by JoAnn Ross
“Reece will kill me.”
“Reece is too much of a sweetheart to kill anyone. Especially these days.”
“You noticed that the doc’s been floating up somewhere on cloud nine, too?”
Molly returned Yolanda’s grin with one of her own. “You’d have to be blind not to notice.”
“He’s got the look of a man who’s getting laid regular. And your sister’s looking like a kitten who discovered a saucer of cream. I swear, if I hadn’t sworn off marriage after my third divorce, I’d almost be willing to give it a try again.”
Molly laughed. She didn’t know what had happened between Lena and Reece. But whatever it was, she was definitely more than a little relieved at the change.
“If you could just get me some scrubs,” Molly coaxed, returning to their previous subject.
Yolanda folded her arms across her ample breasts. “If you tell anyone where you got them…”
“I won’t say a word. Cross my heart.”
Muttering to herself, Yolanda left the room, but returned a few minutes later with a pair of green surgical scrubs. “I didn’t see a thing,” she said. Then left again.
Molly found Benny in one of the waiting rooms, seated at a small table. Someone had given him a box of crayons and a coloring book, but he hadn’t touched them, and sat staring out into space. Molly didn’t want to know what the child was seeing. What he’d already seen. She also hoped that Dr. Moore and his wife had an immense store of patience.
“Hi, Benny,” she said cheerily.
He looked up, his expression flat until he saw her bruises. “Somebody hit you, too, Sister?”
“I’m afraid so, Benny.”
He thought about that for a minute. “People aren’t supposed to hit nuns.”
“People aren’t supposed to hit children, either. But sometimes people do.”
“Yeah.” He looked down at the backs of his small hands, which had circular scars that could only have been made from cigarette burns.
“Have you had lunch yet?”
“Yeah. One of the nurses brought me a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich from the cafeteria. And some chocolate milk.”
“That was nice.”
“I like chocolate milk.” Despite his words, his eyes had gone flat again.
“How about popcorn?”
He shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. I only ever had it once. When the lady at one of the places I was staying took a bunch of us to see An American Tail.”
“That was a cool movie.”
Another shrug.
“I was sitting upstairs feeling a little sorry for myself when I decided popcorn might cheer me up.” Molly decided a white lie in this case was definitely one of the more venial sins she’d committed. “But I hate snacking alone and can’t eat the entire bag anyway. So, I was kind of hoping you’d help me out.”
She watched the flicker of interest in the depths of his dark eyes.
“I guess that’d be okay. Since I have to hang around here, anyway, until the social worker shows up.”
“Thanks, Benny. I really appreciate your helping me out.”
She took him into the nurses’ lounge, retrieved a bag of popcorn from her secret hiding place and put it in the microwave.
Five minutes later, they were working their way through the plump white kernels.
“I heard the nurses talking,” Benny volunteered. “One of them said that Dr. Moore wants to be my dad.”
“How do you feel about that?” Molly asked, popping the top on a soft drink can and handing it to him.
“I guess that’d be okay. I never had a dad.”
“I lost mine when I was little, too,” Molly volunteered.
He gave her a long look, but didn’t ask any questions. Molly knew all too well how children from violent homes learned the importance of keeping secrets.
“Johnny Brown has a dad. He hits him. A lot.”
“Dr. Moore would never hit you, Benny.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I know so.”
He fell silent, mulling that over.
“I guess it’d be okay, then.”
“I think it would be even better than okay,” Molly agreed mildly.
That little worrisome matter settled, neither Molly nor Benny said anything else. There was no need to. For both of them, the quiet companionship was enough.
Molly was packing away the last of her toiletries. She was finally being allowed to return home to her own apartment. At least that’s where she had thought she’d be going. Until Lena had shown up, determined that she come and stay with her.
“You and Reece have been acting like you’re newlyweds. The last thing you need is me hanging around your house.” Molly returned to the adjoining bathroom for the shampoo. “What if you want to make love, hanging from the dining room chandelier while I’m in the room eating my microwave dinner?”
“Molly!” Lena appeared shocked that her sister would even think of such a thing. “You’re a nun!” Then color flooded into her cheeks as she thought of the fantasy game she and Reece had played last night. The one where he’d been a ruthless Norman plundering the Saxon countryside. And dear Lord, how wonderfully he’d plundered!
“All this is beside the point,” she insisted, shaking off the sensual memory. “Because we’re not going to be alone anyway.” Her shoulders slumped beneath her pale blue angora sweater. “Reece’s aunt called last night. She’s arriving in town this evening.”
“Theo’s coming here?” Molly had met Theodora Longworth at Reece and Lena’s wedding. A successful writer, she was a bold, larger-than-life character who could have stepped from one of the pages of her romance novels.
“She’s gotten an offer to be head writer for some soap opera,” Lena said glumly.
“Wouldn’t that mean she’d have to settle down?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. I do know that if the woman is going to be living under my roof, I need someone in my corner.”
“Why? She seemed genuinely fond of you at the wedding.”
“She’s filthy rich, Molly.”
“So’s Reece. And that’s never seemed to bother you.”
“Because he’s never acted rich. Theo is just so…” Lena’s voice trailed off.
“Like Rosalind Russell’s portrayal of Auntie Mame?”
“With a lot of Bette Midler thrown in.” Lena sighed. “I’ll really feel better if you’re staying at the house, too. Heaven knows we’ve plenty of room.” Rooms she’d planned to fill with children.
Molly suspected that the invitation was more than a little due to Reece and Lena’s concern about her returning home alone to her apartment, which was in a neighborhood not much better than the area surrounding the hospital. However, whether or not they’d done it intentionally, they’d managed to come up with a situation she couldn’t refuse.
“Just for the next week or so,” Molly insisted. “But as soon as I come back to work, I’m returning to my own place.”
“Oh, thank you!” Lena rushed forward to hug Molly, remembering the cracked ribs just in time. “I promise, Molly, I’ll make this up to you.”
“There’s certainly nothing to make up to me. Lounging around your house is not exactly on par with doing missionary work in Zaire.”
“Wait until you spend a few days with Theo.” Lena’s expression of impending doom echoed her glum tone. “I hate this time of year, anyway.” She sighed and began picking at her fingernail polish. “Do you ever think about that night?”
“Of course.” Molly knew Lena was not referring to the recent Christmas attack, but the earlier one.
“I used to think about it all the time. It’s gotten better, but it never goes away. Like a scab I can’t resist picking.”
“May’s almost as bad,” Molly murmured.
“When you walk in the drugstore to buy some aspirin or tampons and get attacked by all those aisles of flowery Mother’s Day cards,” Lena agreed. “I didn’t think it bo
thered you. That once you became a nun—”
“God automatically took away the pain on my Profession Day?”
“Something like that.”
It was Molly’s turn to sigh. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”
“I guess not.” Lena walked over to the window and stared down at the parking lot, but Molly suspected it was not the cars she was seeing, but that long-ago scene that had been imprinted indelibly on both their minds. “Do you ever hear Mama’s voice?”
“No. I stopped being able to hear her about the third year after Daddy…after it happened.”
“I do.” Lena glanced back over her shoulder. “Every once in a while, I imagine I hear her singing. Remember how she used to love to sing?”
The memory was bittersweet. “Just like Patsy Cline.”
“Yeah. I remember her once telling me how tragic it was that Patsy had died so young in that plane crash. And then she died too young, as well….
“I think that’s why I turned wild for a while, until I met Reece,” Lena admitted. “Because I have this terrible fear I’m going to die young, too.” She dragged her hand through her thick auburn hair. “I look just like her, don’t I?”
Molly didn’t like where this conversation was going. “I suppose there’s some resemblance,” she hedged.
“I stole a picture the day the social worker took us away,” Lena revealed. “It was a snapshot of Mama in a bathing suit at the beach. I’ve kept it all these years. I look at that picture and it’s like looking in a mirror….
“Then I look in the mirror and it’s as if Mama’s ghost is looking back at me. As if she’s reminding me that I could die anytime, just like she did. Like Patsy did…
“Did you know that I’d planned my funeral when I was twelve?”
“You never said anything.”
“I wrote it all down. So you’d find it after I died. I still update it every year, but I’m always a little surprised when I don’t make all that many changes. I’ve planned your funeral, too. And Reece’s.”
“I didn’t know that, either.” Molly reminded herself that she’d only been a child herself, that she’d done the best she could for her sister under the circumstances. Nevertheless she felt a familiar stab of guilt that she hadn’t managed to provide Lena with the security she’d needed growing up.
“Of course you didn’t. Because I never told you. But it seems as if I’ve spent my entire life waiting to die. Waiting for people I love to die. Which was why I was so terrified of loving Reece.
“If he was ten minutes late coming home, I knew he’d had an accident on the freeway. If I called here and he didn’t answer his page, I was certain some crazed homicidal junkie had taken him hostage and was going to kill him. I was so fixated on all those morbid thoughts that I was too afraid to enjoy life.”
“And now?” Molly asked carefully.
“I think it’s finally sunk in that the secret to life may be living for the moment, but it’s also important to make certain that the moment’s worth living for.”
“And that’s where Reece comes in.”
The thought of her husband was like a bright and comforting sun, burning away the gloomy clouds in Lena’s mind. Her smile literally lit up the room. “Absolutely.”
Tessa was having no difficulty enjoying life.
“Well?” She twirled around, arms held out, showing off the beaded evening gown as a child might show off a new party dress. “What do you think?”
Jason Mathison sat in a gray suede chair, a pilsner of imported Australian beer in his hand as he gave her a slow, judicious look. “It’s red.”
“Well, of course it is.” Tessa grinned. “You said you wanted me to look sexy for New Year’s Eve. And this is definitely the sexiest dress so far.”
The strapless scarlet gown fit like a glove, plunged to below the waist in back and was slit high on both thighs.
“It’s overkill.” He frowned and pulled a cigar out of the pocket of one of the Armani jackets he favored when off duty. Tessa still hadn’t decided which look she found sexier—the starched blue uniform of authority or this aura of casual money.
The chic blond saleswoman clad in Armani gray herself, immediately leaned forward to light the cigar. “I tried to suggest something a bit more subdued,” she murmured. “But your friend had her own ideas.”
“You should have explained my preferences.”
Tessa didn’t like the way they were talking about her as if she wasn’t there. “You said you liked my Christmas dress.”
“It had a certain gut-level masculine appeal.” The glint in his eyes made her think he was remembering the short skirt and low-scooped neckline. “But if you want to break into the business, we need to upgrade your image.”
“This is Hollywood.” If there was one thing the general had taught Tessa, it was not to surrender without a fight.
“Actually, it’s Beverly Hills.” He puffed on the cigar, and although the noxious smell was bound to get into the fabric of the exquisite gowns displayed around the showroom of the famed Rodeo Drive boutique, Tessa noted the saleswoman didn’t utter a word of complaint.
He turned to the statuesque blonde. “I want to see her in the Bill Blass.”
“Not that one?” Tessa had rejected the dark unadorned gown at first glance. “Why don’t you just see if there’s a nun’s habit hidden away in the back room? Or perhaps some sackcloth and ashes?”
Jason laughed at that. “I’m beginning to understand how Henry Higgins must have felt when trying to turn Eliza Doolittle into a lady.”
When the saleswoman laughed, as well, Tessa became irritated again. “I am a lady.”
Although the smile didn’t fade, his eyes suddenly turned as hard as blue stones. “Then you should dress like one,” he said reasonably.
Realizing that she’d just run up against his professional cop intransigence, Tessa exhaled a deep dramatic sigh, snatched the dress from the woman’s arms and stomped back into the marble-walled dressing room.
Damn him! The change was so dramatic, it took Tessa’s breath away. She stared at her reflection in the three-way mirror, stunned by the sleek, sophisticated woman looking back at her. The black halter-necked gown, which had appeared so drab on the padded silk hanger, skimmed over her body like a jet waterfall and proved a startling foil for her fiery hair. Although she’d always regretted her pale skin, the unadorned black dress made it gleam like porcelain.
Jason instantly confirmed her appraisal. “Perfect. There won’t be a woman in the room who’ll be able to hold a candle to you.” He turned to the saleswoman. “She’ll need gloves. Above the elbows. And those black silk pumps in the window.”
By the time he dropped her off at her apartment, Tessa was floating on air. “I feel like a fairy-tale princess. But it was all so expensive, and I know policemen don’t make all that much money…”
“I told you not to worry about that.” He skimmed the back of his hand down her face. “Miles and I both inherited money from our grandfather.”
“But you still work.”
“Although I enjoy the ability to make a beautiful woman happy, I’ve never found the life of the idle rich to be appealing. I like being rich. And I like being a cop. This way I have the best of both worlds.”
He was leaning closer, his lips a whisper away from hers. All she’d have to do would be to go up on her toes, just the least little bit…
“Would you like to come in?” Her heart was in her voice. And in her wide green eyes.
“I’d love to. But duty calls.” As if reading her mind, he tipped forward and brushed his lips against hers in a light, friendly kiss that created a flare of heat that only left her wanting more. Much, much more. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven.”
She tamped down her disappointment that the first kiss he’d given her was over so soon. She knew he found her attractive. Even an independently wealthy man didn’t spend so much money on a woman unless he was interested. Tel
ling herself that she should be grateful that he was proving to be the kind of gentleman she could actually take home to her strict father, Tessa vowed that it was time for things to change.
“I’ll be ready,” she promised.
As she watched him walk back to the black Porsche, she pressed her fingers against her lips and decided that no matter how ladylike she looked tomorrow night, she was going to pull out all the stops to seduce this man she was falling in love with.
Chapter Six
Theodora Longworth hit Los Angeles like a hurricane. To Lena’s vast relief, Reece’s aunt insisted on staying at her favorite bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She did, however, manage to make her presence known, and although Lena was obviously intimidated by the fifty-year-old woman’s powerful life force, Molly found her a welcome diversion from her own problems.
“Gin,” Theo announced as she put her cards on the table with a flourish. She’d ostensibly come over to the house to keep Molly company while Reece and Lena went out to a New Year’s party with the hospital staff.
Although Molly had assured them that she was more than capable of spending the evening alone, she’d gotten the feeling that were it not for Theo’s presence, Lena, who’d continued to hover over her like a mother hen, would have refused to go.
As she’d cut the new deck of playing cards earlier in the evening, Theo had informed Molly that she never played for penny ante stakes, not in any part of her life, including card games. “However,” she’d stated, “given your unfortunate vow of poverty, I suppose I’d be willing—just this once—to play for chump change. So, how much can you afford to lose?”
“Twenty dollars.” Surely that should last all night.
After spending the next two hours getting thoroughly trounced, Molly decided she’d definitely been overly optimistic. “Did anyone ever happen to mention that cheating is a sin?”
Molly’s dry tone flew right over Theo’s head. “Good thing I’m a Baptist,” the older woman shot back as she deftly palmed a queen of hearts. “And for your information, Sister Molly, I was taught in the Healing Waters Sunday school that the Lord helps those who help themselves.”
