fly away at the slightest threat.
“I ran an Internet search on your
name. If I can do it, anyone can.”
She slumped against the doorframe. He
was right. Anyone could do it. The only person she’d been fooling
was herself. A quiet life in a small town wouldn’t be possible
because someone would always figure out her secret. She’d been
impossibly stupid and naïve.
“How did you find out about me?” he
asked.
“I researched you in the newspaper’s
archives, and then I searched the Internet.”
“I guess that makes us even.” He held
her chair out. “Come sit down, and we’ll talk.”
This time, her legs responded. She
crossed the room and sank into the chair, her body numb with fear
of the havoc his knowing would unleash on her life.
He pushed her hot chocolate
closer to her. “Here, have something to drink. You’ll feel better.”
His voice, velvet smooth and laced with concern helped to calm her
and the warm liquid easing the tightness in her throat. Her life
was out of control, and she was drinking hot chocolate with the man
who held the key to her future. Unbelievable.
He resumed his seat and slid a
chocolate frosted doughnut under her nose. “Eat.”
She stared at the
confection.
“Can I get you anything
else?”
She shook her head and reached for the
doughnut. She ate mechanically, tasting nothing. She couldn’t look
at him. With downcast eyes, she could see his hands, knew he drank
his hot chocolate, and selected a sugared doughnut for
himself.
Hank tossed the last bite to Betty
Boop. He dusted sugar from his hands and crumpled his napkin,
throwing it across the room for a perfect two-pointer into the
wastebasket. “I’m sorry I blew your cover, Melody.”
The chocolate helped, or maybe the
numbness and fear were wearing off. She raised her eyes, fixing him
with a laser-sharp glare. “Don’t call me that. No one calls me
that.”
He held his hands up, palms out.
“Okay, Mel it is.” He shifted in his seat. “Look, I’m sorry I
sprung it on you like the way I did. I can’t tell you what a
surprise it was…. Well, it blew my mind when I realized who you
were.”
“I just bet it did.”
“Hey, I understand you want your
privacy, and you’re entitled to it. If it’s any consolation, I
didn’t find any recent photos of you.”
“That’s just swell, Hank. I feel so
much better. You understand why I want to be left alone, yet you
went to the trouble of researching me on the Internet.” She shook
her head. “I came to Willowbrook to live a quiet life, to be my own
person…not the daughter of a ghost. You don’t have any idea how
much I wanted this new life to work. And it would have, too, if you
hadn’t been here.”
“What have I got to do with
it?”
“Think about it. The paparazzi know
you’re here. They’ll come hunting for you, and guess who else
they’ll find?” She shook her head. “This is just what I was trying
to avoid. Ever since I inherited, everyone thinks they have a right
to know where I am and what I’m doing. I just want to be left
alone. I have to leave, move somewhere else. Some place far away
from you.” She was on the verge of a breakdown, she could feel it
coming, building like a summer storm. She swiped away tears before
they could spill over and run down her cheeks.
“You can relax,” he said. “I’m not
going to tell anyone who you are. You can go on being Mel Harper of
the Willowbrook Gazette for the rest of your life if it’s what you
want.”
“Easy for you to say. You aren’t the
one the paparazzi are hunting.”
“What do you mean,
hunting?”
“Ever since I turned twenty-five, I’ve
been a wanted woman, so to speak. They almost caught up with me in
San Diego. So I left.”
“Tell me.”
“It was awful.” Thinking perhaps he
could understand, she told him how she had practically been forced
from her home the previous year.
“I’m so sorry. Sometimes reporters
don’t know when to quit.”
“You can say that
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