Free More Than Friends by Erin Dutton

only your closest neighbors might have heard breaking glass, anyway. Have you touched this door or the frame at all?”
    “No.”
    She made several notes regarding the forced entry and called dispatch to request a crime-scene tech for fingerprints. When the dispatcher responded “I’ll put you in line,” she knew the few officers covering the county must be backed up with calls. She advised Mr. Baxter about the wait time and told him what to do in the meantime.
    When she finished taking his report, she went outside to find Melanie. The front yard was empty, so she circled to the back. Inside the privacy fence, which last night had helped shield a thief at work, she discovered a hidden garden. Lush green plants, accented with brightly colored flowers, lined the walkway. Shoots of new vines crawled up a lattice archway, and she could imagine how beautiful the area would be as the plants matured.
    An outdoor sofa and chairs circled a fireplace and created a quaint conversation area steps away from the back door. She spotted a few well-hidden path lights and suspected there were a number more she didn’t see that would adequately light the walk at night.
    “How do you have this much color so early in spring?” she asked when she saw Melanie kneeling next to a flower bed situated inside a bend in the path.
    “We had such a warm winter that things are coming up and flowering earlier than usual. Some of our plants are local, but some come from even warmer climates. As long as we don’t get another hard frost, this stuff will be okay.”
    “So you’re taking a chance?” She recalled a few years ago when it had been warmer than usual and the trees had all budded, but then temperatures dropped for about a week and killed most of the greenery.
    “Yes. If it freezes, I’ll have to replace some of it, but he wants it done now so we’ll risk it.”
    “Well, it’s beautiful.”
    “Thank you.” Melanie stood and swiped her hands across the thighs of her well-worn jeans, leaving smears of dark soil. “But Lucas gets most of the credit. I’ve started letting him take on some of the design work. He’s really very talented.”
    “He certainly is. Does Mr. Baxter know that a man did most of his design?”
    “I don’t know. Why?” With the back of her still-dirty hand, Melanie pushed at a wisp of hair in her face. When the stubborn strand fell back down, Evelyn moved forward, intending to help her. But Melanie grabbed it and shoved it behind her ear, leaving her standing a little too close for casual conversation.
    “Um—no reason.” How had she never noticed the dark ring around the grassy green of Melanie’s irises?
    “Okay.”
    She took two steps back, restoring comfortable space between them. “He just strikes me as a bit of a chauvinist.”
    “I got that from him, too.”
    “How bad were you hit last night?”
    “I’ve got a list out front by the trailer.”
    “Okay, great. Let’s go out there.” She wanted to escape the intimate backyard and return to the very public front of the house. Perhaps that would keep her from noticing how Melanie’s perfume mingled with the earthy smell of the soil she’d had her hands in.
     
    *
     
    “Thanks again. I know I could have just called dispatch, but—”
    “It’s no problem.That’s what friends are for.”
    Melanie nodded, trying to ignore the twinge of bitterness in response to Evelyn’s words.
    “Hey, what’s wrong?” Evelyn touched her arm. “What’s going on?”
    “Is that what we are? Friends?”
    “Of course.”
    “I—uh—I just—since the split, I feel like you took her side.” Did she sound petty? She’d tried to ignore the feeling that all of their former friends had dropped her, Evelyn among them. Other than a few texts inquiring after her well-being, she hadn’t seen or spoken to Evelyn in a couple of months.
    In truth, many of their friends had been Kendall’s friends when they got together. Melanie had been working so hard to