Cursed by Love (21 page)

A moment of awareness crackled between
them when Molly asked him to stay with her. She felt a wash of equal parts
disappointment and embarrassment as he explained he had things to take care of
at his place.

He followed her as she drove over to
Mom’s. With one look at Molly’s face, Mom enveloped her in a comforting hug and
settled for a brief explanation. She sent Molly and Houdini into her old
bedroom, agreeing to talk everything out this morning.

Sleep eluded Molly most of the night.
About four in the morning, Penny scratched on her door. Grateful for the
company, Molly got up and let her in. With Houdini snuggled beside her and
Penny curled at her feet, she drifted off.

The next thing she knew, the morning sun
filtered through her window blinds. Climbing out of bed and into the shower
began the process of putting her worries into perspective. A good
heart-to-heart with Mom was next on her agenda.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Mom entered the
kitchen carrying a stack of laundry. She looked unusually fresh and chipper. A
lot like the mom of old. “I wasn’t expecting you up yet.”

“Can’t sleep my troubles away. I want to
go home and put things in order.” She flinched, dreading the idea.

“I’ll help.” Mom gave her a quick,
comforting hug.

Relief washed through Molly at the idea
of having company as she returned to her house. “Thanks.”

“Let’s take our coffee out to the
sunroom. Grab that basket of muffins, okay?”

“These smell great.” She lifted the
corner of the cloth cover and sniffed. “Raspberry-orange? Homemade?”

Mom loaded a tray with coffee and
serving essentials. “No, it’s silly to bake for just one person. I bought them
at
Busken’s
yesterday and heated them up a few
minutes ago.”

With Houdini still in Molly’s arms, she
and Penny followed her mom out to the sun room. Flooded with light from all
sides, it was Mom’s favorite Saturday morning spot, warm and cozy, with a view
of her lush backyard garden and pool.

With the muffin basket and coffee tray
on the glass-topped table between them, the two women each claimed a green
wicker chair. Penny dropped onto her pillow in a warm sunny spot. Molly put
Houdini down and rolled a ball into the corner where the cat followed. Her
mother spritzed her row of crinkly-leafed ferns before settling back.

Content for the moment, Molly sipped and
let the caffeine zap its way through her system.

“So, dear, what’s new with the Bella
story?”

Molly didn’t want to talk about anything
connected with the Sleeping Lotus, but once she got started, she couldn’t stop.
She spilled everything in one long rush, from Bella and
Jebediah
receiving the gift to Gabe’s latest request for her to forget about selling the
Sleeping Lotus, and her desire to purchase it from him anyway.

“If I had the money, I’d buy it,” Molly
admitted, “since he’s so determined to sell it.”

“Surely he has good reasons for wanting
to sell.”

Molly thought of Gabe’s determination to
save his family from themselves. A tall order. She wasn’t sure it was what they
wanted or that it would even be the best thing for them, but clearly, he
intended to make it happen, do or die, no matter what it cost him.

“Has he told
you
what they are,
Mom?” It struck Molly how the loss of his mother at such an early stage might
have him welcoming the appearance of a sympathetic motherly substitute. Maybe
his reaching out to her mom had as much to do with his own needs as it had to
do with his desire to please Molly.

“Me? Why, no, of course not.” Mom lifted
her eyebrows as she refilled her mug with coffee. “When would he have done
that?”

Molly grinned. “He told me he pumped you
for information. And the two of you really hit if off the night he visited here
with me.”

“He did call me. I thought it was sweet,
but we’re hardly confidantes. He said you were going out to discuss the latest
on the Sleeping Lotus, but he seemed a lot more interested in your personal
likes and dislikes than in a piece of ancient history. He said you were just
friends, but I was hoping...”

Molly rolled her eyes. She already knew
what Mom hoped. Did Molly hope the same thing? She wasn’t sure.

“That there was more to it than that. He
seems like a very charming, responsible young man. And so good looking. Just
what you need, dear.”

“What makes you think I’m in the market
for a charming, responsible, good-looking young man?”

Mom hid her smile behind her cup, but
her eyes twinkled above the rim. “If you aren’t, there are several young
teachers at Elmwood who’d kill for an introduction.”

Molly’s tongue stuck to the roof of her
mouth and wouldn’t come unglued. Not that she had any claim on Gabe, but she
sure didn’t like to think about him being passed around to her mom’s needy
young friends. The thought of it made her a little queasy. May as well stake a
claim. “I do like him. And you’re right, he is attractive. But he has a lot of
issues, a lot of pain he doesn’t know how to deal with. I thought I might talk
to Dad about it.”

“Well, your father is the psychologist,
but here you are, talking to me instead.” She folded her hands in her lap and
waited, wearing her most serenely, patient expression.

“Dad has the education and the degree,
but I always seem to come to you for advice, don’t I? It’s just that you’re
such a good listener and so intuitive. When you said earlier that Gabe was very
responsible, how did you know that?”

“It’s apparent in everything he does.”

“He missed his childhood because he was
busy being the adult in the family. All the others are these goofy
individualists, and he takes it upon himself to hold it together for everyone.”

Her mother topped off their coffee “Is
that a bad thing?”

“Bad? No, but it weighs him down. He’s
trying to hold a business together to keep them all employed, but they seem to
be pulling in the opposite direction. And I think he’s more like the rest of
them than he knows, but he keeps that fun, creative, playful side locked away.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Just little signs, here and there. Like
his socks.”

Mom raised her eyebrows. “What about his
socks?”

“Didn’t I mention his cartoon character socks
before?” Molly had to smile as she pictured them. “Even last night when he
looked so gorgeous in a perfectly tailored suit, he wore a pair of Mickey and
Minnie Mouse socks. And he keeps toys in his office. At first I thought they
were there for his niece, and some of them are, but some of them are more
sophisticated computer and video games that grown-up boys like to play with.”
Her smile turned into a frown. “I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into
normal eccentricities.”

“Why is this so important to you?” Mom
bit into a muffin, then leaned forward. “Is Gabe important to you?”

Molly had been denying it, but the
realization hit her like a ton of Legos. She heaved a deep breath and took the
plunge. “I think so, yes.” Just stating it seemed to put things into
perspective. Her whole outlook brightened.

“In some ways he’s so right for me. But
in other ways he’s so wrong. You wouldn’t think we’d have anything in common,
but when I think of all his good qualities...” She shrugged helplessly.

Houdini sauntered over and touched her
ankle with his paw. She wiggled her toes at him, and he scampered away. “In the
grand scheme of things, it might not matter if he knows how to let himself have
fun or not, but it matters to me.”

“Fun is important. It’s one of the first
things I noticed about—” Her mom stopped, looking stricken. “Well, that’s old
news.”

Molly set aside her cup and picked up
the cat, who had returned to her feet. “Finish that sentence, Mom. Please. What
was one of the first things you noticed about Dad?”

Her mom pressed her lips together, and
Molly didn’t think she was going to answer. But then, she did. “I was going to
say how much I appreciated his sense of the ridiculous. The way he didn’t let
ordinary frustrations get to him. How he could smile, even when he was down.
How he made me laugh. And how much he cared. Especially about everyone who was
important to him.”

“He’s still that way.”

“I guess.” Mom looked away. “I guess I’m
just not included on the list of people who are important to him anymore.”

“Of course, you are.”

“Well.” Mom broke the rest of her muffin
in half. Instead of taking a bite, she broke it in half again. And again. Until
the poor muffin had been reduced to a pile of crumbs. “Not as important as I
used to be.”

“Now, see, that’s why I’m confused. If
you can be wrong about somebody as fabulous as Dad, and if I could be wrong
about someone as—as—as
ordinary
as William, how does anyone know when
they’ve found the right one?”

“I wasn’t wrong about your father,
Molly. We were perfect together for a long time. Even the best of relationships
grind to a halt after a while. Sometimes, there’s no way to stop it from
happening.”

Molly hated the air of defeat that clung
to her mother like the ivy on the pool’s privacy fence. Especially when her
mother was wrong.

They could do something to prevent it
from happening. They could break the curse of the damned Sleeping Lotus.

Molly swallowed her disappointment when
Gabe called that afternoon and cancelled their plans to go to the movies that
night. He claimed he had too much work, blaming the big Quigley project. After
apologizing, he promised to join her and her dad for Sunday brunch as they’d
previously agreed. But she detected enough reserve that she halfway expected
him to cancel out on that, too.

So, with no Gabe, and no plans for a
Saturday night, she stayed over at her mom’s again. They watched Molly’s
favorite hunky carpenter on a home improvement show while they baked brownies
and organized mementos from
Nonna’s
boxes. But
mostly, Molly spent the hours like a lovesick teenager looking forward to
seeing Gabe when they met her Dad for breakfast.

She sensed something had happened since
she’d last seen him that had created a Grand Canyon-sized gap between them.
After the intimacies they’d shared on Friday night, the distance mystified her.

The next morning, her father waited for
her outside The Broken Egg. He kissed her cheek and handed her a cup of her
favorite mocha latte. She inhaled deeply. “Hello, Moll.” Dad had on his Sunday
morning uniform of old chinos and comfortable sweater. This particular nubby
charcoal pullover was one her mother had knitted for him several Christmases
ago.

They hugged and moved inside, waiting together
in the foyer, waiting for their table, and waiting for Gabe. It hadn’t escaped
Molly’s notice that she’d been doing more than her fair share of waiting
lately.

The restaurant had that delicious
bacon-and-sausage scent combined with omelets, hash browns, cinnamon rolls, and
biscuits and gravy. All those yummy high-cholesterol, high-calorie, or
high-carb breakfast foods she loved and rarely allowed herself to eat. Her
stomach rumbled with anticipation. Every bite would result in an extra hour of
Zumba, but she’d decided to indulge herself anyway.

Dad eyed the door, checking for their
guest before fixing her with a penetrating stare, the one he’d used to ferret
out the truth from offspring, patients, and students for years. “How’re you
doing after the break-in?”

“Fine.” She smiled brightly. If she
exhibited the least bit of fear or anxiety, she knew he’d never allow her out
of his sight again.

“I talked to a buddy down at the police
station.”

“Of course you did, but it’s not
difficult to figure out. It was someone after the Sleeping Lotus, obviously.”
She bit her lip and had to ask. “Any news?”

She’d resigned herself years ago to the
fact that he always had a buddy somewhere that he could talk into keeping an
eye on her if he wanted. From her only forays on the wrong side of the law—at
age fourteen when she had been caught trying to sneak into a movie with friends
and again at fifteen when she’d been caught
teepeeing
her boyfriend’s house—to the time she got her first speeding ticket at age
seventeen. And then there was the time when one of her college roommates spent
their rent money on great new boots—three months in a row—and got them all
evicted.

His friends had even managed to keep
tabs on her last fall when she’d walked in on a domestic dispute between one of
her student’s parents and ended up in the emergency room. Molly’s eye had been
blackened and her nose bloodied, but she’d rescued the child from a
life-threatening beating. The father had gone to jail. The mother had gone to a
woman’s shelter and gotten counseling about how to get her family out of a bad
situation.

Molly considered it worth the pain. Her
Dad hadn’t been nearly so accepting when he’d heard the news from the social
worker involved in the case.

He shrugged in response to her question.
“They have a couple of suspects.”

A shiver ran down her back. A shiver of
annoyance, not fear. This was the first
she’d
heard about any leads.
“Who?”

“They followed up on the information you
gave them about a suspicious car, which has lead them to a couple of avid,
unscrupulous Asian erotic collectors.”

“Oh.” Imagining a real suspect, someone
with a face and a motive, made the violation of her home seem more personal.
Someone who’d been following her around, at least a few times during the past
week. She’d almost prefer to think it had been a random break-in. Thinking
about being an actual target was enough to give her
goosebumps
.
Chills. Nausea. Okay, so maybe fear, not annoyance, was her basic reaction.

Her dad looked up again as an elderly
couple all dressed up in their best Sunday church outfits entered the
restaurant. “Where’s your friend?”

Molly looked around at the four other
pods of people in the waiting area, checking to make sure they hadn’t
overlooked him. As if that could happen.

 “He’s supposed to be here.” She
shrugged, pretending not to care. She wouldn’t obsess about whether he made it
or not. “Want to check to see if our table’s ready? The hostess can bring him
to us when he gets here.”

Just then the hostess turned and called
their name.

And from behind her, Gabe spoke. “I’m
here. Hope I’m not late.”

Talk about
goosebumps
.
The sound of his voice sent flocks of them scurrying. Molly turned toward him
and couldn’t keep the silly grin off her face, even though he looked mostly
tired and worried. He smiled back, but kept his distance, kind of strong-arming
Molly an arm’s length away when she tried to move in for a hug.

“You’re right on time.” Stung by the
rebuff, she crossed her arms to keep her hands to herself. “I hope you brought
your appetite. The servings here are enormous.”

“Never leave home without it.” He shook
hands with her dad. “Thanks for including me.”

“Everything okay?” Molly asked out of
the corner of her mouth as they followed the hostess to a cozy corner booth.

An unidentifiable dark emotion stirred
behind his eyes, but he shook it off along with her concern. “Couldn’t be
better. What about you? How are things at your house?”

“Better than they were the other night.”

“Good.” He stood back to allow Molly to
scoot into the booth first, and then slid in on the same side, leaving enough
space between them to park the Volkswagen. She frowned, but inched over in his
direction. Dad took the bench across the table from them.

The waitress, a plump forty-something
woman doing a Dolly Parton impersonation, batted false eyelashes at Dad and
leaned over way too far while she poured his coffee. Dad seemed oblivious to
the display and studied the menu.

After the three of them ordered, Dolly
sashayed away, and Dad flashed a grin. “I like this.”

 “The Broken Egg?” Molly asked.

“Company for breakfast.” He picked a
bottle of hot sauce out of the condiment holder, rolling it between his palms.
“Right before I moved out of the house, I felt so hemmed in. The idea of having
my own space seemed so much more appealing, but I didn’t realize how much I’d
hate all of those solitary meals. In restaurants, at my desk, in front of the
television in my condo. I don’t know how you can stand living alone, honey.”

Molly realized the house he no longer
found so confining was the home he shared with his wife. Did this mean he was
entertaining second thoughts about the separation?

“Eating alone sounds pretty good to me,”
Gabe said, checking his watch. “At home and work, I sit down with groups from
four to twelve most of the time. Someone is always hammering me with requests,
opinions, and demands while I eat. Makes for a lot of indigestion.”

She saw his point. “After spending the
day with jabbering eight-year-olds, I kind of enjoy the quiet. But Mom and I
were saying yesterday that what we both really dislike is cooking for one. Most
of the time, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.” She wondered what else her dad
missed about living at home. “Don’t you think it’s nice to not have someone
nagging you about loading the dishwasher, or putting the toaster away right
after you’ve used it?”

He frowned into his coffee. “Your mother
never nagged about those things.”

“True, she’s not a nag, is she?” Molly
smiled sweetly. “She’s pretty accepting of other people’s flaws.”

“That’s one of the things I like about
Ellen.” He’d picked up the topic without much prompting. “She sees every side
to a situation, not just her own. She always fights fair, never nitpicks.”

That sounded promising. She sipped her
orange juice. “What else do you like about her, Dad?”

The top-heavy waitress brought their
heaping plates, and Dad turned his attention to the food. While he buttered his
stack of pancakes and doused them in maple syrup, Molly doctored her French
toast and feared the moment for confidences had passed.

“Pass the hot sauce?” Gabe asked, and
Dad handed it over.

“What else do you like about Mom?” She
dug into her hash browns, realizing as she did that repeating the question
erased any shred of subtlety. But this subject was important to her. No time
like the present to air her opinion. Not that anyone had asked for it, but her
parents had bumbled along in the wrong direction for too long. If she didn’t
step in soon, they might never find their way back together.

“Uh, Molly...” Gabe shifted his feet and
long legs under the table, knocking their knees together. From the distance
he’d been maintaining, she knew the contact had been on purpose, and it
irritated her to realize how much heat the mild touch aroused. “Maybe your dad
doesn’t want to talk about this.”

Dad looked up from his meal wearing his
thoughtful expression. “One of the things I like about Ellen is that she
doesn’t try to trick me into talking about subjects that are none of her
business. Now if only my daughter could learn the same lesson.” He flicked a
glance toward Gabe, which was the same as adding the phrase,
in front of
outsiders
.

Gabe checked his watch again. She
wondered about his sudden fascination with the time. He’d checked it about every
two seconds since his arrival, not that she’d been paying close enough
attention to notice. But she had.

“We don’t have to tiptoe around in front
of Gabe.” She pressed her thigh against his hard-muscled one, leaning into the
feel of the solid warmth next to her, taking courage from his presence. “Gabe’s
aware of the situation between you and Mom. And your marriage is my business,
because I care about both of you so much.”

“Molly, no.” Dad shook his head slowly.
“The details of a marriage are between the husband and the wife, and no one
else.”

Molly’s heart contracted, as if an
invisible hand squeezed it. Surely Dad didn’t mean to exclude her. Didn’t mean
to reject her help. He didn’t
blame
her for what had happened. Did he?

“That’s only true until a couple has
children.”

“Children are an important factor in a
marriage, but they aren’t part of the marital arrangement.”

“The word ‘family’ implies involvement,
Dad, and I’m not going to keep quiet any longer just because you don’t want me
to butt into your business. Here’s something I need to know.” She dropped her
fork onto her plate with a clank. “Do you blame me for the breakup of your
marriage?”

“
You
?” Dad leaned back, shocked
by the question. “Why would I?”

She fidgeted with her napkin, unable to
look him in the eye. “Just something I overheard one night.”

“What! When?”

“I came in the back door a few days
before you left home. I heard you and Mom in the family room, arguing about my
relationship with William.” Molly could barely get the words out. Gabe stiffened
beside her, but Dad’s expression merely shifted from shocked to puzzled. “You
thought he was perfect for me, but Mom thought I needed to be with someone who
was more—” Honestly, she couldn’t remember more
what
. “—more
interesting? More fun? More special? Something like that.”

Suddenly, she didn’t want Gabe to hear
anymore. But when she turned to him, he had his phone out, texting, not
appearing to pay them any attention.

“Someone more right for you,” Dad said
quietly. “I think that’s what she wanted.” He gave a little huff of
indignation. “As if she thought I wanted you to be with someone who was wrong
for you.”

Molly shivered, remembering how he’d
said just that, and how the argument had deteriorated.

He’d told Mom to stay out of Molly’s
life since she couldn’t manage her own. Mom had said that despite the diploma
claiming he was a psychologist, he’d always been too cold and analytical to
understand anyone’s real feelings. No one with a textbook for a heart could
relate to the problems of real people. He said her constant meddling only made
situations worse, like the time—
yada
,
yada
,
yada
. It had spiraled
downward from there and resulted in her dad moving out a few days later.

“I’d never heard you argue like that
before.” She speared a hunk of melon.

“Well, there you go.” He shrugged his
shoulders in a resigned gesture. “That’s how it was at the end. We couldn’t
agree on anything, but I don’t want you to feel guilty about the argument you
overheard. It may have started out about you, but you were never the problem.
The separation had nothing at all to do with you, Moll.”