Sea Glass Inn (9 page)

And a relaxed and easy smile when she was playing with Piper, or in sight of the ocean, or alone and seemingly unaware she was being observed. Mel might not be able to decipher Pam’s emotions yet, but they were clearly displayed on her face as if she didn’t have many barriers between herself and the outside world. Given time, Mel was sure she’d be able to read Pam’s thoughts, maybe even help her find the balance that seemed to be missing in her life…

Mel shook her head as she stirred the simmering oatmeal. She didn’t have time. Pam’s visit was only temporary. She would stay until her house was repaired, and then she would leave, just like all of Mel’s future guests. If things had been different, if Mel had made better decisions along the way, she might be living with someone like Pam as her partner. But she had chosen her path, and she had to be satisfied to have transient relationships, to merely observe love from the outside.

Pam stood in the doorway and watched Mel by the stove. She had stopped stirring whatever was in the pot and had the faraway look Pam had come to recognize in the short amount of time she had known her. Pam wasn’t sure what Mel saw when the rest of the world faded away. All she knew was that Mel’s regrets or hopes or visions were none of her business. She cleared her throat, and Mel turned toward her, dropping a glob of oatmeal off her spoon.

“Sorry to startle you,” Pam said, reaching for a dishcloth and wiping the mess off the floor.

“Thanks,” Mel said. “I was just…thinking. Are you ready for breakfast?”

Pam looked around the small kitchen. There was enough food for an entire inn full of guests. Blue-and-white stoneware platters, perfectly matched to the kitchen’s tile work, sat on the counter. A meal served family style. Pam looked past the food in the bowls to the breakfasts that would be served in the inn. Laughter, talking, physical contact as elbows bumped and plates were passed from hand to hand.

Community. Companionship. Things Mel would inspire in her guests.

Things Pam avoided whenever possible. “You really don’t need to go to all this trouble for me. I usually just have some cereal…”

“I need the practice,” Mel said. She waved toward a card table she had set up in the corner. “Do you mind eating in here? I haven’t even touched the dining room yet.”

Pam had been through the dining room with all of its cobwebs and greasy paint. The cheery little kitchen was definitely preferable.

She sat at the table, and Mel put several platters of food in front of her.

“You can eat whatever you want, but just promise you’ll be truthful about what you like,” Mel said as she stood back and leaned against the counter. “Remember, I’m going to be feeding guests. I don’t want them demanding a refund.”

Pam used her foot to push the second chair away from the table before she started dishing up her breakfast. “Then you have to join me,” she said, waving toward the chair. “I can’t eat while you’re standing there and staring at me. Your guests won’t like it, either.”

Mel brought a plate and sat down. She started chatting about different seasonal recipes she wanted to try, and Pam tried to follow her conversation. All she could think, however, was what a mistake it had been to ask Mel to join her. A cozy breakfast at a cozy kitchen table suddenly was almost too stifling to bear. Pam reached for her pack of cigarettes before she remembered where she was and pulled her empty hand out of her pocket. She flashed back to family breakfasts with her ex. Diane would talk about her lesson plans for the day or her students and their struggles with her art assignments.

Even then, the topic of Pam’s painting had hung unspoken in the air between them, just as it did now with Mel. But then Pam had been prolific, successful. And as her portrait business had grown, so had Diane’s jealousy of her talent. Diane would have preferred the new Pam. The Pam who couldn’t pick up a paintbrush and complete a few strokes without shaking so badly she needed to stop.

Pam realized Mel had stopped talking and was looking at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Mel said with a shrug. “I was just talking about plastering the chips in the downstairs molding. Boring. Don’t you like that?”

Mel pointed at the oatmeal Pam had been eating, and Pam wanted to assure her that the conversation hadn’t been boring at all. She had just been too far away to hear it. She took another bite of the oatmeal, with its apple bits and cinnamon and a healthy dose of cream poured over the top. The oats were cooked well enough to please Goldilocks, smooth and tender, with enough bite to keep them from turning to mush. But each time Pam lifted her spoon, it was the smell that transported her to her grandmother’s kitchen when she was baking oatmeal-raisin cookies. To Tia’s annual Christmas party—one of the few social events Pam anticipated with something other than dread—when Tia served her lethal spiced wine. Yes, Mel would serve her guests more than simple meals. More than just food. “It’s delicious.”

“Good. Now try one of these blueberry scones.”

Pam took a taste and coughed. “Um, did the recipe actually call for plaster, or did you accidentally mix up your two projects?” She ducked, laughing, to avoid the chunk of scone Mel threw at her head.

Three mornings later, Pam opened her bedroom door at the insistent knocking to find Mel standing in front of her, wearing only a thick terry cloth robe, her hair wet and uncombed.

“Are you serving breakfast in bed this morning?” Pam asked, trying to cover up her discomfort with a joke. The contrast between the rough-textured robe and Mel’s soft-looking skin was mesmerizing.

The decidedly unsexy robe only highlighted Mel’s sexiness, but Pam was already quite aware of her attraction to Mel. She didn’t need the emphasis. Living in the same house with Mel was already too intimate when all they did was sit at a breakfast table together. Having her walk around upstairs half-naked every morning would be unbearable.

“What? Oh, no. There’s quiche downstairs. I just wanted to find out if your shower was hot this morning,” Mel said. She seemed completely unaware of the suggestive nature of everything she was doing and saying. Her naiveté only made her hotter. Pam managed to stop staring at the swell of her breasts, just visible where the front of the robe gaped open slightly. The scent Pam had come to associate with Mel, the merest hint of rose petals, was magnified and intensified by her recent shower. Pam breathed her in.

“Yes. Plenty hot,” she said. She leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms. The collar of Mel’s robe was turned over on one side, as if she had hastily thrown on the first thing in sight to cover her naked body. Her naked body, flushed and warm from her shower. Pam crossed her arms more tightly. She wouldn’t reach out and straighten Mel’s collar, wouldn’t slide her hand under the robe and…Mel needed to leave. Or Pam needed to shut her door. “And you might be taking the concept of catering to your guest’s every need a little too far.”

“Wonderful,” Mel said with a broad smile. “I was taking a shower at the same time. And doing a load of laundry.”

Pam tried to pull her focus off Mel’s body and onto her words.

Her imagination still had her hand under Mel’s robe as she slowly worked on straightening that damned collar. “Why didn’t you flush the toilet while you were at it?”

“Good idea. I’ll try that tomorrow.” Mel turned and headed toward the yellow bedroom.

“Wait,” Pam said. “I thought you slept downstairs.”

“I do, but I still have work to do down there, and the bathrooms up here are much cleaner.”

Pam knew the guest rooms on this floor all had en suite bathrooms, so she and Mel had been separated by several walls at all times. But her showers wouldn’t be the same, knowing Mel was sopping wet, only two doors away. Apparently trying to either scald or freeze her.

“Why were you trying to ruin my shower?”

Mel laughed. “I wasn’t trying to freeze you out of the shower. I was testing the new hot-water tank I installed yesterday.”

“You. Installed a hot-water tank,” Pam repeated in disbelief. The woman who couldn’t even hang a painting a week ago was now a plumber?

Mel shrugged, but Pam could read the pride in her smile. “The only hard part was moving the tanks.”

“Next time call me and I’ll help,” Pam said without thinking.

Hell, she didn’t know how to install a hot-water tank. But at the moment, she wanted to do something to help Mel. Anything at all, especially if it was somehow connected to hot and water and showers.

“I mean…not that I don’t think you can…”

“I’ll let you do the heavy lifting next time,” Mel said over her shoulder as she walked away. Her ass shouldn’t have looked so good in the bulky robe, but it did. Mostly because Pam assumed it was bare under the robe. And as flushed pink from Mel’s shower as the rest of her skin. Pam, distracted by Mel’s robe-covered backside, didn’t move quickly enough to grab Piper as she squeezed past her and into the hallway. The dog slipped into the yellow bedroom just before Mel shut the door. Pam considered following them, if only to retrieve her dog, but she turned away instead and closed herself in her own room.

❖

Mel wiped condensation off the mirror and looked at her reflection with a sigh. Hair sticking in all directions. Nothing on but a robe. Her skin still flushed after taking the hottest shower she could stand. She had gone to Pam’s room without thinking, too excited about the new tank that doubled the available hot water for her guests to care about her appearance. Until she’d noticed Pam’s expression and realized how little of her was covered by the terry cloth. Mel plugged in her dryer and started to dry her hair. Maybe not all of her redness could be attributed to the shower.

Mel’s response to having Pam in the house confused her, but she knew for certain she needed to be careful. For the first time in years she was living on her own and was free to pursue a relationship with a woman. She had to guard against imagining feelings for Pam simply because she was
there
. And she had to protect her newfound autonomy and independence. It was natural for her to want to share her small but satisfying adventures in home improvement, but her dependence on Pam couldn’t go further than simple companionship.

She pulled on a pair of paint-splattered jeans and a navy T-shirt.

She would eventually adjust to being alone, and then the foolish desire to attach herself to Pam, to another person, would fade. She had lost part of herself because she had trusted in Richard, in their marriage.

Pam didn’t even offer the pretense of permanence, and Mel would not subordinate her dreams and her feelings ever again. Maybe someday she’d have enough to offer a woman, to be an equal in a relationship, but until then, she was fine alone.

Mel opened the bedroom door and followed Piper down the stairs. She briefly pictured how easy it would have been to drop the robe, the only barrier between her and Pam. She imagined Pam in the shower with her, felt Pam’s hands everywhere the hard spray hit her body. Running through her hair, over her breasts, up her thighs. She shook off the vision. During her marriage her desires and attractions had been so long denied and resisted, they had practically disappeared.

Now they were returning in force—because of Pam’s proximity—and Mel would need to change her battle tactics. A long day of scrubbing and painting walls ought to tire her enough so she’d be able to defeat her interest in Pam.

❖

Pam had been fooling herself to think she could stay here with Mel, live alone with her. The inn wasn’t big enough. If she were simply battling a physical attraction, she’d be able to handle it without any problem. She was accustomed to denying her desires when they were impractical, dangerous. But Mel was attractive in too many ways. Independent, brave, warm. Something had been turned off inside Mel, and she seemed completely unaware of how sexy she was. Pam desperately wanted to be the one to turn her back on. But Mel—and her son—were planning to stick around long-term. Pam wasn’t getting enmeshed in another family, so she had to fight her feelings for Mel. She couldn’t come up with a good excuse to leave the inn until her house was finished, but she could manage to avoid the enforced intimacy of mealtimes. She needed to get to the gallery early, she couldn’t stop and eat breakfast, sorry. Pam rehearsed her speech as she walked down the stairs, but she forgot the words for a brief moment when she and Mel met in the kitchen doorway. Mel started to speak first.

“I have to run to the hardware store for another brush, and then I’ll be painting all day so Danny and I can lay the flooring in the living room this weekend,” Mel said in a rush as she sidled past Pam. “Did I tell you my son will be here this weekend? There’s leftover fruit salad in the fridge and quiche on the stove. Let me know how you like it.”

“Okay,” Pam said, but Mel had already let herself out the front door. Apparently, Pam’s excuse for leaving had been unnecessary, and she helped herself to some food and sat at the kitchen table. She should feel relieved to have the place to herself, without having to lie or skip breakfast. She took a bite of quiche. The filling was good, but Mel had overworked the dough again, so the crust was a little tough.

Piper came and sat beside her, resting her chin on Pam’s knee with a forlorn look. Damn. How many breakfasts and dinners had Pam eaten alone, content with just her dog for company? And how determined had she been to avoid sharing this meal with Mel? So why the hell couldn’t she think of anything but Mel? Mel chatting about spackle or plaster. Passing plates and asking for honest feedback about her cooking. Looking out the window with a soft expression before squaring her shoulders and facing whatever the inn was about to throw at her. Pam fed Piper some of her crust. “I know,” she said.

“I kinda miss her, too.”

❖

Mel pulled her car onto the shoulder and rolled down her window so she could take a picture of a herd of elk grazing in a field right alongside the road. She sent the photo to Danny and merged back onto the highway. He would be coming tomorrow for his first weekend at the old house, and she felt a nervous energy creeping through her. She was overwhelmed by all the changes in her life and she desperately wanted to make Danny feel at home in her new world.