Turning the Page (9 page)

"I think my mom and your mom would've liked each other."

"Me, too."

"No siblings?"

"Nope. Just me. Sam and I went to the same school, though. She was like a big sister."

"Except I bet you took care of her more often than she took care of you."

Melanie laughed at Taylor's nearly accurate assumption. "To a certain extent, yes. Let's just

say that the majority of her school projects weren't hers."

"And term papers?"

Melanie poked herself in the chest.

"Figures."

"How 'bout you? Brothers or sisters besides Frankie?"

"Just him and me."

"Frankie. Nice Italian name," Melanie teased. "How'd you manage to get Taylor instead of Maria or Angela?"

"My mom named Frankie, so Dad got to name me. His mother's maiden name was Taylor."

"Nice compromise."

"Completely. Frankie's middle name is Jefferson and mine's Anna Maria."

Melanie raised her hand. "Lynn."

Taylor rolled her eyes. "White bread."

Melanie laughed, enjoying the feel of holding onto Taylor. She shivered involuntarily as a

breeze blew in off the water. She inched closer to her companion.

"Cold? Here." Taylor untied the sweatshirt from around her waist.

Melanie held up her hands in protest. "No, no. I don't want to take your shirt. You need to be

warm, too."

"I'm very warm-blooded, Melanie. I actually brought this for you. I thought you might get

chilly. I'm fine."

Melanie gingerly took the offered shirt, softly thanking the tal er woman, flattered that the

shirt had been intended for her from the beginning. She pulled it over her head, inhaling

deeply as she did so, the smell of laundry soap and Taylor invading her senses. It was very

roomy, and she pulled on the sleeves until her hands popped out.

Taylor barely resisted the urge to brush Melanie's hair out of her eyes. "Navy looks good on

you," she commented.

"Why, thank you," Melanie replied.

"Ready for ice cream?"

"Am I ever not ready for ice cream?"

They turned and headed back toward the beach.

"So, tell me about Maggie." Melanie shocked herself with her boldness, but she wanted to

know as much as she could about this person with whom she walked arm in arm.

"Hmm. What do you want to know?"

"How'd you meet her?"

"College. She was a little bit older than me..." She turned her eyes toward her companion. "You sure you want to hear this? It's not very exciting, and I don't want to bore you to death."

"It's really none of my business, I know," Melanie said, lowering her eyes. "I just...I don't know." She shrugged. "I like talking to you. You are far from boring, Taylor."

Taylor smiled at her. "Al right, but if you fall asleep and I have to carry you to the car, I'm going to be annoyed."

Melanie felt a tingle run through her body at the thought of being cradled in the arms of this

woman, but shook it off. "No sleeping. I promise."

"All right. You asked for it." She thought for a moment, searching for a good starting point.

"Like I said, Maggie was a little older than me. When I was a second-semester freshman, we

lived in the same dorm, but she was a floor up. I first noticed her at a sorority party. She was

loud and funny and the life of the party. People were just drawn to her. Kind of like Sam."

Melanie nodded, knowing exactly what she meant.

"I was just starting to realize my own sexuality. I mean, I'd had an inkling for a while, but

college was really the first place where I actually interacted with other lesbians. Slowly, I

started to understand just exactly why it was that I'd never quite fit in with my school

friends, or why I was never quite comfortable with the guys I'd dated. I had no idea that

Maggie was gay, too, not at first. She seemed to zero in on me and take me under her wing,

like it suddenly became her responsibility to make sure I had a good time at college. We went

to the movies together, she took me to parties, she introduced me to all kinds of popular

people. She was terrific for me. Really brought me out of my shell."

"Wow. Couldn't we all use somebody like that in college?" Melanie asked wistfully.

"She was amazing. She was good-looking, with brown hair and these incredible green eyes that

could burn right through you. She came from a pretty wealthy family, so she had lots of

money, at least to the rest of us poor, starving college students. She was always buying me

presents, taking me places. She treated me like royalty. The day she gave me diamond earrings

was the day I realized that I was as in love with her as she was with me. We had been 'dating'

for nearly six months, but I had refused to let myself just fall. I never had before and I was

terrified, so I'd tried to prevent it from happening. I knew I was attracted to her

sexually...she had a great body...but I was so scared to just give in to what I was thinking."

She chuckled. "The first time I told Maggie I loved her, she let out this huge, relieved breath, flopped back in her chair and said, 'It's about fucking time. I've only been trying forever.'"

Both women laughed as they approached the ice cream stand. They took their cones to a

nearby bench and sat watching the seagulls swoop and dive.

Melanie reached over and wiped a chocolate sprinkle off of Taylor's lip, ignoring the clouded

look that passed over the brown eyes. "So, what happened?"

Taylor swallowed hard, her skin still tingling where Melanie's fingers had grazed it. "Oh, the

usual," she said, somewhat evasively. "We didn't have a lot in common. Our relationship wasn't nearly as smooth as our courtship. It just ended up not working."

She was unaccustomed to speaking frankly about the drinking problem she had refused to see,

both out of embarrassment as well as respect for Maggie. "It didn't work," she added again.

Melanie nodded, sensing that Taylor wasn't tel ing the whole truth, but didn't feel important

enough to push the point. Instead, she ate her strawberry ice cream and smiled at her newest

friend. "This has been a great night."

Taylor returned the smile, grateful that the auburn-haired woman had chosen not to press the

issue. "It has, hasn't it?"

"Thanks so much for the tour. Your city is beautiful."

"Thank you, ma'am. The company made the trip worthwhile, that's for sure."

They sat in companionable quiet, munching their cones and watching the waves, neither one

able to remember when they had felt quite so comfortable with the silence of another.

Chapter Nine

THE NEXT PHONE call from Samantha didn't come until Thursday evening. When Melanie

heard the familiar voice on the answering machine, she snatched up the receiver.

"Sam?"

"Hi, Mel ie!"

"Where are you?"

"On our way to Vancouver. Can you believe it?" Her voice was positively giddy, and Melanie was immediately taken back to their childhood.

"Vancouver? Sam, Vancouver's on the other side of the continent. What are you thinking?

You've got no clothes, nothing with you..."

"Melanie, we don't all have to have things planned out, you know," her cousin scolded her.

"Don't you ever want to just...I don't know...fly by the seat of your pants?"

Melanie made a face. "No. I don't. When are you coming home? You wanted me to look at the

bookstore, remember?"

"Oh, that stupid thing. You know what? I really don't care what happens to it. Maybe you could

just tell Daddy to sel it or something, okay?"

Melanie sighed. What Sam was really saying was, You don't mind doing my dirty work for me,

do you? Thanks. So Samantha.

"Ooo. I gotta go, baby cousin. Hey, could you let Ben know that the rent may be a little late

this month. I'm not sure when I'll be back. But stay as long as you want. Rob says hi. Bye."

"Tell Rob to kiss my ass." Melanie sneered at the dial tone in her ear. How the hell did Sam always manage to do that? She'd breeze in, say what she wanted to say, and breeze out

before anybody could protest. She'd done it all her life. People were usually so stunned that

they didn't realize what had been done or said until Samantha was already gone.

Shit.

She flopped herself down on the couch and pushed her hair behind her ear. The rent. Well,

she wasn't going to stay here without taking care of that. She got right back up, and peeked

out the window. Ben's Saab was parked in the driveway.

A minute later, she was knocking on the back door of the main house. Ben's face lit up when he

opened the door.

"Melanie. Hi there. What a nice surprise. Come in, please." He moved aside, allowing her to enter the spacious kitchen.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Ben."

"Nonsense." He waved her off. "Can I get you something to drink? I was just about to have a glass of wine myself." He winked at her. "Been a long day."

"I think I could use a glass right about now."

He motioned her to sit at the table, while he retrieved a bottle of Chardonnay from the

refrigerator, then took two crystal glasses out of the glass-front hutch in the corner. Turning

his sparkling eyes on her, he asked, "Everything okay?"

She sighed, not wanting to say too much about Samantha and her bad habits, especially to

somebody to whom she owed money. She mentioned the unexpected trip and the most recent

phone call, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

Ben pulled out the chair next to hers, handing her a glass, and sat. "She's quite the hostess,

hmm?"

That got a chuckle from the redhead. "Oh, yeah. She's been great at showing me the sights,

keeping me occupied..."

It was Ben's turn to chuckle. "What are you going to do?"

Melanie was silent for a long moment. Something about the bookstore had been scraping at the

back of her mind since the first day she'd entered it. She shook the thought away. "I don't

know. I'm enjoying myself, despite the absence of my irresponsible cousin, so...oh. Wait a

minute." She slipped her checkbook out of the back pocket of her shorts where she'd stuck it

on her way out the door. "Sam doesn't know when she's returning and she said the rent is

due."

Ben held up a hand in protest. "No, no. Don't worry about that. She'll pay me when she gets

back."

Melanie was having none of that. She ignored him, and continued filling in the blanks. "I refuse to stay here without paying for it.

If it makes you feel better, Sam can pay me when she gets back." She winked at him. "How

much?"

Ben sighed in defeat, and gave Melanie the figure. She handed the check over with a smile. He

liked the spunk of this woman, he realized with a start, noting the quiet confidence present in

her blue eyes. The invitation popped out before he had time to think.

"Are you up for dinner?"

Melanie surprised herself by immediately accepting. "I'm starving," she said with a grin.

"Great. Let's go."

He ushered Melanie to the door where she ran headlong into Taylor, who was on her way in.

"Oh. Sorry... hey, you." She smiled when she recognized the face.

"Hey, yourself." Taylor grinned back, until she noticed her father standing behind the

redhead.

"We're just heading to dinner," he explained, the thought of inviting his daughter to join them coming and going.

The grin slid slowly away from her face, replaced by...what? Melanie wondered. "Would you like

to join us?" she asked, hoping to bring the smile back.

"Um...no," Taylor answered, slipping past them into the kitchen, needing to be further away from this woman who affected her so.

"Thanks. I had a late lunch. Have fun, though." She was gone from the kitchen in an instant, her footsteps echoing up the hardwood stairs, leaving Melanie standing in the doorway

furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

Ben seemed not to notice his daughter's rapid exit. "Ready?"

"Hmm? Oh. Sure."

He held the door for her, his warm hand on her back, guiding her out.

"GOD, I AM so stupid," Taylor mumbled to herself, changing out of her work clothes and into a comfortable pair of soft, cotton gym shorts and a white Nike T-shirt. "Why do I always let

this happen to myself?" She flopped backwards onto the bed, and pressed the heels of her

hands to her eyes. "Boy, good ol' Ben certainly moves fast, doesn't he? Not that I'm

surprised." She punched her pillow. "Wonder how long before he gets her in the sack." That thought came unbidden, before she could block its entrance into her brain, and her stomach

twisted in revulsion.

Okay, relax. You don't even know her. She's been in your life for— what?—five days, Rhodes.

You real y need to chil .

She steadied her nerves with a deep breath. So what if she ended up in bed with Ben? Who

cares? "Means nothing to me," she muttered. She got up, yanking the gold clip holding her hair back off, and tossed it onto the dresser. She headed down to the kitchen to find something to

eat, her comment about the late lunch having been a lie to get her out of the impossibly

awkward situation of dinner with her father and her latest crush ogling each other.

She poured herself a large glass of milk to go with her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. "I

just need to stay away from her," she said aloud. "That's all. Pretty simple and basic. If it's going to make me this crazy, I need to stay away." The thought of Melanie's limbs entwined

with Ben's was still doing a number on her, despite her best attempts to clear her head. "I

need to stay away," she repeated.

She took her dinner into the living room, and popped in a Xena tape, not able to think about