Finally a Bride (15 page)

Hope lifted Eric’s spirits as he pulled the truck into the driveway and his headlights glinted off the taillights of another vehicle parked next to his house. Maybe Molly had come back—not to get her things, but to be with him.

But the vehicle was a Suburban, not Molly’s small car. And his visitor wasn’t petite and feminine. A tall dark-haired guy stood next to his door, in the glow of the mercury lamp that hung on the nearby barn.

“South?” he asked as Eric stepped out of his truck.

He nodded in greeting. “Towers.”

“We already met, that night at the American Legion. Call me Josh,” the doctor offered his first name, as if they were friends.

Eric didn’t care how nice the man was. He was probably going to marry the woman that he—Eric—wanted to have. But he
couldn’t
have her. “She’s not here.”

“Who?” the doctor asked.

“Molly.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Josh said. “I thought you and her…”

“No, we’re not.” Because he’d blown it. He had only himself to blame, but he wanted to blame Towers, too—for already being the kind of man she deserved.

“That’s too bad,” Josh said again. “The way she talks about you…I can tell she really cares about you.”

“We’ve been friends a long time.” But he doubted they were friends anymore. Would she ever forgive him for hurting her twice?

Towers shook his head. “No, she and I are friends. I think you and Molly are something more.”

“And that’s why you’re here?” Eric fisted his hands, ready for a fight. “You want her back?”

“Would you care if I did?” the doctor challenged him.

“Hell, yes!”

“I thought you weren’t together like that,” the other man teased him, grinning.

“I want her to be happy.” He meant that—even though the thought of her being happy with someone else tore up his guts.

“Only you can do something about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“She loves
you.
”

“Like a friend.” Maybe she could have felt more…if Eric had let her.

Towers snorted. “Yeah, right. She loved me like a friend and look how that wound up. She took off on our wedding day.”

“That reminds me…” Eric leaned into his truck and popped open the glove compartment. “Here’s the bride.” He handed the little plastic figurine over to Dr. Josh Towers.

“
You
took her from the top of the cake.”

Eric’s face heated. “It was stupid, I know. I grabbed it off the cake when I helped Pop load it into the back of the van at the bakery that morning.”

“Even before Molly stood me up?” Josh asked, shaking his head. “I guess she was right, that you do know her best.”

“You stole her from me, you know,” he accused the other man. “She said yes to my proposal first.”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said with sincerity. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Eric assured the other man. “I can hardly hold her to a promise she made in the second grade.”

Josh laughed. “Second grade? And I thought
I
rushed into relationships.”

Despite the ache in his chest, Eric chuckled, too. “Hey, I might have been young, but I was smart.”

“You should ask her again,” Josh advised. “To marry you.”

“A couple of weeks ago she was going to marry you,” he reminded Towers.

“Because she didn’t love me.” He handed the plastic bride, with her dark hair and white gown, back to Eric. “This is yours. My bride is going to have red hair.”

Eric grinned. “You’re marrying Brenna?”

“She hasn’t said yes yet, but I’m not giving up,” he vowed, his blue eyes bright with determination.

“Can you blame her for being hesitant?” Eric asked. “You’ve only known her a couple of weeks.”

“And if I hadn’t been engaged to Molly, I think I would have asked her to marry me the first moment we met.”

“Guess I’m not the only one who rushes into proposals.” He hadn’t been in Cloverville long before he had fallen for the little dark-haired girl who’d sat in front of him in Mrs. Miller’s class.

“So have you proposed again—since the second grade?” Towers persisted.

Eric shook his head.

“Then take my advice and ask her.”

“Why are you here, Towers?” he asked. “To play Dear Abby?”

Josh laughed. “No, I’m here because Molly wanted me to take a look at your scar—to see what I could do for you.”

Eric brushed his fingers over the ridge on his left cheek. “She shouldn’t have done that.” Now he knew he had done the right thing in pushing her away. She didn’t love him as he was.

“I told her that I’d already talked to you about it, told you to make an appointment. She wasn’t surprised that you hadn’t. She said you’re using the scar as an excuse to keep people away.”

“Maybe Molly doesn’t know me as well as I know her.” He hadn’t needed the scar as an excuse. He’d already grown adept at keeping people away.

“She also says it’s because you feel guilty you survived what happened to you.”

“And a lot of good soldiers didn’t.” He sighed. “She does know me.”

“And she loves you. She’s worried that you’ve closed yourself off.”

He had—actually a long time ago, long before he’d become a Marine. Back when his parents died and then his guardians had given him up. “She should worry about herself—what she’s going to do now that she’s not going to be a doctor.”

“She already has a job.”

“Where?”

“At the Cloverville library. She’s replaced the retiring librarian.”

“She has?” And she hadn’t bothered telling him. And she’d sicced her ex-fiancé on him without talking to him herself first. Who was shutting out whom now? He was twenty years too late, but he was finally going to get over his crush on Molly McClintock.

H
IS HAND SHAKING
slightly, Eric clicked off his cordless phone and set it on the charger. Then he rubbed a hand over his face. It wouldn’t be long now…

“Are you all right?” a soft voice asked.

His heart jumped as he turned toward where Molly stood in his living room. She wore a dress, as she had that day she’d dumped them into the lake. The short hem and spaghetti straps left her legs and arms bare.

“I thought you were ignoring me,” she said, “but you must not have heard my knock.”

“That didn’t stop you,” he observed, a grin tugging at his mouth despite his mood. Damn, he wasn’t quite over Molly McClintock yet—not as his pulse quickened and his breath grew shallow.

“Sorry to disrupt your solitude again,” she said. “I know you prefer to be alone.”

“What did I say about apologizing?”

She lifted her chin in defiance. “I don’t care what you say.”

He expelled a ragged sigh. “I wish that was true. Then I wouldn’t feel so damn bad about what I said the other morning.”

Her dark eyes brightened. “You feel bad?”

“Yeah.” He’d been kicking himself ever since.

“You didn’t mean it, then?”

“I…”

The brightness dimmed. “You still think I was using you.”

“Not on purpose.” She was too sweet a person for that.

She shook her head as if disgusted. “And here I thought
I
was the coward.”

He’d been called some names over the years but never a coward.

“I agreed to marry Josh because I didn’t love him—because I didn’t want to wind up like my mom, heartbroken and alone.” She sighed. “Because I was a coward. That’s the same reason you’re pushing me away. Because you’re scared.”

He couldn’t fight the grin this time. “You think I’m scared of you?”

“Oh, I know you’re the big, bad Marine,” she scoffed, “but when it comes to this—” she gestured between them “—to us, yeah, you’re a chicken.”

“I’m not scared,” he insisted, mentally pulling her barb away from his pride. “I’m cautious.”

She snorted.

“I think I have reason to be. Not long ago, you almost married another man,” he reminded her.

“I officially gave his ring back a couple of days ago.” She smiled. “I think Brenna will be wearing a ring from Josh soon. They love each other.”

“Good for them. I’m happy for them.” And he was—his heart was hurting a little less than it had been since the morning Molly had left while he was in the shower.

“How about being happy for yourself?” she challenged him.

“What do you mean?”

“Take a chance, Eric. Stop being so cautious.”

“Oh, you think I should jump into things like you do? Remember where that got you—crawling out a church window, then winding up in a Dumpster behind the American Legion.” He shook his head. “I’d rather be cautious.”

“You’d rather be
dead.
Isn’t that why you keep your scar?”

“Towers stopped by,” he said, a muscle twitching in his cheek as his anger surged back.

“He did?” she asked, her eyes widening with feigned innocence.

“Because you asked him to. You had no right, Molly. Don’t try to ‘fix’ me,” he warned her.

Molly sighed. “If only I could. So you turned him down?”

He nodded, then couldn’t resist tossing a barb of his own. “Just like you should have when he proposed.”

While hurt flashed in her dark eyes, she ignored his comment. “You want to keep the scar because you feel guilty for having lived when some of your fellow Marines died.”

“All of them.”

Her eyes widened with shock. “Eric?”

“All of them died but me that day.” So many good soldiers—good people—and Eric hadn’t been able to save any of them. Hell, he’d barely managed to save himself. And if not for his promise to her, to return, he might not have.

“Survivor’s guilt,” she diagnosed him. “It’s not your fault, Eric. I know you tried to save them.”

He closed his eyes as guilt and regret washed over him. “I tried. I tried so hard. But I couldn’t do anything for them.”

“You can do something for them now,” she said, her voice softer but closer. She had crossed the distance between them. Her fingers touched his face, his scar.

He blinked his eyes open and met her gaze. He should tell her that he was going back. Soon. The VA hospital had confirmed Corporal Underwood’s premonition—more than Uncle Harold’s mind was failing. His eighty-five-year-old heart was as well.

“I can do something for them,” he agreed. “I can try to save other people.”

“You do—as an EMT,” she pointed out. “But you can do more. You can do something for yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can
live,
” she urged him. She held his gaze, her dark eyes intense and vulnerable. “You can love me.”

Molly held her breath, waiting for his response, worrying that he wouldn’t admit his feelings and would push her away again. He lifted his hands and closed them around her shoulders, his palms rough against her bare skin.

His gray eyes darkened as he stared down at her. And his fingers tightened their grasp. She closed her eyes, certain he was going to thrust her away from him. But he jerked her forward, crushing her breasts against his chest as he covered her mouth with his.

Nothing tentative or gentle about his kiss, he parted her lips and pushed his tongue inside—all raw desire and desperate need. Molly reached out, grasping his shoulders, to hang on as her world tilted, then righted itself. This was where she belonged—in Eric South’s arms.

Breathing hard, he tore his mouth from hers. Then he lifted her, his hands around her thighs, wrapping her legs around his waist as he carried her toward his room. Denim rubbed against her inner thighs. And his erection, hard inside his jeans, pushed against her hips. She wriggled, shifting closer, biting her lip as the pressure of desire built inside her body. Then she leaned forward and bit his neck, her teeth gently nipping skin and muscle.

Eric groaned, and his hands tightened on her thighs. “You’re asking for it,” he warned her.

“Are you going to give it to me?” she challenged him.

He dropped her, so that she bounced against the mattress. She belonged here, too—in Eric South’s bed. As if she were helpless, he undressed her. First he pulled off her sandals, dropping them onto the hardwood floor with a thud. Then he tugged up the hem of her dress, lifting it over her head and letting it fall to the floor, atop her shoes. His hands shaking slightly, he unhooked her bra and slid the straps down her arms until her breasts spilled free.

His breath shuddered out. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

She arched her back, so that her nipples, puckered and begging for his touch, tilted toward him. “Eric…”

“Oh, I’ll get to them,” he promised. “I’m going to touch and kiss every single inch of you, Molly McClintock.”

Molly shivered in anticipation, knowing that Eric had never broken a promise to her. His hands skimmed down her sides, pushing her panties down her hips. Then he ran his palms down the backs of legs, all the way to her ankles as he pulled off the lace and tossed it over his shoulder.

“You have on too many clothes,” she protested his jeans and T-shirt.

“Don’t worry about me.”

But she did. She had worried about him so long that it had become a habit. Then she’d walked in and found him talking on the phone, looking so serious and sad. She opened her mouth to ask him about it, but his lips covered hers, his tongue sliding into her open mouth, over her tongue, tangling, teasing.

As his hands teased her body. He touched her everywhere but where she wanted, where she needed his touch. His fingers entwined with hers, he lifted her hands above her head. Then he moved his mouth from hers, along her jaw, down her throat. He nipped, his teeth scraping lightly over her skin.

Her pulse pounded as the pressure inside her wound tighter. “Eric, please…”

He untangled their hands but kept her arms above her head as he moved his mouth lower. His soft hair brushed against her skin as he kissed her collarbone then the slope of her breast. Her breath caught as she waited for more—knowing how much pleasure he could give her.

But his lips missed her nipple as he slid his tongue instead along the cleft between her breasts, then farther down, over her rib cage then her navel. He shifted on the mattress, his body sliding to the end of the bed as his head settled between her legs.

His breath feathered against her skin, hot against her inner thighs. Then his mouth closed over her, his tongue slipping inside.