Page 37 of The Scent of Salt & Sand

“She’ll come for you, and when she finds you, she’ll kill you.”

Her solemnity made Dean’s stomach clench. “Who?”

“Rhapsody.”

“Your cousin?” A chuckle blew past his lips. “God, you had me really worried there for a minute.” He sat back on the couch and ran a slightly trembling hand through his hair.

“What are you doing? Get up. We have to go!”

“Look, I know you have crazy family drama, but I’m not going to run away every time one of your jealous cousins comes into town. Now sit down and let me look at your cheek. I think you might need stitches.”

She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “This is serious.”

“And so is that cut on your face.”

“I’ll let you look at it only if you promise we’ll leave if she finds this place.”

“Would it make you feel better if we went to the roof? We can see the whole street from up there.”

“That sounds nice,” she said, sounding a little more like herself.

“I’ll grab a blanket and light the fire pit so you can dry off. Why are you all wet, anyway?”

“It was Rhapsody,” she muttered.

Dean snagged the throw from the back of the couch and they went through the kitchen and out his back door, and climbed the flight of stairs that led to the rooftop patio area attached to his condo. “Did she do that to your cheek too?” He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, guiding her to the wide, comfortable chaise he’d bought just a week before because Melody loved spending time up there, gazing out at the bay with him. He lit the fire pit and hurried back to her, pulling her close to him.

“Tell me,” he said.

“This is really hard for me to talk about.” She paused, lifting a shaky hand to brush back a damp curl. “I’m afraid it’ll never be the same between us once I tell you.”

He took her trembling hand and kissed it lightly. “Melody, there is nothing you could tell me about your family that would make me change how I feel about you.”

“How do you feel about me?”

He hesitated, caught off guard by the directness of her question. She’d spent the past month avoiding the subject of feelings between them, and that had become their norm—spending almost every day together, and talking about everything except her family and their relationship.

“Never mind. I shouldn’t have—”

“I love you!” he interrupted. “Although I hadn’t planned on yelling it at you like that. I’d planned on telling you after I filled you full of my Nana’s famous spaghetti and, maybe, coaxed you to drink too much wine.”

Normally, she would have laughed and teased him about the famous Nana spaghetti he’d already attempted to make for her—and managed to totally ruin with sticky, overcooked pasta. That night, Melody’s full lips didn’t so much as begin to lift in her familiar, beautiful smile. That night, Melody stared into his eyes as if she were trying to see through them to his soul.

“What does love mean to you?” she asked.

He blinked in surprise, but his response came easily. “Love means being willing to make her needs as important as yours, and accepting her completely—faults and all.”

She nodded somberly. “That’s what I think it means, too.” Melody drew a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh, and as she did she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I have to tell you two things, and then I need to show you something so that I’m sure you understand.”

“First, could you tell me what happened to you tonight? You look like it was something pretty bad.”

“It was—it is. And that’s part of what I have to tell you—show you.”

“Okay,” Dean said hesitantly.

“I love you too. That’s the first thing I need to say to you.”

Pressure he hadn’t realized had been squeezing his chest lifted, and his grin was so wide it almost hurt. “That’s good to hear, Melody. Really good to hear. Does that mean you’ll actually say yes to being my date at my sister’s wedding this weekend?”