“I don’t know. One look in your eyes, and anyone with any perceptiveness at all can see that the verdict’s already in.”
Molly sighed. “Then isn’t it a good thing that Daniel is not the most perceptive man in the universe?”
“You sure about that? He had the good sense to see through that hard shell of yours and fall for you once, didn’t he?” Alice taunted.
“Maybe so,” Molly admitted. “But I don’t believe in lightning striking the same place twice.”
“If you stick around a minute,” Alice said gesturing toward her bookshelf, “I’m pretty sure I can find the statistics to prove you wrong.”
She probably could, too, which was why Molly had no intention of sticking around. Her opinion was keeping her safe for the moment. She definitely did not want to be confused by any contradictory facts.
Chapter Six
“Have you lost your mind?” Patrick demanded the instant that Daniel answered his phone.
“Nice to hear your voice, bro,” Daniel said wryly. He had a pretty good idea what the call was about, but he asked anyway. “What have I done now?”
“Are you taking Molly to dinner tonight or not?”
“That’s the plan,” Daniel said, not especially surprised by Patrick’s reaction. He wouldn’t have expected anything less than this evidence of his brother’s protectiveness toward Molly. “How did you find out? Did she tell you?”
“No, she told Alice, who seems to find the prospect of you two getting back together very intriguing,” he said, an undisguised note of disgust in his voice. “Of course, she wasn’t here when you nearly destroyed Molly. If she had been, she’d be as bent out of shape over this development as I am.”
“Patrick, I hate to tell you, but Molly’s a big girl,” Daniel said mildly. “She can have dinner with anyone she wants to.”
“I know that, but does it have to be you? Dammit, Daniel, what were you thinking?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I was thinking that I could get to the bottom of this mess with Kendra Morrow before the whole thing blows up in all our faces, Molly’s included.”
Patrick sighed heavily. “Then this is strictly a business dinner?” he asked, his skepticism plain.
Daniel thought of the impact Molly and her red suit had had on his libido. That pretty much ruled out an evening inspired by nothing more than business. If she wore that suit as requested, he’d have trouble keeping his mind on the reason for the dinner, no question about it.
“Pretty much,” he said, choosing his words carefully.
Patrick promptly seized on his evasiveness. “What the hell does that mean? Is it or isn’t it?”
“If you’d seen the suit she had on when she came to see me today, you wouldn’t have to ask that.”
“The red one?” Patrick asked, evidently familiar with the pure provocativeness of that particular suit. “She wore the red one?”
“That’s the one.”
“With a blouse, though, right? Please tell me she wore it with a blouse.”
“No blouse.”
“Oh, man,” Patrick said with a groan. “She’s apparently lost her mind, too.”
“I will tell you this, if it’s any consolation,” Daniel said. “I really did arrange the dinner to talk about Kendra. And Kendra will be there to chaperone.”
“Now there’s a comfort,” Patrick replied with an edge of sarcasm. “You’ve got a thirteen-year-old runaway who’s supposed to keep two apparently mentally unstable adults on the straight and narrow.”
“Which one of us don’t you trust, Patrick? Me or Molly?”
“If Molly’s wearing that red suit, I’ve got to say it’s a toss-up. I don’t think either one of you will use the sense God gave a duck. You never did when you were together the first time, or there wouldn’t have been a pregnancy.”
Daniel laughed. He could imagine Molly’s indignation if she’d heard Patrick’s low opinion of her common sense. Where he was concerned, however, he figured his brother had nailed it. He hadn’t used a lot of brainpower when he and Molly had been together before. Then again, he’d never thought far enough ahead to imagine the impact a pregnancy might have. Once he’d been faced with the reality of it, all of his family’s past history had kicked in with a vengeance to make him gun-shy. Not that he intended to go over that yet again with his brother. Patrick wouldn’t buy Daniel’s defense of his actions any more now than he had back then.
“Look, I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to plow through,” Daniel told him. “If you’re through being a worrywart, I ought to get back to it.”
“Just one more thing,” Patrick said.
“Oh?”
“Hurt her again, and this time I will knock you into the next county, no matter how she pleads with me not to do it.”
“Warning duly noted,” Daniel said. “And, Patrick, while I wish things had been different and Molly had turned to me that night, I’m glad she’s had you for a friend. You’ve been a good one.”
Once his brother had hung up, Daniel sighed. He would spend the rest of his life cursing the fact that Molly had needed to turn to someone else for comfort and support because of him.
The phone was barely back on the hook before it rang again. This time it was Joe Sutton, and Daniel could tell immediately that the news wasn’t good.
“You saw the Morrows,” he said flatly.
“I did. They’re fine, upstanding people. I didn’t get so much as a whisper of anything out of the ordinary. They have no idea why Kendra might have run away, and they’re beside themselves that she did. There is no reason I can see not to get the girl back home pronto and give them some peace of mind.”
Daniel winced at that. If Joe was convinced, he had no reason to question it, but Kendra’s fear was real. Molly would have been able to see through it if it had been something the girl had made up or was dramatizing in some way.
“Give me till morning,” he pleaded with Joe. “Can you do that?”
“What’s going to change between now and tomorrow morning? Those people are going through hell worrying about their daughter. I felt guilty enough looking them in the eye and not admitting that I could take them straight to her. Any more delays and my goose is cooked. Yours, too.”
“We’re both already in this up to our eyeballs,” Daniel pointed out. “Let’s at least go the extra mile. I convinced Molly to set up a meeting with Kendra and me tonight. If I can get her to open up, tell me her side of things, we’ll know for a fact that we’re doing the right thing. With what you’ve just told me, I can ask the right questions, push a little harder for the right answers.”
“I don’t think Molly’s going to let you lean on Kendra,” Joe said dryly. “She’s a runaway, not a criminal.”
“And I’m going in there tonight as a friend, not an authority figure.”
“Are you going to try to persuade her to go home voluntarily?” Joe asked. “The last thing I want to have to do is come in there with sirens blaring and haul her out.”
“You’re just worried Molly will ban you from the premises and you’ll be cut off from your chowder fix,” Daniel said.
“No, believe it or not, I’m worried about traumatizing the girl.”
“Then we’ll see to it that it doesn’t go down that way, okay?”
“I’m heading over there at nine a.m.,” Joe said finally. “I’ll expect to find her ready, if not eager to go home.”
“I’ll be right there with you,” Daniel promised. “Thanks, Joe. I know you’ve gone out on a limb for this kid. I’ll back you up in any way I have to.”
Now he just had to convince Kendra and Molly that sending Kendra back home was for the best. He had no idea which of them was going to be the harder sell.
“You go,” Kendra insisted when Molly told her about the dinner plans. “I can stay home and read. I’ve got lots of books. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re missing the point,” Molly said. “Daniel wants to get to kn
ow you.”
“He wants to cross-examine me, you mean,” Kendra said knowingly. “Thanks but no thanks.”
“It won’t be like that. I’ll see to it,” Molly promised.
Kendra regarded her skeptically. “The way I see it, the man wants two things out of this dinner…answers from me and a chance to spend a little quality time with you. He ought to be happy with a batting average of five hundred.”
Some men might be, but not Daniel. “I promised him I would persuade you to come,” Molly told her. “Sweetie, he could have turned you in by now, if that’s what he wanted—he or Joe Sutton, either one. They haven’t done it. That should tell you something. They both want what’s best for you.”
“I suppose,” Kendra said with obvious skepticism.
“What will it take to convince you that I’m right about this?”
“Sworn statements that they’re not sending me back to my parents,” Kendra said without hesitation.
“I don’t think you’re going to get that, not until you’ve given them valid reasons why you don’t want to go back there.”
“Who gets to decide what’s valid?”
“For now, they do. The court, if it comes to that.”
“Now there’s a reassuring thought,” Kendra said. “Some judge who doesn’t know me or my parents gets to decide what’s best. Let’s see, the judge would be a grown-up. My folks are grown-ups. I’m a kid. I wonder which way this will go?”
“I’m a grown-up and I’m on your side,” Molly pointed out. “And Daniel and Joe have been on your side, even without all the facts, right? If you believe what you’ve done is the right thing, give us a chance to help you prove it.”
Kendra seemed to weigh Molly’s words for an eternity before finally nodding. “Okay, I’ll come, but I’m splitting if I don’t like the way things are going.”
“Agreed,” Molly said with relief. She had not wanted to spend an entire evening alone with Daniel. The prospect of that scared her at least as much as the prospect of all those questions terrified Kendra.
Downstairs, Molly filled Retta in on the plans and placed a call to her backup waitress and bartender. She wanted to be certain that nothing was left to chance now that Kendra had agreed to go along with meeting Daniel. Once satisfied that everything was in place, Molly called Daniel’s once-familiar number and tried not to react at the sound of his voice.
“It’s me,” she said quietly.
“Hey, you,” he said. “What’s up? Are we all set for this evening?”
She could hear the smile in his voice and felt the familiar pang of yearning. “We’re set. Kendra’s skeptical about your motives and your intentions, but she’s agreed to have dinner with us.”
“Then I’ll see you at six. How about pizza? All kids love pizza, right?”
“So do you, as I recall.”
“This is about putting Kendra at ease,” he insisted. “If I can get a pepperoni and mushroom pizza out of it for myself, so much the better.”
“If we’re going to Giorgio’s, I’d better get upstairs and change,” she said. “The red suit will be a bit much.” She heard his sigh of disappointment with a sense of purely feminine satisfaction. “You did pick pizza,” she reminded him.
“Obviously one more bit of evidence of just how big a fool I am,” he said. He could name one person who’d be pleased, though—his brother. Patrick had really hated the idea of him spending time with Molly while she was wearing that suit.
“Daniel, this is going to be okay, right? You’re not leading me down some garden path intending to betray Kendra the first chance you get, are you? Joe’s not going to be lurking in the bushes to grab her, is he?”
There was no mistaking his slight hesitation.
“Daniel Devaney, you’d better tell me what’s going on, because if I find out that this is some kind of ploy, I’ll make you pay for it.”
“It’s not a ploy,” he said at once. “But there has been a development. Joe saw the parents today. Everything checked out. He can’t find a single reason not to take Kendra back home.”
“She’s scared,” Molly retorted, barely managing to keep a lid on her temper. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
“Not unless she can explain why she’s scared,” he said quietly. “That’s what tonight is about, Molly. I swear to you that I’m going to give her a chance to tell me what’s going on. If it gives me something to work with, I can hold Joe off. He’s already given me till morning, which is more of a concession than we probably deserved. With the right ammunition, I can extend that.”
“Or?” she asked, her heart in her throat. “What happens if Kendra doesn’t give you something you think justifies her staying away?”
He hesitated, and she knew he was debating whether or not to trust her.
“Joe comes by in the morning to pick her up,” he said finally.
Molly groaned. “Dammit, Daniel, why did you have to go and tell me that?”
“Because I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. This is too important. I want you to know that I trust you not to do anything crazy, like running off with her.”
For one insane minute that was exactly what had popped into Molly’s head. She could pack up a few things and they could be gone in an hour. But she knew that Daniel would be on their trail in no time, as would Joe Sutton. They would be a whole lot better at tracking her down than she would be at evading them.
“Once you’ve heard her out, you have to tell Kendra the truth about what’s going to happen next,” she said finally. “She has to be prepared.”
“Only if you’ll promise to do everything in your power to assure that she’s there in the morning if we agree that Joe picking her up is the way to go,” he said. “The last thing any of us want is for Kendra to take off on her own again, right?”
“Right,” she said emphatically. Molly would go with the teen before she would let that happen.
“I’ll see you at six, then,” he said.
“Daniel, why does life have to be so darned complicated?” she asked, unable to keep a wistful note out of her voice.
“I wish I knew the answer to that. Maybe over dinner we can all come up with some way to keep it simple.”
“Sounds like a tall order.”
“But we’re smart people,” he said. “And from what I hear, Kendra’s a genius. Maybe she’ll be the one to show us the way.”
“She already has. She ran away. Apparently we’re just not listening.”
“I will listen,” Daniel promised. “Trust me, Molly. When it comes to kids in trouble, I always listen.”
She knew that was true. Maybe that’s why it had been an even harder blow when he hadn’t listened to her pleas on behalf of one innocent baby who couldn’t speak for himself.
Knowing that Molly didn’t trust him made Daniel ache inside. He wanted to blame her for it, but he couldn’t. He had no one to blame but himself. He’d told her he loved her how many times? A thousand, maybe. But when she’d come to him on that fateful night, excitement and trepidation in her eyes as she’d told him about the baby, how had he demonstrated that love? By embracing her and the news? No. He’d rejected her and the baby, dismissing any possibility of becoming involved in parenting.
Oh, he’d had his reasons. Good ones, for that matter, but they weren’t good enough. Any real man would have stepped up to the plate and accepted more than financial responsibility for his own child. In turning his back, he’d proved himself to be Connor Devaney’s son. It was a regret he’d live with the rest of his life.
Sighing, he tried to get his attention back on his never-ending mountain of paperwork, but he couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t fight the image of Molly in his head, fighting tears, her spine and shoulders rigid with pride as she turned and walked away. He’d stared after her, helpless, knowing what he should do, what he wanted to do, but lacking the courage to take the first step.
And then she’d been gone, not just out of sight but out of
his life, a door slamming shut between them as securely as if it had been the impenetrable door of Fort Knox. Not until he’d heard the lock click into place had he realized how much he’d lost—the woman he loved, his child, his future.
The next day Patrick had told him about the miscarriage. It was one of the rare times since Patrick had left home when he’d initiated any conversation between them. He’d been all but trembling with outrage, his voice cold as he’d recited the bare facts about the trip to the hospital, then told Daniel in no uncertain terms to stay the hell away from Molly.
“You’ve done enough, more than enough,” Patrick had told him. “I never thought I’d say this, not even after I moved out of the house and you stayed behind, but I’m ashamed to be your brother.”
Even after all this time, Daniel could feel the words cutting through him, slicing his heart in two. He hadn’t fought back, hadn’t tried to explain. There were no acceptable excuses for what he’d done and they’d both known it.
Not that he’d listened to Patrick, not about staying away from Molly. He’d waited a day, then gone to see her, wanting her to know how sorry he was. He hadn’t expected her forgiveness. He’d simply known that he owed her the apology. He hadn’t been surprised when she’d thrown it back in his face.
Given all of that, it was little wonder that she couldn’t wholeheartedly get behind advising Kendra to trust him. That she’d even arranged the meeting was something of a miracle.
He sighed when the phone rang, not in the mood to deal with a last-minute crisis.
“Hello, Devaney,” he said curtly.
“Daniel, it’s me.” Kathleen Devaney’s voice shook.
“Mom? What’s wrong?” Something had to be. She never called him at work.
“Do you think you could come by the house?”
The uncertainty in her tone, the hint of a barely contained sob, scared him. He glanced at his watch. It was after five, less than an hour until he was supposed to pick up Kendra and Molly.
“Is it Dad? Is he having a problem with his heart?”
“No. It’s your…there are some people here. Please, Daniel. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
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