Mel's Arc

Chapter 10 of 36

The next week, Mel found reasons to cross paths with Ted. She brought hay for the black horse he'd left in her care. She waved from the fence line. Ted waved back, polite and short, then found somewhere else to be. Since the dance, he kept a careful distance. He had watched her lie to the heir and take his hand while Ted stood at the fiddler's stand. Now he stayed friendly and far, and Mel could never get close enough to say the one thing that mattered. She drove to Ted's place on a gray morning. His red timber barn stood open. Ted was forking a bundle of golden hay into a stall, his back to her. "I brought your horse's papers from Dr. Venda," Mel said. Ted took them without turning fully. "Thanks. You didn't have to." "I know. I wanted to." She stepped closer. He stepped back, just enough. "Ted. Stop moving for a second." He set the fork against the wall. "I'm listening." "You've been kind and far off all week. Like a man closing a bill." Mel's throat went tight. "I need to say something, and I need you to not walk away." "Say it, then." His voice stayed flat. But he didn't leave. Mel had rehearsed this in the truck. The words scattered anyway. "I told you a hundred times I owe you. The dress. The song. The ride home. All of it." She breathed. "I never told you the true part. I don't want to pay you back so we're even. I want to keep coming here." Ted's hands stilled on the stall rail. "You want to keep coming here." "I chased the wrong man at that dance. I watched him turn his back. Then I looked over and it was you fixing the fiddle for me." Mel's eyes stung. "I picked you, Ted. Not because I owe you. I owe you because I already picked you." For a long moment he said nothing. A horse shifted in the stall. Then Ted looked straight at her, blue eyes clear. "I've been standing back so you could count your debt in peace," he said. "Figured that's all it was." A short breath, almost a laugh. "I bought a salt lick last month just to avoid a girl at the feed store. So I know a thing about hiding." "You're not hiding now." "No." He crossed the space he'd kept between them all week. He didn't touch her yet. "Say the last part again. Plain." "I want you," Mel said. "That's the whole of it." Ted nodded once, slow. "Then we're not even. We never will be." He almost smiled. "That's fine by me." The distance was gone. Mel had finally said it out loud, and Ted had stayed to hear it. But her family knew none of this. And the Caldwell heir's people would soon learn a rival ranch's girl had chosen a poor cowboy with an empty barn.