Unfinished Symphony (Logan 3)

"What is it, Melody? Have you heard from your mother?"

"Hardly," I said with a laugh. "I'd expect to hear from the Queen of England first."

"Then what?" When I wouldn't answer, he turned, putting his tools aside. "If you and I can't trust each other by now with our deepest secrets and feelings, we'll never trust each other," he said and I gazed at him lovingly, appreciatively. I was lucky to have him, to have someone so devoted to me, I thought. Would any of Grandma Olivia's so-called young men of distinguished families have half of Cary's love for me or would they just see me as another part of the puzzle constructed to make them look successful in the eyes of their parents and friends? As if he could read my thoughts, Cary added, "I love you, Melody, and loving you means feeling pain when you feel it, being sad when you're sad and being happy when you're happy."

I nodded. He waited as I took a deep breath.

"Cary, I know who my real father is," I said, "and he lives here in Provincetown."

He stared at me and then slid down a

gainst the cabinet to sit on the floor and face me.

"Who?" he asked, holding his breath.

"It's Teddy Jackson," I revealed. For a moment he just sat there stunned, blinking rapidly, his face unchanged.

Then, the realizations began to sink in and his mouth opened slightly, his eyes darkening.

"You mean, that skunk, that shark, that ocean scum is your half-brother?" he said. I nodded. "How did you find out?"

"Mommy finally told me before I left Los Angeles," I said.

"And you kept it a secret all this time?"

"I didn't want to believe it or face up to it. I did my best to avoid him and my half-sister Michelle, who, ironically, despises me. I thought I could bury it with the other lies."

"What happened?"

I told him about my meeting my father the night before. He listened, smirked and nodded.

"In character. I'm sorry, but I have to confess something, too," he said. "I have to confess I'm happy."

"Happy? Happy about Teddy Jackson being my real father? Adam and Michelle being my half-brother and half-sister?"

He looked down at the floor.

"There were times . . . because of the things he said, remarks he made, times because of the way he treated you and your mother that I feared . . . suspected . . ." He looked up at me. "I was terrified my father was your father."

"What?" I started to smile and stopped, realizing how horrible it must have been for him to have lived with such an idea.

"I thought that was what he really had confessed to you that day in the hospital when he called you to what he thought was his deathbed."

"But if I knew that, Cary, do you think I would have ... would have permitted you and me to be lovers?"

"I hoped not, but it was a nightmare of mine."

"Well, I've thought about it too," I said. "We're distant enough cousins so it doesn't matter," I stated firmly. "You say that now, but Grandma Olivia has your life plotted like a chart for a sea voyage. Don't you think I know why she wants you to be refined and attend those snob schools?"

"It doesn't matter what she wants. I'm tired of worrying about what other people want or expect of me. You were right when you said we should start thinking about the present and ourselves and not drag up the past anymore," I told him.

He smiled, so warmly and lovingly I wanted to rush into his arms. Once again, he sensed my deepest feelings and rose to come to me. We kissed, a long, sweet but demanding kiss, drawing all the pain and darkness out of each other. He lifted me gently to the sofa and we kissed again and again, our lips moving over each other's faces and necks. His hands were inside my blouse and over my breasts. I turned and moaned and he moved beside me. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a tiny voice was trying to warn me, begging me to think with my brain and not with my heart, but Cary's lips were gliding ever so gently over my breasts, drawing every tingle out of my body and then sending them back tenfold to travel over my stomach, to my legs. I felt myself drifting, sinking, uncaring. I was tired of being reasonable and logical. I pounced at him, hungry for recklessness.

With not a concern in the world, I put up no resistance and in fact helped him take off my skirt. We made love to each other on that sparkling new sofa, the material soothing beneath my naked back. We were both professing our love for each other so passionately and so blindly that neither of us projected the slightest hesitation. He was in me, holding me, rocking me, driving me as far from the places of sadness in my heart as I could go. I thought of nothing but the taste of his lips and the touch of his fingers. We exploded against each other, melding our souls and bodies for an instant during which I was as much a part of him as he was of me.

We were both surprised by our exhaustion and both had to laugh at our desperation to catch our breaths. For a long moment we just clung to each other, still naked, our hearts pounding. Then he rose slowly and sat up, gazing down at me.

I lifted my hand to his lips to stop him.