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Everything went astonishingly still between them. The stench of burnt paper and lime freshener and vomit constricted around Daphne. In the past five days, she’d failed to concoct a plan to keep Fran from getting behind the wheel. Instead, she’d read and studied and wrote, or gone for long walks along the lakeshore when she couldn’t bear being in the presence of Fran’s terminal sickness anymore.
She’d contemplated phoning Mel. He’d left his number with the offer to call him if she needed anything. Short of granting Fran perfect health, she didn’t see how he could help her. She couldn’t very well ask him to brainstorm schemes to stall Fran. He was without a girlfriend, not a life.
Avoidance was no longer an option.
“You’re right.” She held up the keys. “And that is why you’re not getting these.”
Fran’s rings clacked as she curled her fingers around the table edge. “You’ll fail me again if you don’t let me have them. In three days, maybe four, I could dump Frederick into the ocean and die happy.”
Die happy knowing she was leaving Daphne behind. Daphne despised herself for thinking so selfishly about Fran’s death. Loneliness was not worse than death, was it? “But...you always said seeing me married would make you happy.”
“That, too.” Fran eyed the keys like an eagle with a mouse. “However, I have waited the past two decades for that to happen. Unless you can land a man like this—” she snapped her fingers “—we’re off to the coast. Now, give me the keys.”
Fran careening through the narrow mountain passes... “I’d rather swallow them.”
A knock sounded at the open door, and a face appeared above the staircase. Mel. In jeans and a baseball cap. Fran softly snapped her fingers and sent Daphne a smirk full of challenge. Surely, Fran didn’t expect her to... What? Propose to Mel?
“Hello there,” he said, his hazel eyes solid on Daphne.
“Hello,” Daphne said.
“I smell smoke.”
“Oh, there was an incident,” Daphne said. “It’s all good. Won’t you have a seat?” She gestured to the couch.
Fran stood, the fingertips of one hand resting on the tabletop. “I burned her book,” she testified. “There, I said it. And good riddance.”
Mel tipped back his baseball cap. “Sense and Sensibility?”
“Yes, that one. Now she can get on with living. Daphne was about to make lemonade for us all.”
She was?
“I’m not really here for lemonade,” Mel said. To Daphne, he offered, “I’m sorry about your book.”
Daphne eyed the campfire fodder in the sink. “It’s...it’s...”
“Don’t encourage her,” Fran said, taking up her patented lounging position on the love seat, her legs crossed, her wide-bottomed pants spilling around her ankles. “Tell me about yourself. What’s your name?”
“Mel Greene,” Daphne said, busying herself with lemons, anyway. He’d love her lemonade once he tried it. “He owns a roofing company. Greene-on-Top.”
Fran raised her painted eyebrows. “Well, now. I underestimated you, Daphne.”
Mel sat on the edge of the couch. With the expansion sliders in, his knees and Fran’s crossed ones were about the length of a standard hardcover dictionary apart. “Yep,” he said. “You did.”
Fran gave Mel the same long, speculative look she’d given a few eligible men just before launching them at Daphne in Fran’s decades-long crusade to pair Daphne up with someone who was not “insane, insolvent or indisposed.”
“You two have met,” she said by way of invitation to Mel.
“I drove her home from the hospital the day of your accident. I appreciated her company. You might show a little gratitude, too.”
Fran brightened, smiled and then volleyed her first question. “You’re here to tell me how to treat my goddaughter?”
“It’s not right that you burned her book out of spite.”
Oh, heavens. Lemons rolled from Daphne’s hands onto the tile and she scrambled after them.
Fran’s smile stiffened. “Now, why would you say it was out of spite?”
“Why else would you destroy something she loves?”
“Perhaps out of love for her?”
“I think there are other ways of showing it.” A lemon bumped against his work boot. He tossed it to Daphne. She caught it one-handed, like a pro. They grinned at each other. “I believe I have a copy of Sense and Sensibility in storage, Daphne. In pretty good condition. You’re welcome to it.”
Later, Daphne attributed her next move to a fear for Fran, who would soon be dead, and for herself, who would soon be alone. And to the warmth in Mel’s gaze and his propensity to settle for anyone.
Still holding the lemon, she walked stiff and slow, like a bride, over to Mel and sat beside him at an angle so her knees grazed his. “Yes,” she said. “There’s something you should know, Fran. All those walks I took. I wasn’t alone. Mel and I have had some very, very good...talks.”
She slid her hand over his knee and applied gentle pressure. He froze.
Fran was absolutely riveted. “Well, Mel. What do you think?”
He turned to Daphne, a tense block. He was about to reject her. She knew that look well enough, but she was sure—yes, sure—she also saw something like regret or at least, something like a desire for a different outcome.
He could be persuaded.
She closed the distance and kissed him. A few years had passed since she’d planted one on a man, but it was much like riding a bicycle. His face was rough, his lips soft and springy. Daphne parted her lips and plowed deeper. Mel cued well and went at it so convincingly that Daphne scrambled for an exit plan.
She pulled back all at once, an audible suctioning apart.
“That,” Fran said, breathless, “was indecent.” She clapped her hands. “You, Mel, are moving on to the next round. We’re staying.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#uaaced10c-f733-52e4-b648-a8363022897d)
FOR SOMEONE WHO didn’t clear his shoulder, Mel was hard-pressed to keep up with Daphne. Her flip-flops snapped out a mad beat on the asphalt walkway behind the RV park. She’d rushed from the motor home the second Fran had delivered her announcement, and he, like a dog on a leash, had followed.
“You might want to slow down,” Mel said. “I’ve been on a roof all day and my whole body is cramped.”
She slammed to a stop. To one side of the walkway was a culvert thick with tall, dried grass. On the other was a thin row of wild poplars that bordered backyards. A large dog set his paws against a wobbly fence and barked with intent.
“Come on,” Mel said. “We’d better keep moving. Slower, is all.”
They did, amid heavy sighs from Daphne. “I’m so sorry, Mel,” she said. “I don’t know... I was so desperate to keep Fran here... I’m sorry... I’ll go back and say I made it all up.”
“Just to be clear here. The plan to stop Fran from leaving is me?”
“No. At least, that wasn’t my intention. Only I hadn’t devised an actual plan, and I had this vision of me and Fran careening through those mountain roads and I... Well, you saw what I did.”
Felt it, too. His lips still tingled. He’d counted off the last five days and had come to the RV park to catch her in case she was leaving, maybe ask her out for a coffee, chat about his findings in Austenland. Not this.
“I don’t know that you’ve done anything wrong,” he said. “It was just unexpected.”
She looked up at him. She had a face like an emoji. Round and cheery and lively. “You’re at an emotionally vulnerable time,” she said. “You just came through a breakup not even a week ago. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you.”
“Daphne. I’m a grown man.” He paused. “As you can see.”
Her eyes widened behind her glasses. “Oh. Yes. Indeed.”
Was she teasing him? He hurried on. “And you’re right to want her off those roads. I grew up in the mountains. Let me tell you, everybody knows somebody who died out there.” He heard an edge of the old fear creep into his voice and clamped his mouth shut.
She studied him, and he hoped she didn’t ask for an explanation. He relaxed when she said, “What would you suggest, then?”
He scratched his neck. He’d taken a quick shower before coming, but it meant nothing in this heat. He was as sticky as a cinnamon bun, and not nearly as sweet smelling.
“Fran is already convinced that we are dating,” Mel said, “so all we need to do is continue to fake it. It wouldn’t be more than two, three weeks, off and on. Right?”
“I’d steal out in the evenings and pretend that I was meeting you.”
“What if she wants proof?”
“What do you mean ‘proof’?” Her lips upturned into a tight smile, her cheeks rising into two blushing balls. She thought he was fishing for kisses. He wasn’t.
“I’ll tell her to mind her own business.”
She tilted her head. “I suppose she might ask you over. Maybe a couple of times, you will need to pick me up. Do you have a dress shirt?”
“And pants. And shoes and a tie. I went to my brother’s wedding a while back and I have my sister’s in December.”
“You have family?” She waved her hand. “Never mind. None of my business.”
Since they were kind of on a first date, he started in. “I’ve got a brother, fourteen years younger than me, a sister, eighteen years younger. And then my brother’s wife came with four kids. After my sister gets married, I’ll have a brother-in-law, too, though Ben’s pretty much a brother already. Oh, and Ariel. She’s the daughter of Connie’s high school friend. Who died. And Connie’s taking care of her. The daughter.” His family had become complicated in the past year. “You?”
“No. None. Well, Fran. And Moshe. That’s Fran’s son. And his family. He has four children, too, with another due any day. But they’re not blood. I was an only child, and my parents died when I was sixteen.”
“No cousins or anything?”
“I have an uncle, but he lives in Australia. I don’t even know how to contact him. Or what to say if I did.”
“I guess I’d be in pretty much the same situation if my mom hadn’t married my stepdad.”
“Is your father dead, then?”
“Nope. Though I keep checking the obits. Where there’s death, there’s hope.” Now, where had that come from? No one else in the world knew that he lived for the day he’d hear his father was dead, and it was probably not a good idea to tell a woman you were on any kind of date with that you hoped your father died. Especially one whose own father was killed in an accident. A sudden death meant you spent your whole life saying goodbye. “Anyway, I was in this heat for twelve straight hours. How about we go for dinner and talk more there?”
She emoji-ed through a bunch of looks until she settled on a thinking one. “We could call it a date. We could take a picture as proof, right?”
“Right.”
Her blue eyes flickered back and forth. “But you understand that we’re not actually dating? I would hate for you to make the mistake of settling on me. And you would be settling if you assumed we were dating. Which, clearly, we’re not.”
He picked his way through her twisting string of words before arriving at a conclusion. “If we were dating, I wouldn’t feel as if I’m settling, but since we’re not dating, I’m not settling. We’re actors playing a role.”
Her lips pursed in a gentle release of air. “What are we during dinner?”
“Rehearsing our lines, is all. Like a business dinner. Completely legitimate.”
“All right. Separate bills, then?”
He wasn’t keen on that idea, but he also didn’t want to send her any mixed messages, either. “I came over to tell you what I figured out from reading Austen, so—”
“You’re reading Jane Austen?”
“I am. You recommended her for my problem with women.”
“Yes, but the only men I know who have willingly read Jane Austen are those who signed up for my class. And other professors. Certainly no one who swings a hammer for a living.”
Mel liked the idea he had surprised her. “My point is, how about I pay for dinner and in return you let me tell you my theory about why men lose their pride?”
Daphne pivoted on her flip-flops back in the direction of his vehicle. “Indeed. I’m eager to get a layman’s perspective.”
A lay—Who? “It’s because they go around visiting all day instead of working. Take that Edward Ferrar fellow.”
“What about him?” Daphne said warningly, as if he were about to insult her best friend.
“I think he would’ve got around to Elinor sooner if he had told the aunt to take her money and stuff it.”
Daphne’s mouth dropped open. He’d surprised her again. The next few weeks were going to make for some really interesting conversation about couples, even though it would never apply to their situation...
* * *
WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS officially known as the Greene Family Game Night. It was held out on the farm where Mel’s brother, Seth, and his wife, Alexi, lived with The Four Kids, the name Mel and Connie had given to Alexi’s adopted children. Every Greene and those connected to a Greene were expected to come.
They’d normally be outside, but a crackling good thunderstorm had them penned inside tonight.
The Twister mat was laid out in the middle of the living room, and Mel was bent awkwardly with his right foot on a green circle and his left hand on a blue one. He wasn’t built for this anymore. Daphne, on the other hand, would slot in nicely under him.
“Auntie Connie. Your turn,” Matt said and gave the spinner a whirl. “Left hand, red circle. Right foot, yellow circle.”
Connie edged and expanded her long limbs across the mat. “You haven’t forgotten about your Santa fitting tomorrow, have you, Mel?”
She’d talked him into playing the part of Santa Claus for her Christmas-in-the-Summer event next month. She’d also convinced Linda to be Mrs. Claus.
“Uh,” he said to Connie’s shoulder, “I haven’t. Have you... Have you talked to Linda?”
“She came by weeks ago for her fitting. We’re good.”
“Whose turn is it now?” Matt said.
