Read Some Like It Hot for Free Online Page B

comment. Maybe she was just a little bit touchy on the subject. Maybe she hadn’t always been the most responsible or reliable person in the world, but a girl could change. Problem was, how did you go about changing the mind of people who thought they had you pegged?
    Sighing, she rested her forehead against the wall.
    Face it, you have been unpredictable in the past. Who went backpacking through Europe after she dropped out ofcollege, without thinking to inform her parents of that little detail until she was already in France, spending her tuition money on youth hostels and rail passes?
    That was nine years ago and she’d paid her parents back.
    Who got married three weeks to the day after David Muncie swept her off her feet, only to discover, six weeks into the marriage, that he was a control freak with an explosive temper and an addictive personality?
    Remorsefully, Melanie rubbed a bar of honeysuckle-scented soap over the burn scar at the left side of her waist. But that was a long time ago, too. She hadn’t done anything so rebellious or careless since then.
    When she was away from New Orleans, people saw her as confident and capable. She kept her focus on her work and she was well-liked among her colleagues. In her old job, she’d been named employee of the month three times. And just before she’d left Boston to come home after her mother’s heart attack, a headhunter had come snooping around, dangling visions of executive chef positions at five-star restaurants.
    Melanie lathered her hair with shampoo and ruthlessly jammed her fingers through it, trying to scrub her regrets away. New Orleans might be where she was born, but it hadn’t felt like home in a very long time.
    How she wanted to belong here again! But was it even possible?
    A forlorn loneliness seeped into her, and she stepped out of the tub, wrapped a thin towel around her wet hair and a thick fluffy bath towel around her body. The black kitten was curled up on the mat, eyes closed, purring like mad.
    Well, at least someone trusted her.
    Melanie reached down and scratched the kitten’s soft fur, right behind her ears where she liked it. The happy purring intensified, and Melanie no longer felt so alone.
    When had it started? This sense of separation from her family that often plagued her, even when she was in the same room with them?
    It wasn’t that her mother and father had teasingly called her their most wonderful little “oops.” It had been no secret that Remy and Anne had thought their family was complete after Sylvie was born.
    Her father had loved his four girls, but Melanie had always wondered if he’d secretly hoped for a son. At least she had been a tomboy, but it still hadn’t been easy growing up the youngest. Her sisters had done everything ahead of her, and she never seemed able to catch up. But she still remembered exactly when it was that she realized how to get her family’s attention.
    The family had gone on the only vacation Melanie ever remembered them taking together. The hotel was closed for renovation, so her father had rented a camper and they’d driven to the Grand Canyon.
    Melanie was six that summer. She and her sisters had ridden in the back of the camper, but after a while, she’d gotten claustrophobic. She’d had a panic attack and had to switch to the front seat, where she could see out to keep from becoming sick.
    She’d loved that special time wedged between her parents, her sisters in the back. She’d pretended she was an only child. Remy had let her tune in the radio station of her choice, and she’d rested her head against Anne’s shoulder, while her mother gently stroked her hair.
    But once they arrived at the Grand Canyon, it was businessas usual. Her sisters came out of the camper and Melanie wasn’t special anymore. She was the little one again, lost in the shuffle.
    She’d had a temper tantrum at their picnic spot and her mother had made her go lie down in the back of the camper to cool