Rogue (Real #4)(84)

I’ve written you countless letters, none of them ever reach you. So I stored this one away to make sure that, somehow, it will.

I remember all our years together, I cling to them. And of all those years, I remember our time in Seattle most. You liked it when we walked to the waterfront.

We used to stare at the yachts out on the water and we’d wonder what it would be like to have a home that gave us that kind of freedom.

We both wanted to stop running, remember? We were tired of running from city to city, home to home, and yet every time I told you to pack, you did so quietly and without complaining.

I’ve never forgotten what a noble son you were, and I never forgot those days. Not when we moved to Dallas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Boston.

I’m surrounded by water now.

Since I got here, I’ve seen these lovely yachts sail by, and I became obsessed with finding a way to make sure that one day you have a boat of your own, where you can sail far away from any trouble, away from all those bad men around you.

In the end, I couldn’t see another way to do this except to cooperate with your father.

Escaping has been futile. And even if it were successful, who’s to tell me he won’t take his anger out on you before I reach you?

I’ve stayed put and tried to make the best of what I have.

The best of what I have is you, Greyson.

In this box you will find the little that was of value to me, most especially the keys to the boat I wanted you to have. It’s not much, and not nearly everything I would have wished to give you, but I hope that the ocean can give you the kind of comfort it has given me all this time.

Your loving mother,

Lana





TWENTY-SIX




* * *





IN DARKNESS


Melanie


Blackness. Cold. Beeping sounds. I feel alone. I feel empty. I want to move, open my eyes, as I hear voices around me. Why can’t I move? I don’t remember it. I see faces. A woman. A man. Familiar. Familiar voices.

“Melanie?” she asks.

“Sweetheart, do you remember us?”

I blink and the lights burn through my retinas.

Who . . .

WHERE . . .

Panic starts setting in, and that’s when I see the large figure at the other end of the room. My body trembles in reaction, not from fear but from some innate emotion and my heart starts beating really hard. His face is strained, there’s remorse there, and anguish. Seeing the pain there cripples me. I start hurting in places other than my body. Deep inside. I don’t understand how a pain could go as deep as this.

My lips part but I can’t talk, and then the woman presses a straw between my lips. I swallow coldly, my throat raw. The man—he, he is all I want to see—pushes himself from the wall and starts coming over, his eyes taking me in, forehead, eyebrows, nose, lips, cheekbones, neck.

Heat prickles through me hard and fast when he is close enough that I can smell something other than disinfectant. Forest. Forest. My brain screams thoughts at me. Forest. Kisses. Forest. Love. Forest. Danger. A tear trails down my cheek as I open my mouth again, and nothing comes out.

“Oh, I think . . . maybe you should leave,” the woman whispers to him. Not the woman. My mother. My mother, holding me when I was three, ten, fifteen . . . what happened after?

The man hesitates.

THE MAN looks at me like he lost himself and doesn’t think that what he lost can ever, ever be recovered.

“No,” I rasp. “Don’t go.”

His eyes bounce from my parents and back to me, and behind the depth of those hazel-green pools, there’s a roil of feelings in there. Frustration, regrets, and another more powerful feeling . . .

This man loves me . . .

His eyes red, this man looks proud as a rock and nothing will convince me he has not sat in that chair in the corner and cried for me.

He waits and they step back to give us a moment. He starts to whisper achingly softly to me, and the low timbre of his voice torments and heals me, both at the same time. “Hey, princess,” he says, gently running a hand down the length of my braid.

I’m wearing a braid. Someone braided my hair.

Hey, princess . . .

The way he LOOKS at me, I almost can’t take it. He stands there, his body vibrating with tension as he tries to hold himself together. He looks helpless. As broken as I feel. All my senses ache and hurt and my body itches and my arms ache and my soul burns for me to wrap my arms around him. To get closer to him, comfort him, but I can’t move and the wanting to be close is choking the breath out of me, making my heart race.

“Do you remember?” he asks in that achingly soft voice that makes me close my eyes and remember hearing it. Loving it.

“The doctors said you might . . . or you might forget a couple of things.”

I’m mute, desperately trapping his voice in my ears, it’s so beautiful.

“You’re Melanie Meyers Dean,” he says in that low, deeply tender voice, “The couple that just left are your parents. You’re a lovely twenty-five-year-old decorator. You love wearing three colors at the same time. You love things that are bad for you, you love laughing, and you love . . .”

You, my mind screams.

He’s fallen silent, as if he has no words for me, raking his eyes over my face as if he hasn’t had a drop to drink and I’m an oasis in his desert.