No Ordinary Home

Austin didn’t remind Finn that the only newspapers he ever saw as a kid were at the bottom of trash bins covered in garbage. He shook his head.

“Her mom was driving past my dad’s ranch just as a deer jumped out. She crashed into the tree at the end of our driveway and the car caught fire. Man, I’ll never forget how brave my dad was that day. Melody’s mother got thrown from the car, but Melody was trapped in the backseat. Dad didn’t hesitate. Just reached right into the fire and pulled her out. Saved her life.”

The waitress hovered ready to pour more coffee, her eyes on Finn. He’d inherited his dad’s good looks.

“That’s cool.” Finn’s father was cool. Austin, yet again, felt the lack of a father figure in his life. Every boy should have a father. Austin had had two of them. One had died when he was only six and the other hadn’t wanted him.

Not that he cared.

Really.

For the tenth time, Finn glanced across the street.

Austin checked out what he kept looking at. Storefronts. What was so interesting? Ah. The apartments above them.

“She’s in one of those, isn’t she? That’s why you chose this restaurant?”

Finn nodded.

“Are you going to see her after dinner?”

He shook his head. “She isn’t expecting me until tomorrow. I’ll go across after breakfast.”

Finn had a lot of confidence. So why the edginess? “Why are you nervous about seeing her?”

“She left town suddenly. One minute she was there and the next gone. I never had a chance to say goodbye.”

“You’re angry about that?”

Finn’s mouth angled grimly down on one side. “You know what? You see too much.”

“I had to learn to be perceptive.” Living with an alcoholic did that to a kid.

“Yeah, I’m still angry,” Finn admitted, “but I want to see her, too. We’ve been writing letters for over ten years. Well, she writes letters. I email my responses. Had enough writing in college.” He placed his cutlery across his empty plate and pushed it away. “Melody’s no stranger. And she isn’t a pickpocket. There’s no similarity between our situations.”

Austin shrugged. Maybe not.

He felt Finn watching him. Finn knew him about as well as anyone did. He probably thought he knew what Austin was thinking.

“This has nothing to do with my mom.” Even to Austin’s own ears, he sounded defensive. “This is nothing like dealing with Mom.”

“No? You take your first vacation ever. We’re barely more than a day away from home, and you pick up a stranger. A mighty sad one, I might add.”

He thought of Gracie taking small sips of the soup he’d ordered when he knew she wanted to gulp it down. He thought of her tears when she’d lost the last of her lunch. Yeah, sad, for sure. But strong, too, with a lot of pride. He liked that about her.

“She’s got problems, Austin. That woman is trouble. Why’d you bring her here?”

Good question.

Figuring he might as well be honest with his best friend and himself, he answered, “I don’t know.”

* * *

FINN STOOD IN front of his hotel-room door and watched Austin walk down the hallway to his own room, hating this tension between them. They’d been best buds for a dozen years. They weren’t normally like this.

It was that woman’s fault.

“Hey!” he called, not sure why except wanting to get back on good terms with his buddy.

Austin turned around, walking backward to his room at the end of the corridor. “What?”

“Don’t forget to keep a hundred bucks handy for when I catch the biggest fish on this trip.”

“In your dreams.” Austin grinned and spread his arms. “That hundred bucks has my name on it.”

Austin entered his room and Finn stepped into his own, breathing a little easier. Things were good. No permanent damage done.

He should have been honest with Austin. He wasn’t nervous about seeing Melody. Nope, not nervous. Terrified.

Holy freakin’ Batman was he scared.

Ever since the day a couple of weeks before his twelfth birthday when he’d watched his dad pull Melody out of a burning car, he’d been fascinated by her.

Every kid had pivotal moments in his childhood. That had been one of his. Man, oh, man, to see Remington Caldwell as a hero. To see that girl pulled out alive, but with her hair afire. To watch his dad put out the flames with his bare hands.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t known at the time that the guy was his father. He had been a hero to Finn ever since. What a bonus it had been to learn, a couple of weeks later, that the great courageous man was also his dad.

His mom, a nurse, had made him visit Melody in the hospital. He’d dragged his heels. What boy his age wouldn’t have at being forced to visit a sick girl?

Melody had been a revelation. Despite all she’d gone through, she’d had more character and spunk than any other kid he’d ever met.

Even in a hospital room with a turban of bandages around her head, she’d been beautiful and strong-willed. She wouldn’t let him get away with any of his “boy” crap, and he’d respected that.

Hell, he didn’t even know what color her hair was.

Finn sat on the bed, took his wallet out of his pocket and slipped out the photo taken of him and Melody in her white turban of bandages at his birthday party at Grandma Caldwell’s house.

They perched on each side of the bed, flanking his grandma. Grandma C looked down at Melody with a drunken smile, courtesy of the stroke she’d suffered. In that not-quite-right smile there was affection. Even Grandma had liked Melody right away.

At one point during the party, Finn had run in from outside to find them asleep, Melody curled into a tight little ball against Grandma’s side.

Something in his boy’s heart had melted, shifted. Nothing had been the same since.

He smiled down at the photo. He hadn’t looked at the thing in years, had refused to. He’d been so damned angry with her for leaving the way she had, without a word to the boy who’d fallen for her hard.

Then, after a nearly ten-year silence, a letter had arrived. From Melody. From the girl who epitomized perfection. And Finn had fallen all over again.

Those letters were damned fine. The woman could write. She could probably sell snow to the Inuit. She’d melted his resistance and he discovered that inside his grown man there was still that twelve-year-old boy who’d never stopped waiting for Melody Chase to return.