Page 135 of Whispers and Wildfire
It was me and Zachary posing in our tuxes on the front porch before prom. Melanie would have been my date that night. Mom must have taken the photo before I left to pick her up.
“Luke, you ready?” Melanie asked.
“Yeah, coming.”
Krista was still saying her goodbyes, but with a few soft words, Anton gently ushered her outside. I gave my mom a quick hug and a nod goodbye to my dad, then left with Melanie.
After hugging her daughter a few more times, Krista finally got in the car with Anton. Melanie and I got in mine, and she leaned her head back and sighed.
“I love my mom, but she’s intense. And yes, I realize that’s ironic coming from me.”
“Your mom’s great.”
“It would be nice if she could get her goodbye routinedown to less than half an hour, but that’s probably too much to hope for at this point. At least your parents are easygoing. Mine don’t freak them out.”
“Your mom and dad aren’t as weird as you think they are.”
She laughed a little. “Thanks.”
I started the car and headed home. Melanie was unusually quiet. She watched the scenery go by with a pensive look on her face that made me wonder what she was thinking.
“What’s going on?” I reached over and twined her hand in mine as I drove. “You all right?”
“Yeah, just thinking.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. Lots of things.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, or if it were good or bad. But she didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so I let it go.
Still, the unsettled feeling inside me persisted. Even after we were at my place—in my bed—content and sated in each other’s arms, I felt it. The sense that something was not quite right, something was missing.
Something unfinished.
And I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it.
The Whisper
ROSWELL MILLS
My parking spotoutside the Timberbeast Tavern was in the shadows, away from the pools of illumination cast by the streetlights, but where I still had a good view of the entrance.
Indecision gnawed at me. To go in or not to go in. That was my burning question.
She was in there. My Melanie.
And she wasn’t alone.
I’d seen her with him more than once. Since I’d decided to start tracking her, learning her routine, it had quickly become clear that the small-town mechanic had wormed his way into her life.
She was even staying with him, basically living at his place.
My lip curled in a sneer. It was an unintended consequence of my activities. Fear permeated the town, and it seemed to have driven her closer to him. I didn’t like it, but it was something I’d have to deal with later—eliminate her feelings for him.
I glanced at the copy of theTilikum Tribunesitting on the passenger seat. Quaint little newspaper. And I’d made the cover.
The Whisper Strikes Again
