“How did the visit go?” she asked Daniel.
“There wasn’t any bloodshed,” he said. “That’s the best I can say for it. Patrick stormed out. I have no idea when he turned into such a hothead.”
“He was always a hothead, just like your father. That’s why you two were such a good team. You’re calm, like your mother. That balanced him out. What about the others? Did they stay?”
He shook his head. “Sean and Michael left shortly afterward. Ryan stuck it out the longest, but even he looked tormented by being there and seeing her again. As for my mother, she was pretty amazing. She didn’t fall apart, and she didn’t blame any of them for the way they felt about her.”
“And your father?”
“He was conveniently absent. If I didn’t know better, I’d have to wonder if he hadn’t had some instinct that they were coming. He’s the one who’s kept Mom silent all this time. I think she wants to get everything out in the open, but every time she dares to suggest it, he freaks. I know in my heart that everything that happened was his doing. Of course, she shares some of the responsibility because she went along with it, but he made the decision back then. I’d stake my life on that.”
“If you’re right, that means it’s going to be that much harder for him to face his sons,” Molly said. “It must have eaten away at both of them all these years. I’m amazed they stayed together.”
Daniel regarded her with surprise. “They love each other,” he said simply. “It’s the one thing I’ve never questioned about my parents.”
“But even the strongest love can be destroyed by something like this. It happens all the time after a child’s death or some other tragedy,” she said. Then she added, “Our love certainly wasn’t strong enough to withstand what happened, and I would have sworn we were invincible.”
Daniel flinched. “You can’t compare the two situations.”
“You turned your back on our child,” she said. “How is that different?”
He was silent for so long she thought he might not answer, but then she realized he was genuinely thinking it over before responding.
“I did, but you have to understand that the baby wasn’t real to me yet,” he said eventually. “You’d known for, what, a day, maybe a little longer, when you told me. You’d probably suspected you were pregnant before that. You’d had time to accept the idea. I was caught completely off guard.”
“Would your reaction have been one bit different if you’d had time to think about it?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
He kept his gaze steady. “I’d like to think so,” he told her quietly.
“Easy to say now,” she scoffed.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “Because it makes it so much worse that I put you through so much pain unnecessarily. If only I’d been a better man, if only I hadn’t been the son of people who’d walked out on their own children, if only I’d been able to envision a little girl who looked like you, or a little boy playing ball like Patrick and me, maybe I would have done things differently that night and we’d have a family now.” His gaze captured hers, held it. “Do you think it’s been easy for me to live with knowing that I cost us that chance? Do you think it’s easy admitting it to you now?”
Molly heard real pain in his voice, but she couldn’t allow herself to feel any sympathy at all. It was one thing to kiss Daniel and let the old passions stir once again. It was quite another to forget the past and give him the chance to hurt her again.
“Molly?” he pressed. “Say something. Anything.”
She looked into his eyes, saw the regret, but shook her head, anyway. “What’s left to say?”
He opened his mouth and she could almost hear the unspoken words that were on the tip of his tongue.
“Don’t say it,” she pleaded. “Don’t say you still love me.”
For a moment she was afraid he might argue, might say it anyway, but he didn’t. He merely nodded, a sad half smile coming and going.
“Not saying the words doesn’t change anything,” he told her.
Maybe not, but at least she could cling to the illusion that there was nothing between them now except anger. She needed to hold on to that anger with everything in her, because if she didn’t, her heart would surely break. And that sizzling kiss they’d shared would take on a meaning she could not, under any circumstances, allow it to assume.
Chapter Nine
Two shocks in one day were almost more than Daniel, with his rigid code of self-discipline and planning, could cope with. The out-of-the-blue appearance of his brothers barely held a candle, though, to the stunning impact of kissing Molly.
All these years he’d thought she hated him for abandoning her when she needed him. Now he had to wonder if there wasn’t at least the possibility of forgiveness. That kiss hadn’t been about hatred. It had been a devastating reminder of the passion that they had once shared. That much, at least, hadn’t died. Whether Molly was happy about it or not remained to be seen.
Not that he was in any way deluding himself that she was his for the taking. She might still have feelings for him—very strong feelings—but they were interwoven with distrust. It was going to take more than a few kisses, no matter how steamy, to win her back, to convince her that she could risk giving him her heart again.
If that was what he wanted, he concluded thoughtfully. This was no time for uncertainty. She’d made that plain when she’d prevented him from glibly saying that he loved her. She wanted proof this time, and words alone—especially words uttered in the heat of passion—weren’t going to do it.
Of course, tonight could have been a fluke. It could have been one of those wildfires that erupted unexpectedly from mostly dying embers and burned itself out just as quickly. If he ever kissed her again, he probably wouldn’t feel a thing.
Not that he intended to find out right away. He’d never been crazy about the out-of-control feelings Molly sparked in him. She was exactly right about his personality. He did like to keep a tight rein on the events in his life and on his emotions. He’d followed a different path when he’d fallen in love with her the first time, and look how that had ended. No, better to chalk this kiss up to a moment of insanity and not try to make anything out of it.
Satisfied that he’d analyzed the situation and reached the only sensible conclusion, he took a very cold shower and went to bed. He was certain he’d have forgotten all about the kiss by morning. He was just as certain that he would bounce out of bed ready to tackle the Kendra problem and solve that, too.
Instead, he awoke with an image of Molly—naked in his arms—taunting him. He was already restless, edgy and in need of coffee—the powerful, caffeinated kind—by the time he reached Jess’s.
Retta met him at the front door. “What did you do to my girl?” she demanded, arms folded across her ample chest as she blocked his way inside.
Daniel was not prepared to go toe-to-toe with Retta, not without his first cup of coffee. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to Molly.” He figured the kissing didn’t count, since she’d been a more than willing participant. Besides, he doubted Molly would have told Retta about the kissing.
“Then why isn’t she here?” she demanded.
Daniel’s heart thumped unsteadily. He grabbed Retta’s shoulders and leveled a look directly into her worried eyes. “What happened? Where’s Molly?”
“Do you think I’d be asking you, if I knew the answer to that?” she snapped impatiently. “What happened here last night after I talked to her?”
He tried to sort through the events of the evening. “Kendra came back. The three of us talked. Then Molly and I talked some more. I left. That’s it,” he said. “Nothing happened that should have sent her scurrying away. Are you sure she’s gone?”
“Her bed hasn’t been slept in.”
“And Kendra’s?”
“Her bed’s a mess, but she’s gone, too.”
“Well, hell,” Daniel said, raking
his fingers through his hair. Why was it that whenever Molly was involved in his life, his hair invariably was a mess? Probably because there were too damned many infuriating moments just like this one. “Why would she take off? She knew I was coming back this morning to try to figure something out to help Kendra.”
Retta studied him knowingly. “Maybe this wasn’t about Kendra,” she suggested.
“Then what…?” His voice trailed off. “You think it has something to do with Molly and me.”
“Does it? I told you if you hurt her again, there’d be no stopping me from coming after you.”
“I haven’t hurt her,” he swore.
“Then I’ll ask you again, what happened between you two last night?”
“I kissed her, okay? Satisfied?”
Retta scowled at him. “Now why’d you go and do a dumb thing like that?”
“She was annoying me,” he said, remembering the challenge in her eyes, the dare in her voice. “And before you climb on your high horse, you should know that she kissed me back. In fact, she initiated one whopper of a kiss herself. So, there’s plenty of blame to go around her. She’s messing with my head, too.”
Retta sighed. “That’s it, then. You cut through her defenses, she got scared and she ran. She’s probably telling herself right this minute that she did it for Kendra’s sake, but it’s plain as day to me that she’s running from her feelings for you.”
Daniel sank down on a bar stool. “I need to think.”
“A little late for that, isn’t it?”
“Come on, Retta, give me a break. Bring me some coffee, please. I need to figure out where she would go. If Joe Sutton finds out she’s taken off with Kendra, no matter why she did it, she’s going to be in a whole pile of trouble.”
“And whose fault is that?” she retorted, still not cutting him any slack at all.
He frowned at her. “Is casting blame going to accomplish anything? Come on, Retta, help me out here.”
She stalked behind the counter, picked up the coffeepot and poured him a cup. The one good thing about Retta being in charge of the coffee this morning was that it was bound to be strong. Retta didn’t like the namby-pamby stuff that Molly passed off as coffee.
Daniel took his first sip and predictably it almost made his toes curl. “Good brew,” he praised.
Retta grinned at him. “You always did like mine better than Molly’s.”
“If you were younger, I’d marry you,” he said, as he had so often in the past, when they were on far better terms.
“Honey, you couldn’t keep up with me now,” she retorted. “You want some eggs and bacon? Something tells me it’s going to be a long day around here.”
“Sure. Make the eggs over easy,” he said, already distracted by the dilemma of the missing twosome.
It would make sense that Molly would head for a big city, someplace where she and Kendra could get lost. But which city? Bangor? Portland? Or out of state? Maybe Boston or New York? Surely, though, she would be sensible enough not to take Kendra out of Maine. The charges could get a whole lot more dire if she’d crossed a state line with the girl, no matter how well-intentioned the journey. Wherever she was, he was going to kill her when he found them.
Retta plopped a plate in front of him. “Figure anything out yet?”
He stared at the scrambled mess she’d made of his eggs, then sighed and began to eat. “Nothing’s coming to me,” he said eventually. “You?”
“Do you think I’d tell you if I had a solution? I’d be more likely to call your brother.”
“You’d tell me if you care about Molly,” he said. “She could get herself into serious trouble this time, Retta. That child is only thirteen. The police know she was hiding out here.”
“Do they know Kendra didn’t want to go home?”
“We all know that,” he said. “Kendra made her wishes very plain. I’m no lawyer, but I’m not so sure that’ll be good enough to save Molly’s hide when the lawsuits and legalities start flying.”
Retta’s eyes widened. “She could go to jail?”
Sensing that he’d finally gotten through to her, he pushed a little harder, hoping she would cough up whatever information she was holding back. “That depends on how the police want to play it,” he said. “She could.”
“But she’s just trying to help that child.”
“It won’t matter.” He caught her worried gaze, held it. “If you know something, anything, you need to tell me now.”
Then he sat back and waited. And waited.
Retta scowled at him. “I don’t trust you, you know that, don’t you?”
He nodded. “That’s a given.”
“So if I tell you this and any harm comes to my girl…”
“I know. I know. You’re going to take it out on me.”
“And then some,” she said fiercely. “Okay, then, I don’t know what it means, but her car’s out back. Wherever she’s gone, whatever she’s doing, she didn’t drive.”
That left the bus station, Daniel concluded, on his feet at once.
Or a boat. “Dammit,” he said as understanding dawned. “Patrick. She’s gotten Patrick to take them someplace.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Retta said. “Of course she’d turn to him. Didn’t I say that myself not fifteen minutes ago? She trusts him completely.”
The unspoken implication that Molly didn’t trust Daniel was unmistakable. Well, he’d brought that on himself, he thought, and they both knew it. What he did from this moment on was going to make the difference in whether Molly ever trusted him again.
“This is so cool,” Kendra said as the wind whipped her hair.
She was leaning over the railing of the Katie G., watching the wake as Patrick cut through the churning ocean. Molly watched her and concluded it was the first genuinely carefree moment Kendra had had since she’d turned up in Widow’s Cove. At thirteen, her life should be filled with such moments, and not with worrying over staying safe while she was on her own.
“Molly!” Patrick’s voice cut through the noise of the wind. There was no mistaking the command behind it.
Reluctantly Molly made her way to the front of the trawler where Patrick crouched, working the fishing nets, his expression grim.
“We need to talk,” he said, continuing to bring in the haul as he spoke.
“Look, I really appreciate you letting us come with you this morning,” Molly said in an attempt to appease him.
“Letting you?” he scoffed. “I didn’t even realize you were onboard until we were out to sea. I still haven’t figured out how I missed that one.”
“You got onboard half-asleep,” she teased. “You and Alice must have had a long night.”
“Very funny,” he said. “Maybe it had more to do with the fact that you broke into the cabin and stowed away down there until you were sure I wasn’t likely to turn right back to the dock.”
“Could be,” she said cheerfully.
His gaze narrowed. “Why’d you do it, Molly? If you wanted to spend the day with me fishing, all you had to do was ask.”
“Actually, I wanted to spend the day clearing my head. I have a lot on my mind.”
“Such as?”
“Kendra, for starters,” she said. “Look at her, Patrick. She looks like a kid should look.”
He glanced toward Kendra and frowned. “Maybe a kid who hasn’t run away from home should look like that. Kendra has cause to be worried. And something tells me I’m now in the thick of some scheme of yours to keep her away from her parents.”
Molly winced. “It’s only temporary. I just needed to buy a little time.”
“In other words, the you-know-what was about to hit the fan with my brother,” he said, rocking back on his haunches and leveling a look straight into her eyes. “Don’t you think Daniel and I have enough issues without dragging me into the middle of this one?”
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “If I could have thought of anything else, I would have.”
“Just how furious is my brother likely to be?”
“On a scale of one to ten? Maybe a forty,” she admitted.
“Dammit, Molly!”
“I heard about last night at your folks’ place,” she said quietly. “I gather it was pretty bad.”
He regarded her with surprise. “You heard about that?”
“Daniel told me.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “I see. So he came running straight to you after he left there?”
She thought of the tormented look in Daniel’s eyes when he’d walked into Jess’s. “He hated what went on there. He hates being at odds with you, especially.”
“Yeah, right.”
“He does, Patrick. You know Daniel. He likes smooth sailing, and he loves you.”
“He has a damn funny way of showing it,” Patrick said bitterly.
“You don’t have to agree with someone over everything to love them,” she pointed out.
He gave her a steady look. “Does that go for you, too?”
She bristled at the suggestion that the situations were even remotely similar. “Daniel and I didn’t just have some little disagreement,” she said tersely, unwilling to relinquish the past so readily.
“Neither did he and I,” Patrick reminded her. “These issues between us are a big deal.”
Molly sighed. “I know that.”
She stared out to sea, thinking of the way things had been between her and Daniel the night before. “He kissed me,” she said eventually.
Patrick’s head snapped up. “He what?”
“Locked lips with me,” she explained, as if that weren’t clear enough. “And I kissed him back.”
There was no mistaking the fact that Patrick was fighting a smile. When he smiled, he had the same mischievous glint in his eyes that Daniel got. “Is that so? And?”
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