Melody could not process everything that was happening to her. It was all going so quickly. That was about the only thing that seemed consistent. So, what happened when the only thing you could count on was the speed of change?

“Sorry the place is a bit of a mess.”

Melody turned to stare at Cisco. Was he kidding? Mess. So, basically, he considered the pair of boots sitting in the front entryway to be clutter. Great. Melody made a mental note to never let him inside her apartment. There was no way that she could ever feel comfortable with him inside her space. Clutter and mess apparently had multiple meanings with socioeconomic undertones.

“It looks fine,” Melody finally managed to tell him.

He glanced around, his gaze drifting toward the kitchen on the left side of the apartment. “Are you hungry? I could fix us something to eat.”

“You cook?” She did know why, but this was suddenly a big deal. How was she supposed to compete with this guy? And what were they competing for anyway?

He headed for the kitchen. “I actually enjoy cooking. It calms me down. It shouldn’t take too long to put something together.”

“Well, don’t go to any trouble,” she murmured. “It isn’t even dinnertime, really.”

No. It wasn’t. It was basically the middle of the afternoon, and now she was wondering why she had agreed to come with him to his apartment in the first place.

He started bustling around the kitchen, and it became obvious very quickly that he certainly knew his way around.  He pulled a big saucepan out of a cabinet and started unloading fresh ingredients into it. Other than the chopped raw chicken, she could not have named most of the stuff he put in there.

The apartment was quiet and peaceful. They were on the tenth floor of a very posh building in the downtown area. The space was light and airy and very open. Once you walked through the entryway, the dining, kitchen, and living room space seemed to unfold in front of you. The color scheme of the entire place was black and white and chrome. It wasn’t just elegant. It reeked of money. She could not imagine living in such a place. Sure. It looked good, but she would be constantly afraid of getting a stain on the white sofa or knocking one of the weird metal sculptures off an end table.

The kitchen itself was separated from the rest of the room by a series of counters in an L shape. There was tons of workspace and even more cabinet space. Melody had never seen anything like it, but then she had never really apartment shopped either. Her high school guidance counselor had helped her to find her current place, and she had been there ever since.

“I haven’t heard back from Watson yet today, but I can check my e-mail.” Cisco spoke in a very relaxed voice that put Melody at ease. “He’s bound to give in on this stuff.”

“But if he really embezzled from my grandparents, then wouldn’t he go to any lengths possible to hide it?”

“I contacted a friend of mine who does private investigation work. He’s a computer whiz. I have him digging into Watson’s background as well as the Flying W files.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Not technically.” Cisco shrugged. “He knows how to make it so the stuff he finds is admissible in court. Usually that’s because he finds enough to put pressure on the person to confess their sins away.”

“So, basically, you’re trying to back him into a corner and force him to admit something incriminating,” Melody mused. “I would assume that’s sort of what you did with Janice.”

“Except Chris filled in the holes,” Cisco admitted. “That kid is a good friend. He’s worth trusting.”

“I like Chris,” Melody murmured. Then another thought came to her. “I like most of my coworkers, actually. I’ll miss them.”

“You never know. You might go back to work there.” Cisco sounded mysterious. She hoped he wasn’t trying to “fix” it so that she could.

“I don’t know.” Melody shrugged. For the first time, she thought there might actually be some kind of future out there for her. It was like a bunch of possibilities had just opened up and she didn’t know which way to jump. “I might decide to go a different direction now that the choice has sort of been taken out of my hands.”

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows as though he had expected her to work in that coffee shop until retirement. “What would you like to do?”

The scent of cooking chicken, vegetables, and some kind of herbal sauce filled the apartment. Her mouth began to water, and she felt as though she were going to die of hunger. Had she really been that hungry? When had she last eaten? Maybe that was a better question. Eating had sort of fallen off her list of daily tasks since there wasn’t any good food to eat anyway.

“Here you go.” Cisco set a plate on the countertop in front of her and laid a fork beside it.

Melody tried to be nonchalant and unconcerned. She tried to pretend that she was not desperate. So, picking up the fork, she forced her hand to push the contents of the meal around the plate a few times to “mix” them together more thoroughly in the sauce. After that, she began to eat. Still, she tried to stop every few bites to try and slow down so she would not seem like some wild dog he’d allowed inside his home.

“Melody?” Cisco’s low voice came from the barstool beside her. When had he moved? He was now sitting beside her in front of his own plate. “You don’t have to pretend you aren’t hungry. It’s very flattering that you like my cooking.”

She almost laughed out loud. His cooking was good. She would never try to say it wasn’t. But as long as the chicken wasn’t raw, she would probably have devoured just about anything he set in front of her. It could have been burned and so spicy that it scorched her tongue, and she still would have gone after it like a rabid animal.

They talked about inconsequential things then. Melody was shoveling food into her mouth about as quickly as she possibly could, but Cisco did not seem to notice. He was picking at his food. That was probably because he was doing most of the talking. He was surprisingly down-to-earth and easy to talk to. Melody would not have expected them to like the same things in books and movies. She wasn’t quite as well-read as he was, and she didn’t currently go to movies very often, but the two of them shared a lot of opinions and tastes when it came to media and their world in general.

Of course, he was far better traveled than she was. Melody loved to listen to him talk about the places he had seen and the things he had done while he was in places as far away as New York City or even in Canada and Mexico.

“You sound like you’ve done so many things and seen so many places that you should be a million years old!” Melody exclaimed. She stabbed the final piece of chicken on her plate and sighed. “I cannot imagine what it would be like to see that stuff. I’ve always thought the statue of liberty would be an incredible sight. All of the history! And I want to visit that church in Massachusetts where they put the lamps for Paul Revere.”

“One by land, two by sea,” he agreed. “New England is a really fantastic place to visit. We’ll have to go sometime. I would love to show it to you.”

Melody was on the verge of saying yes when she realized that there was absolutely no way in hell that he was ever going to take her on vacation. They weren’t a couple. They weren’t even a “thing,” if you could call it that. Whatever a “thing” meant these days anyway.

“Oh, I want to show you something.” He got up from the counter and left his plate sitting there.

Melody turned her head to watch him head across the room but could not bring herself to just follow. She quickly and quietly cleaned up her mess and his. She rinsed the dishes in the sink and stacked them in the right side where they would wait to go into the dishwasher, which was a total luxury item anyway.

Finally, she headed after Cisco toward the wide bank of windows in his apartment that overlooked a long swath of green space there in the city. He was giving her a very strange look.

“You didn’t have to clean up,” he finally told her. “I’ll get it later, or the cleaning lady will take care of it.”

“You have a cleaning lady?” Melody could not help it. She gaped. “You’re one person! Why do you need a cleaning lady?”

“Because I’m too busy to take care of that sort of thing for myself.” He seemed to be thinking that over. “And I really hate folding laundry. Actually, I hate laundry in general.”

Melody burst into laughter. She pointed to the window. “Okay. So, what is it you wanted to show me?”

“The skyline.” He gestured to the beautiful view of downtown Denver that included the outline of Mile High Stadium. “It’s one of my favorite things to stare at while I think.”

“While you think?” She could not imagine him just standing here for very long. “So, for what? Like three minutes at a time?”

He nudged her with his shoulder. “Harsh! I can stand still for longer than that.”

“I was surprised to see you on that bench for more than thirty seconds at a time.” Melody realized that she didn’t really mind his constant need to move around. “It’s kind of like you’re afraid to stand still, like you’re wasting time or something. I get it, I think.”

“Oh, you do?”

“I do, actually.” She sighed. “Sometimes it feels like life is so short and so fleeting that you have to wring every single second of pleasure out of it. Don’t you think?” She thought about how that applied to her life. “Every single day feels the same as the next. I wake up. I go to work. I deal with customers. I go home. I crash. Then I wake up and do it all again. But if I never stop and look at a sunset or pause to laugh at something that someone says to me, then I’m completely wasting my life.”

“That’s a good philosophy.”

She stared out at the skyline. The afternoon light was growing long. The shadows on the ground around the buildings looked as though they’d been stretched out of shape. She felt as though she had too. “You say that’s a good philosophy, but I haven’t really been remembering it lately. I think that’s why I want so badly to make a change in my life. I’m tapped out. I have nothing left to give, and I’m just tired.”

He put his arm around her. She could not resist the urge to lay her head on his shoulder. It felt comfortable and warm. The apartment was so clean and so organized. It was completely different from the clutter and haphazard tiny space she was used to calling home. It was rather sterile in its own way, but it smelled of Cisco. For some reason, that rendered it comforting to her. She liked being around him. She liked to see his smile and feel his gaze on her. It seemed so foolish, and yet he had become an integral part of her life in a short period of time.

“Melody.” Her name was a soft murmur on his lips. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to make you a part of my life?”

Perhaps it was just that idea of belonging. It was difficult to tell. Melody should not have been so enamored by this man. He was out of her league. That had already been established a hundred times over. Yet, right now, the fact that he wanted her was enough.

She put her arms around him and pressed herself closer to his chest. He was warm and so very solid. Her cheek fit perfectly against his pectoral muscle. She inhaled his masculine scent and savored that sandalwood flavor. It was an aphrodisiac, and she could not fight back the urge to lift her nose to his neck and sniff that lovely scent from the source.

“Are you sniffing me?” He sounded amused.

“Yes. You smell amazing.” She sniffed him again, and this time, she let her noise tickle his windpipe. “It’s like you wear crack cologne or something.”

“I don’t even think I wear cologne on purpose.” He seemed to be thinking this over now. “Aftershave maybe.”

“Well, it’s heavenly.”

“You’re heavenly.” He gently kissed her neck. The whisper-soft feel of his lips against her body sent a riot of chills down her spine.

Every part of her felt so alive in that moment. It was incredible. Her fingertips tingled, and she realized that she had never wanted a man so much in her entire life. Cisco was gorgeous. He was intelligent. He was also just better than any guy she’d ever had the chance to be around.

His lips touched hers. The kiss was tentative at first. He seemed worried that he would go too far or scare her away. She didn’t want him to take it easy. She wanted more. She wanted it all. And she wanted it right now.

Putting her arms around his neck, Melody stood on tiptoe to press her lips firmly against his. She moved her mouth against his until he parted his lips and she could tangle their tongues together in a passionate duel for dominance. It was both playful and consuming. She moaned against his lips as every nerve ending in her body came to life. The feel of his hair sifting through her fingers made her crazy for more. She wanted to feel his skin against hers. She wanted to tangle their toes together and feel him sink deep into her body so that there was way to tell where one ended and the other began.

“Please.” His whisper was fervent. “I want you in my bed, Melody. Say yes?”

“Yes.”

The word came out quickly, as though her body had already decided without her brain’s input. It wasn’t a good idea. There were so many reasons it wasn’t a good idea that they all piled up inside her brain and got stuck. Then he put one arm beneath her legs and swept her off her feet, and Melody suddenly did not care what was a good idea and what wasn’t. She just knew what she needed.