Born in a Small Town Page 17

  Unusual wasn’t the first word that had come to mind, however. It was domestic, and this bothered him. The women he’d been involved with were biologists, park rangers, oil geologists. They were outdoorswomen, with lives often as nomadic as his.

  But what difference did it make? he asked himself. He and Melanie Parker didn’t have a relationship; they were going on one date. The future wasn’t an issue.

  She looked around now, too, her expression reminiscent, even bemused. “It started small. The granddaughter of one of Nana’s friends was getting married. She complained about how mundane all the wedding dresses she saw were. She didn’t want to look like every other bride, she said. I asked what she wanted to look like. She ended up with a Renaissance theme. Her dress was white and gold and absolutely glorious, if I do say so myself. The bridesmaids all wore deep-blue silk over gold embroidered underskirts, the bodices really low cut…” Unselfconsciously, she gestured at her own bosom, making all too vivid the picture she drew. “Slashed fines-trella sleeves…” She blinked, apparently realizing she had probably lost him. “Anyway, the dresses were a hit. I’d been job-hunting, but I was asked to make the gowns for another wedding and then another. Eventually I branched out into other types of costumes. Now I rent, as well as sell. Obviously—” she touched an exotic Gypsy-style dress hanging beside her “—this is my busy time of year. Usually more of these costumes are packed away.”

  Kevin hadn’t dressed up for Halloween in twenty years. Yet interestingly, most of these costumes were in adult sizes.

  “What will you be for Halloween?” he asked, tilting his head.

  “Me?” Melanie wrinkled her nose. “A seamstress trapped behind my sewing machine making last-minute alterations. Somebody is sure to show up at the last possible second saying his costume doesn’t fit.” Her pursed lips barely hid her sudden merriment. “Now, you…why, I think you have the legs to be a Regency dandy. Or maybe you’d prefer a seventeenth-century French getup with bloomer breeches fastened below the knees with garters. Striped breeches. Say, red and gold. Crimson tights work well below that. They accentuate the calves—”

  Kevin recoiled. “In your dreams.”

  She pretended to look thoughtful, a smile playing around her generous mouth. “I’ve never made chain mail, but I could try, if that’s more your thing…”

  He grinned. “I can’t say my tastes have ever been that kinky, but if that’s what you’re into…”

  Melanie gave a startled giggle. She slapped her fingers to her lips. “Oh, dear. I sound like Angie.” Her pretty brown eyes reproved him. “Maybe we should go.”

  He rubbed a hand over the jaw he’d shaved only half an hour before. “Maybe so. Although I’m beginning to wish we were going to a costume ball. So I could see you in that dress.” He nodded toward the green velvet number.

  She glanced down at herself. What she was actually wearing was a short black skirt, black tights and a V-neck snug-fitting sweater the color of a ripe plum. She looked Bohemian, a young poet ready to go to a coffeehouse for deep and lengthy discussions about politics and art and love.

  Hell, Kevin thought, forget the Elizabethan getup; he kind of liked her the way she was, hair swishing over her shoulder in a ponytail that had started atop her head and was already sliding down from its own weight. The other day, when he should have been focused on nothing but finding a four-year-old in green corduroy, his head had kept turning until he spotted Melanie Parker with that leggy distinctive walk. Bands of late-afternoon sunlight had broken between the pines above, awakening a quiet glow in her hair that had been tumbling from its confines then, too. It had looked like heavy silk.

  He could hardly wait to slide his fingers into it and feel the thick strands slip like water between them.

  A date, he reminded himself. This was only a date.

  “We aren’t going anyplace fancy, are we?” she asked, sounding anxious.

  “No need for velvet tonight.” He crossed the room to her and touched her chin, lifting it until their eyes met. “I like what you’re wearing.” Especially the way the skirt revealed those legs that went on forever.

  Definitely a downside to the floor-length gowns of past centuries.

  He took her to Mario’s, a local pizza joint his brother had introduced him to the first week he was in Elk Springs. A thick yeasty crust and distinctive mix of cheeses made their pizza one of a kind. The place was big, barnlike, with private booths and candlelight. Comfortable, but atmospheric enough for an evening out.

  Melanie didn’t introduce him to her daughter and he didn’t ask where the girl was. They chatted about nothing special on the short drive, then argued amiably over which pizza toppings to order before finally sitting down with a pitcher of beer. She barely sipped at hers, Kevin noticed.

  Seeing his glance, Melanie made a face. “I get tipsy easily. Then I don’t know how to shut up.”

  “Let secrets slip out, do you?” he asked, amused.

  “Maybe.”

  “Tell me one now,” he challenged her. “Or at least, something significant about you.”

  She didn’t disappoint him. Her chin came up and she said, “I don’t intend to ever leave Elk Springs. I’ve traveled all my life and now I’m staying put.”

  His reaction to her confident announcement was a peculiar mix. He’d never imagined staying in one place forever. The idea made him…edgy. Claustrophobic. He also felt admiration and even envy at her certainty—he didn’t quite know what he was going to do with the rest of his life. And finally, a kind of panic rippled at the edges of his awareness. What was he doing here with her, a woman who lived behind a white picket fence, that universal symbol of domesticity?

  “What kind of travel?” he asked. “Tell me.”

  While they waited for their pizza, she talked about her childhood as an Air Force brat. Her father had been transferred frequently, dragging his family along. Base housing was almost indistinguishable from place to place, but friends were always left behind.

  “Florida, Germany, Japan, California, Washington—we never stayed more than three years anywhere. My daydreams were always of a real home. Marrying a boy I’d known since kindergarten.” She grimaced. “So guess who I married?”

  “A fighter pilot?” he hazarded.

  “A baseball player.”

  He almost laughed, her answer was so unexpected.

  “Minor league. Of course, we just knew he was going to make the big time, and then we’d have it all. For the moment, I’d travel with him and we’d live in crummy rental housing, but once he was a Yankee or a Blue Jay or an Angel, we’d buy a house and start a family, and I could join him sometimes on road trips, just for fun. The only thing is, he didn’t make it that far. He got called up and then sent down again and then got traded. One town after another. We lived in lousy apartments and mobile homes, and half the time he was gone. I got pregnant by accident, and once Angie was born, it was harder. Ryan wasn’t ready to be a father, he admitted.” Pain finally showed on her gentle face. “Then I found out he was seeing other women when the team was on the road. There I was, trying hard to make a home, and he didn’t want one.”

  As if by instinct, Kevin’s hand covered hers on the table. “What did you do?”

  “I came home to Elk Springs,” Melanie said simply. “My grandmother lived here, in that house. My whole life, she was here. We’d visit, sometimes, for two weeks, or later I’d even stay all summer.” She wasn’t seeing him again, her gaze poignantly fixed on the past. “I had my own bedroom, upstairs under the eaves, with flowered wallpaper she let me pick out myself. It’s Angie’s bedroom now. Oh, how I wanted to stay and go to school in Elk Springs, but my parents wouldn’t let me.” Her voice ached with longing. “After my divorce, though, Nana welcomed Angie and me with open arms. She encouraged me to go into business for myself.” Melanie’s eyes met his again, the sadness in them telling him the end to this story. “She died last winter and left me the house.”

  “And you’re n
ever leaving it.”

  “That’s right.” She sounded utterly composed. “I want my daughter to grow up in one place, with friendships that span more than a year or two. I love what I do for a living, being able to walk at night without worrying, knowing the people in every business I frequent. I like to plant perennials and bulbs and know I’ll see them come up in the spring. Hawaii in the winter might be nice—for two weeks. Then give me home.” She smiled. “I think that’s our number they’re calling. Then it’s your turn.”

  “My turn?” He slid out of the booth.

  “Your secret.”

  His secret. Damn. Did he tell her about the bullet he’d taken in his gut? Or the revelation he’d had afterward as he slowly recovered in a hospital bed?

  Kevin grabbed the pizza and two plates, bringing them back to the table. He tried to figure out what to say to her as he dished up thick slices and swore when strands of cheese wrapped around his fingers.

  Be honest about the changes in his life? Admit he was feeling his way like a man in the woods on a pitch-black night? One who knew which way to go, or thought he did, if he hadn’t been turned around completely, or if the moon cloaked in clouds wasn’t really behind him, instead of ahead?

  Or stick to what he did know?

  “Tell me something significant about you,” she said, after enjoying her first bite.

  “When I was growing up, I never wanted a home.” Scare her off, why don’t you? he thought, seeing her startlement. “My father loved the wilderness,” he explained. “We camped, hiked, backpacked, cross-country skied. Every minute when he wasn’t working, we headed into the backcountry. Scott loved the out-of-doors, too, but once he discovered alpine skiing, that was it for him. Me?” Kevin shrugged. “I liked the silence and the loneliness of the forest or the canyons. When you cross-country ski, the only sound is the swish of your own skis on the snow, the plop of a heavy clump falling from a branch. I like being in places where I’m the only human for miles. I dreamed of manning one of those lonely fire lookouts or testing the water in salmon-spawning streams in the Olympic Mountains.”

  “Then why did you become a college professor?” she asked tentatively.

  “I’ve been in the National Park Service the past fifteen years. But it’s changed.” While they ate he talked about the crowds who were ruining the great wilderness areas saved as national parks; about the vandalism and the crime and the increasing role park rangers had as law-enforcement officers. “The pay is no great shakes,” he concluded, “the housing is similar to what you described on military bases, the transfers got old… I found myself trying to restore meadows trampled by millions of feet, instead of interpreting the pristine wilderness for eager visitors. I woke up one day—” in a hospital bed “—and realized the job wasn’t for me anymore. Scott told me about an opening here in Elk Springs, at the community college, teaching forestry and park management, and I grabbed it. He loves Elk Springs, it looked like a nice town on my visits, and if I hanker for the backcountry, there’s plenty of it within an easy drive.” He gestured, a slice of pizza in his hand.

  “So here I am.”

  “Then you’ve never taught?”

  “I was primarily a naturalist with the Park Service, which means I spent the greater part of my career leading groups on nature walks, designing interpretive centers or hikes, writing handouts and so on. All teaching, in a way.”

  Melanie was easy to talk to. He admitted to his cowardice on the day he’d walked into his first classroom. But now he found the teaching stimulating. A few kids were taking one of his classes because it met some requirement and they thought it would be a no-brainer. Those were discovering their mistake. The other kids were excited. Many had grown up in Elk Springs or Bend or Medford, and they’d spent their youths hiking in these mountains or rock-hunting in the high-desert country. They wanted to know how to protect the wilderness, how to log responsibly, how to follow a career in the park or forest services.

  The evening passed with incredible speed. Usually closemouthed, Kevin realized he’d talked away a good deal of it. When he wasn’t talking but listening, he was captivated by Melanie’s face. The delicate line of her cheeks, her small nose, the widow’s peak her brown hair formed on her graceful forehead. All fascinated him and somehow added up to an utterly feminine face, which was also strong. He could see the will beneath the softness.

  He had always had an image of women who were homebodies, whose greatest dreams were to sew and raise children, and they were nothing like Melanie Parker. As the end of the evening neared, Kevin found that his resistance to seriously seeing a woman like her was crumbling with nary a whimper.

  Big deal. Another date. Another few dates. He wasn’t asking her to marry him, was he?

  And dammit, he had decided in that hospital bed to change his life, to settle down. Okay, he hadn’t thought as far ahead as marriage or children or a white picket fence, but would it be so bad? He’d left the Park Service—although technically he was on leave and hadn’t resigned. Maybe Elk Springs would become his permanent home. Maybe he’d met Melanie Parker for a reason.

  “You’re staring,” she said.

  He hadn’t even realized she’d quit talking. “I’m sorry. I was thinking—” why not admit it? “—about kissing you good-night. Come on.” He slid from the booth and held out his hand for hers. “Let’s go.”

  Pink rose in her cheeks, but after only the tiniest hesitation she laid her hand in his and scooted out. Neither had brought coats, although the nights were starting to get cold.

  Unfortunately downtown Elk Springs was bustling. People emerged from restaurants, and the gallery across the street had something going on. Music, light and voices poured from it. Kevin had a moment of frustration and even irritation. If he and Melanie were backpacking, they could be lying on their sleeping bags right now staring up at a sky spangled vividly with stars, not washed out by electric lights. Maybe the coals of a small fire would glow beside them. Didn’t these people in town ever long for solitude, silence, a pure experience of the earth as it had been created?

  Melanie saw his face and tugged at his hand. “Let’s walk down by the river.”

  “Sure.” His bad mood passed as quickly as it had come. He wasn’t used to crowds anymore. He would adjust. Melanie might be just the person to help him.

  A block away, they left behind the busy sidewalks and soon found the city park on the banks of the Deschutes in front of them. He’d have liked to throw rocks and break the lights illuminating the parking lot, but at least the grassy bank of the river was dark, the whisper of the river current more powerful than the now-muted voices behind them.

  “This is more like it.” The tension eased. “At last I can kiss you.”

  “You can only do it in the dark?” Gentle humor infused her words. “Does my face scare you?”

  He framed it with his hands. His voice became husky. “Your face is exquisite. The tiny dimple that forms next to your mouth when you smile has been driving me crazy.”

  “Oh,” she murmured, sounding shy. Her hands stole up to flatten on his chest. “I like your face, too.”

  “Well, kissing is a good way to seal our mutual admiration. And…express it more fully.”

  “Yes.” Melanie spoke gravely. “I suspect that’s true.”

  His head bent; his mouth paused a hairbreadth from hers. “I’m glad we agree.”

  She rose onto tiptoe and their lips touched, a soft tentative brush, then met again to linger. Exhilaration and desire crashed through him, but he resisted the powerful urge to yank her up against him. Nipping, sampling, he told himself to take it slow. She didn’t strike him as a woman who would easily indulge in an affair. A husband went with a home. Until he knew he wanted to be any such thing, he had to be careful.

  But moving away was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. “That,” he said, in a voice only a little gritty, “was the perfect cap to a wonderful evening.”

  “It was nice, wasn’t
it?”

  “Can we do it again tomorrow night?”

  “I’m afraid not. I can’t leave Angie too often.” She hesitated. “But she has a soccer game tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to come?”

  I have a child, she might as well have said. He recognized the gauntlet: Are you serious, or aren’t you?

  Kevin took a deep breath and said, “When and where?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE FOOTBALL SPIRALED through the floodlit sky and dropped neatly between the goalposts. The crowd in the stands, wearing parkas and gloves against the cold night, erupted to their feet to scream their approval. On the sidelines, the elk trumpeted his triumph and dipped his antlers in challenge to the team from Medford on the other side of the field.

  Melanie smiled. The antlers had been a neat trick. She was rather proud of her elaborate construction of wire and plaster-cast material wrapped in brown cotton velvet. The head, too, she thought rivaled Northwest Coast Indian masks; she’d even used some cedar in a bow to the tradition. Now, if only the high-school kids took good care of the costume…

  “Nice work,” Kevin said from beside her. His gaze was following hers. “The kid playing the elk is having a helluva good time.”

  “He’s Tiffany Schaefer’s boyfriend—she’s the baby-sitter I use most regularly. I understand that having a mascot for the high-school football and basketball teams was his idea. Obviously he’s a bit of a ham.”

  “And that’s Tiffany?” Kevin nodded toward the pyramid of cheerleaders, topped by a petite blonde.

  Angie bounced on Melanie’s other side. “She’s really pretty, isn’t she?”

  Melanie didn’t envy Tiffany’s older sister, who was raising her. Tiffany was great with children, but sometimes impulsive. She was also ravishingly beautiful, a combination that would make any guardian nervous.

  “Here we go,” Kevin murmured as the Elks kicked off. The seconds were ticking down; that last field goal had put the home team ahead by six. Only a touchdown could beat them now.