Melissa (Daughters Series, #3) Read online

  Melissa

  by

  Leanne Davis

  Daughters Series, Book Three

  www.leannedavis.net

  Table of Contents:

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Other Titles by Leanne Davis

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  My Other Titles

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Melissa

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 by Leanne Davis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Publishing History First Edition, 2017 Digital

  Daughters Series, Book Three

  Digital ISBN: 978–1–941522–42–4

  Edited by Teri at The Editing Fairy ([email protected])

  Cover Design by Steven Novak ([email protected])

  Proofreading: [email protected]

  Dedication:

  To Jenni Hartman,

  Thank you for all your inspiration and information on mountain climbing. And especially for being such a great support and helpful resource as a fellow author and friend.

  Other Titles by Leanne Davis

  Diversions

  River’s End Series

  River’s End

  River’s Escape

  River’s Return

  River Road

  River on Fire

  River’s Lost

  The Sister Series

  The Other Sister

  The Years Between

  The Good Sister

  The Best Friend

  The Wrong Sister

  The Years After

  The Broken Sister

  The Perfect Sister

  The Daughters Series

  Christina

  Natalie

  Melissa

  Emily

  The Zenith Trilogy

  Zenith Falling

  Zenith Rising

  Zenith Fulfilled

  The Seaclusion Series

  Poison

  Notorious

  Secrets

  Seclusion

  Prologue

  ~Melissa~

  Flying. I can fly! I’m almost sure if I stick my arms out, they will catch the wind and I’ll glide out into the sky.

  But of course, I can’t really fly. Somewhere, in the distance and far away, a voice calls that out to me. I know. I know. I can’t fly. I can’t do many things. It’s probably Christina telling me that. She’s always telling me what to do. She’s always right too. I am always wrong. But that’s okay because right now, I’m ready to fly. I glance beneath me. It’s a long way down there. Hundreds of feet probably. I wouldn’t fly. I would simply fall straight down, landing in a puddle of broken bones, blood, tissue, and organs. It would still be me but I’d be splattered everywhere. I giggle at the thought of that. Imagine one of those old–time cartoons where the cat or coyote goes splat! on the ground and then jumps back up, perfectly fine, like one of those Daruma dolls—that’s a Japanese doll that if thrown down, it always rights itself back up. Wouldn’t that be an amazing gift? I wonder if I could do that. The thought of it makes me laugh out loud again. Imagine me, wobbling down and then popping back up. Just fine. Except, duh! Falling to the ground isn’t like falling over. My metaphors are mixed up. I shake my head, as if doing that will sharpen my brain. I’m a little fuzzy. No, I’m really fuzzy. Why are my thoughts so fuzzy?

  I’m not sure. I grasp my forehead.

  I hear that voice again. So deep and always telling me what to do. It’s not Christina. She doesn’t sound like a guy. My dad? Sure, he sounds like a guy. The obvious assumption makes me laugh harder. Oh, Daddy! My daddy. He would not like this. I giggle again. Nope, Mr. Will Hendricks would not like finding his daughter hanging off the water tower over town. He’d warn her how dangerous and stupid she was. He would scold me mercilessly and most likely, dive into one of his famous lectures, never mind the dreaded look of total parental disappointment. In me. He usually finds me the most disappointing of anyone he’s ever met. Christina? Never! She’s like a mini–mom in her looks and her personality, so gee, he naturally adores her. And Emily? Why, she’s nothing but a little female clone of Will Hendricks. And me? The middle child? I’m the family disappointment. The outsider. The black sheep. Well, he couldn’t be too surprised to learn I’m up here doing this. He’d demand that I get down in that authoritative voice of his. If he told me to, I would of course. I could rarely defy him so blatantly, even if I do so when he isn’t around.

  “Missy. Missy! Please! Just look at me.” That voice again. It’s not Daddy’s. Nope. I press my fingers on my eyes and the headache reminds me of itself again. Blinding me. It makes me sway a little. I step forward and my toe feels the end of the small metal platform. Not a good time to get dizzy.

  There’s a deep gasp near me and a gentle but stern voice saying, “Please, Missy, just step backward. Towards me. Please. Come towards me.”

  Seth! The owner of the voice finally comes to me. It’s Seth Gifford! He’s talking to me now all sweet and coaxing as if he cares about me. As if I matter to him. Ha! Funny. Seth could care less about what happens to me. I annoy him. I frustrate him. I sometimes even disgust him. He doesn’t worry about me. He doesn’t want anything to do with me. He certainly won’t really care if I fly off this tower, will he?

  Wait! Why is he up here too? I can’t figure it out. Why am I up here again? I shake my head and open my eyes. The ground is so far below me. It starts to waver and I blink quickly. Why is Seth up here too?

  I finally turn my head, and yes! There he is! He’s pressed tightly against the green side of the metal water tower. It’s an old one. Abandoned and unused, the once nicely–painted structure is peeling and spray–painted with a confetti of colors and sayings and drawings and symbols from taggers. It reminds me of the way my brain works. All swirling colors and pictures and symbols that overlap and interconnect although they don’t seem to make any sense.

  Yes! That’s it! I remember now. I came up here to write something on the tower. I glance at my feet. Where are my spray paint cans? I was going to write something so cool. Like my name or the year I graduated high school or… just something really cool. Maybe a quote. Or a little, inspired poem.

  But now? I’m leaning against the loose railing and Seth is trying to persuade me to come to him. I wonder why he looks so scared. I know Seth loves heights. They don’t bother him in the least. Imagine that! All those years of knowing nerdy Seth, the computer geek, the engineering and science student, only to find out he’s a bad–ass mountain climber! So I doubt this rusty, metal contraption would particularly bother him. But he’s deathly pale, leaning there, holding his hand out towards me. His eyes are narrowed and his mouth is all twisted up.

>   “Missy… please… please take my hand.”

  It seems so important to him. Why? He doesn’t really want to touch my hand. Or me. Yet… his voice seems so convincing.

  Why do I resist?

  Wait. Why am I up here again?

  I… just don’t remember.

  Seth doesn’t look okay. Am I okay? I—I just don’t know.

  Chapter One

  ~Seth~

  She’s using my bed again.

  Grinding my back molars together in frustration, I dig my fingers into my thigh muscles and resist the profound urge to plug my ears or scoop out my eyeballs. I back up and shut my bedroom door, totally repulsed, yet again, by the woman who, for the seventh freaking time, has commandeered my bed for her sexual exploits. Not only is it disgusting, but I find it necessary to delouse my bed by washing the sheets in scalding water and scrubbing the entire bed frame with antiseptic spray cleaner, which prevents me from sleeping on it for the night.

  I really couldn’t give a crap if she screwed all the men in the whole town; I just don’t want her doing it in my gosh–danged bed.

  Rubbing my eyes, the exhaustion caused by my latest trip begins to catch up to me. I flip the gear I’ve been hauling on my back onto the floor in a heap. Drowsy now, I still take the time to organize my camping gear, setting it off to the side neatly before flipping off the occupants in my now closed bedroom door. They don’t even have the common decency to shut it!

  I sigh, walking towards the lone window at the end of the small room that serves as a living room and kitchen with a petite eating bar for two. The window overlooks the outbuildings and pastures of the Hendricks’s’ small, rural home and yard, where I am currently staying for the time being. They built a small mother–in–law apartment over their workshop. Will and Jessie Hendricks, the owners of the land and my apartment, are my parents’ best friends. They have been ever since they became neighbors a couple of decades ago in North Carolina. Without any hesitation, they courteously offered the apartment to me so I could pursue my master’s degree, and I gratefully accepted. The reason I came here was not really for the college program per se, as it was just a run–of–the–mill, rather normal biotech course. The main attraction to Washington State for me was the climbing. I started mountain climbing pretty seriously years ago and have already covered a lot of my own state. So I asked myself, Why not conquer a new state while getting my master’s? Washington was the most logical choice as my mom’s friends always welcomed me to stay with them in order to avoid paying out–of–state tuition and the relatively free room and board. So here I am. I intend to climb the multiple volcanoes and higher peaks of the Cascade Mountain Range as well as the Olympic Mountains on the western edge of the state.

  However, not once do I consider the horny daughter who never quite seems to understand that, at least for now, this apartment is my god–danged place!

  Melissa Hendricks is only twenty years old but she is also the most irritating burr up the butt in my existence. I have been living here for all of a three months, and in that time, on seven different incidences, I have come home to find her in my bed, screwing a different guy. Being not so fond of germs to begin with, the very thought of human sweat and other fluid deposits left by Melissa and the strange men she chooses to entertain nauseates me.

  How could I know that when I agreed to accept the Hendricks’s kind offer to temporarily reside in their mother–in–law apartment, I would be occupying the secret sex site of their middle child? Whatever, this will be the last time. I’ll just inform her dad, and I’m sure that will end it. I’m not sure why I haven’t done that yet. Except it’s really none of my business with whom or how often Melissa has sex. In all honesty, I could genuinely care less. She’s of age and no relation to me, so what do I care about her sex life? What I most wish for is to not know anything about it.

  And yes, I could tell her dad, but I don’t relish that particular scenario either. Will and Jessie are such good friends of my parents. And I’ve been around them ever since I was born. My parents and I have been coming here at least once a year for as long as I can remember. Our mothers are best friends and they still talk at minimum once a week. The idea of approaching either one of them and announcing that Melissa won’t stop having sex in my bed goes against my wishes and doesn’t motivate me too much. I don’t care how promiscuous she chooses to be. Hey, more power to her, but not in my bed.

  Wishing I had stayed up on the mountain, I sigh and peel off some layers. I need a hot shower and some hot food. But the shower is located in the bedroom from where I can now hear the most obscene sounds. Awesome. So what if Melissa likes talking dirty and riding “her daddy”? Yeah, I really could have enjoyed the rest of my life without that personal knowledge about her.

  I finally find headphones and slouch on the couch, trying to tune out the awful noise coming from the other room. I close my eyes and let my body finally relax.

  I suddenly come to when my headphones are rudely yanked off my head.

  “Why do you stink so much?”

  I grab my right ear and rub it. Ouch! That hurt. It is Melissa, of course. She snatched the headphones off my head, causing the right one to catch on my ear. I glare at her. Unbelievable. Wrapped in a towel with soaking wet hair that keeps dripping down her back, she obviously just emerged from the shower that I’d been dying for. My gaze scours her before I quickly glance away. I really hate it she is parading through my apartment wearing next to nothing. Like the other Hendricks girls, she’s beautiful. Tall with long, slim limbs and a trim torso, her breasts are perfectly proportioned to the rest of her. Her long brunette hair has contrasting blonde streaks. The features on her face are breathtaking: classical and sophisticated, her warm brown eyes and long, elegant nose are enhanced by her thin, almost perfectly bowed lips.

  Her gorgeous face doesn’t fit her crude, lewd, rude, and wild behavior. I’m not judging her either. I really don’t care how she talks or acts or even that she’s so wild and loose. She’s a single, beautiful twenty–year–old girl that boys and men naturally desire. No skin off my nose if she chooses to capitalize on that. Nor am I interested in her, so my aversion to her is not because of jealousy. She refuses to believe it, but I have absolutely no desire to be with her. She’s definitely not my type, and that is all it boils down to.

  For one thing, she swears all the time. She insists on using crude, vulgar words and phrases and her stories and jokes simply don’t appeal to me. Her reputation for sleeping around doesn’t bother me in the least; but when it happens at my apartment and in my bed, then I care.

  Despite my disdain and aversion toward her, that doesn’t mean I can’t react to her on the basic level of a guy in the same room with a semi–naked woman, who is still all damp and dewy from my shower. Rubbing my ear again, I stand up and scowl at her.

  “You wanna know why I smell? Because I was climbing a seven thousand–foot peak and living out in the wilderness for four days. Meanwhile, here you are again, in my room, using my bed and my shower, ho–ing around again with yet another loser. So where do you expect me to go in my own apartment, to avoid offending your nose?”

  She wrinkles her nose, examining me more closely. Seriously, I see one of her eyebrows rise in obvious contempt for me. When she is silent, you might think she was some kind of model for a portrait of a Madonna from the old Renaissance in Italy. She’s got that same kind of classic, dramatic, literally breathtaking beauty. Too bad that impression vanishes every time she opens her mouth. To hear her conversation, you can only compare her to a drunken sailor or newly released convict.

  “You’re gay, aren’t you, Seth?”

  Twisting my neck to the side, I grip the muscles there, trying to relieve the instant pressure. She purposely tries to insult me. Her constant accusations about my sexuality are totally crude. If I was gay, so what? What the heck does it matter to her? And what on earth does it have to do with showering?

  I hold back a sigh. “No, Melissa. As
I’ve told you so often for the last ten years, and after you’ve met both of my girlfriends, no, I am not gay. I simply don’t relish walking into my bedroom and seeing the white hairy ass of some strange guy along with the flipside of his junk in my face. Are you never embarrassed by it?”

  She wanders across the small room to glance out the window, probably ignoring our conversation and not hearing my insult. She does that often. She’ll be mad or annoyed or excited or be discussing something with me, and suddenly, it’s as if we weren’t talking at all before she goes totally blank. It’s like she flips on another invisible channel in her head and tunes into a new show, one that she’s much more interested in. All I get from her is how epically she shows no interest in me. She frustrates me to the point that I rarely single her out to talk to her or interact. I never invite her here and try to limit the times when I’m around her, especially when I go to her parents’ house.

  I have no idea what she knows about me. She ignores my comments about climbing or school or living here. Sometimes, it’s like she isn’t wired all the way through. How can I get her to understand that this is supposed to be my apartment? I’m honestly perplexed at why she refuses to get it. She can be a clueless little dumb child with me sometimes. I rarely accuse adults of being dumb, but she just might be the exception. Viewing her profile, I can’t help noticing how her long hair curls down the sides of her face and beyond in a silky cascade. Leaning her head onto the glass, a long sigh escapes her lips.

  “Was there snow up there?”

  “Where?”

  “At the top. You know, seven thousand feet up?”

  “Yes. Of course there was. It’s November. There was a lot of snow.” I doubt she is interested in hearing about all the glaciers and ice fields I encountered, much less about climbing through it all while making sure not to plummet into a crevasse and never be heard from again.