Undeniable (A Country Roads Novel) (32 page)

T
he pain was incredible. It was like someone had drilled a hole into her shoulder. And she was cold, oh so unbelievably cold.

She’d been shot. At least she was pretty sure she’d been shot. She’d heard the gun go off and then someone had been screaming. Was it her scream? Was she screaming now? She thought she was. She felt like she was. Or was the screaming all in her head?

No. No, there was definitely something blaring. A loud piercing noise, and it wasn’t in her head. It was everywhere.

And she was flat on her back. When had she fallen? She didn’t remember going down. Just opening her eyes to a world of pain.

 “We’re at Rejuvenate,” a panicked voice said. “We walked in on Chad Sharp and Hoyt Reynolds breaking in; they shot Mel. They shot her.”

Okay, so she
had
been shot.

 “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” another panicked voice said. This voice was much closer. It was above her.

The room was dark; blurred images were moving around in a dim light but she couldn’t make them out.

Warmth was leaking out of her. She could feel it spreading out over her shoulder. There was pressure, pressure on her shoulder, pressure over the pain. Someone was trying to hold her together.

She closed her eyes. Maybe then the pain would go away. Maybe then she’d be okay.

 “Mel, look at me,” the panicked voice above her said.

She opened her eyes and tried to get past the pain. Tried to come back. Harper, it was Harper above her. She focused on Harper’s face. There was blood smeared on Harper’s cheek and she was crying.

The rest of the room slowly came into focus. The loud blaring was the alarm and Grace was on the phone, talking to someone.

“Mel, say something. Please,” Harper begged.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

“I know, I know,” Harper said, her voice shaking along with her hands.

“Jax is here,” Grace cried out, shooting across the room.

More voices, and the floor underneath Mel shook as many someones walked across it. And then someone was kneeling on the other side of her. Mel looked up into the last face she’d expected to see.

Bennett.

He had piercing bluish gray eyes and they were intently focused on her.

“Mel, it’s going to be okay,” he said calmly as he put his hands over Harper’s trembling ones. “Understand? You’re going to be fine.”

“Okay,” she whispered as tears streamed from her eyes.

“I got it,” Bennett said, looking up at Harper.

Harper nodded and pulled her hands out from under his. And then Bennett was in Mel’s face, his calm, beautiful eyes staring straight into hers and his voice the only thing she could hear.

“Stay right here, Mel. I’ve got you. I promise.”

I
t had been eight weeks since Melanie O’Bryan had been shot, eight weeks since she’d gone to a spa after hours and walked in on a burglary in progress. She’d been with her two best friends, Harper Laurence and Grace King. It wasn’t like the three girls had done anything wrong; Harper was a massage therapist who worked at Rejuvenate and was able to go in and out of the spa as she pleased. They’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mirabelle, Florida, was a small beach town. Its six hundred square miles boasted a population of about five thousand. Even though there were very few saints in that five thousand, the burglary spree that had hit the town was not the norm. Chad Sharp and Hoyt Reynolds had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from over a dozen businesses and houses.

No one had known who was behind the burglaries until Mel, Harper, and Grace had walked in on the one at Rejuvenate. Chad and Hoyt had gotten away that night, but their greed caught up with them, and so had the law. Now the two thieves were sitting behind bars, awaiting trial. They were pretty much guaranteed life in prison.

It had been Chad that shot Mel in the shoulder. The bullet hadn’t hit anything vital, but it landed her in physical therapy for the past six weeks. She’d actually just finished her last session the day before. Her shoulder was still sore for the most part, but little by little she was getting back to a full range of motion.

Things were slowly returning to normal for Mel. It was the middle of August and school was starting on Monday. Mel and the other teachers had just a spent a week planning, and she couldn’t wait for her students to be back in the classroom.

It was just after four on Friday when Mel pulled up in front of her little two-bedroom house. It had belonged to her grandparents and when both of them died, the house had passed down to her. Otherwise Mel wouldn’t be a homeowner because her salary as a math teacher at Mirabelle High School didn’t bring in the big bucks. She’d always loved the little buttercream yellow cottage with its robin-egg blue shutters and doors, and the front porch swing where she spent hours.

Mel grabbed her purse and groceries from the trunk of her black Jetta. She had just enough time to put everything away, jump in the shower, and get ready for tonight before Grace and Harper came over. There was a crawfish boil over at Slim Willies and they were going to head over together. But only after they spent a little while catching up on each other’s lives. They’d all been so busy lately that they hadn’t really gotten to see each other.

Mel had been best friends with Grace since birth. Well, since two months after Mel’s birth, as that was how long it took Grace to join the world. Their mothers had been best friends as well, so Mel and Grace had no choice and really they wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. They’d been pretty inseparable over the years, and when Harper moved to Mirabelle in the sixth grade, they eagerly accepted her into the fold. Mel was lucky to have Grace and Harper in her life, and she thanked God for them on a regular basis.

Harper was a massage therapist, and she’d been booked solid all summer with clients. Mirabelle had a fancy little resort out on the beach called LaBelle. They tended to draw in clientele with a pretty thick pocketbook. Harper also worked at Rejuvenate, the spa in downtown Mirabelle where Mel had been shot. Between the two places, Harper barely had enough time to think, let alone go get dinner.

Grace had been busy planning her wedding to her fiancé, Deputy Jaxson Anderson, and really it was about damn time. The girl had been in love with her stubborn redhead since she was six years old and they’d only just gotten together last April. It had taken Jax a while to figure out he was in love with Grace. The boy had always been ridiculously protective of her, but in his stupid boy mind he’d thought that he wasn’t good enough for her. He’d finally gotten a clue.

These days if Jax had a spare moment it was spent with Grace. His protective instincts had intensified a hundredfold. Grace had had her own run-in with Chad Sharp and Hoyt Reynolds. When the two thieves tried to rob the funeral home, they’d taken Grace hostage and Jax had a real wake-up call when he had to watch Chad hold a gun to her head.

A chill ran down Mel’s spine. She’d never been terrified of guns before, but now the thought of them made her just a little light-headed and she tended to break out in a sweat. Not to mention the very thought of Chad had her stomach in knots.

Mel fumbled with her keys at the door. She took a deep breath and got past the sudden fear that had gone through her. Chad was in jail, and he couldn’t hurt her.

She opened the door and when she walked into her house, the air conditioner was a welcome relief to the humidity that was Florida in the summer. She locked the door behind her and made her way down the hall, dropping her purse on the dining room table and going into the kitchen. She put her bags on the counter and headed for the cupboard to grab a glass. She filled it with ice water and downed half of it before she pressed the cold glass to her forehead.

Really there was no point in taking a shower to wash off all of the stickiness from the day. As soon as she walked outside again, the heat was just going to coat her skin and frizz up her hair. Mel had long, honey-blond corkscrew curls that were a royal pain in the ass to maintain.

But Bennett Hart was going to be at Slim Willies, and even if it was just for five minutes, Mel wanted to look halfway decent.

She might’ve had a small crush on the guy. Small being that whenever he was around she went all warm and gooey and felt like a freaking sixteen-year-old again.

But really how could she not? He was gorgeous, all six feet and however many inches of him. And he had muscles everywhere. Toned arms and legs and abs of wonder. And don’t even get her started on his eyes. They were some sort of icy gray blue that sucked her in. He had dark blond hair that he kept cut close to his skull. He hadn’t let it grow out after he got out of the military.

But he had gotten a little more lax with the shaving of his face. Mel had always been a sucker for a scruffy man, and Bennett had perpetual five o’clock shadow on his square jaw.

Not to mention he was there the night Mel had been shot. But she’d liked him long before that fateful night at the spa. Him saving her life hadn’t started those feelings.

When the 911 call had gone through to dispatch, the closest deputy to the scene was ten minutes away, so the deputy called Jax. Jax had been hanging out with Bennett that night and both of them rushed over to Rejuvenate. At the time, Jax and Grace had been broken up and Jax had no idea what had happened, just that someone had been shot and that Grace was at the spa. When the two men got there Mel was lying on the ground, Harper kneeling over her, holding a bloody scarf to the bullet wound.

Mel had never been more terrified in her entire life. The pain had been unbelievable and she’d been on the brink of passing out when Bennett showed up. He’d been so calm and talked Mel past the panic. His voice had been the only thing that had grounded her.

But it was just a crush.
Only
a crush. He didn’t like her back. Well, not as anything more than a friend, so it really wasn’t anything.

Then why was she going to spend an hour fixing her hair before she saw him?

Mel put all of her groceries away before she went into the bathroom and promptly stripped down. She hesitated in front of the mirror as she walked to the shower, her amber eyes dipping down to the scars on her right shoulder. There was one the size of a dime where the bullet had gone in, and then three around it about the size of pencil erasers. The three other scars were from the surgery needed to fix her injury.

She reached up and touched the bullet wound, her fingers tracing around the small pucker on her skin. Even if her arm healed completely, the scar would always be there. Would always be there to remind her of that awful night.

Mel dropped her hand and got in the shower. The hot water poured over her and as she stretched her arms up to wash her hair, the tight pain in her right arm made her wince. It might still hurt but it was loads better than it had been.

When she got out of the shower she grabbed her blow dryer. She stood in the bathroom wrapped in her towel, methodically drying her hair and doing her best to shape the curls to a manageable style.

She put a light coat of makeup on and when she finished she went into her bedroom. Mel stood in front of her opened closet, staring at her clothes and trying to figure out what she was going to wear. The winning combination was a flowing, knee-length, green, cotton skirt and a white V-neck shirt.

Mel went into her kitchen to uncork a bottle of wine. If the girls were going to talk, they were going to be drinking as well. That was just how it was.

She grabbed three glasses from the cabinet, the corkscrew from the drawer, and the wine from the fridge. The kitchen had a view of the front yard, and as Mel finished pouring the wine she saw Harper’s car pull up. Grace got out of the passenger side, and the two girls made their way up the front porch.

There’d never really been a chance for the three friends to share clothes growing up or now for that matter. Grace came in at a whopping five-feet-four. She had light blond hair and a heart-shaped face that framed her blue eyes and pouty lips. She was fairly tiny with her A-cup bust and slim waist, though she did have a fairly round butt that she was proud of and that Jax was pretty fond of. She was wearing tight jeans that accentuated said rear and a cute little hot pink tank top that only she could pull off. Said tank top would’ve looked more than somewhat scandalous on Mel and just downright indecent on Harper.

Harper had been a little overweight when she first came to Mirabelle, and most of the boys in school weren’t very nice about it. But it had only taken her a few years to grow into her body. Now, she was all curves. Men had absolutely nothing negative to say about how her D-cup breasts filled out a shirt, or anything for that matter. She was currently wearing a formfitting light blue dress that made her violet eyes pop and looked incredible with her long black hair. Yeah, Harper didn’t have any issues catching a man’s eyes these days. Problem was, no one was catching her eye.

Mel was at least the same height as Harper, both of them being five-feet-seven, but that was where all the similarities stopped. Where Grace had most of her curves below the waist, Mel’s were above. She had a decent C-cup, no real butt to speak of, and thin legs. But at least she had good thighs and calves, so she didn’t have a lot of complaints.

Mel put the bottle of wine on the counter and went to open the front door.

“Oh, no,” Harper said as soon as she saw Mel. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You get your skinny ass in that room of yours and change,” she said as she and Grace came into the house.

“What’s wrong with this?” Mel asked, looking down at herself.

“It’s flirty. You don’t want flirty. You want
sexy
,” Harper said, grabbing Mel’s hand and pulling her down the hallway.

“Yeah, you need to show off those legs of yours,” Grace said as she shut the door and followed them.

“That’s what’s going to help you in your man-catching endeavors.”

“What man-catching endeavors?” Mel asked, coming to a sudden stop.

“Bennett,” Grace coughed.

“Excuse me?” Mel asked, rounding on Grace.

“Oh, don’t even deny it,” Harper said as she now began dragging Mel into her bedroom. “You
soo
want to have that man’s babies.”

“Oh. My. Gosh. It isn’t anything,” Mel said a little bit too loud.

“Whatever you say. Now take off that skirt,” Harper said, letting go of Mel’s hand and looking at her.

“You’re being ridiculous.” Mel shook her head. “My skirt is fine.”

“You don’t want fine, you want
fine
.” Except Harper pronounced it
fwine.
“And you wouldn’t be this resistant if Bennett were asking you to take off your skirt.”

Yeah, if Bennett were asking her to take off her skirt, she’d be completely naked in three seconds flat.

“Strip. Now.” Harper said to Mel.

“I’m going to go get something for us to drink,” Grace said, leaving the room.

“The wine’s already poured and on the counter,” Mel called out after Grace as she pushed her skirt down her thighs.

“Pretty pink panties?” Harper asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Just find me something to wear so you’ll shut up.”

Harper turned to Mel’s closet and started looking through her wardrobe.

“No, no, no,” Harper said as she pushed hanger after hanger aside.

“Wow, those are nice. Were you planning on someone seeing those tonight?” Grace asked, coming into the room with all three glasses of wine. She handed one to Mel and smirked as she looked at Mel’s undies.

“Are the two of you quite finished?” Mel asked before taking a sip of her wine.

“We’re never finished,” Grace said as she handed Harper a glass of wine and then sat down on the bed.

“I see that teddy bear he got you is still on your bed,” Harper said, turning to them and taking a drink of wine.

Okay, so Bennett might’ve brought Mel said bear when she was in the hospital. And it was possible that she’d slept with it every night since. It was just because it was soft and cuddly and…

Yeah, she was pathetic.

 “Look, it’s just a silly crush so let’s not make anything of it, okay. We’re just friends. Nothing’s going to happen and I’ll get over it.”

“Uh-huh,” Harper said, raising an eyebrow. “Just friends,” she said slowly.

“He doesn’t have feelings for me beyond that,” Mel said.

“How do you know? Have you asked him?” Grace asked.

“No, and I’m not going to. And neither are the two of you,” Mel said, staring at her two friends pointedly.

“Who?” Harper asked, trying to look like she was mildly offended.

“Us?” Grace asked innocently.

“We would never.” Harper turned back to the closet and resumed her hunt.

Yeah, Mel didn’t believe that for a second.