River Bend was too small for a mayoral office, but there was a chamber of commerce . . . or a half a dozen busybodies who helped legislate some of the simple squabbles the town would come across.
“I didn’t know you owned a pair of jeans, Dad.” Wyatt gave his father crap as they lugged bags of ice from the market to fill the buckets lining the beverage station.
“Do you own a suit?”
Wyatt thought of the tie holding the PVC pipes together on his truck. “Define suit.”
His father laughed as he dropped the ice into one of the waiting buckets and went back for more.
“So, all this for one little girl.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said with a sigh. “Great, isn’t it?”
His father patted him on the back. “You really have something special here.”
“I love it. I really do.”
“I can see why.”
Sam walked out of the market as Wyatt and his dad were going back in for more ice.
“Hi, Sam . . . have you met my father yet?”
Sam offered a handshake. “No, but I’ve heard plenty about you.”
After his father exchanged pleasantries, Sam glanced back over to his diner with a scowl.
“What’s up? You don’t look too happy.”
“Zoe’s on a terror in there. She needs fresh basil and I don’t have it.”
“None here?”
Sam shook his head. “I bought them out last night, but she needs more.”
Wyatt scratched his head. “Check with Mrs. Miller, she has an herb garden, and if that doesn’t work, call Mrs. Kate.”
Sam’s eyes lit up. “Your son is brilliant,” he told William before running across the street.
“All for a little girl,” he heard his father utter again.
“She became everyone’s little girl when she went missing. This day could have been very different.” He shuddered to think about what could have happened had they not found Hope when they did. “This celebration is for the town. A pat on the back for watching out for each other. You don’t get this in the big city.”
“You don’t get it in every small town either.”
“Then you’re living in the wrong town.”
“Not a lot of need for a high-powered lawyer in a place like this.”
Wyatt had to laugh. “There is this week.”
His father conceded with a nod. When his smile grew bigger and his eyes traveled to a space behind him, Wyatt turned.
Melanie walked up the middle of the street with Hope’s hand in hers. The two had the same smile, the same hair pulled back in a clip.
And Wyatt’s heart warmed.
The woman had wiggled inside him and taken up space he didn’t know he had available.
“If it isn’t the special guest of this shindig,” William said as they approached.
Hope lifted her arms to his dad, who hoisted her up as if she were four.
The movement had Melanie gaping and Wyatt doing a double take.
Hope kissed his father’s cheek and giggled. “Did you see the balloons?”
“No, where are they?”
“Over by Uncle Luke’s.” Hope pointed with the arm she had slung over his father’s shoulder.
“Wanna show me?”
“Okay.” Hope jumped down from his dad’s arms and pulled on his hand.
William winked at Melanie. “We’ll be back.”
Melanie stood with her mouth open as her daughter ran off with Wyatt’s dad.
“What is that all about?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s infatuated. I’ve never seen her like this.”
Wyatt took in Melanie’s profile. There was still a measure of tired behind her eyes, but she looked as if she’d managed a few hours of sleep.
She must have felt his eyes on hers. When she twisted in his direction, she grinned and ran a hand down the back of her hair.
He smiled.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” He stepped into her personal space and pressed his body next to hers. “Getting some sleep?” he asked in a gentle voice.
“A little.”
“Anything I can do?”
She glanced over her shoulder at her daughter. “Nothing you’re not already doing.”
When she twisted back his way, he closed the space between them and kissed her. Like every time, his body responded with a desire for more, not that this was the time, or the place.
She pressed a bit closer, and he suffered a groan.
Melanie broke their kiss and smiled. “Happy to see me?” she asked with a knowing smirk.
“Miss you,” he told her.
She lowered her eyes. “Now’s not the time.”
He placed a finger under her chin and forced her eyes to his. “Just holding you is enough . . . right now,” he added.
Wyatt wrapped an arm over her shoulders and walked her in the opposite direction from Hope and his father.
When Melanie looked behind them, he stopped. “She’s safe with my dad.”
“I know. It’s just . . .”
“It’s hard.”
“It’s impossible. I worry in my sleep.”
Wyatt kept walking and let her talk.
“I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming that we didn’t find her. I see her cold and broken on the side of the cliff.”
He held her closer.
“I see Mr. Lewis coming back and checking in at the hotel and none of us being the wiser to what he is up to.”
“I don’t think he’s coming back,” he told her.
She snuggled closer. “I still worry. Then there is Nathan and that pinched-face Oz woman.”