All They Need(48)

“Please, don’t let me stop you.”

She closed her eyes as she took another bite. “This is so good. This has to be Melbourne’s best-kept secret.”

They compared best-burger-ever stories for the next few minutes. As usual, Mel made him laugh. When she wasn’t on her guard, she had a wicked sense of humor and a very quick wit. There was a wild energy in her—an impishness—that appealed to him enormously.

On impulse, driven by an imp of his own, he gestured toward her left cheek. “You have something on your face.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She grabbed the napkin and gave her cheek a good wipe. She looked at him expectantly. “All gone?”

“Almost, but not quite. Here, let me.”

He leaned across the table, hand extended. He was about to touch her cheek when her hand snapped up and caught his wrist. She turned her head to stare at the gob of mayonnaise on his index finger. She shook her head, her eyes dancing with laughter.



“Oldest trick in the book, buddy. The old double-fake face smear. Strictly amateur hour.”

“Nearly got you,” he said, utterly shameless in defeat.

“Close, but no cigar, my friend.”

He grinned, reaching for a napkin to wipe his hands. “I like you, Mel Porter.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Mel’s smile flickered for a moment, then she sat back in her seat and gave him a dry look.

“Second oldest trick in the book—distraction. Don’t go thinking you’ve gotten away with anything, Randall. There will be reprisals, mark my word. So sleep with one eye open.”

He thought about pushing it, about declaring himself more openly, but everything in Mel’s posture told him it was too soon. He settled back in his chair and smiled at her. He wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was she. There was no need to rush this—whatever it turned out to be.



MEL STARED OUT the train window on the way home from the city. Around her, schoolkids played, the boys shoving each other around and checking out the girls, the girls gossiping and texting and checking out the boys.

Mel’s thoughts were preoccupied with the man she’d left behind.

I like you, Mel Porter.

The words still gave her a thrill, even though it had been a couple of hours since he’d uttered them.

She liked him, too. More so every day.

She felt the now-familiar dart of anxiety as she acknowledged her own feelings. When she was with Flynn, it all seemed incredibly easy. He was so charming and funny and sweet and sexy. Why wouldn’t she want to spend time with him? Why wouldn’t she let instinct take over?

Yet when she wasn’t with him, reality crowded in. She had no business even thinking about being with someone at the moment. Her head was still way too full with the detritus from her marriage—witness what had happened when they’d run in to Owen in that hideous excuse for a restaurant.

She had literally flushed hot, then cold when she’d glanced across the dining room and found herself looking into her ex-husband’s eyes. The angry, outraged expression on his face had propelled her back in time, back to the days when that look had meant either a lecture or cold silence in the car on the way home, punishment for whatever transgression she’d committed. Laughing too loudly, telling a bawdy joke, drinking too much—she’d been raked over the coals for all of them at one time or another.

Then the insistent weight of Flynn’s warm hand on the small of her back had registered and she’d remembered that she was free and that Owen’s disapproval and anger meant nothing to her now.

Less than nothing.

Of course, she knew what he’d been unhappy about. He’d done backflips trying to become Flynn’s friend, trying to inveigle his way into the Randalls’ inner circle. To see Mel there so easily, so effortlessly… He’d be brooding over it for hours, no doubt. Wondering what had been said between her and Flynn, what had been done.

God, she was glad she was free of it. All of it. The pretentious restaurants, the constant low-level anxiety about looking the right way and saying the right thing… It had been exhausting. Six long years of trying to live up to her husband’s expectations.

If only she’d thought to ask him to live up to hers.

She’d expected him to love her. She’d expected him to be her friend. She’d expected him to be on her side, to support her. He’d failed to deliver on almost every score.