Her smile was a grateful one. And of course, he felt like slime for playing on her emotions. For using it to his advantage.
Remember what she did to you, he told himself. Although, one thing he couldn’t deny was that Melody was not the woman she’d been before the accident. In the past, she never would have confronted him this way with her suspicions. Yet, at the same time, she was much softer and compassionate than she used to be. Not to mention uncharacteristically open with her emotions.
When she told him she loved him he’d felt … well, he honestly wasn’t sure what he’d felt. It was just … unusual. No one had said that to him in a long time. He and his wife had stopped expressing sentiments of love long before the final meltdown. The pain of their breakup had been less about lost love than the humiliation of her deceit, and his own stupidity for not seeing her for what she really was.
In the long run he honestly believed she had done him a favor, although he could have done without seeing the proof with his own eyes.
Even if Melody thought she loved Ash, she obviously didn’t mean it or she wouldn’t have cheated on him in the first place. Besides, their relationship wasn’t about love. It was more about mutual respect and convenience. She was only saying what she thought she was supposed to say. She probably just assumed that she would never be engaged to a man she didn’t love. But that was all part of the plan, wasn’t it? To make her believe that they were in love. And apparently it was working.
He couldn’t deny that in her current condition, he was having a tough time keeping a grip on the anger he’d felt when he learned about her pregnancy. He was sure that once he got her back home and she started acting like her old self, the wounds would feel fresh again. He would approach the situation with a renewed sense of vengeance.
He was counting on it.
Six days after Ash arrived in Abilene, after showing what Dr. Nelson said was remarkable progress, Melody was finally released from the hospital. An orderly wheeled her down to the front entrance, her heart pounding in anticipation of finally being free, and as they exited the building, a wall of hot, dry air washed over her.
She hoped their place in San Francisco had a courtyard or a balcony, because after being cooped up in the hospital for so long, she wanted to spend lots of time outside. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, felt the sun beat down hot on her face as she was wheeled from under the awning to the curb where Ash waited with his rental car. It was barely 10:00 a.m. and it had to be pushing ninety degrees. The sun was so bright, she had to raise a hand to shade her eyes. She wasn’t sure of the make of the vehicle, but it looked expensive.
Ash had dressed casually for the trip, in jeans and a T-shirt, and Melody didn’t miss the group of nurses following him with their eyes, practically drooling on their scrubs.
Look all you like ladies, but he’s mine.
Not that Melody blamed them for gawking. He looked hot as hell dressed that way. The shirt accentuated the width of his shoulders and showed off the lean muscle in his arms, and the jeans hugged his behind in a way that gave her impure thoughts. She could hardly wait until she was feeling well enough to have sex again. Right now, if she did anything marginally taxing, her head began to pound.
As soon as they reached the car Ash opened the door. A rush of cool air cut through the heat as he helped her from the chair to the front seat. The interior was soft black leather, and it had what looked like a top-of-the-line sound and navigation system. Ash got her settled in and helped with her seat belt, and as he leaned over her to fasten it, he smelled so delicious she wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and take a nibble. When he seemed convinced she was securely fastened in, with her seat as far back as it would go—just in case the airbag deployed and bonked her head, rattling her already compromised brain—he walked around and got in the driver’s side. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“I am so ready.”
He turned the key and the engine hummed to life, and as he pulled from the curb and down the driveway toward the road, she had this odd feeling of urgency. She felt that if he didn’t hurry, the staff members were going to change their minds and chase her down like a fugitive, or an escaped mental patient, and make her go back to that awful room.
It wasn’t until he pulled out onto the main road and hit the gas, and the hospital finally disappeared out of sight, that she could breathe easy again. She was finally free. As long as she lived, she hoped she never had to stay in a hospital room again.
He glanced over at her. “You all right?”
“I am now.”
“You’re comfortable?” he asked.
“Very.” He’d brought her suitcase to the hospital and she’d chosen a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt to start the trip. She’d tried to find a bra she liked, but either they were push-up and squeezed her breasts to within an inch of her life or they were made of itchy lace, so she’d opted not to wear one at all. As long as she didn’t get cold, or pull her shirt taut, it was kind of hard to tell. Besides, it was just her and Ash and he’d seen her breasts plenty of times before.
The jeans were comfortable, and although at one point she was guessing they were pretty tight, now they hung off her. Despite her constant cravings for food, her eyes were bigger than her stomach, but Dr. Nelson assured her that her appetite would return.
She’d opted to wear flip-flops on her feet and toed them off the instant she was in the car, keeping them within reach should she happen to need them.
Other than the dull ache in her temples, she couldn’t be more comfortable.
“If you need to stop for any reason just let me know,” Ash told her. “And if the driving gets to be too much we’ll stop and get a hotel room.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.” If it were at all possible, she wished they could drive straight through until they got to San Francisco, but it was a twenty-four-hour trip and she knew Ash would have to sleep at some point. Still, she wanted to stay on the road as long as possible. The sooner they got home, the better. She was convinced that once she was there, surrounded by her own possessions, her memories would begin to return.
Ash turned onto the I-20 on-ramp, hit the gas and zoomed onto the freeway, shooting like a rocket into traffic.
“This is pretty nice for a rental,” she told him.
“It’s not a rental,” he said as he maneuvered left into the fast lane. “This is my car.”
His car? “I thought you flew here.”
“I did, but I wanted you to be comfortable on the way home so I arranged to have my car brought to Texas. It arrived yesterday morning.”
That couldn’t have been cheap. She’d never asked Ash about their financial situation, but apparently CFOs at San Francisco ad agencies made decent money.
“It looks expensive,” she said. “The car, I mean.”
He shrugged. “I like nice cars.”
“So I guess you do okay? Financially.”
He flashed her a side glance, one of those funny looks that had become so familiar this past week. “Are you asking how much I make?”
“No! Of course not. It’s just, well … you wear expensive clothes and drive an expensive car. So I’m assuming you make a decent living, that’s all.”
“I do okay,” he said, a grin kicking up one corner of his mouth, as though the idea of her even asking amused him. And she knew that if she asked exactly how much he made, he would probably tell her. It just wasn’t that important.
All that mattered to her was how wonderful he’d been this week. Other than running an occasional errand, or stepping out to pick up food, Ash hadn’t left her side. He got there every morning after visiting hours started and didn’t leave until they ended at ten. She had been