Need You Now (Love in Unknown) (30 page)

She walked over to sit on the chair beside his bed. The second she sat down, he took her hand in his right one. The fingers of her free hand rubbed light circles on the pale skin on the inside of his wrist, taking solace in counting the steady beats there. Eventually, his eyes opened, warm and blue and alive. “You okay, sunshine?”

“You were stabbed by your crazy ex-fiancée and you ask if I’m okay?” Mel sniffed, tears stinging the back of her throat again. “I really must look like hell. Probably all red and splotchy.”

Caine shook his head, wincing a little at the movement. A lock of shaggy hair fell in his eyes. “You’re always gorgeous. I’ve just never seen you cry before.”

“Well, being held at gunpoint and seeing the man I love gushing blood is a bit much for even me to handle.” She looked down at their entwined fingers, his big hand so warm around hers. She never wanted to let go, but he did. He reached up to cup her chin, tilting her head to look at him.

“Love, huh?” His expression went all soft. It might be the pain meds dripping into his veins, but she didn’t think so. “So I have to get stabbed and be in a hospital bed for you to finally ‘fess up?”

Mel laughed, the sound a little watery. God, she loved this man. Everything about him, even his overprotective alpha male tendencies. “Well, if a certain someone's ex-fiancée hadn't broken into my clinic, I would have come by your office to tell you that tonight."

“Yeah?” Blue eyes turned almost electric with happiness as they eagerly moved over every part of her.

She nodded, turning her face to kiss his palm and cup it in her own. “Yeah. It really sucked to be away from you. I know it wasn’t fair of me to keep so much from you. I just…I was scared, Caine. Scared to feel so much for someone, then and now. Getting hurt by you would be a thousand times more painful than anything I felt before.”

Losing him forever, she now knew, would have been almost unbearable. She finally understood how her mother could spend a year trying to block out the world and the pain. To love someone meant risking the pain of losing them; it meant giving them the power to hurt you irreparably when you lost them. It also meant not wanting to miss out on a single one of the memories that could happen between this day and that.

“I will never, ever hurt you, Mel.” Caine patted the bed, urging her to sit beside him. Throwing protocol to the wind, she did. Even pale from blood loss, the man radiated heat and vitality, and all she wanted to do was curl up and stay by his side forever. “I know I haven't said it yet, but I love you, sunshine. So much. You're everything to me. Everything.”

Suddenly shy, Mel laced her fingers with Caine’s. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about the pregnancy scare. It’s something I’ve worked really hard to forget. I knew telling you was the only way I could think of to end things and keep you safe. After what Portia did to your golf cart, I was terrified of what she might do next and I didn’t want to see you hurt because of me.”

“Would you have ever told me about it if this thing with Portia hadn’t been going on?” Caine squeezed her hand reassuringly.

Mel buried her face in his good shoulder for a minute, taking strength from the clean, masculine smell of him. “I…I think I would have. I’ve never felt so alone as I did during those weeks you were gone. It was hard. Being with you, even as casually as we were, had been a fairy tale for me. Reality hit me really hard and I just couldn’t stand to be let down again. Given time….given time I know I would have trusted you enough to tell you. You have this way of breaking through my defenses and sneaking into my heart.”

“I understand.” Two simple words that meant the world to Mel. Unable to speak, she leaned forward and kissed him. When his tongue darted out to tangle with hers, she pulled back, resting her forehead against his. “Easy there, Mr. Mayor. You’re not quite in shape for that just yet. There’s plenty of time for making up when you’re out of here.”

“Will you come home with me and play doctor?” A teasing light danced in his eyes.

A life of love with her best friend? A life of possibility and laughter? She could do this. There was no way she wasn’t going to do this.

Mel laughed, kissing him again. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time.”

Epilogue

Mel stopped to check for the third time to see if she had something stuck to her back. The occupants of the car that had just passed her had swiveled around to watch her. Again. In the month and a half since the incident at the clinic, the gossips had finally lost interest in her. By now they were used to her dating Caine, seeing them kissing around town. Then suddenly, early this week, the gossipy looks had started again. Micah and Gage told her she was imagining things, but she knew something was up.

She tried to shrug it off as she walked back to the clinic. She'd met her mother for lunch at the bakery, a ritual they'd started up after she moved in with Caine. It'd never been a formal move. The day Caine was released from the hospital, she’d gone home with him and hadn't ever left. One day all of her things had magically appeared in the big house, an obviously high-handed and thoroughly sweet move on the part of the men in her life. Smart bastards knew she was too happy to argue.

The streets were remarkably empty for a mid-summer afternoon in Unknown. There should have been kids playing in the yards, riding bikes. Adults bustling in and out of the businesses, but there wasn’t. What the heck was going on?

She went into the clinic, expecting to see a few patients in the waiting room and Sandra behind the desk, but there was no one. Going behind the desk, she opened up the appointment screen to see that the afternoon was completely blank. Huh. A little unusual. She started to head upstairs to work in her office when she got a text. COME OUTSIDE. It was from Caine.

The door opened before she had a chance to touch it and Caine stood on the other side, grinning at her. God, he looked handsome in his bright white shirt, those dark jeans of his that fit him perfectly. The wind tousled his hair, which had been cut since she’d seen him this morning when he'd left her in bed. Blue eyes gleamed with laughter and that warm, gooey, tender look that he reserved just for her. "Hey, sunshine. I've got something to show you."

Stepping aside, he took her out onto the old wooden porch. A sea of sunflowers covered the yard and spilled out into the streets. Sunflowers held by people. From the looks of it, nearly the entire town had to be there. A few of the sunflower holders stood on the steps of the porch. They peeked out from behind the bright yellow petals enough for her to tell that her mom, Micah, Gage, Doc Booth, and Jax were there.

She didn’t know what to say. This was a pretty giant grand gesture, even for Caine. Trust him not to do things in half measures. A bit sooner than she expected, but everything with them seemed to move at its own pace.

“Oh. Wow. Caine, what is this?”

He took her hands in his. "Well, I couldn't bottle up sunshine to match what you've brought into my life, so I had to settle for sunflowers. Melody Carr, I adore you. You're my best friend. Since we were kids you've been one of the truly bright spots in my life. We've put each other through hell over the years. We've shared the good times and the bad. You’re my sunshine, you bring so much light into my life and I love you so much."

“I love you too." She bit her lip, trying not to beam at him. If this wasn't want she thought it was, she might have to murder him.

“I've wanted to do this since you were eighteen, but I'm glad I waited." He got on one knee, sending her already racing heart into overdrive. Releasing one hand, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled something out. "Please, sunshine. Marry me. Make me the happiest man in town and be my wife."

He opened his hand and held it out to her. In the center of that strong, comforting hand of his lay a beautiful ring. It wasn't platinum and diamond encrusted. Nothing that anyone would expect a Maddox to purchase for his future bride. A pearl sat on the silver band, flanked by two small sapphires. Simple and perfect.

They hadn't talked about marriage or the future, but Mel didn't need to talk. She didn't need to gather her facts or look at the pros and cons. She knew her answer.

“Yes.”

The roar of approval from the crowd as he slipped the ring on her hand was deafening.  Unable to contain himself, Caine whooped and lifted her off her feet for a kiss. Laughing, the man she loved whirled Mel around for the whole town to see. She had everything she could ever need right here with her. Her town. Her family. But most of all, Caine.

Free Preview of Ready to Love Again

Book Two of the Love in Unknown Series

Coming July 2013

Chapter One

Brides usually went into bakeries long before they put on their wedding dresses. That wasn't the only strange thing about the bride standing in Micah Carr's bakery on a late Saturday afternoon in May. Most brides would be carrying a bouquet, not a tote bag overflowing with clothes. Come to think of it, most brides didn't look windblown with dark mascara smears under their eyes.

"Can I help you?" Micah asked, not knowing what else to say. Why him? Why did the weird stuff have to happen during his shift?

The bride turned to him, pushing a lock of her short, slightly curly red-brown hair behind her ear. Her hazel eyes appeared distracted and a little haunted. "Yeah, sorry. Um, do you have a restroom I could use to change in? Five hours in this dress is four hours too many."

Micah leaned over the tall bakery display, taking in the yards of snowy white fabric. He didn't know much about wedding dresses, but this one looked fairly typical. Big poofy skirt made of some sort of frothy net-like material. The strapless top, covered in shiny beads, dipped around breasts not much bigger than the cupcakes in the display beside him. He honestly didn't know how it was staying up. The only thing besides her make-up that said she wasn't headed to a church was the oversized bag slung over one bare shoulder.

"Yeah. It's just down the hallway. Only door on your right." He gestured to his left. "Although you and your dress might have problems fitting in there at the same time."

A watery chuckle escaped her lips. Her blue-green eyes sparkled a little, remnants of tears making them a little red. "I'm sure I'll manage. The sooner I escape, the better."

He watched her walk down the black and white tiled hallway, the only noise breaking the afternoon silence the sound of her skirt rustling and high heels clicking. Part of him really wished someone else would walk in to tell him he wasn't crazy. Unfortunately, his mother had volunteered to sit with Jax after their baseball game that morning. He felt better when she took the afternoons off; she’d recovered from her health scare last year, but the last thing he wanted was for her to have a relapse. Things moved slowly at Carr's Cakes on weekend afternoons. Mornings bustled with life and energy as people stopped in for donuts and kolaches, but afternoons passed by too slowly for him.

He stepped into the back to check on a batch of cupcakes he’d put in earlier for Jax. His son took any loss pretty hard, but he’d missed a fly ball that lost them the game, which made it that much worse. Hopefully, the cupcakes would brighten his mood.

When Micah returned to the front, the bride was standing awkwardly between the counter and the door. She'd replaced her dress with jeans and a flowery blouse. She still wore what he guessed were her wedding shoes, white high-heeled numbers that looked like they could poke a man's eye out. The splotches of make-up were gone, but her hair still fell in tousled waves around her face. Bulkier than when she went into the bathroom, it looked like she'd stuffed her dress into a big ball in the bag slung over her shoulder.

"Hi," she said, her voice soft and nervous.

He nodded. "New in town?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Of course she was new in town.  For some reason, he didn’t want her to leave just yet, so he’d resorted to small talk.

"Yeah. Just drove in." She shifted uncomfortably. Whoever she was, something left her pretty rattled. Women like her didn't just show up in Unknown, Texas for no good reason.

He crossed his arms, leaning on the counter. "You got a place to stay?"

"Oh." A startled look crossed her face. A cute face, he thought. Pretty, but not beautiful. "No, but I'm sure I'll find a hotel once I get my bearings. Thank you for letting me use your restroom."

Before he could say anything else, she hurried out the door as quickly as she came in. Curious, he started to follow her. He stopped just outside the front door and watched her drop the tote bag in the back seat of a shiny BMW convertible before she continued to walk down the block. He lost sight of her as she crossed to the other side of the town square. He had no clue who the woman was. For all he knew, he'd never see her again. But she’d definitely made his boring Saturday a little more interesting.

#

Each step Cady Saunders took stole a large chunk of her feet, but won her back a little bit of her self-respect. Bridal shoes were made for dancing, not walking along the sidewalk of a small town. At least she managed to get out of that awful dress Jeremy's mother bullied her into buying. Jeremy. God, she didn't even want to begin to think about her fiancé —ex-fiancé— right now. She'd driven five hours from Dallas to get away from him and his family. And hers, to be honest.

She didn't know where she meant to go when she left the church, but Unknown, Texas was as good a place as any. She'd pointed the car south and kept going until she couldn't stand to be in the car— a car her fiancé insisted she buy because it "sent the right message"— anymore. She was done with the rules and the veiled comments telling her how she "should" act given the position she was "lucky" to have. She had to escape from the unsettling turn her life had taken and the sleepy little town appealed to her. It looked so…Mayberry/Stars Hollow-ish. Every red brick storefront on the square stood neatly at attention, cheerful little signs beckoning patrons in. Most of the doors stood open in deference to the May sunshine and customers trickled in and out.