Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) (11 page)

His eyes skirted over to the counter. “Melanie, keep your voice down.”

“Don’t tell me to keep my voice down. You have no right.”

“Melanie!”

“Don’t
Melanie
me.” God, how she hated that when they were together.

Nathan took a deep breath and turned his back to the others in the restaurant and lowered his voice.

“I didn’t come here to fight,” he told her.

“Did you think you could come here and we not fight?”

“I want to work things out.”

Her eyes caught Zoe’s before moving back to his. “And I want you to leave.”

“Hope deserves a father.” His words caught in her chest.

“She deserves someone who isn’t going to leave the second things get hard.”

He nodded and his face softened. If it wasn’t for his telling tick, she might believe he was actually listening to her. “I’m an attorney now, Melanie. In a much better place . . .”

Of course he was. He didn’t have a child or a family to worry over while he finished his education. She would love to be happy for him, but all she could feel was envy. He’d fulfilled his dreams while she was eating noodle soup and driving around in crappy cars. Or better yet, bumming a ride from her friends in their cars.

She shook the negative thoughts from her head and thought of Hope.

She had Hope, and she wouldn’t trade that for an education or a title.

“It’s great that you continued with your life, Nathan.”

He grinned as if she’d given him a gift.

“But I don’t need you.”

That grin fell.

“I want to be a part of Hope’s life.”

“That’s going to be a little hard to do, living in California.”

“When you come back—”

“We’re not coming back,” she cut him off.

He glanced around the diner and scowled. “What do you mean?”

“Hope and I are staying here. I’ve already enrolled her in school for the fall.”

“My God, Melanie. You’re better than this place.”

She laughed. “But not better than Bakersfield?”

Nathan flicked a crumb left by another patron off the table as if it were an ant.

“You ran away to Bakersfield. If I had known you were there, I would have . . .” his words trailed off.

“Would have what, Nathan? Come galloping in on your trusty steed and rescued us from my crumbling apartment and shitty school?”

“Yes. All that.”

He kept glancing at their audience, who were doing a great job of keeping their backs to them while remaining silent enough to hear most of the conversation.

“Well you’re too late. And unless you plan on sticking around, there is no reason for you to see Hope and mess her up. She doesn’t need you. We don’t need you.”

The bell over the door rang again.

Wyatt’s frame filled the door.

His smile filled her heart.

Wyatt offered a single nod and moved toward the growing crowd. When Melanie turned her attention back to Nathan, that tick was going full steam.

“He’s not her father.”

Was that jealousy? “No, and unlike you, he’s not pretending to be either.”

“I don’t have to pretend.”

She tried to put an end to this once and for all. “Go home, Nathan. I’m giving you a free pass. Go live your life and leave us to live ours.”

His snarky smile started to replace his tick, and that had Melanie’s heart beating too fast in her chest.

“That’s not how this is going to play out, Melanie.”

She didn’t care for the conviction in his tone. “And how is this going to play out?”

His silence unnerved her this time.

Jo stepped up to the table, the sound of the belt holding all her cop toys clapping along the way. “You’re okay here, Mel?”

“She’s just fine,” Nathan said.

“Mel?”

The fact that Nathan didn’t bother looking at Jo gave a twist to her stomach. He was up to something . . . had need of something. He just wasn’t giving her any clue as to what.

“I’m going home to clear my calendar for a while, then I’ll be back.”

Melanie swallowed hard. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m not leaving my wife and child here forever.”

Again with the wife thing.
“I’m not your—”

Nathan reached over to pat her hand.

Melanie pulled back as if stung.

Jo placed her hand on the table and leaned in front of them. “I think you should leave.”

It was then Nathan looked up to see every set of eyes in the diner on him.

He lifted both hands in the air before scooting out of the booth.

Once on his feet, he looked down at Jo and smirked.

His parting words were directed at Melanie. “I’ll be back.”

Then he was gone.

CHAPTER TEN

Melanie’s ex slithered out the front door of the diner after a sneer that should have been illegal. The door no sooner shut than Zoe moved in beside Melanie and put her arm around her. As much as Wyatt wanted to be the one to comfort her, he had other things he was much better at doing.

He leaned toward Luke and kept his voice low. “I’m going to follow him.”

Luke offered a nod while Wyatt moved out the back door.

The dark sedan Nathan drove belonged in a B movie filled with espionage and spies . . . not in the sleepy town of River Bend.

It wasn’t as if Wyatt could blend in with traffic, and he wouldn’t know how to do it if there were any. He pulled up behind Nathan’s rental and kept an appropriate distance while they inched through town.

It wasn’t until they passed Miller’s and the gas station that Nathan started to stare through the rearview mirror.

Wyatt kept an empty look on his face and tailed the man.

As soon as they passed the last speed limit sign stating thirty miles per hour, Nathan sped up.

Wyatt kept pace without getting too close. The two-way road had several blind corners and more than a few four-legged critters that crossed the thing.

When Wyatt had to take a corner a good fifteen miles per hour faster than he’d ever done before, he started to mutter, “Why are you in such a hurry?”

They passed the cemetery, rounded another corner before the long stretch of road leading to R&B’s. Instead of blowing past the bar, Nathan skidded the car into the gravel and pulled to a stop.

He sat behind the wheel with the engine running for several minutes, giving Wyatt the impression he was going to rip out of the parking lot just as quickly as he’d pulled in.

Nathan pushed out of the car, dark sunglasses over his eyes, and started for the door to R&B’s . . . then, as if it was a second thought, he twisted in Wyatt’s direction and marched across the gravel lot.

Wyatt jumped from his truck, shut the door, and leaned against it with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Out for a Sunday drive,” Wyatt replied.

“Screw you.”

The words
you’re not my type
sat on his tongue unsaid.

“Messing with another man’s family is always a mistake,” Nathan told him.

“Is that some kind of threat, Counselor?”

Nathan was only a couple of inches shorter than Wyatt; his build told Wyatt that Melanie’s ex didn’t spend all his time behind a desk pushing papers.

“Just a statement, Redneck. Melanie and Hope are mine. You’d do well to remember that.”

The man thought he was insulting him. Instead, the compliment made Wyatt smile.

“I’m not sure how the rules are in your county, but here in Redneckville a man takes care of his family, provides for them. If he doesn’t, he leaves that role open for another to take over.”

Nathan shuffled his feet and Wyatt kept going. “In case you haven’t noticed, Melanie has a family here that doesn’t include you. And family in Redneckville take it personally when you screw with one of their own.” Wyatt ended with a nod.

“Is that a threat?”

Wyatt grinned. “Just stating facts, Counselor.”

Nathan clenched his fists several times before taking a deep breath. Wyatt didn’t bother to unfold his hands and waited.

“You don’t scare me.”

That was unfortunate. The fact the man was lying to himself was a terrible quality.

Nathan turned on his polished heel and took long strides to his car. Once there, he turned and waved a finger in the air. “Stop following me.”

“Call the sheriff,” Wyatt muttered to himself before sliding behind the wheel and pulling in behind Nathan as he drove away.

Nathan pulled into the parking lot of a motel several miles outside of town.

Wyatt took pleasure in every glare the man tossed his way.

Wyatt sat in his truck for about an hour before Nathan reappeared with a suitcase in hand. He took note of Wyatt’s presence, tossed the case in the trunk, and drove away.

By the time Wyatt returned to River Bend, the town had all but closed up for the day, only the diner and R&B’s still showed signs of life.

He took the liberty of showing up at Luke’s uninvited.

Luke didn’t question his presence, just opened the door wide and let him in.

“Wanna beer?” Luke asked, turning his back and heading into his kitchen.

“Have anything stronger?”

“Ohh, that bad?”

Wyatt let the door slam behind him. “Long day.”

Luke removed a bottle of Jack from the cabinet above his fridge and placed it on the kitchen table before searching for a clean glass.

Wyatt swung the forgotten pizza box toward him and opened it in hopes of a few scraps. Without asking, he grabbed a slice and bit off a cold end with a moan.

“It’s like college all over again,” he said between bites.

“I wouldn’t know,” Luke said.

Straddling a chair, Luke took a pull on a beer and waited a few seconds while Wyatt took the edge off his hunger and washed it down with a shot of whiskey.

The burn in the back of his throat warmed him with a shiver.

“Well?”

Wyatt shoved the last bite into his mouth and reached for another piece before talking. “Followed him to the airport in Eugene.”

“So he’s gone.”

Wyatt spoke around the pizza. Why did cold pizza on an empty stomach taste so good? One of life’s questions, to be sure. “Not for long.”

“You spoke with him?”

“Briefly.”

Luke reached for one of Wyatt’s fists, glanced at his knuckles. “Care to elaborate?”

Before relaying the conversation he’d had with the man, it was time to hear a few facts from Luke. “Tell me what you know about him.”

Luke shrugged. “Just what I’ve heard from Jo over the years. Melanie met him in college, before long she was pregnant and dropped out. Not sure what came first, now that I think about it. Jo wasn’t living close when all that happened and my ties to Zoe had been cut. Everything I heard was long past it happening.”

“Were they married?”

Luke shook his head with a shrug. “Couldn’t tell you. Everyone said yes a couple of years ago. It’s only been in the past few weeks that Melanie claimed all that was a lie.”

Wyatt poured another couple of fingers of Jack and kicked it back. “Does Melanie make a habit of lying?” He hated to ask but wanted to know for many reasons.

Luke laughed. “No. She sucked at lying in high school. People change, I guess, but I don’t know. I would think she would have been straight with her best friends.”

“What did Jo and Zoe say about all that?”

“Don’t really know. I don’t think they care. Neither of them approve of the man so his status, divorced or just an ex, doesn’t mean crap to them.”

Staring at the white wall on the opposite side of the kitchen kept Wyatt’s attention as he finished the second slice of pizza.

“Does it matter to you?”

“Lying?”

Luke waved him off. “Lying sucks . . . I’m talking about her single or divorced status.”

Wyatt wiped his hand over his face and removed any evidence of the pizza before answering. “We all have a past.”

Luke seemed to sit on that for a few minutes. “So what did the man say to you?”

“That I was stepping on his family.”

Luke ran a hand through his hair. “That’s just bullshit. If there is one fact, it’s that Melanie and Hope haven’t been a priority to that man. You saw her car.”

“Yeah, I get that. So why is the man all hell-bent on making everyone think he’s sticking around this time?”

“Maybe he woke up and realized he’s a dad.”

“It’s more than that. He’s talking about Melanie as if she belongs to him.”

“That’s what Zoe told me. Makes me wonder about the man’s head. What kind of man goes out of his way to make strangers think he is something he’s not?”

Wyatt finished his drink, poured another, and vowed to walk home.

“. . . and they all lived happily ever after.” Melanie leaned against the headboard with her daughter nestled in the crook of her arm.

Hope released a contented sigh and snuggled closer. “I wanna be a princess when I grow up,” she exclaimed.

“A noble goal.”

Melanie lifted the book from her lap and put it on the side table. With the inn lacking in guests, they’d placed Hope in the room they’d first shared alone, while Mel took the room across the hall.

“Princesses wear pretty clothes.”

“You like your jeans and T-shirts.”

“Yeah. And they have a prince who takes care of them.”

Melanie’s hand hesitated over the book of fairy tales that Hope loved her to read from. “Sometimes the prince doesn’t do such a great job of taking care of his princess. It’s always better for the princess to learn to take care of herself.”

Hope seemed to chew on that for a few seconds. “But isn’t it easier if a prince helps her?”

“Some things might be easier.”

Hope twisted in her lap and blinked wide eyes. “If you had a prince, you wouldn’t have to scrub floors or make all the beds here.”

She placed a hand on the side of her daughter’s face. “In the real world, a mommy is always scrubbing floors and making beds, sweetie. And I like working here. It’s not like in the books. Not a lot of life is like what you read in a book.”

“I know it’s pretend.” Hope rolled her eyes. “But it would be cool to be a princess.”

Melanie slid from the bed and helped Hope under the covers. “You can be a princess, but I want you to marry a knight, not a prince.”

“Who is the knight?”

“He’s the warrior who fights for the princess. He’s the one who can protect her.”

“Is he rich?”

Melanie sat on the edge of the bed and brushed Hope’s hair from her face. “No. He has something money can’t buy.”

Hope’s eyes were drifting closed. “What’s that?”

“The princess’s heart.” Melanie tapped her chest.

Hope smiled.

Melanie kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Good night, princess.”

“Night, Mommy.”

The phone rang as Melanie left Hope’s room. She took the steps faster in an effort to answer it before the caller hung up.

Miss Gina beat her to it. “No, she’s right here.”

Miss Gina’s words stopped Melanie from walking by.

With a hand over the receiver, Miss Gina pointed the phone at Melanie. “It’s Wyatt.”

With the phone in hand, Melanie smiled at Miss Gina and felt her cheeks warm. “I’ll just take this outside.”

“I’m sure you will.”

When she reached the screen door, she put the phone to her ear. “Hey.”

“Hi. I hope it’s okay that I called.”

It was dark on the back porch, the twinkly lights under the eves drawing any flying bugs away as she sat.

“Of course. I was wondering what happened after you left Sam’s.”

“Well . . . in his defense, it wasn’t a fair fight.”

Melanie felt her smile freeze on her face. “You’re kidding.” Her heart leapt in her chest and started pounding to the beat of Metallica. “Oh, God, Wyatt . . . he’s a lawyer, please tell me—”

“Relax. I just followed him out of town.”

Melanie closed her eyes and tried to slow her anxiety down. “I’d hit you. If you were here, I’d hit you right now.”

Wyatt laughed.

“There wasn’t a fight?” She had to ask and clarify.

“No fight.”

She imagined the two of them side by side. It wouldn’t be a fair match.

“Did you just get home?”

“I went to Luke’s for a while, but yeah, about an hour ago.”

“The edge of town isn’t that far, Mr. Ripper. You sure there isn’t more to your story?” She hated to ask, but couldn’t help but want to know exactly what transpired between her ex and her new . . . was he her new? She thought of their kiss, the butterflies.

“I followed him to the airport.”

“Eugene?”

“That would be the one.”

“Jeez, Wyatt, that’s a long way.” Still, the relief of knowing Nathan had left town was a weight lifted.

“I didn’t want to miss him doubling back if he was bluffing.”

“And what exactly would you have done if he had?”

She recognized Wyatt’s soft laugh as one filled with mischief. “How is Hope? She doesn’t suspect anything, does she?”

“She’s fine. And you’re changing the subject.”

“How are you? You seemed upset when I left the diner.”

“I’ve had better days. Nathan is the last person I thought would show up on my doorstep. He’s just as infuriating now as he was when we were together.”

Wyatt took an audible breath over the phone. “Can I ask you something?”

“We are talking.”

“If he was infuriating, why did you stay with him?”

Melanie tucked her feet under her while she attempted to answer the question without appearing like a complete bitch. “He was charming in the beginning. I was just a kid and traversing the landscape of college, dating, my parents’ divorce. When it became apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to continue at the university, he was there. Not completely supportive, but there. If that makes any sense.”

“I think it does.”

“Then Hope came and I tried harder. He didn’t have an ounce of patience for his daughter, for me.” She shook her head, remembered him screaming at her to stop Hope’s crying. “Things eventually shifted and I felt safer on my own.” Those were dark days. Days she didn’t want to repeat.