Make Me Melt (5 page)

Her days of being
able to eat whatever she wanted as long as she worked out were long gone. Now
every bit of fat and sweets that crossed her lips decided to take of residence
in her thighs and ass no matter how long she spent on the stair master. 

“Connie, is this your
lovely daughter you’ve been telling me about?” 

She smiled at the
woman coming toward them. She was a short and stout woman with a mouth as loud
as a megaphone. She struck Vicky as someone she should probably be running in
the opposite direction from, but her manners kept her firmly in place. 

“Clarice.” Connie
beamed. “Indeed it is. This is my baby. Vicky say hello to Clarice Henning. She
moved here about…oh what’s it been now, Clarice?”

“Going on about six
years now.” 

She held up her
hands. “Sorry, I’d shake your hands, but…” 

“Oh here. Let me help
you with that.” Clarice took the pies from her hands and motioned for them to
follow behind her.

They walked over to a
table filled with different types of desserts and Clarice set the two pie
plates down. “Now. Let me look at you.” 

She smiled, feeling
like she was underneath a microscope from the way this woman was looking her
over, but she couldn’t ignore her charm. She did seem quite sweet. 

“My goodness. If you
aren’t just the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. Far prettier than even your
mother described you to be. I bet you have all the men just beating down your
door back in Denver, don’t you?” 

She giggled. She was
warming up to the boisterous woman quickly. “Hardly. But thank you.” 

“I find that very
hard to believe,” a voice said from behind her. 

She froze as soon as
she heard the voice. She knew it all too well. Swallowing against the lump that
built in her throat and trying to keep her feet from spinning in circles just
like the roadrunner did before exiting the screen in those Looney Tunes
cartoons, she calmly turned around. 

He was mere inches
away from her as he stood there with that sexy grin she remembered oh so well.
It was the same grin that had managed to talk her out of her virginity and
countless other things when she was younger. 

His short dark hair
matched the slight stubble, which was beginning to show on his face. The young
face of the boy she once knew had replaced with that of a man. He had a scar
about an inch long above his right brow and little lines that worked out from
the sides of his eyes. He was beginning to age, but not badly. 

She wondered what
things those eyes had seen while serving in the Marines. What sights had caused
his boyish good looks to turn into a man who looked wise beyond his years?
Seeing him out in front of the city tree last night, she hadn’t gotten a really
good look at him. Now she could see how much he had changed. This wasn’t the
same boy who had walked out on her. He was a man now. A man who made her melt
with nothing but a smile. 

“Michael?” Connie
beamed. “Michael Barnett, oh my goodness I can’t believe it’s really
you.” 

“Hi, Miss
Connie.” 

“Always so sweet. You
haven’t stopped calling me that since I taught you in Sunday school.” She
turned to Clarice. “Clarice, this here is Michael Barnett, Jack and Gloria’s
youngest son.”

“Why hello there,
Michael. Look at you. If you aren’t a spitting image of your father I don’t
know who is.” 

“You knew my dad?” he
asked. 

“Moved here about six
years ago and your mother and father were one of the first people to befriend
me. You come from good people, Michael.” 

“Thank you,
ma’am.” 

Vicky hadn’t taken
her eyes off of him for a second. While he was engaged in small talk with the
others, it gave her time to really study him. Even his green eyes seemed to
have changed. They were no longer bright and vibrant. There seemed to be a
darkness there. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was another side effect of
the war. 

“Well, I think
Clarice and I are going to help with the set up. Maybe you two should get
reacquainted,” Connie offered while shuffling away with her arm around
Clarice. 

And there it was. The
glint in her mother’s eye gave her away. All afternoon she had the nagging
feeling like her dear old mom might be up to something. Now as she watched her
scurry away it became painfully obvious to her that her mother had known he was
going to be here. Not that she hadn’t suspected the same, but something told
her if he hadn’t come up to talk with them her mother would have found a way to
get the two together one way or another. 

The question was why.
She had always liked him, and was happy that she had chosen him as a boyfriend
rather than some of the other wild boys that she’d gone to school with. Little
did her mother know just how wild Michael Barnett could be when he wanted to
be. Still, even in his angsty teenage years, he still treated her well. Well,
except for that one night. 

Damn it. Why couldn’t
she get that memory out of her mind? 

“So.” He broke the
silence between them. “How have you been?” 

“Since last night?
Fine. Youself?” 

“Come on, Vicky. You
know what I mean.” 

“I’ve been okay,
Michael. Really.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Now if you’ll
excuse me, I’m going to go—” 

He grabbed onto her
forearm before she could escape. “Don’t go.”

She looked down at
her arm, then back up to him again. “Why?” 

“Because I want to
talk to you. There’s things…things that I want to say.” 

She pulled her arm
away. “Michael, it’s not necessary. That was a long time ago.” 

“So what if it was? I’d
still like to say my piece.” 

She pursed her lips
together while considering his offer. She didn’t really want to talk to him.
Seeing him drummed up far too many emotions that she wasn’t prepared or willing
to deal with. Especially not her first time coming home. 

“I don’t know,” she
answered, knowing full well their lighthearted conversation was about to take a
turn into an uncomfortable subject.

“Please? Give me ten
minutes. If you don’t want to talk to me after that then you don’t have to.”

“Ten minutes?” 

“I promise.” He held
up his hands and made an invisible mark across his chest. “Cross my heart.”

Looking around the
room, she saw the rush of people that were flooding into the banquet room. She
caught her mom spying on them from across the room and knew that she could
either stay here and get lectured by her mother or go with him and get their
talk over with. As much as she didn’t want to be around him, she had to admit
that another lecture from her loving but meddlesome mom sounded even less
appealing. 

“Okay. Ten
minutes.” 

“Great. Let’s go out
back.” He motioned for her to step in front of him. 

She walked toward the
back of the room and to the exit doors. She could feel his warmth crowding her.
His breath was washing across the back of her neck as they stepped outside and
a familiar, almost long forgotten tingle worked its way down her spine. 

Damn it. What the
hell was she doing? Hadn’t she learned the hard way that she was putty in
Michael Barnett’s hands? 

This isn’t going to end well, Vicky
. 

Chapter Eight

Michael held the door
open for her and waited for her to step out into the small courtyard. Snow
covered the ground from the storm they’d had the day before. It was obvious
from the fresh tracks they were making that no one, not even an animal, had
walked across the fresh snow. 

He shut the door and
walked down the two concrete steps that led to where benches sat in a circular
pattern. In the summer there would be a mound of bright flowers that made a
mosaic in the shape a dove flying in front of the sun. The botanic art that
their small city hall planted every year was barely visible except for the
slight hump underneath the white blanket of cold powder. 

She sat on one of the
wooden benches with her hands tucked neatly in her pockets just like she had
earlier that day when he’d seen her walking. Initially he’d wanted to sit next
to her, and feel her closeness, but he didn’t want to push things. Instead he
chose a bench that sat to her right and turned sideways to see her better. She
didn’t look up at him. Instead she stared mindlessly at the pile of snow lying
where the flowers once stood. 

They’d only been
outside for seconds but it may have well been hours. The silence between them
was all but deafening. He needed to say something and cure this awkwardness
between them. Even if it was for no other reason than easing his own
conscience. 

“Vicky, I owe you an
apology,” he began.

“Michael, it was a
long time ago. We were both kids.”

“I know, but that
doesn’t make how I handled things any better. My father raised me to be a man,
not run when things got…complicated.” 

She shook her head.
“You really don’t have to do this.” 

“Yes, I do,” he
argued. “You were my everything back then. Next to being a Marine, nothing in
the world was more important to me than you. I would’ve never hurt you in a
million years.”

“I know that.” 

“But I did.”

“Michael—”

“No. Please, let me
finish.” 

She looked over at
him and nodded. “Okay.” 

“I was eighteen years
old. We’d both just barely graduated. When I heard you were pregnant, or that
you thought you were… I freaked. I kept thinking about going off to the Corps
and how it would affect me. I didn’t think how it was going to affect
you.” 

“But I wasn’t
pregnant. Remember? False alarm.” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t
know that at first. And I treated you horribly. Much worse than you ever
deserved.” 

“You were scared.”
She shrugged with her response. “We both were.” 

“Exactly. I told you
that first night you gave yourself to me that I would never hurt you. And
that’s exactly what I did.” 

“Yeah well, you tried
to make it right. You came back.”

“But it was too late,”
he added. “You’d already been so hurt by the shitty things I’d said to you that
you wouldn’t listen.”

She turned to him
then. Her lips parted softly with a sigh and then she said, “I was stupid. I
felt betrayed and acted like a child.” 

“I think I was worse.
I should have been there for you. I should have told you that I would be there
for you and our child. Anything would have been better than blaming you for
forgetting to take your pill and acting like you had tried to trap me. I acted
like a horrible jackass.”

She smiled at him.
“Yeah, you kind of were. But, you did try to make it right and I wouldn’t
listen.”

“It shouldn’t have
gotten to that point.”

“Well, there was no
baby. I guess one of those things that teenagers go through.”

“Maybe, but I have to
say… as crazy as it sounds, there isn’t a day that goes by that I didn’t regret
how I treated you.”

“Michael. It really
is okay. It happened a long time ago. So much time has passed. We’re different
people now. I’ve grown up. You’ve grown up. Things change. I think we’re both
adult enough that we can leave what happened between us in the past. Don’t
you?” 

“Maybe. I guess. I
want you to know that I am sorry though.” 

“So am I.” 

Their eyes locked on
one another’s as they offered up apologies that were thirteen years in the
making. The moonlight shone down on her lips, causing them to glisten with
whatever she was wearing on them. Her cute little button nose looked red and
cold. He knew he should offer to take her back inside, yet nothing could make
him do it. He wanted to be alone with her. No matter how wrong it may be. He
tried reminding himself that she was a married woman. It would appear that even
the high moral values taught to him in the Corps were lost on him in that
moment. 

“I forgot how beautiful
this place could be during winter time,” she said, breaking the silence between
them. 

“Yeah.” He looked
around at the evergreen trees that were still dusted with snow. “It certainly
is a different place. I always seem to forget just how different until I step
foot back in town. Every time it surprises me.” 

“I know what you
mean.” Shaking her head, she added, “Wow. I can’t believe I’ve stayed away all
this time.” 

“How long has it
been?”

“Since I left for
college.” 

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I never came
back after that…summer.” 

He didn’t miss how
her voice trailed off into an almost different time and place. He could still
remember it like it was yesterday. He wondered if it was the same for
her.