Coming Home To You

Everything went astonishingly still between them. The stench of burnt paper and lime freshener and vomit constricted around Daphne. In the past five days, she’d failed to concoct a plan to keep Fran from getting behind the wheel. Instead, she’d read and studied and wrote, or gone for long walks along the lakeshore when she couldn’t bear being in the presence of Fran’s terminal sickness anymore.

She’d contemplated phoning Mel. He’d left his number with the offer to call him if she needed anything. Short of granting Fran perfect health, she didn’t see how he could help her. She couldn’t very well ask him to brainstorm schemes to stall Fran. He was without a girlfriend, not a life.

Avoidance was no longer an option.

“You’re right.” She held up the keys. “And that is why you’re not getting these.”

Fran’s rings clacked as she curled her fingers around the table edge. “You’ll fail me again if you don’t let me have them. In three days, maybe four, I could dump Frederick into the ocean and die happy.”

Die happy knowing she was leaving Daphne behind. Daphne despised herself for thinking so selfishly about Fran’s death. Loneliness was not worse than death, was it? “But...you always said seeing me married would make you happy.”

“That, too.” Fran eyed the keys like an eagle with a mouse. “However, I have waited the past two decades for that to happen. Unless you can land a man like this—” she snapped her fingers “—we’re off to the coast. Now, give me the keys.”

Fran careening through the narrow mountain passes... “I’d rather swallow them.”

A knock sounded at the open door, and a face appeared above the staircase. Mel. In jeans and a baseball cap. Fran softly snapped her fingers and sent Daphne a smirk full of challenge. Surely, Fran didn’t expect her to... What? Propose to Mel?

“Hello there,” he said, his hazel eyes solid on Daphne.

“Hello,” Daphne said.

“I smell smoke.”

“Oh, there was an incident,” Daphne said. “It’s all good. Won’t you have a seat?” She gestured to the couch.

Fran stood, the fingertips of one hand resting on the tabletop. “I burned her book,” she testified. “There, I said it. And good riddance.”

Mel tipped back his baseball cap. “Sense and Sensibility?”

“Yes, that one. Now she can get on with living. Daphne was about to make lemonade for us all.”

She was?

“I’m not really here for lemonade,” Mel said. To Daphne, he offered, “I’m sorry about your book.”

Daphne eyed the campfire fodder in the sink. “It’s...it’s...”

“Don’t encourage her,” Fran said, taking up her patented lounging position on the love seat, her legs crossed, her wide-bottomed pants spilling around her ankles. “Tell me about yourself. What’s your name?”

“Mel Greene,” Daphne said, busying herself with lemons, anyway. He’d love her lemonade once he tried it. “He owns a roofing company. Greene-on-Top.”

Fran raised her painted eyebrows. “Well, now. I underestimated you, Daphne.”

Mel sat on the edge of the couch. With the expansion sliders in, his knees and Fran’s crossed ones were about the length of a standard hardcover dictionary apart. “Yep,” he said. “You did.”

Fran gave Mel the same long, speculative look she’d given a few eligible men just before launching them at Daphne in Fran’s decades-long crusade to pair Daphne up with someone who was not “insane, insolvent or indisposed.”

“You two have met,” she said by way of invitation to Mel.

“I drove her home from the hospital the day of your accident. I appreciated her company. You might show a little gratitude, too.”

Fran brightened, smiled and then volleyed her first question. “You’re here to tell me how to treat my goddaughter?”

“It’s not right that you burned her book out of spite.”

Oh, heavens. Lemons rolled from Daphne’s hands onto the tile and she scrambled after them.

Fran’s smile stiffened. “Now, why would you say it was out of spite?”

“Why else would you destroy something she loves?”

“Perhaps out of love for her?”

“I think there are other ways of showing it.” A lemon bumped against his work boot. He tossed it to Daphne. She caught it one-handed, like a pro. They grinned at each other. “I believe I have a copy of Sense and Sensibility in storage, Daphne. In pretty good condition. You’re welcome to it.”

Later, Daphne attributed her next move to a fear for Fran, who would soon be dead, and for herself, who would soon be alone. And to the warmth in Mel’s gaze and his propensity to settle for anyone.

Still holding the lemon, she walked stiff and slow, like a bride, over to Mel and sat beside him at an angle so her knees grazed his. “Yes,” she said. “There’s something you should know, Fran. All those walks I took. I wasn’t alone. Mel and I have had some very, very good...talks.”

She slid her hand over his knee and applied gentle pressure. He froze.

Fran was absolutely riveted. “Well, Mel. What do you think?”

He turned to Daphne, a tense block. He was about to reject her. She knew that look well enough, but she was sure—yes, sure—she also saw something like regret or at least, something like a desire for a different outcome.

He could be persuaded.

She closed the distance and kissed him. A few years had passed since she’d planted one on a man, but it was much like riding a bicycle. His face was rough, his lips soft and springy. Daphne parted her lips and plowed deeper. Mel cued well and went at it so convincingly that Daphne scrambled for an exit plan.

She pulled back all at once, an audible suctioning apart.

“That,” Fran said, breathless, “was indecent.” She clapped her hands. “You, Mel, are moving on to the next round. We’re staying.”

CHAPTER FOUR (#uaaced10c-f733-52e4-b648-a8363022897d)

FOR SOMEONE WHO didn’t clear his shoulder, Mel was hard-pressed to keep up with Daphne. Her flip-flops snapped out a mad beat on the asphalt walkway behind the RV park. She’d rushed from the motor home the second Fran had delivered her announcement, and he, like a dog on a leash, had followed.

“You might want to slow down,” Mel said. “I’ve been on a roof all day and my whole body is cramped.”

She slammed to a stop. To one side of the walkway was a culvert thick with tall, dried grass. On the other was a thin row of wild poplars that bordered backyards. A large dog set his paws against a wobbly fence and barked with intent.

“Come on,” Mel said. “We’d better keep moving. Slower, is all.”

They did, amid heavy sighs from Daphne. “I’m so sorry, Mel,” she said. “I don’t know... I was so desperate to keep Fran here... I’m sorry... I’ll go back and say I made it all up.”

“Just to be clear here. The plan to stop Fran from leaving is me?”

“No. At least, that wasn’t my intention. Only I hadn’t devised an actual plan, and I had this vision of me and Fran careening through those mountain roads and I... Well, you saw what I did.”