With Strings Attached

by Unknown

  'Jeremy's looking after feeding Trouble. As for Saul, Pat didn't tell me.' Sarah's lips quirked. 'He's not exactly been the easiest person to talk to lately, you know.'

  Molly stared at Sarah's hands locked around the linen, the wide gold band digging into her finger from her grip on the sheets. 'I don't understand why you're being so nice to me. As if- well, as if I were family or... '

  Sarah's eyes weren't black like her brother's, but their brown depths could carry that same watchful certainty. She said, 'You're family. You're the woman my brother is in love with.'

  Molly closed her eyes painfully. 'I-I don't understand why he's doing what he's doing. I don't think I understand Patrick at all. I thought maybe I'd made him hate me, but now... I didn't want him messed up in all this.'

  'That's why you ran away, wasn't it? To protect Patrick.' Sarah laughed. 'Like a red flag to a bull, love.'

  People made sense, didn't they? If you understood why they did things, it had to make sense. Even Saul was consistent to his own weird nature. If Patrick's behaviour didn't make sense, then somehow she wasn't seeing it right. Molly whispered, 'Sarah, did he say why he was doing this? Did he tell you?'

  'No. When you ran off, Pat abused his poor car for a few days, then started spending all his time at work.' Sarah shrugged. 'Typical Patrick reaction, I thought. If he'd lost you- well he doesn't give up while there's hope, but once a thing's over, he doesn't look back.'

  'But- ' It was over. That had been the message in his voice and his eyes ever since he'd turned up outside her door in Ottawa.

  Sarah put the linen down and sat beside Molly on the bed. 'Then they came and padlocked your cabin. And there was that article in one of those tabloid rags, about wealthy artists who ducked out on taxes, only this artist had made a real mess of it.'

  Molly hadn't known about that, but it was no surprise. Saul attracted publicity even when he wasn't dodging taxes.

  'Patrick stormed in here,' said Sarah. 'Shouting, which is a pretty unusual event, I can tell you. He said he didn't give an unprintable damn. He was blank damned if Saul Natham was going to get away with his sadistic brand of Indian giving.'

  'Saul's not sadistic,' Molly protested weakly.

  'Patrick wasn't into fine distinctions. He said if you wanted him out of your life, okay, but first he was going to straighten out one irresponsible, immature artist if it was the last thing he did.'

  Molly's heart was beating harder with every word. Sarah said, 'Actually, the whole tirade was a lot more colourful than that.' Sarah raised expressive shoulders. 'I don't envy your dad when Pat catches up with him. Anyone who treats you badly had better watch out.' She covered Molly's hand with hers. 'Maybe you don't realize just how amazing that is, Patrick in an emotional rage. My brother is the coolest man I've ever met. The family rock. We all turn to him, even my parents, but even when Pat's fighting for something, he's always so damned rational. Cool, no matter who's involved.'

  Sarah got up abruptly. 'Except for you.' Her voice turned soft, as if she were whispering to her babies. 'You, Molly, have got my brother tied in knots. I hope you plan to unravel him.'

  She wasn't sure if she could. He might not let her.

  'Molly!' Edward shouted up from downstairs. 'Will you come sign for this damned thing? The delivery man insists you've got to sign.'

  Her van. Sparkling and clean, parked behind the station wagon. 'How did it get here?' she asked the uniformed man with the clipboard.

  'Watson's delivery service.'

  Molly supposed you could get anything delivered if you were determined. Sarah looked more doubtful, standing in the doorway with a baby in her arms. 'Patrick arranged it.'

  'Your furniture will come next,' said Edward with an amused frown.

  Molly stared at the van. She must have been in shock these last few days, perhaps ever since she ran away from the cabin.

  'Furniture?' worried Sarah. 'Do you think there will be furniture coming, Molly?'

  'No.' There wasn't any furniture, but there would be the boxes he had packed up for her in the apartment. He would have looked after their disposal and delivery. She had known that, of course, or she would have worried about her loose ends back in Ottawa. Like giving notice on the apartment, which Patrick must have settled for her.

  I'll have to teach you to stop worrying about things, he had told her a long time ago. It's time someone looked after you.

  She had screamed at him to go away, and he had gone. But then...

  'Are you going to move it?' asked Edward when the delivery man had driven away in a vehicle driven by a second uniformed man.

  Molly touched her lips with her tongue.

  Edward said uncomfortably, 'The van, Molly. It's in my way. I've got to take the wagon to the school to pick up Jeremy and Sally.'

  'Okay,' she said slowly. 'I'll move the van.' She took in a deep breath and stared at the keys. Keys. Locks. Would Patrick's front door be open? If it was locked, would he have set the bolt on the back door?

  She pulled the van up beside the wagon, then sat with her fingers curled around the steering wheel. Saul, she thought grimly, you'd better listen to him. Whatever he says to you. He's doing it for me and I don't want him hurt.

  She went inside and found Sarah in the family room, nursing one of the twins, the other sleeping in the bassinet beside her. Molly couldn't tell for sure if it was Tammy or Terry at Sarah's breast. She couldn't tell the babies apart when they had their diapers on.

  'You should colour code them,' she told Sarah. 'Do you know when he's coming back?'

  Sarah didn't. Molly took a deep breath. 'Well, I'm going to wait for him next door.' She gulped and met Sarah's eyes. 'If you need any help with Jeremy and Sally, could you send them over? Or phone Patrick's number? And I'll come help with the beds in the morning and- and... I want to be there when he gets back.' She stood up abruptly.

  'Good luck,' Sarah said softly.

  'Yeah.' Molly took several deep breaths. 'I said things... you can't just erase things you've said, can you?' She wasn't even sure what words she had screamed, only that they had been enough to send him away. Too much.

  'With love,' suggested Sarah, and maybe she knew, because there was certainly a lot of love in this house.

  Molly hoped Patrick's door would be unlocked, and his heart. If there was no key-Well, she would break a window, if she had to. After everything else, surely Patrick would forgive her a window.

  'Take some eggs,' said Sarah. 'And some milk. And you are going to take your suitcase, aren't you?' Sarah held her baby close and said thoughtfully, 'Maybe you should forget the suitcase. Finding you in his shirt might just soften Pat up.'

  Patrick was tired. Dead tired, and probably suffering from jet lag, too. He hadn't thought, though, that he had reached the point of hallucinating.

  He had flown into Vancouver International, cleared customs and picked up his car from long term parking. Then he had driven into the West End for a marathon session with Carson. When it was all wrapped up but the details, he had left Carson to do the negotiating with Revenue Canada's lawyers and walked out to his car.

  He wanted to get home, but he had arrived at Nanaimo too late for the last Gabriola ferry. He could have taken a hotel, but instead he had walked down to the commercial docks and managed to find a charter operator willing to make a midnight trip all the way around to Silva Bay. They had screamed along the waves in the rainy darkness. Patrick that the man piloting the speedboat was insane, but he had been too damned tired to care much if they hit a log. He would have given anything to be in his own bed, drifting off for eight solid hours of sleep.

  For some obscure reason, the pay telephone at Silva Bay had been out of order, so Patrick had ended up walking the three miles home in the rain. Walking, dead on his feet, one foot after the other in an endless automation.

  He had stumbled into his own driveway an endless time later, tempted to sink down on the grass and say the hell with it until he woke up. Just a few minutes lo
nger, he had told himself as he plodded up the drive with his head down.

  He walked right into Molly's van before he saw it. Damn! They had delivered it to the wrong place. Patrick had told them lot one, but they had brought it here and for all he knew, Molly might not even realise it was here.

  He leaned against it. He had assumed that she had her van by now, but he should have called from London to check. Except that he had not quite had the nerve to call and hear that cool voice she had been using lately. Molly, he thought, and knew the ache would not get better very soon.

  'Can I stop you?' she had asked. She would have her property back soon now, but he thought she would not easily forgive him for taking over her affairs against her will. Her cabin, though, and she had loved the cabin. She might live in it once the seals were taken off. Then, given time, maybe...

  How could he get from one day to the next, knowing she was a few hundred feet away, yet somehow out of his reach. Better that, he thought bleakly, than never seeing her again.

  Her eyes. He had always found the love in her eyes, even before she herself had admitted it was there. Until now.

  Trouble rubbed at Patrick's ankles as he opened the door to the house. He bent down, expecting a scratch and finding his stroke accepted with a purr.

  'I thought you'd be next door with Molly.' he said softly, closing his eyes and feeling the cat rub against him. Molly. She had transformed even this wild dose of trouble into something soft and purring. The cat had gone wild again the day she left, but now...

  Can't re-write history, can I? Saul Natham had demanded of him only yesterday.

  Maybe not. But you can rewrite the future. That had been Patrick's answer. He wondered if he could make it true for himself, if he could find the love in Molly again, or if she had sealed it away too deeply for him to reach.

  He shed his jacket in the living room. Someone had been here cleaning up. He was pretty sure he had left the place a mess. Sarah, he supposed, and he would have to get after her because she surely had more than enough to do these days.

  He hooked his tie on the knob at the bottom of the bannister and worked his buttons loose on the way up. Then he came through his bedroom door, rummaging for the light switch, and the hallucination hit, full force.

  Molly was sitting up in his bed, her eyes sleepy and her curves seductively covered with one of his own T-shirts. He swallowed and blinked and she did not disappear.

  She did not say a word, just stared at him with the soft question in her eyes that he had seen that first day, when she had walked into his heart. He felt dizzy, but he said carefully, 'I know I'm imagining you, but I'm in no shape do deal with you. Not even in a fantasy.'

  'Come to bed,' she said softly.

  That was all he could remember in the morning. Her arms reaching out, himself stumbling towards her embrace.

  He woke alone, staring at the sun beating through the window, certain that it had been a dream. Paris to London to New York to Vancouver, then that session in the lawyer's office and the crazy determination to get home the same day. No wonder he had started dreaming with his eyes open. But even now, he felt like a man who had collapsed into the arms of the one woman in the world.

  He could smell her scent lingering on the pillow beside him. And, he discovered a few minutes later, there was a note downstairs on the refrigerator. He looked at the signature before the message, but it didn't say love, just her name.

  If you ever decide to wake up, I've gone next door to give Sarah a hand with odds and ends and babies. Milk and eggs in the fridge. Molly.

  He had not even kissed her. He had fallen into her arms and for all he knew, he might have started snoring before his head hit the pillow. But her van was still in the drive in front of his house, as if it belonged there.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Molly had Tammy in her arms when Patrick came through the kitchen door into the Hollison family room. He stopped when he found her, his eyes asking a question. Molly felt the baby's head move against the place on her shoulder where Patrick's rough chin had burned her during the night.

  Last night. He had fallen onto the bed, drawing her close in his arms, throwing one leg across hers as if to hold her close. Then she had felt the strain sag from him as he grew heavy against her. She had slept in his arms. Where she belonged.

  Patrick, rubbing his cheek against her shoulder in his sleep, leaving heat on her flesh. His brand on her, and she had welcomed it with a primitive joy.

  This morning his face was smooth-shaven and his hair curling, still damp. His moustache was trimmed and he had lost that exhausted look of last night. It wasn't laughter in his eyes. Not anger either.

  She asked, 'Did you have a good sleep?'

  'I dreamed.'

  She flushed. She had woken tangled in his arms, his hand on her breast and her own lips against his neck. He had pulled her close when she shifted, then the tension had faded from his body again and he had dropped back into unconsciousness.

  'Jet lag?' she asked now.

  'Yes,' he agreed. 'Put the baby away, Molly.'

  'Away?' Her lips twitched. 'In a cupboard somewhere?' Her heart thudded crazily against her ribs when his eyes flashed a warning. 'All right. I'm going.'

  He was waiting when she came back, a drink in his hand. 'I found Saul,' he said abruptly.

  'Oh.'

  Patrick turned the glass in his hand. Around and around.

  'In Paris?' she asked.

  'London, actually. It will take a few weeks for the details to be ironed out, but your property title should be clear in the end.' He shrugged. 'Meanwhile, you can get access, take anything of your own out that you need. Clothes. Your tapes.'

  'You ... won?'

  'More or less. I don't think your father understands the principles of taxation, public goods and someone having to pay.' She nodded. Saul understood what he chose to understand. He went on, 'The paintings for the showing are being assessed. Your father's signed an order to have the proceeds held in trust pending negotiation of a payment schedule.'

  'A payment schedule?' She had to laugh at that. 'Saul? A schedule? What did you do to him?'

  Patrick shrugged and she said, 'You're not going to tell me, are you?' She moved forward and took the glass out of his hands. 'What's he living on? I know him. There aren't any savings. And Patrick, I won't let you support my father.'

  'Stop me,' he suggested.

  A losing proposition, she decided, watching his eyes. 'For how long?'

  'Just until the Revenue Canada people settle down and allow him a reasonable portion of the proceeds- which they will when they realize they're going to get their money.'

  'From the paintings?'

  'Yes, Molly, from the paintings. I told you he would pay his own taxes.'

  She chewed the inside of her cheek. 'Saul can go through a terrible amount of money. He doesn't understand about money. And why should you- '

  'Babette understands about money.' Patrick took the glass out of her hands and set it on the coffee table. 'Molly, why were you sleeping at my house? Did the paying guests push you out? I didn't think Sarah and Edward were that full right now.'

  'What do you mean about Babette? Do you mean she- You said she understood about money.'

  'Molly!' His voice was sharp. 'Are Sarah and Edward full up?'

  With babies, she thought wildly, but he was in no mood for jokes. 'No. They're not.'

  She stared at his hands. They were curled in on themselves. She wished he would touch her. There had been a time when he had always reached to reassure her, and last night, he had come into her arms as if it was the only place he belonged in the world.

  'Molly, why were you in my bed?'

  A little courage, she thought. Just a little. Easy enough to believe he cared when she was mentally adding up the clues. But now, his eyes on her, examining, not tender at all.

  She sucked in a ragged breath. 'I was there because I thought that if you'd brought me back here, then it had to be becau
se you wanted me here.' She rushed on, 'And if you wanted me here, then that was where I belonged. At your place, not here at your sister's.'

  'Then why did you ever leave?'

  Her hands tangled together, torturing each other. 'Saul,' she said. 'And the tax thing all ready to explode. I- I just didn't know what to do!'

  'You could have told me.'

  'No. You would have insisted on trying to help.' She shuddered and knew that she must say this. 'Patrick, remember that politician on the television that night? Here in this room? You and Edward were talking about him, and you said he should have stayed out of the public eye if he was vulnerable.' She hugged herself tightly and said rigidly, 'Don't you understand, Patrick? With me, you would be vulnerable to scandal. Always, because Saul won't change, and he's my father.'

  He was frowning and she whispered, 'You've got to admit that Saul would be about the worst disaster a respectable politician could dream up.'

  'Molly, this political thing- It's something other people are asking of me.' His frown deepened. 'I'll do it if it seems right. If I think I can succeed.' He touched her face fleetingly, added quietly, 'And if it doesn't take anything important away from the people I care about.'

  She seemed to be frozen, staring at him, watching his eyes turn that bleak, grim black with no lights of laughter or love as he said, 'You should have told me I was smothering you, walking all over you.'

  She shook her head.

  His jaw tensed. 'The message you screamed at me at the ferry terminal when you went away. Let go of you. Give you room to breathe. Couldn't you have told me? Before it turned into an explosion? We could have worked it out.'

  'They were just words,' she whispered. 'Any words. I was desperate to get away before I dumped all Saul's tangles onto you. I- I don't even know what I said.'

  'I can't buy that, Molly. Those words came from somewhere. Maybe you wouldn't have chosen to say them otherwise, but they were there in your mind.' She saw his fingers clench and he finished quietly but grimly, 'I'll give you whatever space you need. You said I smothered you. That you needed room to breathe. I'll give you room.'