“Sounds nice.” Melody nodded and then reached over and squeezed Tabitha’s hand again. “We’ll figure out a plan. You ain’t alone. I promise.”
Tabitha nodded as she whispered, “Thank you.”
Melody pulled the keys out of the ignition of her new SUV. Clay had bought it for her birthday. It cost way too much money, but she would never hurt his feelings by complaining, and it was a fine vehicle. Certainly much nicer than the truck they’d traded in that was probably buried in a junkyard somewhere.
They’d put up Christmas lights last week, and Melody smiled as she looked at them twinkling in the night. Something about holidays left her cheery. Things were always a little happier once the air got crisp and the decorations went up. She’d met Clay last Thanksgiving, which just solidified her belief that November was her friend.
Which was why she hated being as brokenhearted as she was.
She walked up to the driveway, feeling her heart hurt for both Wyatt and Tabitha. She was supposed to leave other people’s problems behind at the end of the day, but she just couldn’t find a way to recover from the wrongness of what happened to them. It hit way too close to home, and it was made so much worse because no one save a handful of people know why Tabitha left. To think of everyone villainizing her was so incredibly unfair Melody could hardly breathe past the injustice of it.
She took a deep breath before she walked into the house and tried to remind herself it wasn’t Clay’s fault. He didn’t know what happened. If he did, his feelings about Tabitha would be much different. Melody was certain of it.
“Hey.” Clay met her at the door and leaned down to give her a kiss. “How was work?”
“I left early.” Melody put her keys on the table by the door. “I had a crisis call. Hal let me off.”
“That’s nice of him.” Clay frowned. “What was the crisis?”
“It was, uh”—Melody pulled off her coat and walked to the bedroom—“it was a rape.”
“Hell.” Clay sounded concerned. “Did y’all call Wyatt?”
“No, it happened a long time ago. She was just dealing with some post-traumatic stress. Sorta like me at Justin’s trial.”
“Is she okay now?”
“I think so.” Melody tossed her jacket on the made bed. “She went home to her husband. She just needed help moving past the nerves. He doesn’t know.” She choked up at the last part and turned away from Clay to hide the tears that were threatening. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
“I’ll get in with ya.”
Melody shook her head. “No, I need to be alone for a few minutes.”
“Mel”—Clay grabbed her arm and pulled her to him—“are you okay?”
“It was just a really sad story.” Melody hugged Clay despite her turbulent emotions about what he’d done. “It’s so unfair.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be going on these calls if they’re gonna upset you like this.” Clay rubbed her back. “You got your own set of issues to deal.”
“I’m fine.” She patted his bare chest and then pulled away. “I’m gonna take a shower and pull myself together. Didja eat?”
“I threw some leftovers in the microwave. Did you?”
“Yeah.” Melody started working on the buttons to her top as she walked to the bathroom. “I’m good.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to get in?”
Melody shook her head. “Let me gather my thoughts.”
Clay studied her with a scowl. It wasn’t like her to push him away like that, but she needed a little more time. A part of her was angry at Clay for hurting Tabitha worse by ignoring her since she had gotten back. Before tonight, Melody hadn’t pushed the issue with him, because like everyone else, she’d assumed Tabitha was just a rich, successful author who had left Wyatt in the dust.
Now it was something much different. Melody hadn’t had a chance to see what sort of woman Tabitha was, but Clay knew her. He should’ve known she wouldn’t just leave Wyatt without a really good reason.
Damn the men’s club.
And double damn Jules for being a part of it and fueling the fire of Clay’s bitterness even more. Melody considered Jules one of her closest friends, but she was one of those rare women who had somehow managed to become a part of the men’s club too.
But Melody most certainly wasn’t.
She closed the bathroom door and locked it for good measure.
“Okay, now I know something’s wrong,” Clay called from the other side.
“I’m taking a shower by myself,” Melody snapped when she finally acknowledged to herself how unfair his actions were to Tabitha.
“Mel—”
“Go do man things.” Melody turned away from the door and folded her arms over her chest as she reeled over the feelings washing over. “Go beat each other up and do the rest of us a favor.”
For the first time since she met him almost a year ago…Melody was mad at Clay.
She was still mad at him two hours later when the two of them were lying in bed, because they only had one bedroom, and Clay was too damned big for the couch. Melody surely wasn’t going to sleep there. So she just lay on her side with her back to him.
“It ain’t fair for you to be mad at me and not even tell me what it is.”
“Not, it ain’t fair, is it?” Melody countered. “Being mad at someone for something they did out of loyalty and nobility. That’s just plain wrong.”
“Mel.” Clay let out a pained laugh. “I honestly have no idea what you are talking ’bout. Can you at least give me a hint? Whatever it is, I promise I’ll apologize.”
“You’d be apologizing to the wrong woman,” Melody said bitterly.
Clay rolled over to drape a muscular arm over her. “Please tell me what I did.”
Melody tried to shove him off, but Clay was two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle, and he decided he wasn’t moving. He held her tighter instead. Melody finally had to give in and stay where she was, smothered and angry.
“I love you,” he whispered in to her ear. “And I know I ain’t perfect. Whatever I did, tell me so I can make it better. I hate fighting with you.”
Melody lay there, silently debating with herself, before she finally asked, “Why don’t you talk to Tabitha?”
“What?” Clay rasped, making it obvious that was the last thing he expected.
“I just wanna know,” she went on. “Gimme a good reason, because from where I’m standing, that was mean. Both you and Jules have been giving Wyatt nothing but grief for months now for loving that woman. Tell me why.”
“I ain’t been giving him grief. I just sorta been trying to pretend it ain’t happening.”
Melody threw her elbow back into his chest and then turned around in his arms to glare at him. “Why?”
“’Cause she took off and left my best friend four days after they got married, and the way she did it wasn’t right. Tabitha was better than that. She didn’t need to turn to drugs,” Clay growled in a furious voice, making it obvious this was something that had been eating at him for years. “She went and turned out like the rest of ’em. Like my mother.”
“Are you crazy?” Melody let out a bitter laugh. “She’s written books that make millions of children happy. How do you reckon that makes her anything at all like your mother?”
“One fight with Wyatt, and she’s in the hospital with an overdose. He thinks it was something over the counter. That was fucking bullshit. I know her family. It was drugs,” Clay countered. “Wyatt worshipped her. He still does, and what did she do to repay him—”
Melody hit his shoulder hard enough to make Clay’s eyes grow wide in surprise, but she didn’t care as she got out of bed. She grabbed her pillow, deciding she could deal with the couch.