While he waited, she squared her shoulders, leaned the manure fork against the fence and determinedly marched toward him. Good for her. He couldn’t help a surge of admiration, and he moved to meet her in the driveway.
“Melissa!” Stephanie’s voice surprised him. “Come and meet Royce.” Hand in Royce’s, Stephanie tugged him to intersect Melissa’s pathway. The four of them met up off the hood of the truck.
“Royce, this is Melissa,” said Stephanie. “She’s dating Jared.”
Melissa’s eyes widened slightly, but she held her composure.
Royce turned to stare at Jared.
Jared gave his brother an almost imperceptible shake, and Royce immediately held out his hand to Melissa. “Great to meet you. I’m the black sheep of the family.”
Stephanie laughed, while Melissa accepted Royce’s handshake. “Melissa Webster. I’m the black sheep in mine.”
“She has five older brothers,” Stephanie put in.
“Worse off than you,” Royce teased, arching a brow at his sister.
“I’d better get back to work,” said Melissa. Her gaze darted to Jared just long enough to let him know she wished they’d been able to talk. Well, so did he. He felt like he owed her an apology of some kind. At the very least, he wanted to make sure things were okay between them.
“Can you come and help me with Rosie-Jo?” Stephanie asked Melissa.
Since Rosie-Jo had half a dozen grooms, Jared recognized the ruse for what it was. Stephanie wanted to pump Melissa for information. But from what he’d seen of Melissa so far, she’d be up to the task of sidestepping anything too personal.
“Dating?” Royce asked as the two women walked away.
“More like flirting,” said Jared. “But I didn’t have the heart to disillusion Stephanie this weekend.”
“Are you going to disillusion poor Melissa?”
Jared shook his head. “She knows the score. She’s leaving in a few days, anyway.”
Royce reached into the back of the pickup truck and retrieved his duffel bag. “How’s Stephanie holding up?”
“Too cheerful,” said Jared. “You just know she’s going to crack.”
“Maybe going up to the cemetery isn’t such a good idea this year. Gramps’s grave is awfully fresh.”
“Go ahead and suggest we skip,” said Jared as the two men headed for the house. Quite frankly, Jared would rather avoid the cemetery. He wanted to pay tribute to his grandfather, but the anger at his parents hadn’t abated one bit. His whole life, he’d admired and respected them both, never doubting their morals and integrity. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. He wanted to yell at them, not lay flowers beside their headstones.
But he couldn’t let on. Bad enough that he knew the truth. He couldn’t drag Royce, and certainly not Stephanie, into the nightmare. At the moment, he wished his grandfather had taken the knowledge to his grave.
“She’d never go for it,” said Royce, yanking Jared back to the present.
“Of course not,” Jared agreed as they crossed the porch. Stephanie considered herself tough. She’d never admit how much visiting the cemetery hurt her.
“I hear there’s a debate over Sierra Benito.” Royce tossed his duffel on a low bench in Stephanie’s foyer.
“There is. You’re the deciding vote.”
“You going to try talking me out of the project?”
“I am. I don’t want another death on my conscience.” An image of Jared’s father sprang to his mind. There was no excuse. No excuse in the world for what his father had done.
Royce paused and peered at his brother. “Another death?”
“Slip of the tongue,” said Jared, turning away to move into the great room. “I don’t want anyone to die on a Ryder project.”
He also didn’t want to keep lying to his brother, about his parents, about Melissa, about anything.
Eight
Under the small light above the cottage’s kitchen table, Melissa typed furiously on her laptop. She’d composed and discarded at least five openings to her article. She knew if she could get the beginning right, the rest would flow. It was always that way.
But she needed to capture Jared’s essence. No small feat. Every time she thought she had him pegged he’d show her another side of himself, and she’d have to rethink the package.
Maybe it would be easier if they hadn’t made love. Maybe if she hadn’t seen him naked, or gazed into the depths of his eyes, or felt the strength and tenderness of his caress.
She drew a frustrated sigh as the words on the screen blurred in front of her. Unless she wanted to sell the article to a tabloid, she was going to have to nix that train of thought.