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He looked about to reach for her, but then thought better of it. His hands returned to his sides. “But this was not your failure. It was an attack. You succeeded in what you set out to do.”
“And then it was snatched away from me,” she countered bitterly. It was not lost on her that the same could have been said for the relationship between her and Corbin, which had existed only in her head. That made her insides ache even more. “As soon as I can make arrangements, my son and I will be leaving.” She hardened her expression. “So, I suggest you take your dogs and go.”
They stared each other down for several moments, and then Corbin spun around and stalked to the truck. With large, angry gestures, he began extracting his tools.
Was he kidding? She stormed up to him, growing angrier by the second. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. You are done here!”
The look he gave her was cool and dispassionate. “You can’t fire me because I don’t work for you. I work for Queenie. And until she tells me to cease and desist….” He grabbed his toolbox with one hand and shouldered the ladder with the other. “You need to get out of my way.”
She stared at him as he stomped up the front steps, slammed the ladder down, and began angrily scraping at the damaged paint. Rhys and Zanifa lost no time in joining him, and the sight before her made her eyes sting. It seemed as if Rhys had matured even more between last night and this morning. The tears had been wiped away and replaced with single-minded determination. As Melanie watched her big-boy son grab a paint scraper and go on the attack, she had to swallow a lump in her throat.
They were trying to help, she knew, but it was futile. She couldn’t stand and watch. So she hurried past them, not even slowing down when her son called her name. She hurried up the stairs to her room—no, the room where she had slept but which certainly was not hers. Only then did she give in to the tears, embarrassment, and hurt.
“Melanie!”
She had no idea how much time had passed. Corbin’s voice sounded at the window, calling her over and over. He could yell himself hoarse, she decided. She was not going to him.
His voice was replaced by the thump of his boots on the stairs. She groaned. Why didn’t he just leave her alone?
“Princess,” he said softly from the doorway.
“I don’t ever want to be called that again!” she cried out in anguish. “Not by you, not by anyone—”
He held out his hand. “Come with me. You have to see this.”
Reluctantly, she got up and followed him, but would rather die than take his hand. If she touched him, he might discern how much she still longed for him. The shame of that would kill her.
He let his hand fall, but the faint smile hovering around his lips didn’t disappear.
Even before she breached the front door, she could hear a ruckus. The dogs were barking madly, and someone was playing…music?
“Mom!” Rhys yelled. “Come see!”
“Look,” Corbin said softly, gesturing. “See how much you are loved.”
She looked on with breathless astonishment as the yard filled with cars. People began piling out, dressed in sweats and working clothes, their hands filled with tools, cleaning supplies, paint. They thronged around her, hugging her, promising everything would be okay.
Most of them were Minions, but some were Children of Gaia who apologized on behalf of their now-estranged siblings, begging her to understand that they were not all the same. There was a carload of volunteers from Zanifa’s mosque, and several craftsmen and shop owners from the boutiques she and Corbin had haunted almost daily down by the lake.
Corbin assembled them with the authority of a military general, breaking them into task forces and shooing them on their way. Soon the sound of hammers, power tools, music and laughter rose into the blue summer sky.
Melanie found her tears spilling over for the second time that day—only this time, her reasons were different.
