Born in a Small Town (Patton's Daughters #4)

Born in a Small Town (Patton's Daughters #4) Page 29

The discussion—okay, argument—ranged freely after that, with Kevin occasionally refereeing. By the time he had to say, “Okay, let’s stop here,” he was pleased both with the fiery exchanges and the informed level of the entire discussion.

He’d made the decision from the beginning to encourage not only dispassionate analysis but also moral involvement in decision-making. Management of forests was no longer by the numbers. The issues were complex, and what was right or wrong was far from clear. He was getting these kids to think—and to see one another’s viewpoints.

Teaching was proving more satisfying than he’d expected. Lying in that hospital bed after getting shot at Mount Rainier National Park, Kevin had known it was time for a change. But in truth, he’d grabbed this opportunity more to give himself a chance to reflect than to become a career college professor. Being shut in a classroom day in and day out—the idea had been anathema to him once upon a time.

He didn’t have to decide yet what to do with the rest of his life—it was only October, he was committed to the college through May—but he was starting to think there were worse ways to make a living.

Whether or not he wanted to do it in Elk Springs…hell, he didn’t know. He didn’t even know if there was a permanent job here for him.

What he did know was that he should have told Melanie Parker some of this. He hadn’t said, “My teaching position is temporary.” He hadn’t admitted that he felt like an eighteen-year-old kid again, on the brink of a world full of possibilities but unsure which one to grab. No, not again—when he was eighteen, he’d known what he wanted to do with his life. He’d still be doing the same thing if he could have held on to the ideal: protecting the wilderness he loved, teaching others to do the same. But his disillusionment and frustration had been growing for years, coming to a head the day he’d ordered some drunken idiots to pack up the party they’d been holding in a fragile meadow, only to have one of them pull out a gun and shoot him.

He could still remember vividly the moment he fell, face smacking into a patch of late snow, the scent of rich earth and avalanche lilies in his nostrils. He’d heard the ensuing excited discussion, the thud of feet as they fled. He’d be dead if a mountain guide hadn’t heard the gunshot and come to investigate.

Kevin didn’t want to be cop. He didn’t want to share his wilderness with drunks or with lazy folks who didn’t bother to get out of their RVs or even with nice families who came to see nature’s wonders but didn’t respect them.

It was time to get into another line of business.

Okay, fine. But he should have admitted to some of his uncertainty about the future to Melanie. He’d been kissing her, when they had the chance, like a man who meant it. Not like one who was going to walk away as soon as he figured out his route.

She was adding to his confusion, because he was starting to think he didn’t want to leave her behind. He was making himself go slowly, be sure. It would be easy to get caught up in this new life, think he was ready to make it permanent and then wake up one morning and realize a small town and a wedding ring and a stepdaughter were hemming him in unbearably.

But dammit, he liked the kid, and he liked her mother even more. Melanie insisted she wasn’t ever leaving Elk Springs, but then, she’d been speaking as a single mother, not as a wife.

Whoa! he thought, locking the classroom door behind him. Let’s not get hasty here. Wife—that was a strong word.

Too strong.

But he did enjoy thinking about her: the tiny dimple beside her mouth, her low throaty chuckle, the tenderness in her eyes when she talked about her daughter. His body tightened when he just pictured her leggy walk, the swing of hips, the graceful line of her neck and the heavy silk of that hair. He wanted her fiercely, and would have had her by now if she’d been anything but what she was: a woman who was made for marriage and motherhood, not hot sex that was…well, not meaningless—he hoped he’d never had such a thing—but not a symbol of commitment, either.

Walking across the campus to his office, appreciating the bright fallen leaves and the crisp autumn air, he figured life was good. Unsettled, maybe, but how many men his age could see so many possibilities waiting to be grabbed?

Maybe the experience was wasted on teenagers.

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL,” Kevin said, staring.

Pleasure spread in a warm tide all the way to Melanie’s fingers and toes as he looked his fill. It was only the dress, she tried to tell herself. But the glow in his eyes made her suspect he was imagining her with the dress off, not admiring the heavy folds of velvet or the fit of the stiff bodice.

Well, maybe the fit of the bodice.

More warmth eddied. She couldn’t blame the long-sleeved gown for making her feel overheated.

“Thank you, kind sir.” Melanie dipped in a curtsy. “You make a handsome pirate.”

He did look rather dashing in snug black pants and knee-high boots, a red scarf knotted on his head and a white shirt open at the throat with billowing sleeves cuffed at the wrist. He had refused the ubiquitous black eye patch.

“I want to be able to see you,” he’d said simply.

Someone had wanted to rent the green velvet Elizabethan gown. The someone was a good customer, a doctor’s wife whose daughter had just announced her engagement. Melanie should have been trying to please her.

But she’d heard herself saying, “I’m sorry, I’m afraid that one…” Is already reserved, she’d been about to say, but what if the doctor’s wife appeared at the same Halloween party Kevin was taking Melanie to? She’d swallowed and admitted, “I’m holding on to that dress for myself. The man I’m dating especially admired it.” She waited for annoyance to spread across Linda Colvin’s face.

Instead, her client had smiled with delight. “Really? You’re dating? It must be serious.” She’d moved a heap of garments from a chair and plopped down. “Tell all.”

Melanie wasn’t about to tell all to anyone, but she did admit that she was dating Scott McNeil’s brother.

Tonight she hadn’t invited Kevin over until after she’d accompanied Angie and three friends trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. That was another thing Melanie liked about Elk Springs—the fact that children could still safely accept candy from people they didn’t know. It just seemed as if nobody in town was really a stranger. She could stop a woman on the street and in the course of chatting discover that she had a child in Angie’s class at school or had been a bridesmaid in a wedding for which Melanie had made the gowns. Melanie knew at least by reputation many of the neighbors, even if she hadn’t personally met them. At the wonderful Queen Anne house two blocks down, for example, lived Jack Murray, the county sheriff, who had recently married a woman who also hired Tiffany Schaefer to baby-sit. Circles of overlapping acquaintances—the very thing that made Elk Springs home.

“I’ve never met your brother,” she said on the way out to the car.

“Scott is a good guy.” Kevin opened the car door for her and bowed gallantly. “His wife is a cop. Did I say that? Half the people who’ll be here tonight are probably cops, too.”

Melanie adjusted her skirts and latched her seat belt, thinking what an anachronism she was, a sixteenth-century woman in a twenty-first-century vehicle.

When the costumed Kevin had joined her, somehow also looking appropriate behind the wheel of the manly vehicle, she asked, “What do a bunch of police officers talk about when they get together socially?”

“Nervous?”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted.

“Don’t be. They get grisly once in a while, but half the time you find the women talking recipes and children and the men sports or politics. Scott’s adopted daughter must be close to Angie’s age, plus, he has a toddler.”

The driveway leading to Scott McNeil’s modern cedar-sided home up the mountain highway was lined with paper lanterns in ghostly white with bats flitting as the candles flickered. A dozen or more jack-o’-lanterns crowded the front steps, and eerie music spilled out.

Melanie found her worries about fitting in squelched immediately. Scott looked enough like Kevin to be his twin; both men were broad-shouldered, athletic, tanned and auburn-haired. They slapped each other on the back in the affectionate way of men, and Kevin introduced Melanie to Scott’s wife, Meg, and her sisters, Abby and Renee. All three were blond, elegant, attractive women with ready smiles and vintage gowns. Abby was a flapper, Renee a Gibson girl and Meg a Second World War woman of means.

“Ooh!” Abby exclaimed when she set eyes on Melanie. “I thought I looked good until I saw you. Wow. What a dress.”

“Thank you.” Melanie explained what she did for a living and discovered—of course—that the three sisters had heard of her. Renee, in fact, was good friends with Linda Colvin, the doctor’s wife.

“We went to high school together, believe it or not,” she said. “In fact, Linda’s here somewhere…” She glanced over her shoulder toward the living room.

Melanie gave silent thanks that she hadn’t lied about why she couldn’t rent the Elizabethan gown. Honesty was indeed the best policy, she thought.

Further conversation revealed that Meg and Scott’s adopted daughter, Emily, was in Angie’s class. After that, conversation was a breeze.

In fact, Melanie ended up having a wonderful time. She liked everyone she met. The finger food was divine, the dancing, which spilled out onto a huge back deck, despite the chilly night, was fun, and Kevin was flatteringly attentive. It was with regret that Melanie realized the party was breaking up.

She’d been listening to Kevin tell stories about his days in the Park Service: about smoke-jumping, dangerous mountain rescues and nights spent tucked on precipitous ledges. All were entertaining, some funny, some suspenseful.

At the last minute one of the men who’d been listening said something that bothered Melanie enough she knew she’d have to think about it later.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to be happy shut in a classroom nine months of the year!” he said, shaking his head. “Sounds like the life.”

Kevin laughed and demurred, but with some anxiety Melanie studied his face and would have sworn she saw regret there.

Surely only a reminiscent kind, she told herself quickly, a momentary sadness for times gone by. He wouldn’t have quit his job as a park ranger and moved to Elk Springs if he wasn’t ready to settle down. Would he?

As Kevin ushered her out the door, his hand firmly planted on the small of her back, Abby called after Melanie, “Can I come by your place and see it?” She smiled flirtatiously at her husband, a dark handsome man who was also a cop. “If you have more outfits like the one you’re wearing, I may dress up more often.”

Lieutenant Ben Shea smiled at his wife with an expression that made Melanie’s heart skip a beat. Had anybody ever looked at her like that?

“You do that, honey,” he said. “All I ask is, not too many buttons.”