Elusive Echoes by Kay Springsteen Page B

recognized the
mental and emotional scars left over from those years.
    "The day I turned eighteen, I left. I was
almost broke. Nick never let Denny or me have any money. But once,
when I was fifteen, we stayed in a town so he could run a long-term
con. I got a job at McDonald's. He never knew, and I was able to
hide the money I made. I knew I had to get away. It wasn't enough,
wasn't nearly enough. And then I found out Grandma Tilly had died
just a few months before I left. I was alone."
    Sean's breath caught again.
She hadn't needed to be alone. If she had called him, he would have
found her. But she hadn't called him. And she had left DeVayne when
she was eighteen, yet she hadn't returned to Orson's Folly until
she was twenty-one. "Where did you go? Why didn't you come back
here?" Why didn't you call me?
    "As soon as I found out
Grandma Tilly was gone, I couldn't come back here. I felt—dirty. I didn't want you to
see me."
    "No, Mel," he whispered. Every word stabbed
like another knife in his soul.
    "I went to Las Vegas. Found work as a
cocktail waitress." She shivered. "The customers all wanted so much
more than drinks."
    Sean's heart seemed to hover between beats.
He wasn't sure it would start again. He couldn't talk. The question
he most wanted to ask was stuck in his throat.
    She sighed heavily. "And because I didn't
let them cop their feels and wouldn't go home with anyone after
hours, I kept my job but my tips weren't very good."
    The band around Sean's lungs loosened. But
he wasn't certain the damage to his heart would ever heal. Had he
really thought he wanted to know the sources of her shadows?
    With a tiny sigh, Mel continued speaking
softly. "Then I got a huge break. I found out Grandma Tilly had
left me her estate. She was very smart, though, and put it in trust
for me until I was twenty-one. It wasn't much but it was mine. Nick
either hadn't known about it or knew he couldn't touch it."
    "Who held the trust?"
    Mel pulled in a long breath. "Your dad," she
whispered. "He tracked me down in Las Vegas and told me about it.
Told me Grandma Tilly would have wanted me to come home. And I
decided I needed to . . . I wanted to come home."
    "I remember Dad's trip right
before you came back," murmured Sean. He'd thought Justin had gone
looking for Ryan. When his father had refused to answer any of
Sean's questions about the trip, he'd assumed it hadn't gone well.
Sean smiled into the darkness. You made
sure she came home, didn't you, Dad?
    Mel shrugged. "Sandy had just bought
Valentine's when I pulled into town, and I answered her ad for a
bartender."
    Sean lay still. Mel's hand on his neck
heated skin that had chilled. She'd lived a horrendous life for
eight years. No wonder she had shadows. He dragged a hand over his
mouth, ending at his jaw and rubbed his chin. Her reaction when she
thought she saw her half-brother now made perfect sense.
    "You're wrong about one thing." Sean tried
to temper the rawness he heard in his voice. "I don't care who
donated the biology, your real father was and always will be Todd
Mitchell."
    Mel hugged him then,
tightly, as if she never wanted to let go. And he sure as heck knew
he didn't want her to. No more than he intended to let her go.
    He trailed his fingertips along her arm
where it lay across his chest. After a brief hesitation, he slid
his hand to her waist. He'd meant it as a simple caress, a gesture
of comfort. But her skin was so soft, so heated. For a moment she
stiffened in surprise. Then she seemed to melt into him. Love and
desire surged, knotted together, and tore through his system until
nothing else occupied Sean's mind except his awareness of Mel at
the most visceral level.
     
    ****
     
    Mel couldn't recall a time when she hadn't
yearned for his touch. She knew she should back off, give Sean time
to take in her disclosures about her life on the road. Her body
overrode her mind, and Mel relaxed against him as she came alive
with each gentle stroke of his warm