The Marriage Charm (Bliss County 2) by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

but now, all of a sudden, Spence was an issue. Again.
    All he did was give you a ride home, she reminded herself silently. Lighten up .
    Inspiration struck. She’d leave him a note. That would soothe her conscience, put paid to the whole matter, once and for all.
    Problem solved. Resolutely, Melody climbed the steps and just in case she’d missed her guess and Spence was at home, after all, she knocked on the door. No dog and no horse almost certainly meant no Spence, but with the way her luck had been going lately, she might catch him with his pants off or something.
    An intriguing thought.
    She rapped firmly at the door. Waited.
    No answer.
    Still, she hesitated to barge into another person’s house. She considered scribbling a few words on a page from the sketchbook she always carried in her purse, but it was a breezy day; the message might blow away, roll across the range like a tumbleweed or wind up lodged in the branches of some pine tree.
    Hell.
    Melody pounded on the door.
    *
    N OTHING. S HE WAS out of choices.
    After drawing a long, deep breath, she tried the knob. Surprisingly, the chief of police had left his house unlocked, but then again, she supposed Spence knew it would take some nerve to rob his house.
    She stopped in the act of opening the door, noticing with amusement a garden gnome parked next to something bushy by the front porch. No kidding? She guessed the plant was a weed, but she had to admit it was kind of pretty with yellow flowers that she assumed would send anyone with allergies into a tailspin. Still, it looked as if he intended it to be there. A garden decoration like that on a ranch—what was the story? If that wasn’t out of character, she would eat her pointy shoes from hell.
    He was such a... man .
    A tall, infuriating man with skillful hands and a compelling smile, who made love as if he really meant it...
    But didn’t. All these years she’d expected to hear that he’d gotten engaged. It hadn’t happened. There’d been some talk about Trudy Reinholt, an attractive elementary-school teacher who seemed to hold on to him the longest—longer than Melody had, that was for sure—but it had fizzled out about a year ago.
    Melody let herself in and stood in the living room, since there was no real entry other than some tiles in a square so cowboys could wipe their feet before they stepped onto the hardwood floors. There was a tan couch to her left in front of a river-stone fireplace, a plain pine coffee table with a dog-eared novel on it and an iron lamp that had the image of a bronco rider. His coffee cup was still sitting on the surface of the table, but to his credit, he’d used a coaster.
    Would he mind her just barging in? His actions last night meant he’d given up that choice, she decided. If he hadn’t been so impetuous, so...pushy, she wouldn’t be standing here, uninvited, in his living room.
    Yep, all his fault.
    Still, she was an interloper. Spence craved his personal space, she knew that about him, and it was something they had in common. Solitude was a friend for both of them. She needed it in order to create her eclectic designs. He dealt with a much grimmer reality, although—granted—no one would call Mustang Creek a hotbed of criminal activity. But solitude for him was an escape from the problems he had to unravel, a chance to recover his equilibrium.
    While he was in the real world solving crimes, she was in her own little realm spinning treasures.
    They were opposites. She got him, and yet she didn’t.
    Was that the chemistry? She was light, and he was darkness?
    No, Spence was pure light, just of a different kind.
    She should ditch the philosophical meditation and find a pen, since there didn’t seem to be one in her purse. No sketchbook either. Melody might have walked right into the man’s house, but she drew the line at rummaging through cabinets and drawers. She finally fished out a bank receipt from her bag and thankfully spotted a pen on a small side