Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) (3 page)

“Like a policeman or a fireman?”

“Yeah.”

“They aren’t the only people that want to help strangers.”

“I know, honey. Maybe that man just wants to help, but I don’t know him.”
Trust is earned, not given freely. Even when it’s earned, it’s sometimes blown to tiny bits.

Five minutes ticked by in silence when Hope ran out of questions about strangers and matters of trusting them.

The stranger turned off his engine and sat in his cab.

Melanie watched his shadow like a hawk.

Less than twenty minutes later, the road flashed with red and blue lights as a sheriff’s squad car pulled around the corner and tucked in behind Melanie’s hunk of junk. “Stay here,” she said for the second time that night.

The rain had let up to a steady fall instead of sheets, not that her body felt the difference.

The officer pushed out of the car, placing a plastic-covered hat on their head.

“Looks like you’re having some trouble.” Melanie heard the voice of a woman and felt her shoulders slump in relief.

“Stupid car.” Melanie kicked the tire as she walked by.

The officer shone her light on the car, then up into Melanie’s face.

“Mel?”

Melanie sucked in a breath. “JoAnne?”

Jo shoved the light in her own face, giving Melanie the best relief of the night. “Oh, my God. I knew you were the sheriff, but . . . wow! Just look at you!”

Her gun toting, flashlight shining BFF squealed like any friend should, and moved in for a hug.

“Looks like you have it from here, Sheriff,” the voice of the stranger sounded in the drizzling rain.

“Melanie’s an old friend. Thanks for the call, Wyatt.”

So his name is Wyatt.

“Might wanna teach your friend that not everyone wants to cut her up.”

“I’ll do that,” Jo yelled as Wyatt slid back into his truck and left.

“What’s he all about?” Melanie found herself asking.

Before Jo could answer, Hope was ducking her head out of the backseat again. “Can I come out now?”

Melanie waved her daughter from the car and she came running.

CHAPTER TWO

Jo insisted Melanie and Hope stay with her until morning. It wasn’t hard saying yes when Hope all but begged for a hot meal and a warm house.

With Jo back at work, Melanie settled into Jo’s childhood home. The bungalow’s footprint was the same, but the furniture had changed and the walls were free of floral patterned paper.

Once Hope was tucked into the guest room, fed, showered, and exhausted, Melanie pulled the cork on a bottle of wine and lit a fire.

The house felt smaller than she remembered . . . quiet. She’d never spent any time in the Ward home without her friend. She found herself looking around, waiting for Sheriff Ward to walk in the door and read her the riot act for drinking. Didn’t matter that she was twenty-eight now, well past the legal age to drink . . . your parents, or even your friend’s parents who knew you before you could wear a bra, intimidated you into believing you were still ten.

Melanie wiggled sock-covered toes and let the flames warm the last part of her that still felt chilled.

She couldn’t remember the last time she sat in front of a fireplace. Probably right after Hope was born when her mother sent her tickets to fly to the East Coast to visit. What a mess that was. Whatever maternal instinct her mother had when she was growing up had disappeared the day her divorce was final. The free trip to Connecticut was to ease her mother’s guilty conscience. Melanie went to try and give Hope a grandmother.

By the time she boarded the plane back to California all hopes of a normal grandparent for her daughter had vanished.

Felicia Bartlett sent her a hundred bucks and a generic birthday card every year . . . sent another check for Christmas. If Melanie could afford to deny the money, she would. But pride didn’t put food on the table. If it were just her, she’d probably send it back. Instead, she put every dollar in a savings account for Hope. It wouldn’t add up to much, but maybe by the time her daughter was driving, she could afford a running car for her.

She didn’t even want to think about college.

The jiggling of the lock in the door told her Jo was home.

Melanie lifted both hands in the air, one held her wineglass. “I didn’t do it,” she said as Jo closed the door behind her.

Jo offered a laugh as she pulled her overcoat from her shoulders. “The guilty always say that.”

As Jo removed what looked to be a twenty-pound belt from her waist and draped it on a side table, she slowly started to look more like Melanie’s old screw-the-establishment friend and less like a cop.

“Thanks for letting us stay here. Hope was exhausted.”

“You looked like something the cat drug home yourself.”

Melanie pulled herself off the couch and grabbed a glass from the kitchen. She splashed some of the wine for her friend. “I’ve had better days.”

“I’m glad you’re here. It’s been way too long.”

Melanie sat back down, tucked her feet under her. “I know . . . I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“I didn’t even come back for your dad’s funeral.” Her eyes traveled to the mantel above the fireplace. There, in a triangle frame, was what had to be the flag that had draped over Sheriff Ward’s casket.

Jo fell into a chair across from her.

“I didn’t come when Hope was born. We’re even. Besides . . . funerals suck, and screaming women in labor aren’t pleasant either.”

They both laughed at that.

“She’s beautiful. Looks a lot like you did when we were kids.”

“She’s amazing . . . smart, so damn smart.”

“Just like her mom.”

Even after seven years with the title, it was hard to hear.

“Her mom wasn’t smart enough. Didn’t even graduate from college.”

Jo waved her glass toward her. “Not your fault. You didn’t flunk out.”

No, she hadn’t flunked. She’d made the grade, but once her parents separated and sold the house . . . they decided they couldn’t afford the fancy school. Her parents made too much money for financial aid, but not enough to pay the entire bill. When Melanie realized how quickly she was going into debt with student loans, and no clear path on what she wanted to do with her life, she’d dropped out. Torn apart from her family, her friends, Melanie turned to a guy. Her train to the future derailed and the piece left over was asleep upstairs.

“Life isn’t like any of us thought it would be,” Jo said. “Does that prick ex-husband of yours help at all?”

“Nathan?”

Jo looked over her glass. “Do you have more than one ex-husband?”

It was time to come clean. “No . . . I—” She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t even have one of them.”

“One of what?”

“Ex-husband. I never married Nathan.”

Jo lowered her glass to her lap slowly. “But you said—”

“I know what I told you . . . what I told everyone. I was embarrassed, scared. I knew the minute I told Nathan about Hope that he wasn’t going to stick. He said we should get married. I told him I’d think about it. Within a month he was telling everyone I was his wife.”

“So there was no justice of the peace?”

Melanie took a big drink of her wine. “Nope. If we could make it through Hope’s delivery . . . the first year . . .”

Jo’s eyes never left hers. “I thought you’d fallen for Mr. Right.”

“I was so messed up after USC. I found a weekend job waiting tables until I could serve alcohol, then I switched to the bar circuit. Serving drinks and getting my ass pinched was a nightly affair. I spent the weekdays trying an online community college. It didn’t take long for Nathan to convince me to work two jobs so he could concentrate on school. Then he was going to work so I could go back . . .” She lost her voice. For a brief amount of time, she’d thought it could work.

“I remember you telling me you were going to hold off for him. Pissed me off. I thought you were stronger than that.”

Melanie scoffed. “You leave high school believing you can conquer the world. Then she kicks your ass.”

Jo lifted her glass. “I can drink to that.”

They sat watching the flames lick the log in the fireplace.

“So Nathan doesn’t help you at all?”

“Once he realized raising a baby meant one of us had to be home at all times . . . that I couldn’t work to support his school, and he couldn’t party when I worked, he stopped playing house. He left the apartment, moved in with a friend. He gave me cash once in a while for the first year . . . then one day he came over and started an argument . . . said he always doubted if Hope was even his.”

“Bastard.”

“Yeah . . . then he left.” Melanie shook the memories away and refilled her glass. The wine was already swimming in her head. She didn’t often drink since there was no one else to take up for Hope if something happened. Having Jo there gave her some peace to relax.

“I’m really sorry, Mel.”

She shrugged. “I am, too. Not about Hope. I mean sure, at first, the enormity of becoming a parent before I got my shit together scared me to death. It’s been hard, but I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”

“You always hear parents say that.”

“You’ll see when you have a kid, Jo. It changes you.”

Jo finished her wine and set the glass to the side. “I have enough responsibility. Last thing I need is a kid.”

“That’s what I said.”

“How are things now? From the looks of the suitcases you and Hope brought, your stay here is going to be longer than a week.”

The wine was making her weepy. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. The cost of living in California is stupid, even in nowhere Bakersfield. The school Hope was in was crap . . . the neighborhood would keep
you
busy until you’re eighty.”

“What about your job?”

“Phew . . . my job? I’m tired of my ass getting pinched.”

Jo moved from her chair and sat next to Melanie with an arm around her shoulders. “Sounds like you need a fresh start.”

Melanie wiped a fallen tear. “I do. I don’t know if it’s here, but I knew it wasn’t there.”

“You can stay with me. I have plenty of room.”

Melanie shook her head. “I can’t do that, Jo.”

“Yes you can.”

“It would be too easy. Like bumming off your parents. If my fresh start is back here in River Bend, then it has to be on my own two feet . . . not yours.”

Jo frowned, then sighed. “I get it. The offer is always open.”

Melanie moved in for a hug.

They both stretched out with the empty bottle of wine between them.

Through the quiet, Jo muttered, “I don’t remember the last time someone pinched my ass.”

Hope bounced on Melanie’s bed at the butt crack of dawn. “You’re wasting our vacation sleeping, Mommy.”

“I’m up. I’m up.” She ran a hand over the sand in her eyes and attempted to shake sleep away. Hope was already across the room and pulling the drapes open.

“Oh, Lord.” One too many glasses of wine.
I’m such a lightweight.

“It’s not raining,” Hope announced.

And the sun was burning her eyes like a vampire’s. Shoving the blankets to the side, she padded across the room and slipped into a bathrobe.

“C’mon, sweetie, let’s find you some cereal and a TV.” To quiet and entertain her while Melanie sought out a shower.

The smell of fresh coffee warmed her senses before she reached the bottom floor.

Jo had made a pot and left a note.

Make yourself at home. I’m at the station . . . you and Hope should stop by. Your car is at Miller’s . . . yes it is still Miller’s and in the same place. Feel free to use my car. I have the black-and-white. I’m really glad you’re here.

Jo

Melanie played with the keys as she read the note. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”

After finding a cartoon channel and setting Hope up with breakfast, Melanie worked her way to the bathroom.

An hour later Melanie had Hope by the hand and the two of them were walking through town. JoAnne’s car was still safely tucked in her garage. After hours of driving the past few days, it felt good to take the slow route. As they walked through town, memories did a fine job of making her smile. The wooden white gazebo sat in the center of a small, grassy park in the center of town. The memory of her and Mark playing tag as children had her hearing his laugh. She could almost smell the hot popcorn that accompanied every holiday spent outside in that very spot. Melanie pointed at storefronts, told Hope what had occupied each space when she was a kid. Most of them were the same. Fresh coats of paint, a new facing on the building, but everything felt familiar.

They rounded on Second Street down to Miller’s Auto Repair. The tow truck occupied one parking space, an old Ford pickup sat beside it. Inside one of the two stalls in the garage was her car. The hood was open, a light hung from inside where the mechanic must have left it. Inside the garage, loud heavy metal music blared.

When Melanie didn’t see anyone, she attempted to call over the music. “Hello?”

Silence . . . well, from a person who wasn’t on a radio in any event.

Melanie stepped deeper into the shop. “Hello?”

“Hold up.” She heard the voice of a man.

She stopped in front of the open hood of her car. Whoever had been looking at it had taken off bits and set them to the side. Computer code would be just as foreign as the underside of a car. She didn’t know her way around an engine and wasn’t going to pretend to now.

The volume of the music diminished and someone called, “Hey there.”

Melanie turned to a familiar face. “Hello, Mr. Miller.”

Mr. Miller had owned the shop for as long as Melanie could remember. He worked on everyone’s car in town at some point. At six two or better, with a good extra forty pounds on him, Mr. Miller had always appeared intimidating. Until he smiled like he was now. Then he was a big teddy bear. “Melanie Bartlett? Richard’s girl.”

“That’s right, Mr. Miller.”

“Well I’ll be. You are all grown up.” He pulled a shop towel from the side of her car and wiped his hands. Not that the stains would disappear after five years of hard scrubbing.

“Ten years has a way of doing that,” she said with a grin.

“And who is this?” He smiled at Hope.

Hope held her hand tight.

“This is my daughter, Hope. Say hello, honey.”

“Hello, Mr. Miller.”

“So polite, too.” He winked and Hope attempted to wink back.

“How is Mrs. Miller?”

“Fine, just fine. I’m sure she’d love to see you. You’ll have to drop by the house and bring this cutie with you.”

It was hard not to smile. Mrs. Miller loved to bake, hence Mr. Miller’s slightly large girth. Dropping by was a favorite pastime when she was a kid and always resulted in a take-home package of something sweet.

“We’ll do that.”

Mr. Miller rounded in front of the car. “This yours?”

“Sorry to say.”

He made a few tsk-tsk sounds and his smile started to fade.

“That bad?”

“It’s not good. Luke is digging deeper to make sure, but . . .”

She had to wade through the bad news before the name Mr. Miller had used sank in. “Luke is still here?”

“Of course.”