“I’ve known for a while he’s not in the witness protection program. He only told us that so he could leave with everyone still liking him. And I’m actually kind of glad he’s obsessed with his image. Because it would have been a lot easier to leave his dogs at the pound and ditch his granny without a backward glance. Instead, he gave them to me.”
I stared at Buster and Sarge at our feet. “These are his dogs?”
“Yeah.”
So, the guy was a con artist. And I was a jerk for thinking otherwise. It made sense. Melissa had this big heart, and he’d taken advantage of that. “Did he take money from you?”
Melissa gave a bitter laugh. “No. His family has plenty of money. The place Granny stays in is actually pretty swanky. He didn’t need money, he needed freedom. Granny’s not the easiest person to get along with, and Buster here has an excitement pee problem. Sarge gets anxious without Buster by his side, so they’re a package deal. I think Damien only asked me to marry him so I’d feel more obligated to help out when he left.”
“What did he ask you to do?”
“He asked me to keep an eye on Granny and to take care of his dogs until he could come back. And then we’d be together.”
Dangling hope like that. What a total piece of garbage. “When did you know it was all a lie?”
Melissa sank deeper into the couch and stared at the ceiling. “He witnessed a kidnapping of a kid whose parents were in a custody battle. Or, I don’t know, maybe that part’s not even true. But he made it seem like he was in constant contact with the police, and that the kidnapper was part of this criminal ring that involved the dad. And then Damien came to my apartment one morning with his truck packed to the gills. He said they were putting him into protection until the case went to trial, and maybe after that, too. And I believed him. I had no reason not to. My suspicion that it was all made-up built over time, and came to a head when I ran into one of his old girlfriends when I was out jogging. She recognized his dogs.”
Melissa turned and hugged me suddenly, taking me by surprise. I relaxed and pulled her closer, kissing her forehead.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Relieving stress.” She pulled away reluctantly and smiled. “Am I freaking you out?”
I shook my head. “I’m just going to shut up and listen.”
“Good man.” She pulled her knees up and hugged them. “He told his ex-girlfriend he was a neurosurgeon and a children’s pastor. Oh, and that he had climbed Mount Everest as a birthday gift to himself. And a bunch of other stuff that turned out to be complete lies. We compared enough notes to discount pretty much everything he’d ever told us about himself.”
“I told you I was a drug dealer,” I blurted out, wishing I’d known the truth about her situation from the beginning. I would have never lied to her, not even as a joke. I saw every conversation we’d ever had in a new light. Why did she even like me?
Melissa turned to study me and rubbed her thumb over the crease in my forehead. “Yeah, but you weren’t a convincing liar at all, which I found really attractive.” She smiled. “I have to admit, I did, um, check the state dental board records. You are, in fact, a dentist.” Her face flamed red, whichIfound really attractive.
The fact that she checked up on me meant she cared. And that meant I couldn’t ever keep secrets from her. Not if I wanted to deserve her, and I found I did. “Melissa, I told you I was a drug dealer because… um…” Oh, this was hard. How did I not make myself sound like the world’s biggest jerk?
She waited on me, her smile growing brighter with every awkward second that passed. “This ought to be good.”
“Okay, it’s just that after Natalya, I got sort of jaded. You know, like in the way you wanted to check up on my dental certifications. I assumed that if your fiancé told you he needed to go into the witness protection program… that meant he was…”Just breathe. “….a little desperate.”
Melissa’s eyes widened. “You thought I was the type of woman you had to run away from. LikeFatal Attractionlevel.” She stared at me for several seconds, and I wondered if I was about to get slapped. But then she threw back her head and laughed until tears ran down her face. “Oh, dear. I get it now.” She wiped a tear away. “You were so afraid of me. Dangerously afraid. Of me.”
“So, you’re not mad?”
She smiled. “I haven’t decided yet. I think Granny’s mad enough for the both of us. You have not endeared yourself to me in her eyes. She thought you were sweeping up that grass seed the other night so you could steal it.”
“How do I get on her good side? Flowers?”
Melissa shook her head. “She’d find that presumptive.”
“Okay. No flowers. Chocolate?”
“Hate, hate, double hate.”
“She hates chocolates or she hates cliché gifts?”
“The second one. She’d call you a smarmy butt-kisser for sure.”
“Would she use those exact words, though?”
“Yes.”
