But when I walked into the house, I found out Melanie wasn’t in bed. In fact, she didn’t even look tired. The kids were nowhere to be found and the house was dark, except for the fire burning in the fireplace and the candles flickering on the table.
“Welcome back,” she said sweetly.
Shrugging off my coat, I studied the cabin in front of me. It was immaculately clean, which never happened with Liam and Hadley around. It smelled of fresh flowers and cinnamon, but it was the table of food that caught my eye. There were garlic mixed vegetables and whipped potatoes. There were two plates holding massive slabs of New York strip steak. The smells were heavenly and Melanie looked downright pleased with herself, and I felt a surge of luck rush through my veins.
I was in awe of how much Melanie did for this family, of all the things she didn’t need to do that she just did. Like cooking meals and cleaning up the house, taking care of all our laundry and even keeping a list of things we were running out of. This woman was the most incredible creature I’d ever come across, and something inside of me changed.
If she had something she needed to talk about, then she would come to me. She did too much for this house—too much for me and the kids—for me to hold this weirdness over her head. Fuck her weird fear of the shed and fuck whatever she went through in the past. If keeping her around was helping her and this was what she wanted to do with her time, then I wasn’t going to stop her. The smile on her face was bright and the twinkle in her eye was proud, and I wasn’t about to rip that shit from her just because I was eager to know something she wasn’t ready to talk about.
“Melanie, this smells incredible,” I said.
“I hope you came hungry because there’s a lot of it,” she said.
“The kids go down for you all right?” I asked.
“Eh. Liam was a little ticked off about it, but he settled down.”
“Why was he upset?”
“He wanted to watch a movie to try and delay his bedtime, and I told him he could watch whatever part of the movie he could until the clock struck eight. Then, the movie was done and it was time for bed.”
“Oh. He really didn’t like that, did he?” I asked as I sat down.
“Nope,” she said. “Not one bit. Tried to bargain, then started pitching a fit. I let him cry in the hallway while I put Hadley down, then I just went through the motions. I washed him up, got him in a pair of pajamas he picked out, laid him down, sang his song, and turned out the light.”
“You’re so mean,” I said, grinning.
“I know,” she said, sighing. “It just comes with the territory.”
Melanie set a drink down in front of me before sitting across the table and picking up her fork.
“How did everything go in town?” she asked.
“Mm. It went well. Got all the projects delivered and picked up the rest of the payment.”
“The rest of it?” she asked.
“When someone orders something over five hundred dollars, I ask them to put up half the cost before the project. Then, the rest is paid upon delivery.”
“And you’ve never had a problem with that?”
“Not one bit. The people around here are willing to pay that way for quality work, so I always make sure to use the best woods and take my time with the projects. If I mess up and need more wood, it’s on me. Not them,” I said.
“I’ve seen some of the things you load up. They’re amazing. Have you always worked with wood?”
“I tinkered with it when I was a kid. But it quickly took a backseat when I realized I was good at I.T. stuff as well. In the city world, I.T. is king. But in places like this, handmade woodworking projects are. I’ve made everything from small chairs for daycares to massive king-sized bed frames.”
“That’s amazing to me. You know the creative side of your brain is just as important as the side that’s good with math and science. Creativity often unlocks intelligence,” she said.
“So, are you creative?” I asked her. I wanted to know anything and everything about her, even the most mundane details.
“Well I don’t know if I would call myself creative, but I do like to paint occasionally,” she said.
“What was the first thing you ever painted?” I asked her.
She laughed. “Um, that would be a rainbow when I was about eight. I didn’t have all the colors though so I tried to make a couple of them by mixing some of the other colors together. It ended up being the ugliest rainbow you’ve ever seen.”