LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I’ll be at work on time,” Andrea told her boss a couple of minutes later, as she pulled the car to a stop at Melissa’s front gate.

      “Fine,” Melissa said, shoving open her door to climb out. Since she was in good shape, it surprised her to discover that she was stiff all over, sore and achy.

      Byron got out, too, and stood waiting on the sidewalk, the rain making his hair curl, watching her intently.

      Melissa felt a sudden need to reassure him. Maybe it was that he looked so young, standing there, and so vulnerable, a regular Lost Boy.

      “You did a great job with the yard,” she said.

      “Thanks,” he said, and she realized he was waiting to walk her to her front door.

      Melissa waved to Andrea and turned to go through the gate, only to find Byron one step ahead, holding it open for her. Her skeptical side—after all, she was a prosecuting attorney—warned her not to be too trusting. Being softhearted too often translated to being soft-headed, in her experience.

      It might well be true that Byron was basically a good kid who’d made a serious mistake and paid the price for it. On the other hand, he could be putting on an act. The next drug fix, the next tragedy, might be right around the corner.

      Rain slid off the roof over Melissa’s porch, and she and Byron ducked through, like people passing beneath a waterfall.

      Melissa wore her door key on a chain around her neck when she ran, and she pulled it out through the neck of her sweatshirt then, her hand still slightly unsteady. She’d gotten a powerful jolt of adrenaline a little while before, and it hadn’t completely subsided.

      Gently, Byron took the key from her hand, inserted it into the lock and opened the door for her, handed the key back when she turned on the threshold to meet his gaze.

      “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

      Melissa nodded. “Be more careful next time,” she said.

      He nodded. “You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

      “I’m sure,” Melissa replied, because she was. Growing up on a working ranch, she’d been thrown by horses and stepped on by cows. She’d fallen out of hay mows and off the backs of trucks and tractors, all with relatively little damage.

      By comparison, this was nothing.

      “Byron?” she ventured.

      He still looked miserable. “Yeah.”

      “Choose your friends carefully. Nathan Carter is bad news, in case you’ve forgotten.”

      Byron absorbed that, his face pale and taut. “Right now,” he answered, quietly and at some length, “I can’t afford to be that picky. A guy needs friends, and right now, Andrea and Nathan are the only ones I have.”

      Sadness pinched the back of Melissa’s throat. She said nothing more, but simply nodded in response to Byron’s words.

      Fifteen minutes later, having showered and gingerly dried herself off with little dabbing motions of her towel, she’d forgotten the brief conversation entirely. There were small cuts on both her knees, but they weren’t deep, and the bleeding had stopped. The rest of her body felt bruised, though, as if she’d actually been struck by Andrea’s car.

      After bundling herself into a robe, she padded along the hallway to the kitchen, whipped up her protein smoothie, and gulped down a couple of over-the-counter pain pills with the first sip. In another few minutes, she told herself, watching dully as water sheeted down outside of the window over the sink, she’d be right as—well—rain.

      Dressing took twice as long as usual, since every motion made some joint or muscle ache, but Melissa remained undaunted. She got herself into a pink-floral print skirt and a long white sweater, summer-light, and flicked on a few swipes of mascara and lip gloss.

      Between the rain and her recent shower, her hair had frizzed out, and she was in no mood to spend half an hour taming it with a blow-dryer and a brush, so she clamped the stuff into a loose roll at the back of her head with an enormous plastic clip and called it good.

      Tendrils drifted down around her cheeks and her neck—the look was softer than her usual tailored approach, more Ashley’s style than her own, but it pleased her, nonetheless.

      While she was inside, the rain had stopped, and the sun was out, bright as polished brass.

      When Melissa limped into her office, just before nine, Andrea was already there, standing in the middle of the floor like a sentinel and grasping a plain glass vase containing a huge bouquet of purple and white irises, most likely appropriated from the Crockett sisters’ garden, in both hands.

      “These are for you,” Andrea said anxiously.

      Melissa smiled, took the flowers and started to go around the nervous young woman, toward her own office. “Thanks, Andrea,” she said. “But you shouldn’t have. It really wasn’t necessary.”

      “You could have been badly hurt,” Andrea burst out, “or even—”

      Melissa paused, frowning. “I’m all right, Andrea.”

      Andrea’s eyes clouded over with tears. “I know you think—you think Byron was driving this morning, and that I’m covering for him, because of what happened before, to that girl, Chavonne. But I was behind the wheel, not Byron.”

      Melissa sighed, continued into her office and set the vase of flowers carefully on a corner of her desk.

      They really were beautiful, dewy and vibrantly colored.

      “What you do in your personal life is none of my business,” she said, looking at the irises instead of Andrea. They’d both learned a lesson; now, it was time to move on.

      “But—?” Andrea prompted, without inflection. Clearly, she wasn’t ready to let the subject drop. Melissa, on the other hand, would have preferred to pretend that it hadn’t happened.

      “You’ve come a long way since your foster-home days, Andrea,” Melissa replied, after drawing in and expelling a deep breath. “I hope you won’t throw all that away by doing anything foolish.”

      Andrea blushed miserably. “Like going out with Byron Cahill?”

      “I didn’t say that,” Melissa pointed out.

      “You didn’t have to,” Andrea said. Still, there was no anger in her tone or her expression.

      Melissa rested a hand on the young woman’s forearm. “Okay, for what it’s worth, here’s my opinion. Byron has to be going through some major adjustments right now. He has a lot to deal with, and so do you. Maybe it would be better to let the dust settle a little before you get too—involved.”

      Andrea tensed slightly. “Because he was in prison.”

      “Partly, yes,” Melissa answered. “And partly because both of you are young.”

      “Right,” Andrea said, her tone turning crisp as she turned on one heel to leave Melissa’s office. “I’ll get your messages.”

      Bemused, and still aching all over from the tumble she’d taken into the gravel that morning, Melissa put her purse away, sat down in her chair and booted up her computer.

      A tap at the framework of her open door alerted her to Tom’s presence. Melissa smiled, and even that hurt a little.

      Tom glanced in Andrea’s direction and then came inside Melissa’s office and closed the door.

      “We’ve got trouble,” he said. His tone was solemn.

      Melissa looked up at him, her smile a thing of the past. “Sit down, Tom,” she said.

      But he shook his head. “I’ve had a complaint from Ashley and Jack’s neighbors,” he told her. “About the guests. Since it’s sort of a—delicate matter, I wanted

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