to me last year when I turned
twenty-five. Before that, my life wasn’t of much interest to the
media. My inheriting, coupled with the fifteenth anniversary of the
plane crash…. Well, it spurred a lot of interest. Suddenly,
everyone wanted to know what Melody Ravenswood had been up to, what
she was going to do with the money.”

“I remember seeing a few stories on
TV.”

She nodded. “Well, they almost found
her. Someone tipped them off that Melody would be visiting her
lawyer to sign some papers. They almost caught up to us as we were
leaving his office downtown. It took some doing, but we managed to
avoid them long enough for me to get out of town and come up with a
new plan for my life.”