Page 73 of Captive Heart

"It's really only a formality. We have little doubt that the body is that of Thomas Sutton, and since you are legally his next of kin, you are the sole beneficiary of a significant estate. You are set to be a very wealthy woman, Melody."

With that final bombshell, the dwarf detective with the larger-than-life personality drove his wheelchair away.

50

"Why don't we get out of here for a while and go out for dinner or something?" Micah asked her later that evening. “I know you haven't felt safe being outside in the past, but the real danger is over, and a change of scenery might do you good."

Melody smiled at him. "It's Wednesday. Don't you have training classes to run?"

He came to sit next to her on the sofa and took her hand. "Under the circumstances, I asked Trinity to cover for me, since she'd already come back a day early."

"I'm not sure I'd be very good company," Melody admitted with a sigh.

Micah waggled his eyebrows. "I can think of some other ways to cheer you up."

Melody turned toward him and gazed seriously into his eyes. "Do you still want to?" she asked quietly. "You were kind of off the other day. I thought maybe you'd had enough of me."

Micah scooted closer and grasped her hand tighter. "Melody, I was struggling the other day," he said bluntly. "I shut you out because I was busy brooding about Sara, since it was the anniversary of her death. I'm sorry."

Melody lifted a hand to his face and cupped his cheek. "Oh, Micah, there's no need to be sorry for that. I know she meant a lot to you, and I can understand your need to grieve. You cared for her, and her death affected you. You're entitled to your emotions. I would never want to take those away from you."

Micah turned his head and placed a kiss into her palm. "Like I said, I was struggling. But I had an eureka moment that day, thanks to you. In fact, I had a couple. I was coming to tell you about them when I discovered you were gone…"

He paused and dragged in a shaky breath, remembering just how it felt in those moments when he realised she'd been taken, and a wave of pure guilt threatened to overwhelm him.

"Jesus, if I hadn't been so preoccupied…" Micah knew without a doubt that the anniversary of Sara's death would forever be overshadowed in his mind with the events of… Jeez! Had it only been yesterday?

"Don't, Micah!" Melody interrupted with a frown, physically halting his words by placing her fingers to his lips. "Don't you dare blame yourself for what Vinny Sutton did. You know as well as I do that it would just have been a matter of time before he tried to snatch me. I was always well aware of that danger. I was never in any doubt that if he found me, he'd try to take me back."

She took a deep, shaky breath. "It could have been even worse. If he'd managed to get the drop on both of us, he would never have hesitated to take you out of the equation. We know he's capable of murder. If you hadn't been able to raise the alarm as quickly as you did… Well, that's not something I even want to think about. I wouldn't have been able to bear it if something had happened to you."

"But if I'd just told you…" Micah started to protest.

Melody shook her head. "Even if you had told me, I would still have given you your privacy and left you in peace to wrangle your demons. And I would undoubtedly still have used the stock delivery to occupy myself, so it would never have changed the outcome, Micah."

Micah cupped her face in both his hands and placed an affectionate kiss on her upturned lips. "You are such a sweetheart. After everything you've been through, I can't fathom how you've remained so untainted and clear headed," he told her.

Melody touched his faintly stubbed cheek and smiled. "Believe me, Micah, when you've been in a situation like that, you learn to understand what the important things are."

Micah gazed deeply into her eyes, causing her belly to ripple and clench at the intensity before he closed his eyes and sighed, resting his forehead against hers. "Whereas I…God, I've been so blind. I think I was mistaken in a lot of my conclusions, and I think I was brooding for all the wrong reasons. I know I've never gone into details, but Sara died at the hand of her new master, the man she left me for."

Melody gasped and reached out her arms to hug him close. Micah placed his hands carefully on her back, mindful of her abraded skin.

"I jumped to the conclusion that Sara was being abused. In fact, I'd started thinking that before she died, because she broke all ties with me, saying that I was compromising her relationship."

Melody's hand stroked comfortingly down his back, and her quiet support gave him the strength to admit his missteps.

"When she was killed by choking, in what was claimed to be a breath play scene gone wrong, I was convinced I was right. That she was being abused and I was at fault for not trying to do more to stop it. Or for not having tried harder to be a Master to her myself so she didn't leave in the first place. I convinced myself I was to blame and could have done more to prevent what happened, and I mired myself in guilt as a consequence, turning my back on any subsequent relationship, in case I failed again."

Melody crooned nonsense words to him, kissing his neck and his ears, stroking his hair. For a moment, Micah just closed his eyes and enjoyed her soothing nurturing.

"But I was wrong. I couldn't see it until I met you and had your circumstances to compare things with. But once I really allowed myself to think about it, I realised I had preferred to wallow in that guilt and perceive Sara as coerced rather than accept the fact that Sara left because we were finished, and she didn't want me any longer. I closed myself off in case I was rejected again," he admitted softly.

"Oh, Micah, Sara didn't reject you. She just needed something different from the relationship than you were able to give her." Melody squeezed him tightly, and now it was his turn to hide his face in the crook of her neck.

"I know that now, Melody, but the realisation has been a long time coming. Sometimes that's the trouble with being a psychologist. Often, you over-analyse things, especially when it comes to self-evaluation, and then you can't see the wood for the trees."

"Personally, I can't imagine why any woman in her right mind would reject you," Melody said so softly he could hardly hear her. But he did, and he leaned back, grasping her by the shoulders as he steeled himself to ask the very question that had been racing through his mind. The one that might well lead to the rejection he feared.

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