0451471040 (32 page)

“Lord, you sound like Grannie. It’s like eighty degrees outside. So tell me—what’s your news?”

She looked around, but no one was paying them any attention. “My new lawyer says Mark’s ready to settle.”

Helena let out a very un-Helena-like squeal and grabbed her in a hug. Molly could feel the dampness seeping into her, but she didn’t care. “That’s
awesome.
And so quick.”

“I know. Amanda’s amazing. I swear, she must know where all the dead bodies are buried. Either that or she’s working black magic on these people.”

“But how? I mean . . .”

After pouring two cups of coffee, Molly set one in front of Helena and kept the other as she settled onto the stool next to her. “It turns out my former lawyer wasn’t just incompetent. He’s stupid, too, and was totally cowed by Mark’s lawyer.”

Helena wrinkled her nose. “When you told me what a hard time you had finding one to represent you, I was afraid of that.”

“It took her less than two days to find out that Mark has at least one, if not two, girlfriends in Huntsville.” Molly couldn’t keep the disgust out of her voice.

Helena’s lip curled into a small snarl. “Making it very hard for him to play the lovelorn husband wanting his wife back.”

“And definitely not news he wants spread around Fuller. Especially since both of the ladies in question take their clothes off for a living. Frequenting strip clubs would be an impediment to him becoming a deacon in the church like his daddy.” She snorted. “My former lawyer told me things like that wouldn’t make a difference, but it seems even the threat of exposure has Mark
singing a new tune. I told you he was basically a coward who didn’t know what to do when someone stood up to him.”

“So you’ll be divorced soon?”

“Wow. I knew Amanda was a miracle worker, but that seems a little too miraculous, even for her,” said a voice from behind her.

Molly spun to see Adam. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, then shook his head, spraying raindrops at her. “You texted and said you had news.”

“And neither one of you think to use the phone? Especially when it’s raining buckets and you’re dripping all over my floor?” She grabbed another towel and handed it to Adam.

He shrugged, but duly dried off. “It gave me an excuse to get out of my office. So things are going well?”

“Really well.” She went and got him a cup of coffee, too. “There’s still a lot of paperwork and motions and things that have to be withdrawn, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Mark isn’t contesting anymore at least, so Amanda may be able to sort it out without too much hassle. Worst-case scenario is we have to go to mediation, but it’s happening.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Helena said, giving her another hug.

“Me, too,” Adam added. “That’s really great.”

“I cannot thank you enough.” She lifted her mug in a small toast.

“We should celebrate,” Helena announced. “And with something stronger than coffee. I think we should take you out and get you knee-walking, dance-on-the-bar drunk—”

“Those are two completely different states of inebriation.”

Helena didn’t seem bothered by that issue. “Well, we’ll do one kind now and one when it’s final.”

Molly felt herself smiling. After the last week or so of faking smiles, it felt a little strange, but good, too. “I am not against that idea.”

“Am I invited?” Adam asked. “I want to see Molly dance on a bar.”

“Someone will need to hold her purse,” Helena said.

“As long as I don’t have to hold her hair back if she yaks.”

Helena agreed with a nod. “That’ll be my job. Ryan will drive.”

Molly could barely keep up. “Shouldn’t you ask him first?”

“
I’ll
drive.” Jane edged her way into the conversation. “I can’t drink anyway,” she said, rubbing her bump. “There’s a great club in Mobile we could take her to.”

“I was thinking the Bait Box,” Adam said.

Jane shook her head. “It’s a dive and this calls for better than that.”

“Do you want to invite your friend from Pascagoula?” Helena asked.

Before she could answer, Adam interrupted. “We’d need two cars, then.”

“I can borrow my sister’s SUV. It seats eight, I think.”

“So me, Molly, Adam, Jane, Ryan, maybe Molly’s friend . . . there’s room for two more.”

Molly just shook her head as the conversation took off without her. They obviously didn’t need
her
help planning this. It was funny, really. The celebration for finally getting her life back under control had rapidly spiraled
out
of her control.
Oh, the irony.

But she didn’t mind. These were her friends. The truth was out, and they liked her anyway. She hadn’t
realized how much her secret had weighed on her every day until that weight had disappeared.

They were so intent on planning this event, none of them noticed when she walked away to get the coffeepot. By the time she’d returned, the additional guests had been decided, as had the location.

“We’ll need to do this on a Saturday night,” Jane reminded them. “Molly can’t be expected to open the shop if she’s hungover the next morning.”

“So Saturday night, then?” Helena asked her.

“Whatever works,” she said, pouring refills. “I’m leaving this entirely in your hands.”

Helena grinned. “Oh,
excellent.
” She turned to Jane. “We need strippers.”

“Hey, now,” Adam protested, even as Jane nodded wholeheartedly.

“Um . . .” Molly started to say something, but Helena waved her away.

“Shoo. Go run your business. We’ve got this.”

Laughing, she left them to it. She’d just wait to be surprised, obviously. As she put the coffeepot back on the warmer, shaking her head at the scene behind her, she realized she was finally done with the past.

She trusted these people—Jane to run her shop, Adam to help her sort out legalities, Helena to watch her back. Hell, hadn’t the whole town rallied behind her, claiming her as one of their own and sticking by her?
I have people.
She’d been telling herself that she needed to get rid of her bad habits—shouldering the blame, carrying the guilt, hiding behind a smile, doing everything alone because she just didn’t really trust anyone—but she hadn’t really done it. At least not until now.

This was both the best and worst couple of weeks ever.

She was finally the Molly she wanted to be.

It just sucked she’d lost Tate in the process.

Chapter 17

A
fter more than a week of no contact from Molly, Tate was knocked a little sideways to see her name on his appointment list today. Nigel was due for his annual visit.

Maybe he should have spent more time thinking instead of spending all that time trying not to think about her and how badly he’d screwed this up. It hadn’t helped that Sam had given him so much to think about the other night—which might have been good stuff to think about, but Molly wasn’t Sam and the situation didn’t exactly apply equally to someone
not
his sister.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, and he needed to think fast. Sally, his tech, had already gone into the consultation room to get Nigel from Molly, bringing him to the back for his shots and exam.

Nigel behaved nicely enough for Sally, but as soon as he stepped in to get a look, Nigel turned half snake, hissing and twisting out of his grasp.

She laughed. “I don’t think Nigel likes you very much.”

“That much I knew already.”
Of course, neither does Molly these days.

Sally had to hold Nigel while Tate examined him. She cooed nonsense at him—“Who’s a pretty boy?”
“Don’t you have such a sweet face?”—while Nigel growled a warning low in his throat. “You’re a good kitty. We’re almost done. Aw, you can trust Dr. Harris.”

That last statement had him snorting. Another trait of Molly’s that Nigel had adopted. Or maybe it was the other way around. Nigel had never had any use for him.

Wow. He was losing it. Nigel was a pet, not Molly’s familiar.

He let Sally wrangle Nigel back into his carrier while he took a deep breath. Ignoring the ominous noises coming from inside the cage, he carried it into the consultation room, where Molly was waiting. She stood as he entered.

God I’ve missed her.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

“Hi.” He set the carrier on the counter and Molly stuck her finger through the opening to pet Nigel. “He’s great. No problems at all. Jenny will give you his vaccination certificate when you check out.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.”

“Do you have any questions for me?”

Molly’s head jerked up. He asked the same question of everyone. It was part of his spiel, and it had come out by habit. He hadn’t realized how loaded a question that could be in some circumstances.

She shook her head. Then she looked at him evenly. “No questions about Nigel, but there a couple of things I need to say. I know it’s not the best time, but . . .” She took a deep breath and sighed it out. “First, I wanted to thank you for calling Adam. I hadn’t thought of getting a second opinion, but he has hooked me up with a friend of his up in Huntsville. She’s a real shark.”

Her voice was flat, emotionless, and it bothered him. “Good. I hope she’s able to help you out.”

“She already has.”

He wanted to follow up on that, but it wasn’t his business now, so he just nodded.

“And I want you to know that I’m moving Nigel to that vet up near Bellfontaine. It’s nothing personal—I really do think you’re a great vet—but I’d feel . . . It’s just . . .”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but he was rather glad. His professional ego was smarting—he was a better vet than Hugo Malcolm—but it felt like a personal slap, too. Which it obviously was. Molly’s sweetness hid a core of unforgiving steel. He could understand her silence and her avoidance, but removing her cat from his practice was a deep cut and underscored how bad this had gotten. “Jenny can copy his records and forward them.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Molly cleared her throat. “I’m sorry that things went so horribly wrong. I really didn’t mean to . . .” She shrugged instead of finishing that thought either.

“Molly—”

She held up a hand. “It’s all right. I won’t bring it up again, and we’ll just try to move on. I realize that we probably can’t be friends, but I’d like to think we don’t have to be enemies, either. For Helena’s sake, if nothing else.”

Damn it.
“Look—”

“You have every right to be angry with me, and you don’t have to accept my apology. That’s fine, too. But I do want to say that it was fun while it lasted, and I thank you for being the catalyst that got me out of my rut.”

He’d been seconds from apologizing, and was now
very glad she’d interrupted him when she did. He didn’t know what he’d expected or hoped to hear . . . but a
catalyst
? To get her out of a
rut
? He didn’t quite appreciate being reduced to such a functional role. “Glad I could be of service.”

Molly’s head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

All of his vague plans of remaining calm, cool, and detached suddenly failed. “Was any of it actually about me or was I just part of some twelve-step recovery program for you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Was this recommended in one of your self-help books or something?”

“Don’t be an ass.”

“What? I’m glad you got your empowerment or your groove back or whatever it was I was the ‘catalyst’ for. It’s just you could have been up front with that, too. It would have saved us both a lot of embarrassment.”

Molly blinked. “Wow. I meant that in the best possible way, and you’ve twisted it into something unrecognizable. I wanted you—I wanted to
be
with you enough to take the risks I’d been hiding from for years. I did what I thought was best at the time—primarily for me, yes, but also for you. I’m terribly sorry it all went to hell, but you’ve taken a bad situation and made it a lot worse. I expected better of you.”

The words felt like a slap. “Well, I expected better of you, too, so I guess we’ve let each other down.”

Molly’s eyes widened, letting him know he’d landed the hit. Quietly, she said, “I was doing the best I could, and I thought it was the right thing. I can’t apologize more than I already have, Tate.”

“I don’t want another apology.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want to know . . .”
Jesus, this was tough.
“I want to know why you didn’t think you could tell me.”

“Because it wasn’t about you!” Molly’s shout echoed off the tile. “It was about me.”

“I’m sorry, I thought there were two of us involved in that relationship.”

“I didn’t really realize until right now how important it was for me to try to do it on my own. Yeah, it backfired in my face, and yes, you are right and everything would be different and easier if I’d told you and let you help.” There was a moment of silence—broken only by the increasingly impatient yowls emanating from the depths of Nigel’s carrier. Then Molly’s jaw tightened. “You know, the real kicker is that I wanted to tell you—and I nearly did—but didn’t. At first, it was too early—there was no good reason to tell you when we might not be more than just a weekend fling. At the same time, it was too late, because we’d already slept together.” The heat had gone completely out of her voice. “I guess after that, I thought it wouldn’t matter. I just put my faith in us, thinking that you might be upset, but you’d understand. I thought you’d have my back.”

Molly seemed calmer, but then she grabbed the handle of Nigel’s carrier and grabbed her purse with jerky movements that told him her temper was barely being held in check. “You know, if you want to know how to learn and grow from this experience so you can be a better person, have Sam loan you my book. I think you’d find it quite helpful. Maybe you could learn to trust people the way they trust you.”

With that, she was gone, slamming the door behind her.

Tate really wanted to hit something, and if he’d had something in his hands other than his tablet, he might have thrown it against the wall. He was reeling from the bombshells Molly had been dropping and frustrated because he’d let the conversation get out of hand—
and
then end like that. But her words kept pounding into his brain.