Page 49 of Grit
“Mom…” No. Please no. This was exactly what she didn’t want.
“What?” Joan’s face was pure innocence.
“You know what? I should go into Metlin.” Melissa forced a smile. “Pick out bathroom tile and paint. Want to help?”
“Nope.” She smiled. “I’m not going to Rumi’s. I’m meeting with Sherry and Maria for the Jordan Valley Committee. I just felt like giving you grief.”
“Thanks so much.” Melissa grimaced. “That reminds me. I need to find out what’s going on with Devin and this company working on Allen Ranch. I have a bad feeling about it.”
“Nothing your brother-in-law does ever feels all the way legal.”
Melissa shrugged. “He knows how to walk right down that line, but I know what you mean. He’s…”
“Slimy.”
She grimaced. “Yeah. He is.”
Joan sipped her coffee. “You just be careful.”
“With Devin? I’m not worried about Devin.”
“With everything.” Joan rose and walked behind her, bending down to wrap her arms around Melissa’s shoulders. “Do you know I want to wrap your heart in Bubble Wrap and hold you like I did when you were Abby’s age?”
“I’m thirty-four.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She kissed Melissa’s head. “You’re still my baby.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, Lissa.”
She squeezed her mom’s arm for a few moments until Joan straightened and walked away. Melissa adored her mother, but for the first time in years, she wished she had someone other than Joan to talk to. She didn’t really have friends.
She’d had them once, before life turned upside down. But she was isolated on the ranch, and after Calvin died, the few friends they’d had drifted away. She had a couple of college friends she kept in touch with online, but they mostly lived in Texas. She was friendly with some of the moms at Abby’s school, but they weren’tfriends. Not really.
Melissa had Joan and Abby. She had Cary. She had Rumi. She had her brother, Ox. And she had no one she could talk to about possibly starting a romance with her neighbor.
But she could drive into Metlin and keep working. Working was what she did best. She’d call Brian Montoya and see if he had time to pick out materials for the bunkhouse. They were making good progress, and she didn’t want to hold him up.
She could go by Tacos Marcianos for lunch. Go into INK and grab a new book for Abby. Maybe spend a few minutes with her brother.
She finished her coffee, grabbed the bunkhouse binder from the row of notebooks on her desk, and headed for her truck. On the drive into Metlin, she blared Pink on the radio and rolled the windows down before the day turned scalding.
It was nearly eleven when she pulled onto Main. After parking her truck by INK, she walked into the store and immediately looked for her brother.
Emmie spotted her. “Hey, Melissa!”
“Hey.” She walked over and gave Emmie a one-armed hug. “How’s it going?”
“Oh my God, she didnot!”
The outburst from the office behind Emmie made Melissa and Emmie both turn their heads.
Emmie’s best friend, Tayla, was ranting at the computer screen in her converted office, which was open to both the bookshop and the tattoo studio where Emmie and Ox worked.
“Emmie, you’ll never believe what idiotic celebrity had aHandmaid’s Tale–themed birthday.Who does that?” Tayla spotted Melissa. “Oh hey, Melissa. What are you doing here?”
“Rethinking my birthday plans now.”
