Chapter Twenty-Three

Melody didn’t think freedom could feel like such a heavy weight on her chest. The farther she got from San Francisco, the heavier it settled in her heart. She’d made the right decision for all of them, she was sure of it, yet it had hurt.

That morning seemed like an age ago as she unfastened her seatbelt, trying to ignore how the powering down of the airplane’s engines reminded her of moments that had led her to this point. A tiny part of her desperately wanted to get back on a plane and return to them, to tell them she had been wrong, but her sense of self-preservation was too strong.

Making love to Garen had made the truth all too clear to her. It had taken his final release for her to realize there was no escaping her love for the both of them. And when he’d done the same as Skye and ran from what she could only assume was a fear of her love—they could read her emotions, couldn’t they? She decided it would be better to give them no excuse to avoid each other any longer.

Love was far too potent an emotion—it clouded her ability to understand herself and what she really wanted out of life. She’d never had doubts until those infernal feelings started cropping up, even the first night she’d been with Skye, and probably even earlier with Garen.

She needed to pee, but avoided the plane’s lavatory for fear of the reminder it would give her of the first day she met him, after panicking over voiding the contract and talking to him through the barrier of the door.

The contract didn’t matter now. She’d missed out on a huge payday by not following through with it, but neither the money nor her trip mattered to her any longer. The only thing that mattered was figuring out what the hell to do next. Home made sense. Her mother was there. Old friends she’d lost touch with. The house she’d grown up in … As small as it was, her mother had worked hard to always make sure it felt like home for Melody, even though there had been no man there to help her with upkeep since Alec had left.

She hadn’t called her mother before leaving California, deciding she would surprise her instead. Melody had a credit card that wasn’t quite maxed out—she could still rent a car to drive from the tiny municipal airport out into the countryside where her mother’s house was nestled on a sunny hillside beside a burbling creek filled with trout.

The more she pictured ~home~ the less of a burden what she’d left behind became. She had something to spur her forward that wasn’t an endless seeking for something she wasn’t even sure she’d find once she reached the end.

So instead of getting back to the beginning by traveling around the world, she had turned around before even taking that leap.

The pull back to San Francisco still hadn’t subsided when she exited the airport with her bag into the muggy southern heat, but in spite of the cloying moisture in the air, she at least felt like she could breathe a little easier.

Going home wasn’t as hard as she expected it would be, in spite of her disappointment in herself for not seeing her journey through. When she’d left, she’d vowed to herself that she wouldn’t come back until she knew what she really wanted out of life. She still remembered the sadness in her mother’s eyes and had added the silent promise that whatever it was she found, the next time she came home, she would have something amazing to share with the woman who had given her everything.

Driving those familiar rural roads was like traveling into a fantasy land. Nothing had changed in the few years since she’d left, like everything had been held in a kind of magical stasis, hibernating and simply waiting for her to return.

It had been late summer then, too, and she’d taken for granted the wooded hills and farmhouses as she passed by in her need to escape. They represented the prison her mother had locked herself in for Melody’s sake. Even though her mother refused to leave—had said she loved it there—Melody saw her own escape as a kind of liberation for her mother as well. If only because she hoped her mother would find some vicarious freedom from Melody’s journey.

Nothing about it felt like a prison now, though. It was simply home—the same twists and curves in the road were still there, the same vine-covered stop sign by the Wheeler farm, and the same ridiculous little dog standing in the middle of the yard, barking its shrill warning at the passing cars.

The turnoff by her mother’s road was no different, except the stand of six mailboxes had been freshly painted, one with vibrant rainbow stripes reminding Melody of her mother’s comment that she had new neighbors. “~Lesbians bought the Merritt house~,” her mother had said. ~“I brought them a pie and they cleaned out my gutters.”~

A bright orange swath of daylilies provided a nest of sorts for the line of painted mailboxes, and the grass along the road had been freshly mowed, the ripe green smell filling her nostrils.

The Merritt house itself was more perfect than she remembered it, lending to the fairy tale impression that refused to leave her. Even the lanky woman on the riding mower, waving as she drove past, couldn’t break the feeling. When she was growing up, it had changed hands so many times she’d lost count, but had always carried the name of the original owners though they had long since sold it and retired to Phoenix.

When she slowed to take the steep, gravel turn and her mother’s small house came into sight, the impression of wandering into a magical world was even stronger. The sun was setting behind the house, all the windows lit and glowing, sunflowers in bloom along the edge of the garden, and her mother’s hydrangeas bright blue and white pom-poms along the fence. Her mother’s summer flowers were still in full bloom and a breeze blew through, sending the wind chimes tinkling and the wind socks fluttering and twirling.

There were two cars parked in front. Her mother’s familiar old SUV was no surprise, but the sleek, shiny Range Rover made Melody wonder if maybe she should have called first, after all. She hadn’t spoken to her mother for about a month, which was unusual for her, but she’d been too distracted by the incident with Kol and then the following resolution, then caught up in the entire whirlwind of the contract.

Of course her mother’s life had gone on. She taught English at the local high school and had a nursery business that took up every second of her spare time. She spent her evenings fending off dates with various local men, none of whom Melody considered worthy in any sense. The last man she remembered her mother spending any significant time with was Alec, and he’d been gone for over twenty years. Did she have a new boyfriend?

Oh, God, could Melody handle it if she did? She’d come home to try to regroup, and the solitude of her mother’s house was crucial to that. If there was a strange man there, she had no idea how she would cope.

Her mood darkened as she parked and grabbed her things from the trunk of the rental. She’d have to deal with it somehow if that were the case. Perhaps she was overthinking it, because while she wanted the comfortable familiarity of simply being home with just herself and her mother bumping quietly around the house. She did hope for her mother to find someone, and someone who drove a car like that might actually be close to good enough. Of course, it might just be a friend visiting for dinner.

Before Melody could make it up the walkway to the porch steps, her mother’s curvy, golden-haired shape pushed through the screen door, her hair a halo backlit from the lights within.

“Melody! Is that really you?” she called out, her face lighting up with a smile.

“Yeah, Mama. I’m home.”

A second later, a larger shape darkened the door—a man with wide shoulders, tall enough that his curly, dark blond hair brushed the lintel. His familiar smile shocked her to her core. Even more shocking was the sudden understanding that she ~knew what he was~. It had never been so clear to her until now~.~