Chapter 12

12

Colton

C ome morning, as the sky gives us a grey nod of what’s to come, I let Melissa rest in my arms for a few more minutes before we start the day. Ethan and Mitch are already downstairs, getting ahead of the breakfast situation. We can hear the pots and pans clanking, and it makes Melissa giggle as she hides her face against my chest.

I love this feeling.

It’s a tricky situation. I’m letting myself fall before I get a full picture, and it could be a recipe for disaster. I know it, and so do my brothers. Yet none of us are hitting the brakes either. Regardless of her past, Melissa came to us for a fresh start.

“You know they’re going to serve burnt bacon and charred eggs if I don’t go down there soon, right?” Melissa says, raising her head so she can look at me.

I love the way her rich, dark hair falls over one shoulder, a splendid mess framing her beautiful face and soft, hazel eyes that sparkle when she smiles.

“Give them some credit. They can cook.”

“Are you sure?” she says just as something made of glass breaks downstairs.

“We’re not entirely helpless, you know,” I say to her. “We can always whip up some PB I’ll give him that.”

“What do you mean?”

Melissa chuckles nervously as she gets out of bed. “He bought me flowers, took me out on dates. He made just enough of an effort to make me go all the way with him, to stop guarding my heart around him. He said all the right things, but at one point, I stopped minding his actions and only fed on his words. I was blind.”

“So, what happened?”

“He moved in with me. I was renting a studio apartment on the nicer side of town. His apartment was being fumigated, he said. It was only supposed to be for a week. Then he said the building was raided by inspectors. It was condemned. The city would reimburse him—”

“I smell BS.”

“If only I’d smelled it, too,” she scoffs. “Actually, I think I did smell it. I just didn’t want to face it. Anyway, weeks turned into months. His income dramatically fluctuated. There were days when he splurged on food and even bought me expensive chocolates, the Belgian ones. Then there were days when I had to fill up his gas tank so he could get around. He said his delivery business had ups and downs, that it was normal.”

I nod slowly and get out of bed. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that kind of man.”

“Hey, it was a lesson learned, a very expensive and life-altering lesson,” she chuckles, “but the best lessons are like that, huh?”

I sense the sadness in her voice, the emotional exhaustion. I don’t know what it was like for her in prison, but I can imagine that three years is a long time—long enough to reflect, to go over every chapter from her past and to draw the wisdom she carries with her today. Most women her age are looking for a husband or are eager to grow their careers, to travel and have fun, to live every day to the fullest.

Melissa, on the other hand… she’s tempered, calm and tranquil. Surprisingly positive considering the shitty hand fate dealt her. And despite the panic attacks and her softness, she is incredibly strong and resilient. I like that about her. I admire that.

At breakfast, it’s just the two of us. Ethan and Mitch are getting the horses and the tools ready with Sammy, while Kyle and Jason are in charge of patrol. They’ve been tasked with checking the eastern gate pillars for similar defects. We may not be able to fix them before the blizzard hits, but we’ll know what to watch out for when the snow settles.

I can hear Darla upstairs, vacuuming the hell out of each room.

“The drugs were Jake’s, weren’t they?” I ask Melissa, practically out of the blue.

“Like I told Darla when she first asked me,” Melissa replies, holding my gaze with firm conviction, “that crap wasn’t mine. Everything Jake said in court was about him, not me. He’s the one with a secret life. He’s the one who made money from moving drugs for various dealers and cartels. I never touched the stuff.”

“And the night you were arrested?”

“Ainsworth is a small town. The delivery business Jake claimed he was building couldn’t grow much without expanding into neighboring towns or so he said. Point is, that night, he called and asked me to move the van for him.”

She goes on to tell me how it all went down from the moment she got behind the wheel to her arraignment. And every step of the process convinces me that Melissa is, in fact, innocent. “He had access to my laptop, my phone, my things. We were living together after all. It was ridiculously easy for him to plant the evidence the DA needed to nail my ass to the wall.”

“Nobody believed you.”

She shakes her head. “They kept offering me deals, telling me that if I gave up my dealers and my suppliers, the judge would go easy on me, that I’d get probation. It’s not like I could pull names out of my ass for the sake of a deal. I didn’t know any of Jake’s dealers. And then we went to trial.”

“And Jake testified against you.”

Melissa’s lips twist with disgust. Even so, I’m tempted to kiss her, if only to make everything go away. I want to see her smiling and laughing. Damn, how did she burrow so deep into my heart?

“He sure did. He matched his story to every piece of evidence the cops found. I don’t know how much he paid them, but he supplied the DA with a couple of witnesses who confirmed that they’d seen me moving product with his van before.”

“Who were the witnesses?”

“Laurel something and Bruce whatever,” she sighs deeply. “I didn’t even know them, but they said they knew me. Honestly, I don’t think the DA ever bothered to check their stories, to see if those so-called witnesses were in any way connected to Jake.”

Well, I have some new information to work with now. New names to look up and track down. Whoever Laurel and Bruce are, they knew Jake Miller. It’s time for me to reach into the past and start talking to old friends of ours from the Rangers—fellas I know moved into law enforcement after they were discharged. Generally, I don’t like calling in favors, but this situation demands that I tap into every possible resource.

“You will be vindicated,” I tell Melissa at one point.

She gives me a bitter smile. “I doubt it. What’s done is done. There’s no point in dredging up the past. I just want to start over and forget Jake Miller ever existed.”

“I think we both know that’s never going to happen,” I say. “That man had a lasting impact on your life. You loved him, you were close to him, you trusted him, and he destroyed you, took away five years of your life.”

“Just three, actually,” she says. “If I spend the next two out here with you, I’ll be more than happy. They certainly won’t be wasted years.”

She has a way of softening me when I least expect it. Mindful of Darla’s footsteps upstairs, I chuckle and pull Melissa into a long, ardent kiss. I’d like nothing more than to brag to the whole world about her, about what a fine woman she is. But the world is shallow. Most people wouldn’t understand. And in these parts of Nebraska, they wouldn’t understand how my brothers and I operate either.