A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [122]
“I’m a mess,” she said.
“You can borrow something of Kim’s,” Steven replied, getting out.
Before he could go around and open the door for her, Melissa had alighted on her own.
They met behind the truck.
“You’re—you’re really okay, Steven?” she asked.
He started to touch her, drew back his hand at the last moment. “You might say I’ve seen the light,” he said, after giving a nod.
She moved to his side, slipped an arm around him, and they started toward the house.
Inside, Zeke was barking his head off, waiting to greet them.
Eager to greet anybody.
They entered the house, and Steven acknowledged the dog, then crossed the kitchen and plucked a couple of garbage bags from the box under the new stainless steel sink. He offered one to Melissa, pointed her in the right direction. “You take the first shower,” he said. “There’s a robe on the hook on the back of the bathroom door.”
“What about you?” she asked, her voice quiet, worried. “Matt would be beside himself if he saw you—”
“Brody will make sure he doesn’t,” Steven said. His cousin was about the least dependable person he knew, but when it mattered, Brody always came through.
“Still,” Melissa argued.
Steven put a hand on the small of her back and steered her to the bathroom door.
“Go,” he said from behind her and close to her ear. “I’ll go out to the RV and swipe something for you to wear. Put your clothes in the garbage bag—there’s a good chance the forensics people will want them.”
She nodded, without turning around to look at him, then pushed open the door and disappeared into the bathroom.
He waited until he heard the shower running, then retraced his steps to his bedroom. He stripped and stuffed his clothes into the second bag, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants he’d been meaning to throw away. After one last hurrah, their time would come.
Steven got out a shirt, socks and sneakers. He heard the shower stop, and imagined Melissa stepping naked out of the stall, drying off quickly, reaching for his robe and shrugging into it, cinching the belt up tight. The thought made him smile.
It also made him want to hold her. Skin to skin, yes. But the desire was more about knowing that Melissa was safe than it was about sex.
They met in the hallway.
“I’ll make coffee,” she said.
“Good idea,” Steven replied.
Fifteen minutes later, when he joined her, she was sitting at the kitchen table the movers had brought from his condo in Denver—it looked too modern for a ranch house and too small for that kitchen—but Melissa looked just fine.
She turned her head and he knew by the look in her eyes that her brain was in top gear.
Amazing, considering what she’d been through earlier in the evening.
“Hold on,” he said, sounding gruff. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He took the keys to his parents’ RV from the hook beside the back door and headed outside, taking Zeke with him. While the dog sniffed around and lifted his leg against an old wagon wheel half buried in the dirt, Steven unlocked the fancy RV and went in.
There were a couple of suitcases on the bed in the master space, both open, but Davis and Kim hadn’t unpacked yet.
Steven helped himself to a likely looking pair of jeans and a T-shirt with “Lonesome Bend Pioneer Days” imprinted on the front, but he didn’t touch the bras and panties. He didn’t know for sure, but he figured it was a fairly good bet that women didn’t like wearing each other’s underwear any better than men did.
No, Melissa would just have to go without. The thought made him smile again. And that was remarkable, considering.
He returned to the house, Zeke frolicking happily at his heels, and offered the jeans and T-shirt to Melissa.
Still sitting at the table, she accepted the neat little pile of clothes without comment, got up from her chair and went back to the bathroom to put them on.
She returned in time to drink the fresh coffee Steven had just poured into her mug. She reached for the cup and breathed the aroma in gratefully.
Kim was taller than Melissa, so the jeans and T-shirt looked