Her father glanced through the trees to the snow-laden mountains in the distance. Absently he rubbed his chest. “I guess I can’t really blame him on that one.”
“But, when he gets back from Colorado . . .” she protested as the wind tossed her hair in front of her face.
“He won’t be coming back. He’s gonna make the Olympic team.” Her father’s gaze returned to hers. The sadness in his eyes was so profound it cut to her soul. “Sweet Mary, you’re just a child.”
“I’m—”
“Seventeen, for God’s sake!” His breath whistled through his teeth.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Life hasn’t begun at seventeen.” He reached into the pocket of his work shirt for his cigarettes, then swore when he discovered the pack was missing. He’d quit smoking nearly three years before.
Walking on numb legs, Melanie crossed the yard and propped her elbows on the top rail of the fence. Through the pines she could see the spiny ridge of the Cascade Mountains. The highest peak, Mount Prosperity, loomed over the valley.
Her father’s throat worked as he followed her. He touched her gently on the shoulder. “Doc Thompson at the clinic, he can—”
“No!” she cried, pounding her fist against the weathered top rail. “I’m having this baby!” She turned, appalled that he would suggest anything so vile. “This is my child,” she said, tossing her black hair from her eyes. “My child and Gavin’s, and I’m going to keep him and raise him and love him!”
“And where does Gavin figure into all this? Does he know?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I just found out this afternoon.”
Adam Walker looked suddenly tired. He said softly, “He may not want it, you know.”
“He does!” Her fists clenched so hard that her hands ached.
“He might consider a wife and baby extra baggage.”
She’d thought of that, of course. And it worried her. Gavin, if his dreams were realized and he made the Olympic team, might not be back for months. Unless he felt duty bound to give up everything he’d worked for and return to support a teenage wife and child. Nervously, she chewed on the inside of her lip.
“What do you think he’ll do when he finds out?”
“Come back here,” she said weakly.
“And give up skiing?”
Though she felt like crying, she nodded.
He sighed loudly. “And that’s what you want?”
“No. Yes! Oh, Dad, yes!” She threw up her hands. How could anything so wonderful as Gavin’s child make life so complicated? She loved Gavin, he loved her, and they would have a baby. It was simple, wasn’t it? Deep in her heart, she knew she was wrong, but she didn’t want to face the truth.
“You want the man you love to give up a huge part of his life, something his world revolves around?” her father asked, bringing to light some of Melanie’s immaturity.
She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. “I’ll see you through this, Melanie. You just tell me what you want.”
Melanie smiled, though her eyes burned with tears. “I want Gavin,” she said.
Her father’s hand stiffened, and when she glanced up at him, she saw that his face had turned ashen. He measured his words carefully. “You didn’t plan this, did you?”
“Plan what?” she asked before she realized the turn of his thoughts. She felt the color drain from her face. “No!”
“Some women work out these things ahead of time—”
“No!” She shook her head. “The baby was an accident. A glorious, wonderful accident!
“Good.” He pressed his lips together. “’Cause no man wants to feel trapped.”
“I—I know,” she whispered.
He touched her chin with a gloved finger, and his expression became tender. “You’ve got a lot going for you. Finish high school and go to college. Become a photographer like you wanted—or anything else. You can do it. With or without Gavin.”
“Can I?” she asked.
“’Course you can. And Gavin’s not the only fish in the sea, you know. Neil Brooks is still interested.”
Melanie was horrified. “Dad, I’m pregnant! This is for real!”
“Some men don’t mind raising another man’s child and some men don’t even know they’ve done it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, but a sick feeling grew inside her as she grasped his meaning.
“Only that you’re not out of options.”
She thought about Neil Brooks, a boy her father approved of. At twenty-two, he was already through college and working full-time in his father’s lumber brokerage. Neil Brooks came from the right side of the tracks. Gavin Doel didn’t.
“I’m not going to lie to Neil,” she said.
“Of course you’re not,” her father agreed, but his eyes narrowed just a fraction. “Go on now, you go into the house and change. I’ll take you into town and we’ll celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes to the cloud-covered heavens. “I suppose the fact that I’m going to be a grandfather, though I’ll have you know I’m much too young.” He was trying to cheer her up—she knew that—but she still saw pain flicker in his eyes. She’d wounded him more than he’d ever admit.
Gritting his teeth and flexing his muscles, he walked back to the ancient pine and wiggled the axe blade free, leaving a fresh, ugly gash in the rough bark.
He headed for the barn with Sassafras on his heels again. But he was no longer whistling.
Melanie shoved her hands into her pockets and trudged into the old log house that had been in her family for three generations. Inside, the kitchen was warm and cheery, a fire burning in the wood stove. She rubbed her hands near the stovetop, but deep inside she was cold—as cold as the winter wind that ripped through the valley.
She knew what she had to do, of course. Her father was right. And, in her heart, she’d come to the same agonizing conclusion. She couldn’t burden Gavin with a wife and child—not now. Not ever, a voice inside her head nagged.
Climbing the stairs to her room, she decided that she would never stand between Gavin and his dream. He’d found a way to unshackle himself from a life of poverty and the ridicule of being the town drunk’s son. And she wouldn’t stop him. She couldn’t. She loved him too much.
On his way to Olympic stardom as a downhill skier, Gavin couldn’t be tied down to a wife and child. Though he might gladly give up skiing to support her and the baby, one day he would resent them both. Unconsciously, Melanie rubbed her flat abdomen with her free hand. She smiled sadly. If nothing else, she’d have a special part of Gavin forever.
Her pine-paneled room was filled with pictures of Gavin—snapshots she’d taken whenever they were together. Slowly, looking lovingly at each photograph of his laughing gold-colored eyes, strong jaw and wind-tossed blond hair, she removed every memento that reminded her of Gavin.
She closed her eyes and, once again, remembered the last time she’d seen him. His tanned skin had been smooth and supple beneath her fingers. His pervasive male scent had mingled with the fragrance of hay in the loft.
“Wait for me,” he’d whispered. He had cupped her face in his hands, pressed warm kisses to her eyelids, touched a part of her no other man would ever find.
She remembered, too, how he had traced the slope of her jaw with one long finger, then pressed hard, urgent lips to hers. “Say you’ll wait for me.”
“You know I will,” she’d vowed, her fingers tangling in his thick blond hair, her cheeks, wet from tears, pressed to his.
His smile had slashed white in the darkened hayloft. “I’ll always love you, Melanie,” he’d sworn as he’d kissed her and settled his hard, sensual body over hers.
And I’ll love you, she thought now, as she found a pen and paper and began the letter that would set him free.
CHAPTER ONE
Taylor’s Crossing, Oregon
Eight Years Later
&
nbsp; Flags snapped in the breeze. Barkers chanted from their booths. An old merry-go-round resplendent with glistening painted stallions pumped blue diesel smoke and music into the clear mountain air. Children laughed and scampered through the trampled dry grass of Broadacres Fairgrounds.
Long hair flying behind her, Melanie hurried between the hastily assembled tents to the rodeo grounds of the annual fair. She ducked between paddocks until she spied her Uncle Bart, who was holding tight to a lead rope. On the other end was the apple of his eye and the pride of this year’s fair—a feisty Appaloosa colt appropriately named Big Money.
Whip thin and pushing sixty, Bart strained to keep the lead rope taut. His skin had become leathery with age, his hair snow-white, but Melanie remembered him as a younger man, before her father’s death, when Bart had been Adam Walker’s best friend as well as his older brother.
“Thought you might have forgotten us,” Bart muttered out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes were trained on the obstinate colt.
“Me?” She looked up and offered him a smile. “Forget you? Nah!” Opening her camera bag, she pulled out her Canon EOS and removed the lens cap. “I just got caught up taking pictures of the fortune teller and weight lifter.” Her eyes twinkling, she glanced up at Bart and wrinkled her nose. “If you ask me, Mr. Muscle hasn’t got a thing on you.”
“That’s what all the ladies say,” he teased back.
“I bet. So this is your star?” She motioned to the fidgeting Appaloosa.
“In the flesh.”
Melanie concentrated as she gazed through the lens of her camera. Okay, she thought, focusing on the horse, don’t move. But the prizewinning colt, a mean-spirited creature who knew he was the crowning glory of the fair, tossed his head and snorted menacingly.
Melanie smothered a grin. She snapped off three quick shots as the horse reared suddenly, tearing the lead rope from Bart’s grip.
“You blasted hellion,” Bart muttered.
Melanie clicked off several more pictures of the colt prancing, nostrils flared, gray coat catching the late afternoon sunlight.
“You devil,” Bart muttered, advancing on the wild-eyed Big Money, who, snorting, wheeled and bolted to the far side of the paddock. “You know you’re something’, don’t ya?”
The horse pawed the dry ground, and his white-speckled rump shifted as Bart advanced. “Now, calm down. Melanie here just wants to take a few pictures for the Tribune.”
“It’s all right,” Melanie called. “I’ve got all I need.”
“You sure?” He grabbed the lead rope and pulled hard. The colt, eyes blazing mischievously, followed reluctantly behind.
“Mmm-hmm. In next week’s edition. This is the twenty-second annual fair. It’s big news at the Trib,” Melanie teased.
“And here I thought all the news was the reopening of Ridge Lodge,” Bart observed. “And Gavin Doel’s broken leg.”
Melanie stiffened. “Not all the news,” she replied quickly. She didn’t want to think about Gavin, nor the fact that a skiing accident may have ended his career prematurely, bringing about his return to Taylor’s Crossing.
Uncle Bart wound the rope around the top rail of the fence and slipped through the gate after Melanie. “You been up to the lodge lately?”
Melanie slid him a glance and hid the fact that her lips tightened a little. “It’s still closed.”
“But not for long.” Bart reached into his breast pocket for his pack of cigarettes. “I figured since you were with the paper and all, you’d have some inside information.”
“Nothing official,” she said, somehow managing to keep her composure. “But the rumors are flying.”
“They always are,” Bart agreed, shaking out a cigarette. Big Money pulled on the rope. “And, from what I hear, Doel thinks he can pull it off—turn the ski resort into a profit-making operation.”
Melanie’s heart skipped a beat. “That’s the latest,” she agreed.
“Gavin tell you that himself?” he asked, lighting up and blowing out a thin stream of smoke.
“I haven’t seen Gavin in years.”
“Maybe it’s time you did.”
“I don’t think so,” Melanie replied, replacing the lens cap and fitting the camera back into its case.
Bart reached forward and touched her arm. “You know, Mellie, when your dad died, all the bad blood between Gavin’s family and ours dried up. Maybe it’s time you buried the past.”
Oh, I’ve done that, she thought sadly, but said, “Meaning?”
“Go see Gavin,” he suggested.
“Why?”
“You and he were close once. I remember seeing you up at the lodge together.” He slanted her a sly glance. “Some fires are tough to put out.”
Amen! “I’m a grown woman, Bart. I’m twenty-five and have a B.A., work for the Trib and even moonlight on the side. What would be the point?”
He studied her through the curling smoke of his cigarette. “You could square things up with Jim Doel. Whether your dad ever believed it or not, Jim paid his dues.”
Melanie didn’t want to think about Jim Doel or the fact that the man had suffered, just as she had, for that horrid night so long ago. Though she’d been only seven at the time, she remembered that night as vividly as any in her life—the night Jim Doel had lost control of his car, the night she’d lost her mother forever.
“As for Gavin,” Uncle Bart went on, “he’s back and unmarried. Seeing him again might do you a world of good.”
Melanie shot him a suspicious glance. “A world of good?” she repeated. “I didn’t know I was hurting so bad.”
Bart chuckled.
“Believe it or not, I’ve got everything I want.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What about a husband and a house full of kids?”
She felt the color drain from her face. Somehow, she managed a thin smile. She still couldn’t think about children without an incredible pain. “I had a husband.”
“Not the right one.”
“Could be that they’re all the same.”
“Don’t tell your Aunt Lila that.”
“Okay, so you’re different.”
Bart scratched his head. “Everyone is, and you’re too smart not to know it. Comparing Neil Brooks to Gavin Doel is like matching up a mule to a thoroughbred.”
Despite the constriction in her throat Melanie had to laugh. “Don’t tell Neil,” she warned.
“I don’t even talk to the man—not even when he shows up here. Thank God, it’s not too often. But it’s a shame you didn’t have a passel of kids.”
Her insides were shaking by now. “It didn’t work out,” she said, refusing to admit that she and Neil could never have children, though they’d tried—at least at first. She and Neil had remained childless, and maybe, considering how things had turned out, it had been for the best. But still she grieved for the one child she’d conceived and lost.
Clearing her throat, she caught her uncle staring at her. “I—I guess it’s a good thing we never had any children. Especially since the marriage didn’t work.” The lie still hurt. She would have loved children—especially Gavin’s child.
Uncle Bart scowled. “Brooks is and always was a number-one bastard.”
Melanie didn’t want to dwell on her ex-husband, nor the reasons she’d married him.
“But Gavin,” Bart continued, “he was never as good on paper, but no one can deny his passion.”
With that, Melanie felt that the conversation was heading back in the wrong direction. With a sigh, she said, “Look, Bart, I really can make my own decisions.”
“If you say so.” He didn’t seem the least bit convinced.
She said, “Not many people in town know or remember that Gavin and I had ever dated. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Don’t see why—”
She touched his arm. “Please.”
Deep furrows lined his brow as he dropped his cigarette and ground
it out under the heel of his scruffy boot. “You know I can keep a secret when I have to.”
“Good,” she said, deciding to change the subject as quickly as possible. “Now, if you want to see Big Money’s picture in the Tribune next week, I’ve got to run. Give Lila my love.” With a wave she was off, trudging back through the dry grass, ignoring the noise and excitement of the carnival as she headed toward her battered old Volkswagen, determined not to think about Gavin Doel again for the rest of the day.
* * *
Unfortunately, Gavin was the hottest gossip the town of Taylor’s Crossing had experienced in years.
Back at the newspaper office, Melanie pulled up the pictures on her desktop and was and had just procured a fresh cup of coffee when Jan Freemont, a reporter for the paper, slammed the receiver of her phone down and announced, “I got it, folks—the interview of the year!”
Melanie cocked a brow in her direction. “Of the year?”
“Maybe of the decade! Barbara Walters, move over!”
Constance Rava, the society page editor, whose desk was near Melanie’s work area, looked up from her word processor. A small woman with short, curly black hair and brown eyes hidden by thick reading glasses, she studied Jan dubiously. “What’ve you got?”
“An interview with Gavin Doel!”
Melanie nearly choked on her coffee. She leaned her hips against her cluttered desk and hoped she didn’t look as apoplectic as she felt.
“Get out of here!” Constance exclaimed.
“That’s right!” Jan said, tossing her strawberry blond hair away from her face and grinning ear to ear. “He hasn’t granted an interview in years—and it’s going to happen tomorrow morning!”
Every face in the small room turned toward Jan’s desk.
“So he’s really here—in Oregon?” asked Guy Reardon, a curly-haired stringer and part-time movie critic for the paper.
“Yes indeedy.” Jan leaned back in her chair, basking in her yet-to-be-fulfilled glory.
“Why didn’t we know about it until now?”