The Keeping (18 page)

Ryne’s rich
chuckle ran over her like a warm breeze and his countenance
suddenly seemed less imposing. Mel felt the tension easing in her
shoulders and she smiled as she looked at the man seated across
from her. Here was the man that Beth and Ruth had been talking
about—the sexy, charming heartthrob that had put the female
population of Stump River into a stir. His eyes were twinkling and
his grin showed off white teeth, which contrasted wonderfully with
the stubbly shadow that was appearing on his lower face. It was
enough to melt the coldest of hearts; Mel felt hers give an extra
thump and suddenly her mouth seemed dry.

Thankfully, Lucy
returned with cutlery and glasses of water. As the waitress took
their orders, Mel had a chance to compose herself. Ryne might be
hot, but he also seemed arrogant and she had no intention of
feeding his already inflated ego. Having managed to get herself
under control, and with the ice broken between them, they settled
down to some friendly banter as they watched TV and ate. Mel made
her pitch as to the benefits of an interview and Ryne asked
friendly questions about her life. By the time they had finished
eating, Mel decided that Ryne could be reasonably polite if he put
his mind to it. Maybe interviewing him wouldn’t be quite the ordeal
she’d imagined it would be.

When he excused
himself from the table, she watched him cross the room, her chin
propped in her hand. He really did have a nice tight rear, she
thought to herself.

“Mighty fine butt,
eh?” Lucy nudged Mel, shaking her out of her trance. The waitress
had come to clear the table and must have noticed the direction of
Mel’s gaze.

“What? Oh. Yeah.
Sorry.” Mel felt embarrassed, recalling that Lucy already had dibs
on the owner of the fine butt.

“Sorry for what?”
Lucy glanced her way while gathering their dirty dishes onto a
large tray and wiping down the table.

“Well, for...you
know.” Mel shrugged. “I mean you and Ryne...”

Lucy chuckled and
sat down in Ryne’s seat, propping her feet up on an empty chair
from the next table. “Listen, Mel, Ryne is a good looking man. If
you didn’t notice, I’d have to wonder about you.”

Mel relaxed, happy
that Lucy didn’t think she was trespassing. “Thanks for
understanding. Have you known him long?”

“Ever since he
moved here back in November.” She reached out and stole some
popcorn from the complimentary basket on the table. “I still
remember the day he and his two friends—Bryan and Daniel—walked in.
Everybody in the whole place just sort of froze and stared, women
and men alike. Ryne stood looking around the room—I swear he made
eye-contact with every person there—and then he just ordered three
beers, walked over here and sat down like he’d always lived here.
After a few minutes, everything returned to normal. It was sort of
weird, you know?” She shrugged and crunched more popcorn.

“I agree. That was
sort of strange, wasn’t it? I mean, I walked in here and no one
noticed.”

“Yeah, I don’t
know what it is about those guys, but they sort of command
attention, especially Ryne. Bryan too, but in a different sort of a
way. Daniel’s still young, but he gets his fair share of respect as
well.”

“Daniel? I haven’t
met him yet.”

“Oh he’s a real
sweetie. Kind of quiet, but really nice. He looks to be around
eighteen, I’d say. Works part time at the lumber yard, so does
Bryan, for that matter.”

“And Ryne? How old
is he?”

“That I do know!”
She winked knowingly. “We...er...celebrated together a few weeks
ago. He just turned twenty-seven. I’m not sure how old Bryan
is.”

“I met him the
other day outside Ryne’s place. He seemed friendly.”

“Oh, he is and he
has a good left hook on him, too.”

“Left hook?”

“Yep.” Lucy picked
up Ryne’s glass and took a sip. She glanced at Mel and winked.
“Ryne won’t mind sharing.”

Mel was anxious to
hear more about Bryan fighting—after all if she was going to be
interviewing Ryne, she’d be around his friends and if they were
violent, she’d like to know. “So, Bryan fights a lot?”

“No, not really.
It was just that one time, but it was mighty spectacular. They’d
been here about two weeks and it was a really busy night. A group
of bikers had stopped in and were hanging around the pool table,
giving all of us girls a hard time. One of them wouldn’t leave this
one girl, Annie, alone, so I went over there to try to help her,
but the guy just shoved me away and his friends grabbed me. I
called out for Armand, but suddenly Ryne and Bryan were there.
Bryan slugged him and sent him through the window—that’s why it’s
boarded up now.”

Mel was sure her
eyes were the size of saucers. The pool table was at least six feet
from the window. She could just imagine how hard Bryan must have
swung to move a man that distance. No, on second thought, Lucy was
probably exaggerating. Most likely the fellow was standing in front
of the window to begin with. Still, she was curious to hear about
the rest of the encounter and prodded for more details. “And what
about Ryne?”

“Well, somehow he
managed to take out the two who were holding me. It all happened so
fast, that no one could figure out what happened, exactly. One
minute the guys were grabbing at me and the next they were flat out
on the ground. And Ryne didn’t even have a scratch on him.” Lucy
shook her head, obviously still in wonder at the occurrence.
“Anyway, the other bikers were just sort of frozen, like they were
really scared. They just backed out of the room and drove off,
leaving their friends behind. Then Ryne and Bryan helped clean up
the mess, dragged the two that were on the floor outside and made
sure Annie and I were okay. Armand let us leave early. Bryan drove
Annie home, and Ryne walked me home...” Lucy grinned. “I gave him a
big thank you once we got to my place, if you know what I
mean.”

Mel did know what
she meant and again wondered why the idea bothered her. She wasn’t
a prude. People had sex; she knew that. It was just... She
struggled to explain it, but came up empty.

Chapter
13

Ryne stood in the
darkened hallway that led to the bar’s washrooms. He had a perfect
view of Melody or ‘Mel’ as she called herself. He snorted. It was a
ridiculous name for a female and she was definitely a female. The
way her jeans clung to her ass and her t-shirt stretched over her
breasts, left him in no doubt of the fact.

He’d planned on
being as rude and sarcastic as possible this evening, goading her
into getting mad and stomping out or at least rethinking wanting to
interview him. But then Lucy had come over and he’d heard the name
‘Mel’ and... Well... His great intentions had somehow been
sidetracked. She was proving to be pleasant company, and seemed
genuine in all that she said. There was no hint of deception about
her tonight. Maybe he’d been wrong this afternoon when he thought
she was hiding something—he hoped he was. Melody was sort of
growing on him. His wolf rumbled in agreement.

Right now, Lucy
was talking to her. He strained his ears, trying to make out what
they were saying over the blare of the TV and the laughter of the
crowd at the bar. Unfortunately, there was too much background
noise for that to be possible. Narrowing his eyes, he considered
his next move. He was still concerned about the possible
implications of her being in Stump River, but a voice inside his
head hinted that sending her away so quickly wasn’t in his best
interests. Getting to know your enemy was always a good strategy
and if she wasn’t here, who knew what she’d be up to? No, keeping
her in Stump River, where he could keep an eye on her, was a better
plan.

He’d managed to
find out a bit about her, interviewing her without her being aware.
She was working her way through school, her car was on its last
legs, she lived by herself, and her only relative was a mother in
Florida. There was nothing apparently threatening in what he’d
discovered so far, but he tucked the information in the back of his
mind for future examination.

Lucy was leaving
the table now. Ryne knew he’d have to return soon or Mel would
think he’d run out on her. Running out wasn’t what he planned on
doing. No, he was going to stick extremely close and find out what
she was really up to. He’d decided to grant her an interview—an
edited version of course. In that way he’d be nearby in case—he
didn’t want to think too deeply about that right now, but as Alpha
he needed to face reality and so forced himself to continue the
thought—in case something needed to be done. The idea of carrying
out the Keeping was no more palatable now, than it had been earlier
on.

Pushing off from
the wall, he sauntered across the room to where Mel was waiting and
sat down. “I see Lucy was keeping you company.”

“Uh-huh. She was
telling me all your dirty little secrets.”

Ryne stiffened in
his chair, suddenly wary. “Such as...?”

Mel looked at him
strangely. “Nothing bad—it’s just a figure of speech, you
know.”

Mentally kicking
himself, he relaxed and tried to cover his mistake. “Well, with
Lucy you never know.”

“Relax. She was
actually quite complimentary to you. Apparently, you and your
friend Bryan saved her and another girl from the clutches of some
big, bad bikers.”

Casually slouching
back in his chair, Ryne felt a wave of relief wash over him. Of
course, Lucy didn’t know any of his secrets; she wasn’t even aware
that he had secrets. It was just that this whole damned situation
had him on edge. He cast an easy smile at Mel, keeping his lids
lowered so she’d have no glimpse of his inner turmoil, and raised
his hand towards the bar. Armand nodded, catching his request for
more beer. Ryne was always amazed at how the man could catch the
smallest flick of a finger when it involved the ordering of liquid
refreshments, but could turn a completely blind eye to some of the
other, more dubious goings on that occurred at the
establishment.

“So,” Mel prodded.
“Are you going to tell me about the bikers?”

“There’s really
nothing to tell. They were a bunch of losers. We took care of them.
End of story.”

“Ah, you’re
modest.” She tilted her head and there was a mocking edge to her
voice.

“But of course.”
He smirked and picked up the beer that had silently arrived in
front of him.

Mel leaned back
and appeared to be studying him. Ryne remained calm under her
scrutiny, watching her, noting the expressions flitting across her
face. He could see that he puzzled her. She didn’t know what to
make of him. Staring at her pupils, he tuned into her breathing,
and inhaled her scent. Suppressing a smile, he acknowledged the
fact that she was attracted to him. Was she aware of the fact?
Possibly, on some level. What would she do, if he pushed the
limits? Weighing the benefits and consequences, he decided that if
the opportunity presented itself, he’d conduct a little test.

Finally, Mel
seemed to have come to a decision about him. “You know, Ryne. I
think you’re bipolar.”

“Oh really? And
how did you reach that stunning conclusion?”

“Well, first of
all you live behind this fortified gate in the middle of nowhere,
with a private phone number and, quite frankly, it was almost
impossible to verify your existence. So on one hand, you’re an
obsessive recluse.”

Ryne gave a half
shrug. She was partially correct.

“But then, when I
finally meet you, you have this nasty attitude, you’re rude, and
you keep goading me with your comments, so that makes you a sort of
a bad-ass character.”

“Would that be a
sexy
, bad-ass character?” He wiggled his eye-brows at her
and then leaned forward into her personal space, leering.

Mel pushed him
back, looking exasperated. “There! That’s what I mean—that kind of
thing.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “And then, you
can actually be nice at times. Like at dinner tonight, and when you
saved Lucy and, I suppose, you were even being nice when you drove
me back to the cabin the other day.”

“And don’t forget
that I didn’t press charges for trespassing. That was nice of me,
too.”

Mel just rolled
her eyes and ignored his comment. “So you can see what I mean.
You’re bipolar.”

“Actually ‘bi’
means two and you described three sides of me. Though, I don’t
think there is such a thing as tri-polar. Hmm... Maybe I have
multiple personalities.” He sipped his beer while attempting to
look thoughtful.

Throwing up her
hands in despair, Mel exhaled loudly. “Whatever. The point is,
you’re very confusing. It’s going to make interviewing you and
presenting an accurate portrayal very challenging.”

“And do you like
challenges?”

“Well...yes. If
things are going too easy, it gets boring.”

“Then I guess I
won’t bore you.”

She sat up
straight and looked at him happily. “So does that mean you’ll let
me interview you and write an article on your work?”

Ryne hesitated
before speaking, not wanting to appear too eager, which he wasn’t
anyway. It would be better if she thought she was wringing the
information out of him. “Probably. I’ll let you know for sure in a
few days.”

“Oh, that’s
great!” Mel beamed initially and then frowned. “A couple of days?
Exactly how many do you consider ‘a couple’ of days? Two?
Three?”

“Something like
that. Maybe more.” He bit back a smile as he watched her struggle
to maintain her composure. She wasn’t good at waiting, he decided.
Maybe it was time someone taught her the benefits of patience; he
was ready to volunteer to do the teaching. Eventually, she exhaled
slowly and nodded. Satisfied with himself for having the last word,
he drained his beer, checked his watch, and stood up. “I need to
get going. There’s a kitchen that’s waiting for me to start
renovating it in the morning.”