LITMIR.BIZ

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house for more than the usual rate,” he told her with just a shade too much innocence to satisfy Melba.

      “What are you trying to say, Gene? Come on, spit it out,” she ordered. “Just who is it that you’re renting out this last room to?” she demanded. And then, just before her husband could give her an answer, a look of horrified indignation washed over the older woman’s features. “Oh no, you can’t mean to tell me—”

      Her voice had gone up so high that it completely vanished at its peak.

      Wanting to get this out and then, hopefully, put to rest, Gene supplied the name that Melba seemed incapable of uttering.

      “Levi. Claire’s husband. Yes, I rented it out to him,” he told her with an air of finality that let her know that she was not allowed to toss the young man out on his ear under any circumstances.

      Melba glared at him. “Have you gone and lost your mind, Gene?”

      The heated accusation did not surprise him. “Not that I know of, no. Last I checked, it was still where it was supposed to be. Right between my ears—same as yours, Mel.”

      “Then why aren’t you using it?” Melba wanted to know. Because the man was certainly acting as if he had lost his mind.

      “I thought I was,” he told her simply. “Not to mention my heart,” he added pointedly.

      “Claire came here to get away from that man,” Melba reminded her husband. “Or did you somehow forget that little fact?”

      “No, I didn’t forget that,” he replied calmly. “And since when did you condone cowardice?” Gene wanted to know.

      The accusation instantly stirred her up. “What are you talking about?” Melba demanded heatedly. “I am most certainly not condoning cowardice.”

      He gave her a skeptical look. “Then what would you call letting her run away from her situation instead of facing up to it and trying to resolve it?”

      Melba’s scowl deepened, even though it didn’t seem physically possible for it to become any deeper than it already was. She debated giving her husband the silent treatment, but the words were burning on her tongue, and she knew she’d have no peace until this was resolved and she said what had been—and still was—on her mind.

      “You and I both know that she married too young,” she said to Gene.

      Gene gave her a knowing look. “As I recall, she was the same age as you were when we got married.” Apparently, that little fact had escaped his wife.

      “Don’t compare us,” Melba retorted. “I was years older emotionally.”

      He tended to agree with her—although there were times when he felt Melba was too young to make competent decisions even at this age. Not that he would ever dare to tell her that.

      “Be that as it may,” Gene told her, “Levi’s a good man, Mel, and he loves her.” It was clear that he believed the couple should take another shot at recapturing the magic that had brought them together and had existed in the first months of their marriage.

      “Love alone never solved anything,” Melba retorted.

      Gene gave her a sly, knowing look. “Maybe not, but it sure gave us something to look forward to on those cold, long nights. Remember?”

      Melba pressed her lips together and swatted her husband’s arm. She could feel her cheeks warming. “Behave yourself, Gene.”

      Gene chuckled, amused. “You don’t really mean that and you know it,” he told her.

      The impish, sexy look he gave her melted the years away and brought them both back to a time when the only aches they felt involved their hearts and striving to be together over her parents’ wishes otherwise.

      Rising from his side of the desk, he circled around to where his wife was sitting. Hands bracketing her shoulders, he brought her up to her feet before him. Melba was a small woman. Her bombastic personality made him forget that at times. In reality, Gene all but dwarfed her when he stood beside his wife.

      Height difference notwithstanding, Melba filled up his whole world and had from the moment he’d first met her.

      “Give him a chance, Mel,” he requested. “Give them both a chance to work this out.”

      Melba thought of how hurt Claire had been when she first came to them. How hurt she still seemed to be. “And if she doesn’t want to?” she challenged.

      “I have a feeling that she does,” Gene told her confidently. He saw the skeptical look come over her face and said, “They have a daughter and four years invested in one another, two of them as a married couple. They’ve simply run into some turbulence just like a lot of other couples, but abandoning ship isn’t the answer. If they do, if they don’t try to make this work, they’ll never forgive each other—or themselves.”

      Melba frowned, looking at her husband as if for the first time. “Since when did you get to be such a hopeless romantic?” she wanted to know.

      That was an easy one to answer. “Since I married the most beautiful girl at the dance,” he told her.

      Melba huffed and shook her head. Her husband’s answer both surprised her and pleased her, but she couldn’t let him see that. If she did, she felt that she’d lose the upper hand in their relationship.

      “Fine, Levi can stay,” she informed him. “But he pays rent like everyone else,” she warned. This wasn’t a charity mission she was running here, she thought.

      Levi had been one step ahead of Melba, Gene now thought. Insisting on paying more than the usual rate had been very smart of him. “I told you, that was already part of the deal.”

      Melba looked far from pleased. The scowl on her face not only remained, it deepened, too. “One wrong move and he’s out of here.”

      “Understood.” Gene paused, allowing her to savor her moment before he decided to bedevil her a little and asked, “Define wrong move.”

      She was at a disadvantage and not thinking as clearly as she should, Melba realized. Her mind was already on other matters that concerned the boarding house.

      She chose the vague way out.

      “You’ll know it when you see it,” she snapped. “Now I have to see if Gina has gotten dinner started,” she told him, referring to the boarding-house cook. To that end, Melba shrugged off her husband’s large, capable hands from about her shoulders. “One wrong move,” she repeated warningly just before she left the room.

      “Hard to believe that woman once had what I took to be a soft heart underneath all that,” Gene said out loud to the other occupant of the area once his wife had left the room.

      Turning around he looked at the young man he knew had been standing in the shadows of the hallway until the matter of his staying at the boarding house had been resolved. He was a little bit afraid of Melba—as were they all.

      “But she does,” Gene affirmed.

      Levi looked off in the direction the woman had gone in. “She doesn’t like me very much, does she?”

      It wasn’t a question so much as an observation on Levi’s part.

      “She likes you fine, boy,” Gene assured him. “What she doesn’t like is the situation. She’s very protective of the people she loves, kind of like a lioness guarding her cubs. And there is no second-guessing her moves.” He looked pointedly at his granddaughter’s husband. “Consider yourself warned.”

      Levi nodded. “Yes, sir. And I appreciate you taking my side in this,” he said with genuine gratitude and feeling.

      “Not taking sides,” Gene corrected the younger man. “Just facilitating things so that they can move ahead if that’s what’s in the cards. I think that little girl loves

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