Fortress of Love Read online

  Copyright

  ISBN 1-57748-546-7

  © 1999 by Barbour Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Truly Yours, PO Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

  All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover illustration by Lauraine Bush.

  One

  Light from the early winter afternoon filtered softly through the four windows of the bedroom, bringing the shimmering gold of the woman’s metallic evening gown to glittering life.

  Melissa Kincaid looked pensively at her image in the cheval glass. She regarded her amber eyes, a full mouth, and tall, slim figure—but she knew that her physical form told nothing about who she was. Ever since she had called off her wedding to Brian Cartwright, who she was seemed unclear.

  She shook her head, denying the self-deceiving notion that her breakup with the senator’s son had somehow clouded her identity. The truth was, she hadn’t been sure of herself for years.

  Sighing, she ran her hands down the radiant sheen of the sparkling cloth. The dress made her look warm and at ease, a true testimony to the creative abilities of the designer. In her heart, Melissa felt cold and numb. She had bought the elegant gown as a part of her trousseau. And if she hadn’t canceled the wedding—canceled her life with Brian—she might be wearing the gown this very evening on her Caribbean honeymoon, instead of dreading the Ridgedale Country Club’s annual Christmas ball.

  She hastily shifted her eyes away from the mirror and glanced out the nearest window. Through the diffusion of the sheers she gazed at the snow-covered grayness of the waning afternoon. Calling off the wedding was the one right and true thing she had done in a long time—and the only decision she felt certain of. Brian was cut from the same cloth as her aunt and uncle, a social machine who would have totally devoured a woman like Melissa, who wanted more out of life than one cocktail party after another. She wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted, but she knew it wasn’t the social whirl of Ridgedale society.

  Melissa shook her head. Her nearly black hair glistened against the gold of her dress like a jeweled accessory. Walking over to her dressing table, she sat heavily on the velvet stool and slipped her silk clad feet into the black kidskin pumps that had been fashioned to accompany the dress. The last thing she wanted to do was to attend the Christmas ball that evening. It was the event of the year, and she knew that everyone would be talking behind their hands—and behind her back—about her canceled engagement. She also knew that the prevailing sympathies were with Brian. She had dared to spurn a Cartwright, one of the oldest and most respected names in the state. In the eyes of the community, she was in disgrace.

  Propping her elbows on the table, she rested her head in the palms of her hands and sighed. Practically no one, not even those she had considered her closest friends, understood that, at twenty-two, not only was she not ready to get married, but even if she had been, Brian Cartwright was all wrong for her.

  When she had started dating the fair-haired, handsome attorney a little over a year ago, she had been flattered by all the attention. Already socially prominent through his law practice and family connections, it was obvious to all that Brian was going to follow in his father’s political footsteps. And in Melissa, he had been delighted to discover the perfect woman to support his plans.

  The daughter of a physician, Melissa had lived with her aunt and uncle in their antebellum home above the river since her parents’ untimely deaths when she was a girl. She had learned the social graces from her aunt and was young enough to be molded. Best of all, in this permissive day and age, she was a girl of high morals.

  Like a prince planning his future reign, Brian didn’t want a girl whose past might embarrass him someday, or even worse, cost him votes. So, along with his political career, he had pursued Melissa diligently, and like a leaf caught in a flood, she had been swept along in the tide of his powerful personality.

  Although she believed that Brian loved her, she couldn’t help feeling that he wanted her as much for his résumé of qualifications for office as for herself. When she realized that her own identity was in danger of being overwhelmed, she knew that she had to get out of their engagement or risk sinking into a hollow existence—a place that she feared would be much worse than what she had experienced since coming to live with her aunt and uncle in their mausoleum of a mansion.

  The staccato rap of hard knuckles against her bedroom door brought her thoughts to an abrupt halt. Melissa was well acquainted with the sound. Her aunt, the monarch of the house, was on the other side demanding entry into her domain.

  A grimace crinkled the smooth features of Melissa’s face. When she was a girl, the knock at the door meant that it was time to practice her diving and climbing skills. She would either dive under her bed or climb through the tiny opening to the attic in the ceiling of her closet. Anything to escape her aunt’s hateful tongue. Melissa couldn’t help but wish that there was a place of refuge for the grown woman she was now. But there hadn’t been for years.

  “Me–lis–sa.” Her aunt’s clipped, autocratic voice sounded through the oak of the door and Melissa wondered, not for the first time, how someone could take a melodious name like Melissa and make it sound so ugly.

  “Me–lis–sa,” her aunt called out again, chopping her name into three syllables like a novice cook chopping an onion.

  Resigned to hearing whatever her aunt had to say and getting it over with, Melissa called out, “It’s unlocked.”

  The door opened and Melissa was face-to-face with all the anger, disgust, and even a little envy, that glowered in Mrs. Kincaid’s frosty eyes. With a sudden flash of insight, Melissa realized that her aunt had looked at her the same way ever since the first day Melissa had come to live with her ten years before. In fact, now that she thought about it, the only time her aunt’s eyes had offered a degree of acceptance had been while she was engaged to Brian.

  “Your uncle and I have been waiting for you.” Her aunt spoke with an affected southern accent that grated on Melissa’s ears like an untuned piano. A southern accent was beautiful when it was real. But her aunt’s wasn’t. She was from Oregon. “Do you suppose you could grace us with your presence?” The older woman placed a sickly sweet, sarcastic emphasis on the last few words—another habit to which Melissa was accustomed. “You know how your uncle likes to arrive first at gatherings.”

  Melissa knew. She also knew why. It was his way of keeping tabs on everyone, including her. The line of Melissa’s mouth thinned with distaste at the thought of the evening that stretched out before her. As she reached for her evening bag, she answered, her voice as bland as her eyes, “I’ll be right down.”

  Seemingly satisfied, her aunt swiveled to leave, her gown rustling like crinkling paper. A second too soon, Melissa let the breath she had been holding escape through her teeth. Her aunt threw a stinging glance over her shoulder and said with venom in her voice, “But heaven knows, you shouldn’t even be coming to this ball.”

  Melissa flinched at the attack. She knew that her aunt was implying that she should have been on her honeymoon right now. Melissa wasn’t sure if it was anger, hurt, or something else that welled up inside of her, but she flung her purse down on the dressing table and fired back at her aunt, “Fine. If that’s the way you feel, I won’t go.”

  The older woman stalked back into the room and between pinched lips spat out, “You most certainly will go! It’s enough that you should humiliate your uncl
e and me by canceling your wedding three weeks before the ceremony. But not to come tonight would be the same as admitting to the world that it was shameful.”

  Melissa’s amber eyes became as foggy as sea-glass. “Isn’t that what you think?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters only what we show to the good citizens of this city.”

  “Show.” Melissa repeated the word as if it were the foulest word in the English language. She was totally disgusted by the superficiality it signified. Without thinking, she blurted out the one question she knew should have remained unasked. “Tell me, dear Aunt, are you more upset that I didn’t marry Brian because of his social connections or because you lost your chance to get rid of me?”

  Shock registered in the older woman’s eyes. Her mouth moved for a moment before the words tumbled out weakly. “You shouldn’t have canceled the wedding. You should have married Brian.”

  “Why?” Melissa taunted. “So that I’d be out of your house for good?”

  Her aunt’s face suffused with red. Like a malfunctioning pressure cooker, she finally exploded. “Yes!” she shouted. “So you would leave me alone with my husband. I never wanted you here! I never wanted to share my house with you! If you had been my own child, fine. But taking you in was pure charity as far as I’m concerned.”

  Melissa felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach. She had always suspected that her aunt hadn’t wanted her—but hearing the words was a million times more hurtful than she ever would have imagined. Even though Melissa recognized that she was partly at fault for goading her aunt into such an admission, now—like a wounded beast—she only wanted to strike back. And she did, with some venom of her own.

  “Well, don’t worry, dear Aunt.” The tone Melissa placed on the adjective was anything but an endearment. “We don’t live in the Middle Ages.” She grabbed her beaded evening bag off the table and as she stalked past her aunt toward the door, she flung a parting shot over her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll find a man tonight and move in with him.”

  At the gasp that came from her aunt, Melissa knew that her arrow had found its hurtful mark.

  Reaching out a clawlike hand, the older woman grabbed hold of Melissa’s arm. “You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed. Melissa knew that, according to her aunt’s strict code of etiquette, moving in with a man outside of marriage would be the ultimate in social horrors.

  Melissa looked at the hand on her arm as if it were a reptile. But before she could say another cross word, the absurdity of her last statement washed over her mind. If she hadn’t been so angry, she might have laughed. She knew that she was as old-fashioned as her aunt about courtship and marriage—only not for the same reason, not because of social norms. Melissa’s parents had instilled a sense of morality in her years ago, and she clung to her values of right and wrong tenaciously. Besides that, she had no desire for another relationship anytime soon. After an awkward moment of silence, she finally whispered, “No, Aunt. You know I wouldn’t.”

  ❧

  The tension in the plush Mercedes was as thick as the new snow that was quickly piling up along the side of the road. From her place in the backseat, Melissa peered out through the windshield and surveyed the whiteness.

  In the light of the car’s high beams the pristine snow glowed like something out of a fairy tale. Melissa wished that she could fall into it and make snow angels, or become an angel, a pure being without a worry in the world. She wanted nothing more than to escape into the luminosity of the night, maybe find a deserted cabin in the woods, a refuge, and leave all her thoughts, all her cares, far behind.

  She sighed and pulled her expensive, faux fur coat tighter around her. She shivered in spite of the heat in the car—chilled in her spirit more than anything, because she knew that she wasn’t free to escape, and that the cabin in the woods was a fantasy. And even if she could escape, her thoughts would come with her like unwelcome guests. Activity, keeping busy, was the only way to get any rest from the swirling confusion in her mind.

  That was one good thing about the Christmas ball. All the small talk would provide a diversion from her thoughts. Despite her angry outburst at her aunt, she hadn’t relished the idea of being left behind—alone—to rattle around the big house. Even the housekeeper and cook had been given the night off.

  Looking out the window, she knew that if she could be granted one wish it would be for a friend, a real one, someone to talk to. Adding to the pain of the breakup was the discovery that her so-called friends were as false as the social graces that they hid behind. Not a single one had supported her decision. Only an acquaintance, the pediatrician at her uncle’s medical clinic, had seemed to understand and had offered her a shoulder to lean on.

  Melissa was confident that her university friend, Kristen King, would have been on her side, too, if she had known. But Melissa hadn’t told Kristen, who lived in a distant town. She was newly engaged to Ted—a man Melissa didn’t think much of—and Melissa hadn’t wanted to mar her friend’s romance with her own problems.

  Smoke from her uncle’s cigar drifted into the backseat, making Melissa cough. Annoyed, she swung her cashmere and leather glove in front of her nose. “Can’t you do without that pacifier for even a few minutes!” she snapped. Her words broke the uneasy truce that she and her aunt had maintained in her uncle’s presence.

  “How dare you talk to your uncle in that fashion,” her aunt snarled in a voice heavy with self-righteous affront.

  With exhaustion in his voice, Uncle Bob cut in before Melissa could respond. “Do you two suppose we might enjoy ourselves tonight? This is a very important party.” Ignoring Melissa’s disgusted sigh, he continued, “And I will not have you showing us to be anything other than a loving, united family.” Through the rearview mirror he pierced Melissa with his amber eyes. “You must understand, Melissa, your aunt is very upset that your engagement to Brian didn’t work out—”

  “Didn’t work out?” Melissa repeated, rolling her eyes away from his. “Your ability to rewrite history is amazing, Uncle Bob. It wasn’t that the engagement didn’t ‘work out,’ ” she challenged. “I called it off!”

  Her uncle continued to speak, as if she hadn’t said a word, something Melissa was used to. “And I will not have you cause her more worry.”

  Melissa didn’t dare glance toward her aunt, knowing that she would be wearing a hurt, yet gloating, expression that Melissa despised the most. “But Brian is not the only man on the face of this earth,” her uncle continued, and Melissa’s eyes swiveled back to meet his in the mirror. She was appalled.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Uncle Bob? I—don’t—want—to—be—involved—with—a—man—right—now.” She spoke each word carefully and distinctly. “I have no desire to get married anytime in the near future. I’m not ready for it.”

  “You just haven’t found Mr. Right,” he stubbornly insisted.

  “And I hope I don’t for several more years,” Melissa returned. Then, taking a deep, steadying breath, she tried once more to make him understand. “Uncle Bob, I don’t want to ‘find’ Mr. Right until I can first ‘find’ myself.”

  Her uncle chuckled, a deep throaty sound, the by-product of too many years spent puffing on cigars. “I didn’t know you were lost.”

  Uncle Bob was attempting to be funny, but his words went through Melissa like a knife.

  That’s exactly what I am, Melissa thought as she closed her eyes and sank back in her seat. Lost.

  And she had been lost for a very long time, and she didn’t know which way to turn. The happy, secure girl she had been when her parents were alive had wandered off somewhere along the road to womanhood.

  “Regardless,” her uncle continued, breaking into her thoughts, “tonight, I will introduce you to the newest and brightest doctor at the medical clinic—”

  “No!” Melissa’s eyes flashed back to his. “I’m not interested in meeting another man.” Everything she had heard about the new doctor was admir
able. But even though he apparently was a very capable physician and a man of good character, she wasn’t about to fall for another one of her uncle’s misbegotten matchmaking schemes.

  Her uncle chuckled knowingly, cigar smoke puffing out with each breath like a fire-breathing dragon. “You will this one. All women do. He’s half Greek and I think I’ve heard more than a few of the ladies at the clinic describe him as a Greek god.” He chuckled again, as if he personally had had something to do with the man’s good looks. “And I must say, it certainly doesn’t hurt business having such a handsome—and available—doctor working with us.”

  “Then why would you want me to take him off the eligibility list?” Melissa said with disdain. “Wouldn’t that hurt business?” Practicing medicine had always been more of a business than a calling for her uncle. Unlike her father, who had had a wonderful and caring bedside manner, healing and compassion were lower on the list of priorities for Uncle Bob—after business, socializing, and prestige.

  How two brothers could be so different was a mystery to Melissa. Her father had given up a lucrative practice at the clinic he and Bob had founded, to go into the depths of the Appalachian Mountains to treat folks who would not have received medical care otherwise. Melissa’s mother, a nurse, had worked alongside her husband until the day they were trapped and killed by a flash flood in a remote region of the mountains, where they had gone to perform an emergency appendectomy. They had saved a young man’s life and lost their own.

  “Well, I doubt I have to worry about that,” her uncle was saying. Melissa frowned as she tried to remember what they had been talking about. “You’re too negative concerning relationships,” Uncle Bob continued. “I’m sure Dr. Luke Karalis will take one look at you and turn away. Why should he concern himself with an unwilling woman when there are so many who aren’t?”

  Just then, the sprawling Ridgedale Country Club came into view. The clubhouse building was elaborately decorated for the holidays. “There must be thousands of lights up there,” Uncle Bob said with awed admiration in his voice.