Page 53 of Second Chances

“Really? Where are we?” With the exception of a river flowing behind the barn, Melanie was unable to identify anything but farmland around them.

“Oh, just outside Beverley.” William shook his head. “About as far as I go these days, which is not how I envisioned my life. You know I was in the army?” Melanie shook her head. “One reason I joined after high school was to travel, to see the places I had heard or read about, like the pyramids in Egypt, the Great Wall of China, or castles in Europe. Joke was on me, though, because unlike my dad, I never made it out of America.”

A head wearing a paper hat stuck out from the ordering window. “William?” He hopped up and retrieved it. Handing Melanie her ice cream boat, he sipped his chocolate malt. “Mmm, still as good as I remember.”

Melanie took a small bite of her ice cream. “How come? If you really wanted to see those places, why didn’t you ever go?”

Squinting at the sun in his eyes, William drank more malt. “Love. Once I was out of the army, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I came back to Clover Lake. Wasn’t home one day when I ran into Catie. We were both on bicycles, ended up riding together along the river. Didn’t even notice we’d gone ten miles out of town. This was before the paved bike lanes connecting all these spots. We sat by a stretch of the river, talked for hours. I was in love by the time we rode home. With Catie, I didn’t need to travel…she was my world. And then, of course, we had the kids, and they came boom, boom, boom, one after the other, three in three,” William chuckled. “We actually wanted a bigger family, but three was it.”

Melanie shuddered, unsure how she was going to cope with the one she was carrying. Just because she was going to have a kid didn’t mean she still couldn’t go to Hollywood. She could leave after the baby was born, right? It could grow up with Henry, maybe she could visit every few months? She knew how much he wanted to be a father, had brought up the subject more than once, but she kept telling him they weren’t ready. Melanie quickly dismissed that idea. She could never leave her own child. She may be selfish, but she wasn’t cold-blooded. Could she raise the baby on her own? Continue packing her bag back at the house, catch the next bus out of town and head to Hollywood. Did she have what it took to be a single mother? If that was her plan, she had to do it immediately because if Henry found out she was pregnant, he would never let her leave, not with his baby. Her only alternative seemed to be to stay where she was, have the baby, and try to be satisfied with a drab and boring life, but that would be the end of her dreams, once and for all. Was she strong enough to sacrifice herself?

“Each of my kids has followed their own paths, Mellie. I know you and Henry got married fast, but my son loves you something fierce. All that business with him having feelings for DD is ancient history. She never gave him anything but heartache. You are the one who makes him happy.” William looked directly at her for the first time since they had sat down. “I get the feeling you’ve got a lot of things to think about…some decisions to make…but just know that Henry will do whatever he can to make a good life for the two of you.”

“Thank you, William.” Hugging him, she wondered how different her life would have been if her mom had found a man like this: loving and generous. Without a doubt, she knew this was how Henry would be as a father. As she and William departed the Dairy Barn, she made up her mind, eager to see Henry. Maybe Hollywood was still possible for her if she could make him see that she and the baby were his family. For the first time in a long while, Melanie smiled, sure that her life was about to take a turn in the direction she wanted, for once in her life.

Waking up from a deep slumber, Henry’s arm curved around the softest flesh imaginable. Charlotte, he groaned, his face nuzzling her neck while his hand drifted across her belly. The belly she’d been self-conscious about last night and the belly he delightfully explored after they made their way from the coffee shed to his house in the deep of the night. He’d stroked, licked, and worshipped every inch of her until they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, finally exhausting themselves. Charlotte was the first woman he’d brought to his bedroom, undressed in front of the full-length mirror in the corner, made love to as night turned into morning, the first rays of the sun filtering in, drenching her bare shoulders in dewy light. Sensual in every way imaginable, they connected on a deeper level than the mere physical, and she stoked in him fires he had no desire to extinguish.

Rolling over in her sleep, her chest strained against the Rolling Stones t-shirt she’d put on at some point in the early morning, the famous lip and tongue logo disappearing between her lush mounds. “Good morning,” she whispered, a second before lifting her drowsy eyelids. “Are you always this sexy in the morning or am I special?” Charlotte’s shiny purple nails scraped his cheeks, his stubble making her giggle.

“You’re definitely special,” he assured her, voice thick with desire, hands sliding under his shirt to cup her breasts. Squeezing them, he growled as her hand ducked under the waistband of his shorts. His head fell back, arms slumped next to his prone body as her mouth trailed a path over his stomach, and his thighs clenched with need. “Charlotte,” he pleaded, choked with lust.

Nymph-like, she rose to her knees, straddling his hips. Henry gripped the hem of the t-shirt, wrenching it off before tossing it across the room. He’d keep her naked in his bed all day if she agreed, he thought, as she descended excruciatingly slowly. When she leaned forward, his palms cupped her bottom, because she was going to kill him if she maintained this languorous speed. “God, Charlotte!” he yelled, just as she slumped onto him.

“Mmm, Henry, I wish we could do this all day,” she said huskily, curling into his side, fingertips drawing mysterious patterns on his chest.

Chuckling, his hand caressed her petal-smooth shoulder. “I’ve never done that,” he admitted.

“What? Spent the day in bed with someone? Me neither.”

“No?” Even now, he loathed the idea of the two of them ever leaving his bed.

“Brady and I never made time for each other like that. First, we were so young, married with a baby, trying to figure out how to be parents. Then, once Isobel started school, I began my college courses, and being a mom and student left no time for us. And then I started teaching.” She shrugged. “You know how life goes.”

He did, all too well. “Did you always want to be an English teacher?” Henry shifted slightly to see her face better.

Charlotte gave a short laugh. “No, actually. In my senior year, I didn’t know what I was going to major in, but I had big dreams.”

Able to imagine her accomplishing anything, he inquired, “Like what?”

“Oh, I wrote some short stories that got some some attention my junior year at a workshop for young writers sponsored by the University of Iowa.”

“Oh, Effie’s been looking into the writing program there, I think for after she and Josh are settled from the wedding.”

“My stories have nothing on that novel she wrote. She calls it young adult lit, but it transcends that.” Loosely based on Effie’s own life, the novel was about a teenage Lakota girl discovering herself through her love of running.

“I agree, it’s brilliant.” Henry brushed a dark curl from Charlotte’s forehead. “Tell me your other options.”

“Well, Iowa State University offered me a scholarship for their theatre department.”

Henry’s stomach clenched. “For acting?” Please say no, he silently begged.

“Yeah. I loved it. Imagined myself the next Patti LuPone on Broadway.”

“You never mentioned acting the day in Mr. Beans when we were talking about you directing.”

“No, I guess I didn’t. I was so flustered by seeing you,” she confessed, scraping her nails on his chest. Henry gently extricated himself from her, rolled over, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Henry? Is something wrong?”

Henry was unable to breathe for a moment because Charlotte’s “dream” disturbingly mirrored his ex-wife’s. “No,” he finally answered, grabbing his shorts from the floor before sliding them on. “I just remembered that there’s some paperwork I need to do today at the shop. It needs to be ready by tomorrow.”