Melody Unchained by Christa Maurice Read Free Book Online Page A

needed, starting with an identity so she could get a legal job. She was way beyond illegal immigrant status here.
    He’d covered half a page, when he heard footsteps coming down the hall.
    Her hair was wild and her face splotchy from crying. “You’re here!” She rushed him, throwing her arms around him.
    “Yeah, I’m here.” He patted her back.
    “Will you stay?”
    “No, Melody. I won’t stay.”
    “But I’m so lonely and you must be lonely too since your wife died.”
    “How did you know Amanda died?” Jerry tried to lean back so he could see her face.
    Melody gripped him tighter. “You have pictures of her, but she isn’t in your house. If you were divorced, you wouldn’t keep her pictures around so she must have died. I can’t take her place, but I can make you happy. Please.”
    Jerry groaned. Her body was soft and warm and felt so good. He had to be the biggest moron in the universe to say no to this.
    But keeping her like a pet just to satisfy him? That wasn’t what he needed. He needed to move on from Amanda, but he needed to move on with a real woman. “Melody, it’s not good for either of us.”
    “But you like me.”
    “I like mozzarella sticks and pizza too, but I can’t live on a steady diet of them.”
    She frowned and opened her mouth. Either she was going to tell him how she could improve his diet or ask him what pizza was. Whatever she was about to say he didn’t need to hear.
    “That’s an awful analogy.” He heaved a sigh. “Melody, I can’t be your master because I can’t be anyone’s master. And you shouldn’t be anyone’s slave. You’re free now.”
    “Free to choose my own master.”
    “No, free to be your own master.”
    Melody looked up at him. He’d seen terror in a lot of faces over the years and this was exactly what it looked like. Her eyes were huge and black and her face pale. Her wet lips were parted and trembling. “I can’t.”
    “Yes, you can. I’ll help you.”
    “If I learn to be my own master, then can I be with you?”
    Jerry brushed his fingers through her hair. Biggest moron in the world. This woman was so far out of his league, she was a pinprick on the horizon. If he let her go now, he’d never get her back. What was the stupid poem? If you love something, set it free. There hadn’t been time to figure out if he loved her. She needed him too much. She needed to learn not to need anybody. Great. “When you learn to be your own master, you can be with anyone you want to.”
    For an instant, her eyes narrowed and her features set in an expression so determined that it probably should have terrified him. Then she smiled and the expression disappeared. “What do I have to do?”
    * * * *
    Melody stopped in the lobby to pick up the mail on her way home from her job at the coffee shop. Jerry had arranged the proper papers so she could work. She even had a birthday now. It had only been five days, but the other baristas and the regulars at the coffee shop were nice. They thought her wardrobe was eclectic and the funny things she sometimes said were eccentric. They also liked the fact that she could recite the storyline of every episode of Dragnet . Jerry had stopped for coffee every day on his way home. He always had a reason, but she wasn’t that stupid. He surveyed the other men in the shop as he was talking to her and if he had to wait because she was talking to another man, he would stand perfectly still and stare like he could make the man she was helping go away sooner. Today’s excuse was to remind her that he would be by in the morning to help her move into her new place. It was small, but clean and only a couple blocks away from her job, and it had taken every cent she had plus a loan from Jerry to cover first and last months’ rent and the security deposit. How long would she have to live there before he decided she’d learned to be her own master? It was a one-year lease.
    Electric bill. Junk mail. Letter from a record company.