Finding Serenity (38 page)

Under the gazebo, her friends stop swinging, stop whatever it is they’re talking about to catch Mollie’s eyes. It’s Layla’s not at all subtle jerk of the head that has Mollie lifting her head off her father’s shoulder to turn toward Declan and when she sees Vaughn staring at her, a hesitant smile on his face as if he is unsure of himself, Mollie’s skin flushes. To distract herself from his heavy stare, she takes two gulps of her beer.

“Easy now, Mimi. You’ll get sick,” Mojo says and then that machine gun laugh echoes around the patio, bounces against the water. “Ah.”

“Daddy, don’t start.”

“He’s coming this way.”

She nudges her father in the rib trying to get him to be quiet, but then the man stands up, frowning when Vaughn approaches.

“Mr. Malone,” he says, dipping his chin and then, “Hey Mollie,” to her.

“Finally decided to grace us with your presence?” Mojo says, reluctantly taking Vaughn’s hand in a quick shake.

“I’m sorry about that,” he doesn’t look at her father when he speaks. “I was a little messed up.”

Mollie can’t take that stare or the way his eyes work over her face and stay on her mouth. She looks away, focusing on the small trickle from the ornamental waterfall, trying to block him out. But he smells incredible, so musky and male and as she polishes off the beer, Mollie decides to put some space between them. He should understand that. He’s done it enough times to her before.

She hobbles away, awkwardly moving the crutches around Vaughn and her father but hears Mojo’s little nugget of wisdom before she reaches the French doors leading into the kitchen. “Some war wounds stay with us, son. Sometimes we carry them with us. But eventually, you have to leave the battlefield. You have to come home and forget.”

Viv is at the counter laying buns on a tray to toast on the grill. When she spots Mollie leaning against the door with her hand behind her on the knob, the D.A. stops fiddling with the buns. “What’s wrong?”

Mollie shows her the empty bottle and Viv takes it from her, slips it into the recycle bin and grabs a fresh one from the refrigerator. Shutting the door, Viv hands her the beer, her head turning when she hears Mojo’s laugh. “Oh.” She touches Mollie’s elbow. “I didn’t think he’d make it.”

“You invited him?”

“Honey, he still lives here.”

Mollie pops the cap on the beer and take a long gulp, feeling stupid about hiding from Vaughn. “Bathroom?” she asks Viv, not yet ready to give up her brief seclusion.

“Down the hall and to the left.” She picks up the tray, but before Mollie leaves the kitchen, the woman calls her back. “If he’s here then that means he’s trying. That means he doesn’t want to run anymore.”

“I’m not thinking about him.” When Viv arches her eyebrows, Mollie rolls her eyes.

“Uh huh and that’s why you’ve already downed that beer and hiding in my kitchen?”

“Whatever, Viv,” she says trying to ignore the woman’s smug cackle.

She takes her time in the bathroom, running cool water on the back of her neck, examining the weird pills in the medicine cabinet, stealing a couple of squirts from Viv’s expensive lotion, but finally, she has to leave this room and face what awaits outside. She heard Viv call everyone to dinner twenty minutes ago and Mollie hopes that means Vaughn has joined them and will be too distracted by burgers and company to attempt speaking to her again.

Yeah. Right, dummy.

She takes slow steps down the hall, eyes going to the artwork on the wall, to the family pictures on the table at the end of it. Vaughn’s parents look happy in this photo, younger, vibrant and Mollie guesses this was taken before cancer had invaded their lives. She makes to turn, to leave the hallway, but a noise behind her stops her short.

Vaughn is in the bedroom, sitting on a massive cherry bed with gray linens. In his hands is a picture, which Mollie glances at as she starts into the room. It is of his parents, on their wedding day, hopeful, exuberant but Vaughn’s face doesn’t light up when he looks at it. She knows he’s suffering, that he feels the dread, the loss that seeing the picture causes and it’s then, with Vaughn’s loose grip on the frame and the way every glance he makes at the picture seems to hurt him, pain him, that Mollie knows she has to forgive him.

He doesn’t greet her, doesn’t smile but when she sits next to him and puts her head on his shoulder, Vaughn takes her hand. Just like it is usual, a silent custom that they’d invented without much fanfare. Vaughn moves the hair from Mollie’s forehead and slips the loose strands behind her ear. When she looks up at him, catches the need, the hope in his eyes, Mollie takes the picture from his hands, sets it on the bedside table and kisses Vaughn.

The kiss is like comfort; the stark need of thirst that is filled, satisfied with the touch of lips, the quiet movement of fingers against cheeks, under her jaw. She has craved him for so long, waited so long and it is this moment she’s been anticipating. She wants it to be endless. She wants it to linger, to stretch until there is nothing else in the world but the sensation of his lips against her neck, her chest, his strong hands commanding, claiming.

“I came to see you. You were sleeping,” he finally says, when they have pulled away from each other.

“I heard.” She hopes her voice is strong, that he can’t make out the slight quiver she feels in the back of her throat.

“I brought you magnolias,” he says, adjusting his body on the bed as they lay facing each other.

Not missing a beat, her gaze meets his. “I threw them out.”

He sighs, nods once as though expecting her honesty. “I deserve that. The flowers, not so much.”

He exhales and Mollie blinks quickly, trying to ignore how hot his breath is. “I think I deserve for you to hate me.”
I don’t,
she thinks. “I deserve for you to punch me.”
I really only wanna touch you.
Vaughn nudges forward so that his hips are against her. “I don’t deserve you, Mollie. But I want to.” And before she can think of a snarky response, Vaughn lowers his lips to her mouth, slips his tongue in as though it was welcome.

It’s not.

Oh, it so is, dummy.

But Mollie inherited more than her whiskey eyes from her daddy. If Mojo Malone was a stubborn son of a bitch, then his kid Mollie was the bitch that copied him. She breaks away from him, lays on her back to give herself some breathing room.

“Explain. Now,” she says, trying to get her breathing back to normal.

“Okay.” Mollie doesn’t like how quick he is to agree. She doesn’t like that he is smiling, that there isn’t a sad, remorseful smile on his face.
Shouldn’t he be upset? Shouldn’t he be begging?
Vaughn leans up on his elbow, but doesn’t touch her. She hates how disappointed she is by that. “I got spooked. I thought I failed you.”

“I told you—”

He covers her mouth with two fingers. “I’m trying to explain here.” She opens her mouth and his glare is swift. “You done?” She nods and Vaughn drops his hand. “I’m sorry. I’ve been fucked up for a long time and seeing you there on that ground, bloody…” he closes his eyes, inhales deep, “and even today, still cut up, Mollie, it levels me that I didn’t get to you in time.”

“Would you have punched Emily?”

“What?”

“If you’d gotten there and Emily and I were fighting, would you have pulled me off her so you could get in a few licks?” When he hesitates, Mollie laughs. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. That was my battle, Vaughn. Mine. They came after me, not you and though I got my ass handed to me, I still put up a fight.” Mollie doesn’t wait for Vaughn to touch her. She sits up, stretches over him to move her breasts to his chest. “That’s what I want, Vaughn, an equal, not a protector. I want someone who lets me fight my own battles, who I can let fight theirs. I don’t want any heroes. I want a partner.” His lips are not touching and Mollie has to force her eyes away from the soft texture of that bottom lip. “So I guess the question becomes, what do you want, Vaughn?”

Vaughn’s expression is muted, still, and Mollie isn’t sure why he’s hesitating, but before she can ask, he takes a breath, angles his body so that she is forced to her back with him hovering over her. “I told you I was broken, but I know now that’s not true. You fixed me. I was broken and you healed me. I don’t deserve you. I don’t know why in God’s name you’d want anything to do with me, but I’m tired of not having what I want.” He is so close now that she can feel the outline of his chest, the steady breath that warms her forehead. “So here’s what
I
want. You. Plain and simple and in all those variations. I want foul-mouth Mollie and sweet Mollie and DJing Mollie and the Mollie who watches bad Mexican soap operas with her neighbor.” Vaughn grips her arms, his fingers tight against her skin and she has to force herself not to moan at the smell of his breath or the brush of his fingers as they rub against her triceps.

“I want the Mollie with a convict father and the bitch from hell mother, the one who stutters and says ‘ain’t’ when she’s upset. I want the Mollie that is loyal, is fiercely protective of her friends, the one who wanted to proxy kick my ass for calling her dad a squid.” Vaughn shifts so that she sinks deeper on that plush dark bed that promises good,
good
trouble. “I want you. Today, right now, tomorrow. I told you, I didn’t ever want to stop kissing you, touching you, but the truth is, I won’t ever stop loving you.” Mollie holds her breath when Vaughn’s face comes within inches of her mouth. “I’ve wanted so many things and I gave them up. I gave them all up, Mollie because I didn’t think I deserved them. I’m done with that and there is no fucking way I’m giving you up.”

And she couldn’t argue, couldn’t find any words in the stores of her mind that made sense. There would be no arguing, no doubting, no losing out on what she wanted. She, like Vaughn, was done with that and so she let Vaughn Winchester take her down, on that good trouble bed. She let him kiss her, tease her, not caring that her family waited outside, not bothered that they were clever enough to know what she’d gotten up to.

Mollie had been so lost for so long, drifting under her mother’s roof, searching for serenity, hoping that it wasn’t too far out of her reach. She found it. Maybe it found her in that sleepy town that became her home. Cavanagh had given Mollie grace, hope and ties that ran deeper than blood. Her father had given her strength and a reason to believe that she could be better, that she could find all the missing pleasure his absence had taken from her. And that night, on Vaughn’s black bed, Mollie held on to him, let him touch her, let him love her, like she belonged to him. And she did, just as much as he belonged to her.

I’m always scared I’ll forget someone when writing acknowledgments. There have been so many people who have supported and encouraged me and given me opportunities simply because they are kind, generous people and because they want to see me succeed. If I miss anyone, I’m sorry.

Finding Serenity
was a difficult book to write. Mollie and Vaughn would not speak to me for quite some time and it was the constant encouragement (read: nagging) of my very good friend Karen Chapman who got me to listen a bit closer to this stubborn couple. When I did that, they wouldn’t shut up. So thank you, Karen for cheering me on and brainstorming with me about this book. I so appreciate your friendship and love.

Thank you, Sharon Browning for diligently editing
and editing and editing
this book until it was in better fighting shape. I truly do not know what I’d do without you. You are a blessing and I promise you, those fantasy and sci-fi stories are heading to your Inbox very soon.

Thank you to my fantastic, sharp-eyed betas: Jessica Shamburger, Janette Meyers, Chelle Bliss, Trish Finley Leger, Melinda S. Collins and Heather McCorkle. You caught errors when my eyes had crossed and blurred from rewrites and edits. I am so very blessed to have you all helping me out. Thank you! Heather and Jessica, especially, thank you for filling in the research blanks. If I ever go to prison or to Costa Rica, I know who I’m calling first.

Lila Felix has been my biggest cheerleader these past few months. Thank you so much for taking me under your wing and sorting out my rookie mistakes. Thanks also to the fabulous Louisiana authors who have welcomed me into their lives: Skye Turner, Andrea Michelle and Monique O’Connor James. Penelope Douglas, thanks for the advice and support and for holding my hand as we popped our Con cherries at NOLA. Hope we can sign together again soon!