Free His Melody by Nicole Green

she’d held him together for a while, and he’d leaned on her too much and taken more than he should have from her. He felt guilty about it, but he didn’t want to get into all that. Getting into it would mean talking about New York. “All past. No current.”
    “Regan? Really?” She put the peas back on the shelf and turned her full attention to him.
    “Yeah. Why’d you say it like that?”
    “I guess I didn’t expect it is all. Isn’t she a lot older than you?”
    “If you call fifteen years a lot,” he said with a shrug. “But things like that don’t matter to me.”
    “So you two don’t have anything going on at all anymore?”
    “Nope. Just good friends. She’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had,” Austin said. She’d saved him.
    “I still can’t believe the women in this town would let you stay single,” she said with a shake of her head.
    He gave a little laugh. “Around here? People don’t get dazzled by things like Grayson Meadows.”
    “But I’m sure they still appreciate a good looking man.” Her eyes flitted over his chest.
    “I’m good looking am I?” He avoided telling her that he was tainted. No respectable woman in Sweet Neck would be caught near him. But he spent some time with the less respectable ones. He hadn’t even done that in a good while, though.
    “Please. Don’t pull that. Ex male model? What do you see when you look in the mirror? Gollum?” She snorted.
    “Let’s just say I don’t look in mirrors all that often anymore,” he said. Vanity hadn’t gotten him anywhere he wanted to be.
    She moved closer to him. “What happened to you, Austin Holt?”
    He almost wanted to tell her. She was so close and beautiful and soft. But he couldn’t allow himself to do it. He was done with opening himself up to people other than Leigh Anne, Vernon, and Regan. Plus, she would be gone in a few days.
    He pointed behind her, brushing his arm against hers as he did so. “Mom needs new batteries for the flashlights. Over there. By the cash registers.” He murmured the words much closer to the soft curve of her ear than was necessary.
    She stumbled backward a little, bumping into a display rack of some sort of kitchen gadgets. He steadied the display as she nodded and turned toward the cash registers. She was adorable. Those shorts were torture for him, though. Very long legs, very short shorts. She couldn’t have possibly gotten them any shorter without showing off her panties to the world. If she was wearing any. Why was he thinking about her panties? Why torture himself like that? Time to get his thoughts away from that very dangerous place.
    That evening, before dinner, Melody and Austin sat in the family room, which used to be called a parlor back in the house’s original, high-society days. Melody sat on the davenport—which as far as Austin could tell was a fancy name for a big, old couch. The high-ceilinged, vast room was mostly filled with furniture his great-great-grandmother had placed in it years before his parents were even twinkles in their parents’ eyes. He guessed it was all antique stuff by now. His mom would know. She loved that Antiques Roadshow.
    They made small talk. He could tell she wanted to ask him more about his past, but he wasn’t encouraging her to bring it up. All that was better off left where it was—behind him.
    All was fine and good until Donnie bounded into the room.
    “Hey, y’all!” the tall hayseed said in his booming voice. By normal people’s standards, it would have been a shout. That was just the way Donnie talked, though. Full volume. He walked over to Melody and sat on the opposite end of the davenport from her. Austin stayed where he’d been sitting all along on a chair across from them. “What are y’all talking about in here?” Donnie asked.
    “Not much,” Melody said, giving Austin a look he couldn’t read.
    “Pshaw. Austin has a lot of good stories. You haven’t been telling her any of your real good