Last Chance Knit & Stitch (31 page)

“Does Molly know all this?”

He tightened his hands on the wheel. He hadn’t expected Pat to jump right to that conclusion, but then what other conclusion would she jump to? He supposed he could tell her he was doing it for Coach’s sake. But he had a feeling Molly’s mother could see right through him.

“She knows my plans,” he said. “And she can use the Coca-Cola building for the Shelby until the end of August. I rented the place for three months, but I’m not going to need it for that long. Hopefully, by then Dash will own the dealership, and he’ll give her some space for her business.”

“And did you stipulate that as part of the sale?”

Heat crawled up his face. “Well, I’m not in control of the sale. My uncle is. But I might have mentioned it to Dash before he took off on his honeymoon.”

“Uh-huh. Yes, I can see things very clearly.” Pat didn’t sound so friendly all of a sudden. In a minute, she was going to give him the same speech Coach had delivered a few weeks ago. That speech about how he should back off and not mess with Molly. About how he was too old for her. About how he was too jaded for her. About how he was the kind of guy who walked away from commitments.

Yeah, he was that guy. And Molly knew it. And she’d already ended it. And he was going to live with her decision, because it was the right one. He had no business messing with Molly. She deserved someone younger and better than him.

“Look, Mrs. Canaday, I—”

“Call me Pat.”

“Okay, Pat. Hurting Molly is the last thing I want to do. She’s become a friend.”

“A good friend?”

“A friend.” He tried to invest this word with deeper meaning. He was not about to have a detailed conversation about what happened last Saturday night, or this Monday morning. Although he knew that Pat would figure it out eventually.

Pat said nothing in response to this. She merely turned her gaze toward the flashing white lines on the highway.

Despite Simon’s good news, the day wore on, hour by hour, with little improvement in Beau’s condition. Simon left at six to make the drive up to Atlanta—a good four hours.

Molly and Allen continued to keep vigil. Around midnight, while Allen was dozing in a chair, Beau let go of a long, rattling sigh.

And were it not for the monitors showing the steady rhythm of his heart, she might have thought that exhalation was a death rattle. His cheeks had gone deathly pale. But his respiration seemed easier. She leaned forward and touched his forehead. His brow was much cooler than it had been.

The fever was down, but she’d already been warned by the doctors that someone with a compromised immune system like Beau’s might not be able to muster a fever in the face of an infection. She didn’t awaken him. He needed his rest, and she chose to be optimistic. But she kept her eye trained on the clock.

If Momma’s plane touched down at ten-thirty, then the earliest she could be here was three in the morning.

Time crawled. The monitors beeped. Allen snored. And she knitted, even though she could hardly keep her eyes open. She wasn’t even sure what she was making anymore. It had started out as a sweater for someone approximately Simon’s size. But now it was taking on afghan proportions.

Around two, Coach finally arrived, grim and sober. He didn’t say a thing. He merely took Allen’s place, while her brother went off in search of some coffee.

An hour and a half later, Momma came sweeping into the room.

There was a brief and somewhat awkward family reunion. And then Momma and Coach took their places at Beau’s side.

Since the hospital only allowed two visitors at a time, Molly retired to the family waiting room. She was too tired to drive back to Last Chance and too emotionally unsteady to accept Simon’s offer to drive her home.

Besides, if she did that, she’d be without a car, and she hated that feeling. In the end, Simon drove Allen home to get some rest, and Molly sat in the family waiting room, knitting until she fell asleep.

Coach roused her in the morning with the news that the doctors believed Beau was out of immediate danger. Then she and her parents had breakfast together in the hospital cafeteria. Whatever Momma and Coach had said to one another over Beau’s prostrate form would remain a secret between them. They seemed like their usual, normal selves again.

But maybe their usual, normal selves hid something rotten. Molly couldn’t get past the fact that both of them had let her down. She would have called them on it, except now was not the time.

For once, Molly held her tongue. There was no point in creating a big argument by expressing her disappointment in a public place. She screwed on her best face and best behavior. For Beau’s sake.

And when Beau finally opened his eyes later that morning, it was to see both his mother and his father at his bedside.

Molly visited shortly thereafter to pat his hand and
give him the first Chemo Cap that she’d knitted for him. He asked to rub her short hair for luck, the way the members of the 1990 dream team had done.

She left him then. She planned to go home for some sleep and a shower and return for the evening watch.

She made it halfway down the hall toward the elevator before Momma caught up with her.

“There are a couple of things I need to say to you,” Momma said as she pulled Molly into a big motherly hug that Molly deeply wanted to return. But she stood there, frozen and still angry. Momma seemed to realize this.

“First of all, I want to apologize for running out on y’all. I realize now how hurtful that was. And to be honest, I didn’t really enjoy seeing all those sights all by my lonesome. And I will regret what I did for a long time. I just got so angry and, well, we’ve talked before about how destructive anger can be if you give it full rein. Which is what I did.”

Molly said nothing. She was dead tired, and this was a terrible time for Momma to be making her grand confession. But she listened, even if she found it hard to look her mother in the eye.

“I should have told your father what I wanted. I should have made him understand. And when I decided there was no point in waiting for him, I should have told everyone I was going to follow my dream regardless. And I should have left a way for you to contact me.”

“Yeah, you should have.”

“And I shouldn’t have put that note on the door of the yarn shop. I guess I was just feeling so disappointed in my family. It wasn’t right to try to turn you into my clone.”

Molly finally looked up. “Momma, my dream of starting
a car-restoration business is not some kind of failing. It’s not a problem. It’s what I want. I wish you’d understand that.”

“Honey, it’s only that I sometimes think you sell yourself short. And I just thought that if I could force you into a different way of thinking, then maybe …” Her voice failed her.

“Maybe what?”

“I wanted you to understand that you can still be the master of your fate, even if it doesn’t involve doing a man’s job.”

“But who says working on cars is a man’s job?”

Momma rolled her eyes. “Okay. I was wrong. And I’m sorry.”

“Good. I’ll accept your apology.”

Molly turned on her heel, still feeling a little angry, but her forgiveness was genuine.

“Darlin’, there’s one other thing.”

“What?” Molly turned around.

“You and Simon Wolfe.”

Crap. Momma would come home and immediately start prodding around the most sensitive issues. “What about us?”

“He’s in love with you.”

Those words zinged right into her middle like some kind of poisoned dart or something. She started feeling short of breath almost instantly. “He is
not
in love with me.”

“All right, then he’s infatuated with you. The way older men sometimes fall for younger women.”

“Don’t you think I
know
that? I’m not a fool.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Your daddy says he thinks you
have a crush on him. He says Simon has been taking advantage of you. He says you and Les have had a falling-out and he’s pretty sure it’s because of Simon. I’m really unhappy to hear this.”

“Momma, there is nothing going on between Simon and me. And before you meddle in my life any more than you already have, maybe you and Coach should concentrate on working out your own problems. And by the way, there are a lot of good reasons why Les and I have had a falling-out, starting with the fact that he stole my job.”

She turned, took a couple of steps, and stopped. “Oh, there’s something else,” she said, looking over her shoulder.

“I’m afraid to ask,” Momma said looking almost contrite.

“There have been some changes at the Knit & Stitch.”

“Changes?”

“Yeah, I hired Ricki Wilson. And even after LeRoy fired me, I decided to keep her on. I figured I was getting free rent for the Shelby and free rent with you and Coach. So it was the right thing to do. She’s turned out to be a great employee. If you sweep back into town and let her go, I will be so disappointed in you.”

S
imon didn’t see Molly or her family over the next several days, but he knew what was going on with them and everyone else in Last Chance. Angel kept tabs on all the local news: Beau Canaday was out of immediate danger, Molly and her mother were having a few disagreements over the Knit & Stitch, and Les and Ricki were having dog problems.

If Molly was working on the Shelby, she was doing it late at night. And he was following his early-morning schedule. So they passed like ships in the night. From his end of things, it wasn’t entirely by accident. He was consciously avoiding Molly.

That moment in the hospital when she’d thrown her arms around him had deeply disturbed him. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d thrown himself into her family’s business, except that he wanted to help her. He wanted her to be happy. To be successful. To be everything she could be.

And he wanted to stop the Canadays from making a big mistake.

He also yearned for something else—something he’d never really wanted in his life until right this minute. But this longing in his heart was foolish.

So he’d pulled himself back and tried to be sensible. He was too old for Molly—too old and too screwed up and too scared.

Besides, the legal work on Daddy’s will was complete. The details of Dash Randall’s purchase of the dealership were being hammered out. The house was listed, and Arlo already had some interested potential buyers. Momma was all set with a place to live in California. And he and Angel were sorting through Momma’s things and starting to pack the ones that weren’t going to the Salvation Army or the auction house.

There wasn’t any reason to stay. In fact, he’d been dragging his feet for at least five days. He needed to go back to Paradise. Maybe he’d find his focus there. Because he’d sure lost it here.

So he’d set his departure date for Wednesday—two days from now. He planned to spend most of the afternoon packing, but he’d come to the studio this morning to work on something he’d started a couple of days ago. It was crazy to start something new before finishing the Harrison commission. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

And the painting was going well.

He was deep into his work when he realized that he wasn’t alone. He looked up to find Coach standing just inside the doorway to the loading dock, right smack dab in the place where Molly usually stood when she’d decided to come in and heckle him.

It had been almost a week since she’d done that. He missed her.

He had a feeling Coach intended to do more than heckle.

Simon put down his palette and wiped his paint-spattered hands on his old shirt. Then he draped the painting with a sheet. He wasn’t ready to show anyone his new work, especially Coach.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee? It’s pretty lousy, but it’s loaded with caffeine,” he said.

Coach shook his head and folded his big arms across his chest. “I’ll be brief. I’m mad as hell at the fact that you slept with my daughter. I told you not to mess with her, and you gave me your word that you wouldn’t. The only reason I haven’t broken your head is because you found Pat and convinced her to come home. I appreciate that, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you and Molly.”

Simon said nothing. Being stared down by an angry father was a new experience for him. Probably because he only got involved with independent, urban women who were older than thirty and didn’t have churchgoing, clean-living, football coach fathers.

“If you were younger, I’d have brought my shotgun and insisted that you marry her. But Molly can do better than you. She needs a young man.”

“I’m not that old. But I get your point.”

“Shut up. I’m talking now.”

Simon shut up. It was always a bad idea to interrupt Coach when he was on a roll.

“You’re too old for her, you understand me? I don’t like the idea that when she’s in her thirties you’ll be in your fifties. And when she’s in her forties, you’ll be an old man. That’s not fair to her. How the heck would you have any energy for children? You’d be terrible father material.”

Simon nodded. “Sir, may I speak?”

“By all means.” A muscle ticked in Coach’s jaw.

“I agree with you. I
am
too old for her. But I can assure you that I didn’t come close to breaking Molly’s heart or her spirit or anything else. She’s not all that into me, if you really must know the truth. She told me so herself. I think she sees me as the older man every young woman should experience—once. She’s already over me.” Whether he would ever get over Molly was a different question altogether.

Coach’s face went from red to indigo. He took three giant steps into the room and stopped right in front of Simon. He was much taller and much bigger. He poked his index finger into Simon’s sternum.

“My daughter does not sleep around, is that clear? She is not the kind of girl who goes looking for experience from older men.”

“Yes, sir.” Simon realized that he should never have said anything about Molly looking for experience. But the embarrassing fact was that Molly
had
come looking for fun. And she’d been happy with just one night. And that stung Simon’s pride, somehow. Being pushed away by a woman before he was ready to move on was an entirely new experience for him.