She couldn’t stop his pain, and she couldn’t change the ten years they’d lost, but there was one thing she could do that would mean something to him.
She sent a text to her friend Margaret and then waited. About a half hour later Margaret texted that she was in the second-floor waiting room. Lissa went out to meet her, and her friend greeted her with a tote bag and a smile.
“I am so sorry this happened,” Margaret said as she gave Lissa a big hug. “I wish you’d told me about being stalked. I have three really big brothers who don’t take well to men abusing women in any way.”
“If I’d known about the brothers I sure might have,” Lissa said. “Did you find everything?”
Margaret handed her the tote bag.
“Everything, and now I’m going to impose on our friendship and worry about you. What are you going to do when you go home? I can recommend a man who installs security systems.”
“I can’t go home until the stalker is caught, and the truth is, I dread going back even when I can.”
“Why?” Margaret said. “I thought you loved living in the house where you grew up.”
Lissa thought again of her parents’ betrayal.
“In the past few days, a lot of things have changed my opinion of home. And there’s the fact that the stalker did a lot of damage, like a broken window in the back door, broken glass and Mack’s blood all over the kitchen floor. They dusted for fingerprints, so there’s no telling how much dirt that left, too. And there’s my bedroom. He tore it to pieces.”
“Melissa! I’m so sorry. Will you let us help? Everyone from school is upset on your behalf. If it’s okay with the police, will you let us clean up the house for you?”
“Oh, Margaret, no! It’s a horrible mess.”
“We don’t mind messes, girl. We deal with puke and germs on a daily basis, remember? And since teachers’ salaries are less than they should be, cleaning up costs nothing to us but time. It’s the perfect way for us to give back.”
Lissa heard the sincerity in Margaret’s voice and didn’t want to deny her friends the right to help. “Then, I accept with gratitude,” she said, and dug her house key out of her purse. “Check with Chief Jakes, and if it’s okay with him, then it’s okay with me, too.”
“Great!” Margaret said. Then she glanced at her watch and jumped to her feet. “I need to go. Gotta pick my girls up from basketball practice. I’ll get your key back to you soon.”
Lissa walked Margaret back to the elevator. “Thanks again for getting this stuff for me,” she said, holding up the tote bag.
Margaret smiled. “Can’t wait to meet that man,” she said, and then the smile faded. “I’m so sorry about his father. I can’t imagine what he must be feeling.” Then the elevator arrived, and with one last wave, Margaret was gone.
Lissa took the tote bag back to Mack’s room. Since he was still asleep, she slipped into the chair by his bed and began digging through the bag, hoping she wasn’t wrong about her surprise. She just wanted to be at peace with the only man she’d ever loved. She wondered where the future would take them.
And then his doctor walked in. “Good afternoon, Melissa. How is our patient today?”
Mack began to rouse as he heard the doctor’s voice, and before Lissa could speak, Mack answered for himself. “He’s appreciative of being put back together,” he said, which made the doctor laugh.
Lissa leaned back in the chair, listening to the doctor question Mack, watching the expressions come and go on Mack’s face as he answered, and all the while she kept thinking how close he’d come to dying.
“Have you been up yet?” the doctor asked.
“Once, to walk to the bathroom,” Mack said.
“That’s good. If you continue to progress without any other issues, you can go home in the morning, provided you have someone who’ll be with you.”
“I will,” Lissa said.
“Yes, I’ll have my partner with me,” Mack said.
The doctor grinned.
“And a fine-looking partner she is. I’ll have written instructions for your care until you come back to get the staples out. In the meantime, move around as much as you feel like, but no lifting. Not anything more than a fork to your mouth, understood?”
Mack nodded. “Understood.”
The doctor left, and once again they were alone.
“Come sit beside me,” Mack said, patting the side of his bed. “I keep having this need to touch you to remind myself this isn’t a dream.”
Lissa understood. It was surreal to accept being back together after so many years apart. She lowered the bed rail, then scooted onto the side away from the IV and reached for his hand. His palm was warm and his grip was firm, and when he gave her hand a quick tug, she looked up.
“What?”
“When I leave here we’ll go back to Dad’s house until after the memorial service, which I have yet to schedule.”
“Maybe by then they’ll have caught my stalker, and I can go back to my house and back to work,” she said.
“I don’t want to be apart from you again,” Mack said.
Lissa’s eyes widened slightly. “What do you mean?”
“We lost ten years. I have no allegiance to anyone. In my heart, you’re still my Melissa, just older and prettier. Could we maybe agree to pick up where we left off, and fill in the blanks of what we’ve missed as we go?”
“Oh, Mack.” She leaned forward, very carefully centering her lips on his mouth and closed her eyes.
She heard him groan as she stifled a sob.
It felt the same. The spark between them was immediate. His lips were firm, and she yielded to the hunger when he put a hand behind her head and held her close to lengthen the kiss. When it ended, his eyes were glistening and she couldn’t catch a good breath for the lump in her throat.
“So...?”
Lissa sighed. “Except for the fact that you’re older and prettier, too, I don’t see one reason why we can’t make that happen. We’ll just have to figure out the logistics because I have to finish out my contract here in Mystic.”
“I understand, and if you want to work after we’re married maybe you could teach in Summerton, although it’s strictly up to you. I have a house waiting for a woman to make it a home, and I make plenty of money if you don’t want to work.”
She shivered, absorbing the love she heard in his voice. “This feels like the end of a nightmare,” she said.
“And a new beginning for us. This is where we were when everything came undone, except then we were broke.”
She laughed. “We were sure that, weren’t we?”
Mack brushed a thumb across the little mole by her mouth and then eased himself into a more comfortable position.
“And just so you know, when we go back to Dad’s house, I’m hiring private security. You won’t know they’re there, and if the stalker is still hunting, hopefully he won’t, either, until it’s too late.”
She frowned. “But that will cost a lot of money, and it’s not fair to you to pay—”
“Hey!”
She stopped talking for a moment, then asked, “What?”
“Two things. Don’t worry about money. We’re good on that score. And don’t forget I have a bone to pick with him, too. I take it personally when someone tries to kill me. Besides, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to make babies and grow old with you, so we need this guy behind bars.”
It was the mention of babies that healed the last ache in her heart. Tears rolled.
Mack groaned. “Don’t cry.”
“Happy tears. Only happy tears,” she said.
Eleven
Louis’s alarm was going off, but he was having a hard time waking up. Finally it was Reece yelling in his ear that did the trick. He opened his eyes just as Reece disappeared, cursing beneath his breath.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Don’t bother to ask what happened to me!” Louis shouted. “I just nearly died today, that’s all!”
He threw back the covers and then groaned when he began to move. Every muscle in his body hurt, and as he made his way to the bathroom, he thought too late that he should have put an ice pack on his face before he went to sleep. It might have helped the swelling.
Bobo followed him into the bathroom, then stood with his little ears up, intently watching everything Louis was doing.
“Bobo, I’m going to the bus station to get Mama, so you better be good when we get back, okay?”
The dog snuffed and plopped down on a throw rug in the hall as Louis went to his room to get a jacket and then struggled putting it on. By the time he was ready to leave, he was sweating from the pain and wondering if he should think about suing the school district. If he got a big enough settlement he could quit work, and he and Reece and Mama could move to Florida. It was in the back of his mind as he went out the door and got in the truck.
His phone signaled another text just as he started the engine. It was from Mama.
I’m here.
He sent a text back.
On the way.
* * *
Pinky Parsons had gotten through life on her looks, and when they’d begun to fade, she’d utilized the fact that she could give a man a satisfactory blow job in less than two minutes flat. And then she’d lost her front teeth one winter when she’d slipped on ice and fallen face-first onto the steps leading into her apartment, and she’d been without the money to fix them. After that, blow jobs had become harder to come by. It seemed to creep men out that she was missing all four front teeth, although she didn’t know why. It should have been a reassuring fact, but there was no accounting for men’s tastes.