Melody Unchained (8 page)

Melody shuddered, but refused to step back. She wanted proof? Here it was. “I thought if you cared you would be mad at me,” she whispered.

“You watch too much TV.” His jaw trembled. “Can we just eat?”

Melody knelt at the table next to him. Jerry’s heavy, reassuring presence beside her anchored her. He had been there for her since the moment he’d walked into the interview room at the station. She should have known all along that he cared. Why else would he stay? It wasn’t for the great sex. He wanted her, but he wouldn’t act on it. “Why won’t you have sex with me?”

“What?” Jerry turned to her, scowling.

“Why won’t you have sex with me?”

“Melody.” He sounded tired, but as he looked at her a change came over his face. The hard planes of his face softened and he even smiled a little. “Don’t tell me you’re horny.”

“No, I just thought that you would want to make love to me. You’re attracted to me, but you won’t touch me.” She laid her hand on his thigh. Beneath her palm, his hard muscles tensed. “And I want you to touch me. I lay awake nights thinking about you touching me.”

“Melody.” His voice softened to a pained rasp.

“I did it before because I had to. I didn’t have a choice.” She slid her hand up his thigh. “I have a choice now and I chose you, but you won’t choose me.”

Jerry put his hand over hers. “I have chosen you, Melody, but I can’t do this again.”

“Do what?”

“Fall in love with a woman who needs me so much that she can’t function without me. I was with Amanda for eight years, seven married. For five of those years she was sick. Dog sick. She had good days and good stretches, but most of it was holding her hair while she threw up and carrying her from the bed to the couch so she could have a change of scenery. Even before she got sick, she didn’t have much ambition. Her idea of big plans was putting up the Christmas decorations, which were the same every year. She had a lot of blond moments and it made it hard for her to keep a job. She tried about everything, but eventually she’d screw up bad enough to get fired. I can’t do that again, Melody.”

“You don’t have to. I can be anything you want.”

He wrapped his fingers around hers, warm and certain. “You’re already everything I want. That’s the problem.”

“So you’re trying to tell me that you want me to need you, but not too much? How am I supposed to work that out? I can’t figure out how to cash a check without getting arrested.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t want to fit on her face. He was the one she wanted. The only one she’d ever wanted. Her husband had been chosen for her by her mother. All her masters had been chosen by fate. Except Jerry.

“I don’t know, Melody. We’ll figure it out or we won’t.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m not taking that answer.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m not.” Melody tangled her fingers though his hair as she straddled his lap. “I need you this one time and then if you still don’t know, you can go be indecisive all you want.”

“Melody.” He moaned.

She kissed his jaw and caught his earlobe between her teeth. He stiffened as she flicked her tongue across it. His body, though still, seethed under her touch. He struggled to resist, but she couldn’t let him. Tugging at his buttons, she opened his shirt. “Please, Jerry. Just this once.”

“This once.” He laid her back on the floor.

* * * *

That afternoon, Jerry woke in Billy Welsh’s bed, or rather on the mattress from Billy Welsh’s bed, which was on the floor because the bed had already been dismantled. Melody lay tangled around him, but awake. He could tell by her breathing. Pretty nice, really. Just lying in bed with her. Not a bad way to wake up at all.

Jerry feathered his fingers through Melody’s hair. “How did you end up with Billy?” He liked the weight of her on him. The way her skin stuck to his and the soft rush of her breath. He stroked her shoulder. It had been a long time since he’d held a woman this way, curled in sweet afterglow.

“The usual way. He said he found my lamp in a pawnshop and liked it so he bought it. He kept it beside the bed when we had a place to live, but sometimes he had me go back inside because he was going to be on tour and I couldn’t go with him.”

“So you could go in and out of the lamp whenever you wanted?”

“No, only when my master told me to.”

“And that didn’t count as a wish?”

Melody shook her head. Her hair tickled his flesh as it moved over his skin.

“What did count?”

“My master had to say
I wish for whatever
and believe it. Really believe it. I didn’t think Billy was going to be able to free me because he was a little out of it right there at the end.”

“And you only give three wishes.”

“Three wishes.”

“And you can’t bring back the dead or make anyone love you.”

“No, I can bring back the dead. Could have. I did a couple of times, but they are still rotting so it’s pretty gross and they’re not usually very happy about being back. Making somebody love you never worked out really well either.” Melody propped herself on her elbow and started tracing circles on his chest. “If one person doesn’t like another person and I changed something about them to fix that, it changed the person. They ended up not being the person the wisher originally loved. Honestly, most wishes didn’t turn out very good.”

A hole opened up under Jerry. Making one person love another person changed something about them. They ended up not being the person the wisher loved. Melody was trying to grant his wish. She was trying to change to be what he wanted. And when she did that, she was going to stop being the woman he loved. “Why?”

“Wish for talent and you end up the most talented person in the poor house. Wish for fame and you’re hounded. Wish for money and suddenly you have a lot of friends who aren’t friends. Wish for women and you end up with a bickering harem you can’t support. Wish for beauty and no one loves you for who you are. And then you’re out of wishes and you’re angry.”

“What did Billy do right?”

“For one thing, Billy made a good first wish.”

“What did he wish for first?”

“He just wanted to make a living at music.”

“So he rubbed your lamp and wished to make a living at music?”

“That’s a myth. I could be summoned just by making a wish. Most of the time my master’s first wish was for food.”

“Food?”

“Yeah. Boy, do I wish I had a turkey sandwich right now. I wish I could taste Mama’s lasagna one more time. I wish I had a cold beer. My masters were usually not happy with the results of their first wish. Billy just happened to say that he wished he could make a comfortable living at music not long after he bought my lamp.”

“What was his second wish?”

“He wished away his arthritis. I told him to wish for good health, but he didn’t listen. If he had, he’d still be alive.” She smiled at him. “But then I wouldn’t have you.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” And that might be better for both of them. “We should get moving. We have a lot of work to do today. What time is that collector coming to pick up the records?”

“Two o’clock.”

“We’ll be able to get everything over to your new place and then wait for him while we’re cleaning this place up.” He swatted her butt. “Let’s get moving.” Because the sooner they got moving, the sooner he’d stop thinking.

She stood up at the side of the bed and looked down at him, her expression serious. “Are you sure?”

He smiled, but didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure. Not at all.

* * * *

“’Night, Melody,” George, the owner, called from the door of the coffee shop. “Be careful on the way home.”

“I will.” Melody studied the sidewalk passing under her feet. The pretty summer evening didn’t make a dent even though all day, everyone had been commenting how beautiful it was outside. She’d known Jerry didn’t want her. That afternoon in bed, she’d known. The fact that he hadn’t been to the coffee shop in a week and hadn’t stopped by her apartment once either confirmed it. The few times he had called, he had sounded perfunctory. Making sure she was settling in and everything was okay. Okay. He said okay a lot.

He’d made his wish. He didn’t wish for her. Melody pursed her lips. It had never hurt before when they didn’t wish for her. This time it felt like a hole had been ripped in her chest. She’d been trying to fill the space, but nothing quite fit. A few of the librarians at the local branch were coming to recognize her when she stopped in. One of the customers at the coffee shop believed she was a jazz buff because of the stories she could tell, and she’d learned to phrase things so they didn’t sound weird. George had agreed to allow her to experiment with the coffee. There were a few customers for whom espresso wasn’t hot and bitter enough who asked her to make
cawa
for them. Two of the other baristas, Sue and Parker, had invited her out to lunch in a couple of days. Over time, she hoped it would be enough. She had plenty of experience waiting.

Her purse strap jerked. Automatically, she grabbed for it, stumbling forward when it kept going.

A skinny man with a hood pulled over his head had the other end. He yanked and she lost her footing. The pavement pounded into her knees and the material on her jeans gave way. She held onto the purse strap with both hands.

“It’s mine! Let go!” she shrieked.

“Hey! What’s going on?”

The other person let go of the strap. Melody fell forward, her elbows connecting with the cement before her cheek. She heard footsteps running away under the pain rattling through her head from the impact. Pain flared in her knees, elbows and cheek.

“Lady, are you okay?”

Melody squeezed her eyes shut. Okay. Jerry always asked if she was okay. But Jerry hadn’t wished for her. “I’m fine.”

“You’re one tough chick.” The man helping her to her feet beamed at her. He sort of looked like Jerry. Blue eyes, blond hair. A little more hair, a little softer around the jaw. “You need an ambulance? Want me to call the police?”

The police. Jerry would come and he would be disappointed that she couldn’t take care of herself. He might even be repulsed because she was such a hopeless case. “No, I don’t need the police.” Melody stood and inspected the knees of her jeans. They were a total loss. Huge holes in both knees that were now covered in blood. Her elbows were much worse. Even though she hadn’t been dragged by them, they hadn’t had the protection of denim.

“Lady, you really need to get that looked at.”

A dark-haired man jogged up to them and then bent over with his hands on his knees. “Got away.” He gasped. “Couldn’t catch him.”

Sirens screamed in the distance and a woman came out of her house carrying a dishcloth. “I called 911,” she said. “That man has been lurking around here for days. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I was sure he was up to no good. Here, wipe off your elbows.”

Melody had seen the tight-lipped blonde working in her yard a few times on her way to or from the coffee shop, but hadn’t been able to get more than a suspicious “hi” out of her before now. She patted the cloth on her elbows and wondered why it didn’t hurt. Everything was hazy and distant. “I’m all right. I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“You have to give a statement to the police,” the woman insisted.

Oh no, they had already called Jerry. He would be here soon and he would be so disappointed. “But I don’t want to.” Melody took a step back, but the sidewalk moved and she staggered.

The blond man caught her arm. “You should sit down or something.”

“I just want to go home and take a bath,” Melody muttered as the two men guided her to the curb. The world wavered.

“The paramedics are here. You might as well let them look at you,” the dark-haired man said, easing her down. The paramedic truck came around the corner and rolled to a stop in front of them. Another siren approached from the opposite direction.

“Hi there.” One of the paramedics knelt in front of her, flashing a penlight in her eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Some guy tried to grab my purse and I didn’t let go.” Melody frowned. Why hadn’t she let go? On television they always said it was safer to let go.

“You hit your head?” He turned her face to inspect her cheek. His hands were soft and warm. He had nice blue eyes too. He didn’t seem at all disappointed in her, and the confident way he tended to her made her feel safe.