My Darling Melissa (19 page)

“I’m going to start a newspaper,” Melissa told Quinn staunchly, her chin out.

He looked appalled for a moment, but then a smug expression appeared in his eyes, and he smiled and spread his hands. Melissa knew without being told that he thought she hadn’t a prayer of succeeding and had therefore decided not to provoke domestic tumult. “Enjoy yourself, sweetheart,” he said expansively, and he kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you later.”

Melissa said nothing at all, but her arms were folded stubbornly across her bosom, and her determination to win out over all the obstacles that faced her was redoubled.

With the help of Helga and Mrs. Wright Melissa dragged the small but cumbersome printing press into a corner of Quinn’s study. She spent the next hour thoroughly cleaning the mechanism, except for the typeface; then she covered it with an old sheet.

She was dusting her hands together, filled with satisfaction and hope, when a knock at the front door signaled the arrival of a visitor.

Melissa, rendered breathless by surprise, dodged back into the study when she realized that the caller was Ajax.

“I am seeking Miss Melissa Corbin,” he said in his precise British way.

Helga had apparently taken an immediate, if polite, dislike to Ajax. “It’s Mrs. Rafferty now, sir, and I’ll have to ask if she wishes to see you. Wait, please.”

Melissa wanted to flee along the hallway to the kitchen and the back door, but she couldn’t keep running away from Ajax forever. A confrontation was inevitable. When Helga came to her with a questioning look on her broad, plain face, Melissa nodded nervously and smoothed her hair.

She was standing in front of the hearth when Ajax entered the room, doing her very best to look nonchalant.

“Melissa,” he said, and the word contained a gentle reprimand.

Melissa had loved this man, or thought she had, but in the short space of their separation he’d become a stranger. He was still as handsome as a Greek statue, of course, but his blond, blue-eyed good looks left his runaway bride unmoved. “Ajax,” she responded, moderately and at length.

He started toward her but stopped cold at the expression on her face.

“You are afraid of me?” he asked, sounding stricken. The look in his royal blue eyes was one of wounded disbelief.

In that moment Melissa realized that Ajax had bargained for a certain response, and she could see, in looking back, how he had long made a practice of manipulating her into saying and doing what he wanted. She felt stupid and gullible, and those emotions intensified her aversion to the man.

“Of course I’m not afraid of you,” she answered presently, with a straightening of her shoulders. She decided to go directly to the heart of the matter. “What brings you here?”

Ajax spread his hands; they were smooth and white and lithe. So unlike Quinn’s. “You have made a terrible mistake, Melissa, marrying this stranger—this lumberjack.”

Melissa smiled. “Oh? And how do you suggest that I correct this dreadful error?”

An air of strange desperation came over Ajax, although his manner was as polished as ever. “You must come to your senses, my darling, and let me take you away from here. Now, today.”

Melissa was already shaking her head. “I’m married to the man, Ajax.” she replied. “I love him.”

Ajax looked as apoplectic as his well-schooled features could. “That is madness! You could not possibly love a stranger!”

Standing behind Quinn’s favorite chair, Melissa curved her hands around its leather-upholstered back and smiled. “Nevertheless, I do. But even if I despised my husband, even if I regretted this marriage with all my heart, Ajax, I wouldn’t so much as cross the street with you.”

He was pacing now, the princely Briton, radiating frustration and annoyance. “We can have you divorced from this fortune hunter, and after a decent interval you and I will marry.” He paused to wave an index finger at her. “You really have made a jumble of things by behaving so impetuously!”

Melissa folded her arms. “You weren’t listening, Ajax,” she said in a pleasant but inflexible tone. “I want nothing to do with you now or ever. Go back to your mistress—back to England, for all I care—and leave me alone.”

Ajax stopped pacing and stared at her. “I will be ruined without you,” he said.

“You should have thought of that sooner,” Melissa replied, immovable.

The Englishman looked as though he would relish tearing her limb from limb, but in the end he simply sputtered, “You have not heard the last of me, Mrs. Rafferty,” and he stormed out of the house.

Melissa rounded Quinn’s chair and sagged into it, letting out a long breath. Although she had stood fast during the interview itself, she now felt drained.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” Helga asked shyly from a little distance away.

Melissa looked up to see that the maid was carrying a tea tray. She nodded, smiling when she noticed that there was
only one cup. Apparently Helga had had no confidence in Ajax’s courting.

Helga poured the tea and then left, looking back over her shoulder at Melissa two or three times before she disappeared through the doorway.

As Melissa sipped her tea the shaken, defensive feeling Ajax’s unexpected visit had inspired in her began to abate. She would never have gone back to him, of course, but she did wonder if he hadn’t been right in thinking that her marriage was a lost cause. Love Quinn though she did, there were many problems that might well bring ruin upon the union.

Serious questions had been raised, after all—things Melissa needed to discuss with her husband. Miss Bradberry was convinced that someone named Eustice Rafferty had burned down the newspaper building. Melissa had not questioned Quinn about this allegation yet, but she knew she would have to, and soon.

She finished her tea and resolutely stood, giving the shrouded printing press an affectionate look before starting for the door.

The day was cold and somewhat gloomy, the sky heavy with either rain or snow, but Melissa was determined not to allow either the weather or the confrontation with Ajax to dash her spirits. She had a goal to work toward, and she meant to concentrate on that.

It was very chilly inside Quinn’s railroad car, so Melissa built a fire in the stove as soon as she’d finished lighting all the lamps. When the place was cozy she settled herself at Quinn’s desk with ink and a pen and one of the tablets she’d bought and began to write.

The story she’d been framing in her mind flowed fluidly onto the paper, and Melissa worked rapidly, her cheeks glowing with concentration and commitment. Before long the pages were piling up beside her while others, crumpled, billowed around her feet. Still Melissa wrote.

Several hours had passed when she was jarred out of her imaginary world by a loud clank and a lurch that nearly
upset her ink bottle. She gave a little cry of surprised alarm when she realized that the railroad car was moving.

Hastily she put the lid back on the ink and got to her feet. “Wait, stop!” she cried, knowing even as she spoke that the words were futile.

Melissa hurried to the rear door and wrenched it open, but even though the train was still moving at a fairly slow rate of speed she could not bring herself to jump. The ground looked entirely too unaccommodating for that.

She went back inside the train and closed the door, her thoughts tumbling wildly as she tried to think what to do. She decided that a word with a conductor or even the engineer himself was in order.

Traveling between cars was not as easy as Melissa had remembered. When she opened the inner door she saw that there was an unnerving gap between Quinn’s car and the next one. She put one hand to her heart, thinking that she must have been delirious with fever not to have noticed how easily one could make a misstep and tumble onto the tracks to be run over.

While Melissa deliberated the train’s pace increased until the tracks were a blur beneath her, and she grasped the door frame, feeling dizzy. In the end she had to go back inside and sit with her head between her knees until she’d regained control.

She was startled when there was a knock at the door, but she called out shakily, “Come in.” Only later would she reflect that being so cordial on a train full of strangers could have been a disastrous mistake.

A smiling black man wearing a conductor’s impressive suit of clothes entered the car. He looked surprised when he realized that Melissa was alone.

“You must stop the train immediately,” Melissa said firmly. “You see, I hadn’t planned to go anywhere—”

The conductor’s grin faded. “I’m sorry, miss, but this train don’t stop till it gets to Port Hastings.”

Melissa was aghast. “You don’t understand—I don’t want to go to Port Hastings!”

“I’m sorry, miss,” the man repeated.

Tears of frustration burned behind Melissa’s eyes, but she would not shed them. She tried to speak calmly and with dignity. “Who gave the order to attach this car to a departing train?” she demanded.

“Mr. Rafferty himself, ma’am” was the polite response. “I expect there’s somebody going to get aboard at the other end of the line for the ride back.”

Melissa faced defeat. She was going to pay her family an unexpected visit, and that was that. But she’d missed the midday meal, so completely absorbed had she been in her work, and it was now, judging by the light at the windows, time for dinner. She asked for a tray and went dismally back to the desk to assess the situation.

Within two hours Melissa was standing beside the tracks in Port Hastings with no money and no baggage. The Western Union office had already closed, so there was no way that she could let Quinn know where she was.

Since Jeff and Fancy lived close by, Melissa set out for their house. When she reached the corner and saw the familiar bright windows glowing in the night, unexpected tears brimmed in her eyes. It seemed a hundred years had passed since she’d been home, when in reality it had only been a little over a week.

She worked the gate latch and went through, drying her eyes with the back of one hand, and by the time she rang the bell she was smiling.

Fancy answered the door herself, and for a moment she just stood there staring at Melissa as though she couldn’t believe her eyes. In that interval Melissa noticed something in her sister-in-law’s face that had eluded her before, when she was busy preparing for her ill-fated wedding—Fancy was unhappy.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” Melissa said finally, in a soft voice.

Fancy laughed and drew Melissa into her house and her arms in one and the same motion. “What are you doing here? My heaven, what stories we’ve been hearing about you!”

Melissa laughed. “I’m here because I was unintentionally shanghaied, and as for the stories, I admit nothing!”

Jeff was coming down the stairs as they spoke, and Melissa noted that he looked as dismal as Fancy did. There was a hollow expression in the depths of those intense indigo eyes.

“Hello, brat,” he said, lifting Melissa into his arms and swinging her around once. It was the way he had always greeted her, and if he still had the strength, he’d probably do the same thing when she was ninety and he a hundred and four.

The house, once so full of happiness, mischief, and laughter, was strangely quiet. “Where are the children?” Melissa asked as Jeff set her back on her feet. Fancy took her cloak, and she was being led into the parlor before her sister-in-law answered.

“They’re all in bed.”

“We hope,” Jeff added with quiet skepticism.

Melissa looked from one beloved face to the other and asked forthrightly, “What’s the matter?”

Jeff thrust a hand through his fair hair and averted his eyes while Fancy briskly changed the subject.

“Melissa was shanghaied,” she said, and the tone of her voice was the same warm, gentle one that she had always used with Jeff. “An experience like that must be exhausting. Come and sit down, dear, and I’ll get our Mary to make up a pot of tea.”

Melissa accepted a chair but declined the tea. She’d had more than enough on the train while she’d fretted over how worried Quinn must be at her strange disappearance.

She explained how she’d come to be in Port Hastings, and when the brief story ended Jeff frowned and asked, “But what were you doing in the railroad car in the first place?”

Melissa swallowed. No one in the family knew about her writing career except Adam’s wife, Banner. She wasn’t sure she was ready to reveal a secret she’d kept for so long.

“Well?” Jeff prompted when she hesitated.

“I was writing—a journal,” Melissa lied, hoping that her
brother wouldn’t press the point. She yawned, and that inspired Jeff to suggest walking her home.

Minutes later Jeff and Melissa were making their way up the steep hill that led to the big house where Katherine lived, along with Adam and Banner and their children.

Melissa dared to broach the touchy subject again. “Something’s happened between you and Fancy. What is it, Jeff?”

He gave a ragged sigh. “Don’t worry about it, brat,” he said. “It’ll pass.” He didn’t sound at all certain of that, however, and Melissa had her doubts as well.

When they reached the main house Jeff refused to come any further than the front gate, no matter how Melissa tried to persuade him, so she finally gave him a kiss on the cheek and set off up the walk.

Katherine swept from the parlor to the front hall to kiss her daughter and demand, “What on earth are you doing here?”

Melissa told her the same story she’d told Jeff and Fancy and the conductor. It was getting wearisome.

“Quinn must be frantic,” Katherine said as a tall, powerfully built man with silver hair and kindly brown eyes appeared behind her.

Melissa was distracted, wondering if this was the man her mother loved.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he said, taking Melissa’s hand in the continental fashion and kissing it delicately. “I’m Harlan Sommers.”

Mr. Sommers didn’t look like any rancher Melissa had ever seen; his clothes were impeccably tailored, and his boots were of the finest Italian leather. His hands were scarred by hard work but no longer callused.

Katherine had taken her arm. “Of course, this is our Melissa,” she was saying. Her dark blue eyes turned to Harlan. “Have you seen Adam tonight, dear? I really think he should wake someone up at the Western Union office and send a message to Port Riley.”