Free My Darling Melissa by Linda Lael Miller Page B

newspaper that morning.
    Seating her in a chair near the fireplace, where a blaze was burning low, he turned up the lamp and then knelt at her side to take a closer look at her injured hands.
    Melissa felt an inexplicable, wounding tenderness; she longed to bend down and kiss the top of his head.
    “My God,” he breathed as he rose to his feet and went over to a cabinet to begin rummaging through drawers and along shelves. “What were you doing?”
    “Shucking oysters,” Melissa responded sleepily as he came back to her again, carrying a white metal box in his hands. She was touched to see that it was a first-aid kit.
    Quinn dropped to his knees again and began cleaning the cuts on Melissa’s hands with a gentle deftness that twistedher heart. When he’d treated them with disinfectant he lifted audacious brown eyes to hers and said, “You don’t have to do this.”
    Melissa’s eyes burned with tears. “Yes, I do,” she answered. “My brothers—”
    Quinn shot suddenly to his feet. “Damn your brothers!” he bellowed. “Your brothers have nothing to do with what we’re talking about!”
    Melissa lowered her head, and a teardrop fell on one of her hands. “You’re right,” she confessed in a small, broken voice. “It’s myself I’ve got to prove something to, not them.”
    He sighed heavily and shoved a hand through already rumpled hair. “I’m trying to understand,” he told her raggedly. “I’m doing my damnedest to understand.”
    “I know that,” Melissa said softly.
    His manner and the sound of his voice were still brusque. “Just sit there,” he ordered with a halfhearted gesture of one hand. “I’ll go and get you some tea or something.”
    “Thanks,” Melissa sniffled. She would always remember that it was in that homely, ordinary moment that she realized what had happened. By some strange turn of fate, some miracle, she had fallen in love with Quinn Rafferty.
    A pile of ledger books on his desk indicated that he’d been going over his accounts, and Melissa smiled to herself. She was married to this man, for heaven’s sake, and had no idea what he did for a living.
    It was obvious from her sumptuous surroundings that Quinn had more going for him than the single sawmill that Jeff held in such contempt.
    She stiffened as another possibility occurred to her. Quinn had told her outright that her fortune would give him almost unlimited financial power. No doubt his desk was strewn with ledgers because he was planning that expansion he’d mentioned.
    Despair swept over Melissa as the full import of her situation struck her. She loved a man who had married her for her money.
    She looked down through a blur of tears at her mendedhands. Any tenderness Quinn showed her was probably just business, not real affection.
    Just then he reappeared holding out a glass of white wine. “Here, love. I think this will serve better than a cup of tea.”
    Melissa was torn between conflicting needs—one compelled her to slap the glass out of his hand, the other made her want to hurl herself into Quinn’s arms and beg him to hold her close.
    In the end she simply thanked him, reached for the glass, and took a small sip of the wine. It was a good chablis.
    Quinn had noticed the change in her manner, she was sure of that, but he made no comment on it. Instead he built up the fire and went back to his desk.
    Melissa expected him to be bent over his accounts again, but when she looked up she saw that he was leaning back against the edge of the desk, his powerful arms folded across his chest, watching her.
    “I’ve been going over this in my mind for the last five minutes,” he said gruffly, “looking for a way to say it without setting off that formidable temper of yours.” He paused, drew a deep breath, and let it out again in a weary rush. “I don’t want you to go back to the cannery. In fact, I forbid it.”
    Melissa took a gulp of the wine. “It would probably have been better if you’d left