He wasn’t about to dim her enthusiasm by pointing out that Bobby still had a long way to go in dealing with his PTSD. The former soldier had taken the first step toward getting help, and Zeke was going to focus on that and the light shining in Mollie’s eyes for now. He drew in a deep breath. He hadn’t been able to help Patrick, but he could still help Bobby and others like him.
Still he argued, “You’re giving me too much credit. You’re the one who’s been working so hard with Charlie.”
She shrugged off the praise. “Charlie made it easy. She’s a natural.”
Her smile wavered a bit. Even though she’d only fostered the sweet Lab for a few weeks, Zeke knew Mollie would miss her. Hoping to distract her, he asked, “Hey, how did the photos turn out?”
“I almost forgot!” Before Bobby had completed the adoption paperwork, she’d ask Bunny to take some shots of the two of them with Bobby and Charlie. Stepping back, she pulled her phone from her back pocket.
“Oh, that is so cute!” she exclaimed over an image of Charlie snuggled up to Bobby’s chest. A look of sheer adoration filled her dark puppy eyes. Of course, Bobby looked almost as smitten as—as Zeke did in the very next photo. Only he wasn’t looking at the dog. Instead the image had been snapped right as Mollie tipped her head back in laughter and Zeke... He’d been caught gazing at her with an expression on his face that he’d never seen before.
He reached for the phone, his hand covering the backs of her fingers. His thumb hovered over the screen. He didn’t know if he wanted to delete the evidence or send the photo to his own phone.
Seeming to think he was having trouble with the late afternoon glare, Mollie tilted the cell in his direction. A hint of pink touched her cheeks as she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. A faint breeze stirred the curls against the side of her neck and carried a sun-warmed wildflower scent straight to his senses. “Can you see it?”
He had to clear his throat before he could answer, his voice dropping an octave as he admitted, “I can see it.”
And now that he had, he didn’t know how he had been so blind for so long. He was falling for his best friend. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Zeke rejected it. He’d been through love’s crazy roller coaster ride of highs and lows, not to mention the loops that turned his well-ordered life upside down, and he wanted no part of it.
His fingers tensed against hers, and Mollie’s thumb jerked. “Oops.” She laughed a bit shakily as she ended up opening another album file to reveal a photo that had to be over two years old, although he’d never seen it before.
Patrick stared back at him from the screen, a wry smile on his handsome face as he posed with an arm around Mollie. His hair was cut military short, his bearing that of a soldier even though he wore a faded pair of jeans and a Tar Heels T-shirt.
“That’s the last picture I have of him,” Mollie said softly. “It was taken on his final trip home.”
The revelation had Zeke drawing the phone closer. He stared harder at the photo, as if the two-dimensional image might reveal all the secrets his living, breathing friend had kept to himself. Zeke took in the decked-out Christmas tree in the background, towering well above his friend’s six-foot frame. Was it only Zeke’s imagination or did the bright lights from the tree only make the shadows in his friend’s gaze that much more obvious? The cheery holiday trappings were such a contrast to Patrick’s somber, troubled mood during that last visit. Only—
“Patrick’s last visit was in March,” Zeke said. He was sure of it, as Lilah had called the wedding off only a few weeks later. And then a month later Patrick had been killed.
“Yes, it was.”
He turned the screen toward Mollie. “So, what’s with the Christmas tree?”
“Oh, that.” Mollie gave a little laugh. “Patrick had told my parents he’d be home for the holidays. But his leave kept getting pushed back for one reason or another, and by the time he finally made it back, it was already March. So Santa came a bit late to the McFadden house that year.”
“Seriously? Your family waited three months to celebrate Christmas? I mean, I get waiting for Patrick to get home for him to open his presents, but you—Mollie, you were already here.”
“It didn’t matter,” she insisted as she pulled her hand away from his and pocketed the phone. Her head ducked toward her chin. “Christmas wasn’t Christmas without Patrick, anyway.”
Zeke heard the words Mollie spoke but he also listened to everything she didn’t say. It didn’t matter just as easily could have been I didn’t matter.
“It’s no big deal,” said the girl who started decorating for the holidays the second the Thanksgiving dishes were washed and put away. The girl who always remembered her friends’ birthdays, who never failed to put up some kind of decoration to mark seasonal events—including dressing up Arti in costumes ranging from wings and a bow and arrow for Valentine’s Day to a turkey headdress for Thanksgiving.
“Mollie...” Zeke’s gut clenched. He didn’t blame the McFaddens for the extreme pride they had in their first-born son. He felt the same way when he thought of his friend. Patrick was a true hero. A soldier who had lived and died for his country. Patrick deserved to have his memory honored.
But Zeke would never understand why the McFaddens put more time and effort and energy into mourning the son who had died than into appreciating their daughter, who was still very much alive.
Mollie wasn’t a soldier, but she fought for the homeless and helpless animals who needed her. She was strong and brave and beautiful... How could her parents not see how smart and caring and accomplished she was?
How had he not seen that?
As hard as it was to admit, Zeke suddenly realized he’d done his own share of devaluing her efforts. Had he really thought she wouldn’t be able to handle two new foster dogs when her gift with animals was beyond anything he’d ever witnessed? Had he really believed she wouldn’t be able to fix up the house when she’d spent her childhood proving to him and to Patrick that she could do anything they could? Had he really spent so much time with her since Patrick’s death because Mollie needed him...or was it because he needed Mollie?
“Don’t.” She held out a hand, her blue-green eyes suspiciously bright. “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.”
He gently caught her wrist and brought her hand to his mouth. “Why would I,” he whispered as he brushed his lips against her palm, “when you are the strongest, bravest, most beautiful woman I know?”
“And don’t say things like that, either,” she whispered. Despite her words, she curled her fingers against his jaw, her touch feather-light.
“Why not?”
Carefully withdrawing her hand from his, she murmured, “Because you make me want to believe that you mean them.”
“I meant every word.”
“You’re a good friend, Zeke. But when you say things like that...you make me want more than just friendship.”
“Mollie...” Zeke swallowed hard and opened his mouth. It was his turn now to warn her not to say things that made him want. But the words wouldn’t come. And before he could try again she had turned and walked away.
* * *
In the days following Charlie’s adoption, Mollie made an effort to spend even more time with Arti and Chief for the dogs’ sake and for her own. Both of them had noticed Charlie’s absence when she arrived home without their friend. Arti, who was used to the coming and going of the dogs Mollie fostered or trained in-home, settled down quickly, but Chief had broken her heart a little, lying by the front door waiting for the other dog’s return.
She’d taken both dogs out for a run and then for a play session every morning, and Chief seemed to gradually bounce back, chasing and wrestling Arti on the lush green grass. He’d come so far since she first saw him huddled in the corner in his kennel. She knew he was almost ready for adoption but wasn’t sure
she was ready to let him go.
The shy dog had worked his way into her heart just like she knew he would, and having him around, seeing Chief and Arti together, made Mollie feel a little less lonely. She missed Zeke. She missed his easy smile. His calm logic in the face of her sometimes overboard rush to action. She missed his friendship and had no one but herself to blame for the distance between them on multiple levels. After all, she was the one who’d been avoiding him, too embarrassed by the too-revealing comments that bypassed her brain and went straight out her mouth whenever they were together.
First practically begging him to kiss her and then telling him she wanted more. Mollie groaned and wanted to hide her heated face in her hands every time she thought about it.
You are the strongest, bravest, most beautiful woman I know.
Not that strong and not that brave.
Mollie lips quirked a little in a self-deprecating smile. Maybe she’d give him one out of the three.
Saturday morning, she received a text from a client who had to cancel her afternoon appointment. Mollie had rescheduled the destructive poodle’s training session for the following week, wondering how many shoes, pillows and sofas the brilliant but bored dog would leave in her wake in the meantime.
With nothing else planned until her date with Josh that evening, Mollie decided to tackle her most pressing home improvement project. A few nights earlier, she’d seen an aging shutter on an upper story window listing to the side, barely hanging on by a hinge.
A voice in her head that sounded a lot like her brother’s told her she should call Zeke but...no. She was too embarrassed to face him yet. After a trip to the shed in the backyard, she stuck a few screwdrivers into her belt loops, her makeshift version of a tool belt, and awkwardly banged her way through the side gate with an unwieldy extension ladder.
She’d just reached the second-story shutter when she heard a familiar snuffling sound behind her. For a panicked instant, she worried one of her dogs had somehow gotten out. But when she glanced over her shoulder, the dog she saw wasn’t one of hers. Even so, her hands tightened on the rung of the ladder at the sight of the small, scruffy gray terrier nosing along the edge of her property.
She’d seen the dog a few months ago, but hadn’t been able to coax him close enough to catch. “Poor puppy,” she murmured, seeing how much thinner and stragglier the stray looked since the last time she’d seen him.
The dog didn’t seem to notice her presence as he cautiously padded closer to the open gate. If curiosity would only bring him into the backyard, she could latch the gate and safely lock the illusive dog inside.
The terrier was almost, almost inside the gate when he froze and looked back, ears twitching. A moment later, Mollie heard the sound the little dog had obviously picked up on first. The crunch of tires along the drive and the low rumble of an engine.
“Don’t run...don’t run,” she whispered, but at the slam of a car door, instinct had him rushing toward the closest safe place. The small dog was little more than a gray blur, darting into the crawl space beneath the side of the house.
Hoping she could coax the dog back out, Mollie hurried down the ladder and ducked down to peer through the small gap in the latticed fascia. With the dog’s ashy coloring, she couldn’t even see him amid the shadows. Trying for a better angle, she lay down flat on the sun-warmed grass. But for a small dog to survive on its own for so long, it had to be smart, fast...and very good at hiding. Maybe some food might lure the hungry terrier out, but as she pushed into a sitting position to head to the kitchen, she heard Zeke call out her name.
“Mollie! Oh, my God, Mollie.”
“Hey—”
She was about to explain about the dog when Zeke dropped to his knees beside her. He caught her shoulders in his hands and completely stole her breath with the fierce intensity written across his handsome features. “Don’t move,” he commanded.
Her heart racing like a NASCAR engine roaring along the Charlotte Motor Speedway, she couldn’t have lifted a finger to save her life as he lowered her back to the ground.
His broad shoulders blocked out the sun, but Mollie still felt on fire as he ran his hands over her, starting with her neck and working his way down. As she gazed up at him, it took her brain a few minutes to catch on to the fact that his movements were brisk and efficient, professional, rather than the long, lingering caresses of a lover. Her body, however, didn’t care.
“Zeke—” she started to protest.
“Stay still,” he insisted. “Any dizziness? Shortness of breath? Are you feeling any pain?”
Yes, yes and yes...
Simply being so close to him, inhaling his woodsy aftershave combined with the summer grasses, made her head spin. His warm, strong hands moving down the bare skin of her leg, from her thigh all the way down to her ankle, had her gasping for air. And the desire building inside her made her ache to feel his mouth pressed to her own...
But if Zeke had any thought of putting his lips on hers, it would be only to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
As he started on her other leg, his touch moving from her calf, to her knee, to the inside of her thigh, Mollie jerked in reaction, nearly planting her tennis shoe straight in the middle of his chest as she scrambled out of reach. “Cut it out, Zeke. I’m fine!”
She pushed to her feet on shaky legs, determined not to let him know how such an impersonal examination had affected her. She crossed her arms over her stomach when what she really wanted to do was cover her breasts and hide her body’s reaction to his touch. She felt naked, exposed and thoroughly embarrassed by how easily he could turn her on...and still feel nothing in return.
“You were lying on the ground.” Confusion and a good dose of fear mixed in his hazel eyes as he stared up at her. Slowly climbing to his feet, he ran a hand over his face. “Dammit, Mollie, I thought you’d fallen off the ladder. It would be just like you to—”
His words cut off, but she’d hear them often enough to know how the refrain ended. “To what?” she challenged. “Do something stupid? ‘That Mollie, always getting in over her head! She never looks before she leaps!’”
Fury pounded in her chest even though the criticisms were spot-on. She certainly hadn’t looked before jumping head over heels in love with Zeke Harper, and where had that gotten her?
She broke off with one of her brother’s favorite curses, barely noticing Zeke’s flinch, as she caught sight of streak of gray from the corner of her eye. She turned in time to see the flash of a ragged tail disappear down the long driveway and out of sight.
“Mollie, what on earth—” Zeke called after her as she took off at a sprint.
“The dog, Zeke!” Mollie yelled back as she ran, but by the time she reached the front of her property, the little terrier was long gone and so was her hope of catching him. Sucking in a breath, she looked down one side of the road and then the other but saw no sight of him.
“What dog?” Zeke demanded as he caught up behind her.
“The stray that’s been spotted around town. He was hiding beneath the house. That’s why I was on the ground—to try to coax him out. That was my one chance at rescuing him until you—” So furious with him, with herself, she shook her head in disgust as she brushed past him.
“Until I what, Mollie? Do you know what I thought—what I felt—seeing you lying on the ground like that? Thinking that you were hurt? That you were—”
As Mollie turned back, she got her first good look at Zeke. With his hands on his knees and his chest heaving, he looked like he’d run five miles rather than the dozen yards down her drive. “Zeke—”
Closing his eyes, he ground out, “I’ll help you catch the damn dog, Mollie. Just give me a second, would you?”
A sharp retort pricked the tip of her tongue. How many times would she have snapped back that she didn’t need his help?
You
know Zeke better than anyone. Helping people is who he is.
Matt’s words tugged at her conscience. Maybe she didn’t need his help. But Zeke needed to help, and maybe, just maybe, what he needed most from her was for her to let him.
Loose gravel crunched beneath her sneaks as she walked over to him. His eyes opened as she placed a hand on his arm, and her chest tightened at the lingering worry and fear she saw written in his gorgeous hazel eyes. “Zeke, you know I’m fine, right? I didn’t fall off the ladder.”
“When I saw you—when I thought—” He released another long, ragged breath as he pulled her into his embrace. His arms wrapped so tight around her waist that Mollie didn’t think he’d ever let go. Didn’t ever want him to let go. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, too, Moll.”
Tears burned the back of her throat. “You won’t,” she vowed, her voice rough with the ache of their shared loss. “You can’t.” Determined not to let sorrow cloud her best memories—ones of the three of them together—she forced a smile into her words. “Remember all those times you and Patrick tried to ditch me while we were growing up? Never worked, did it?” Leaning far enough back to look up at him, she vowed, “You’re stuck with me, Zeke Harper.”
Reaching up a still-trembling hand, he brushed a strand of hair back from her face. Her skin burned as his fingertips lingered on her cheek, and Mollie wouldn’t have been surprised if his touch left a new trail of freckles in its wake.
“The little sister I never wanted.” He murmured the oft-repeated phrase and yet somehow the words sounded...different.
Not a light tease but weighted with the awareness that the words were no longer true. She wasn’t little, she wasn’t his sister and, if she could believe the desire in his gaze, Zeke did, indeed, want her.
She stood close enough to feel the heat of his body and to breathe in the scent of his skin, but she craved so much more. A slow shudder slid down her spine as he ran his fingers through her hair, and Mollie had to know. “Why were you sorry you kissed me?”
Not Just the Girl Next Door Page 12
