by Cox, Chloe
“Deal,” Molly said.
She raced out of the labyrinth below Madison Square Garden, taking the first door marked with a big red exit sign, and emerged out into a loading dock, surprising a bunch of smokers who were sheltering from the rain under the overhang.
“Which way is Thirty-Seventh Street?” she shouted.
“You serious?” a guy in a janitor’s uniform said. He hooked his thumb to the right. “That way. But it’s raining!”
Molly was already running up to the street. She was aware.
~ * ~ * ~
Declan had looked for her. He’d looked for her throughout the whole set. At first he’d thought she was just hanging so far back in the wings he couldn’t see her, but there was that feeling in his chest, that emptiness. She wasn’t fucking there.
He sang the song he’d written anyway, because he’d said he would. Even if the only person meant to hear it wasn’t there.
Declan powered through his set, channeling it all the way he was meant to, thinking about her. But as soon as the lights went out, he was striding into the wings.
He was right. She was gone.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
No one answered. It wasn’t the usual congratulatory, hedonistic vibe you got after a show. Maybe his mood had something to do with it. His mood, and the presence of a little kid.
In fact, the blonde woman with the blue and red streaks and her little brother were the only ones who could meet his eye.
“One more time,” Declan said slowly. “Where is she?”
He was trying to keep his voice calm, trying to ignore the nausea he felt building in his gut. He knew his physical reaction right now was due to his own issues and had nothing to do with Molly. Declan had known lots of women who’d pulled disappearing acts, chief among them his own mother—which would account for the nausea—but that wasn’t Molly.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t worried. Or pissed off.
The blonde chick raised her hand slightly and cleared her throat. “I, um, gave her my car,” she said. “She gave me a message for you.”
Declan stared at her.
“She said she was sorry,” the blonde woman offered.
Declan closed the distance between them in only a few strides, remembering too late not to bring his full physical presence to bear; the woman and her little brother were both tiny, both nice people. Declan took a deep breath.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“Hi, I’m Harlow,” the woman said, one eyebrow all the way up. “You’ve already met Dill. Molly asked me to tell you that she had to leave, that it was an emergency, and that she was sorry. It was…”
She seemed to hesitate. Declan didn’t have the patience.
“I care about this woman,” he said through gritted teeth. “And something made her leave in the middle of the show. Tell me what it was.”
“Something about her sister,” Harlow admitted. “It sounded…I don’t know, it sounded important. I can’t believe I gave her my car.”
“You what?”
“I gave her my car. To get to the airport. I’m just a sap for little siblings in trouble, and she was so upset…” Harlow drifted off. “She’s not a nutjob or anything, right?”
“How long ago?”
“Um. A couple of hours. At least.”
“Shit,” Declan said, then looked down at Dill. “Sorry, little man. Davey!”
Declan was already in motion, his mind racing as the road manager came running up. Declan almost felt bad for the man.
“Get this woman a car,” he ordered, pointing at Harlow. “Give that kid the mic from the show. And give me my phone.”
“Declan, what are you doing?” Brian called out.
Good question. All Declan could think about was how upset Molly would have to be for a random stranger to lend her a car. That kind of thing didn’t happen. It especially didn’t happen in New York.
Thinking about Molly in that state, alone, made him feel sick.
“Postpone the next show, Davey,” he said grimly. “I have somewhere to be.”
“Where the fuck do you think you have to be?” Brian yelled.
“No idea.”
But he bet Adra knew.
chapter 26
Molly maxed out one credit card and put a major ding in another one booking a last minute flight to L.A.X., and spent so long explaining why she didn’t have any luggage that she had to seriously sprint to her gate. As if the drive to J.F.K. hadn’t been stressful enough, in the rain, not knowing where she was going. All in all, Molly didn’t have time to sit and think until she got on the plane. And then they sat there for ages, giving her way, way too much time to do all that thinking.
Because all she thought about was Declan.
Which was unexpected. But now that she’d talked to Lydia and knew what the situation was, she’d already formulated the beginnings of a plan. She was upset and stressed and whatever, but all that was expected, and Molly’s inner badass knew that she would handle it. It felt like she had it under control, kind of.
Declan was something else entirely.
Molly wrapped herself in the thin airline blanket and shivered. She was soaking wet, cold, and sad. And she had no right to be sad, at least. She’d called Adra from the car—a harrowing experience in its own right—and arranged to have someone leave her miraculously still-functional LeBaron at L.A.X. so she’d have a ride back home, and, rather than demand to know why Molly was leaving the tour or asking about the book, Adra had only wanted to know if Molly was ok. Adra, who was already back in L.A., had even offered to pick Molly up. Molly had said no, because she wasn’t sure if Lydia wanted to deal with a bunch of new people at the moment, and it wasn’t Molly’s call.
But she’d been touched to the point of tears. She couldn’t believe how much her life had turned around in such a short time. Didn’t realize how lonely she’d been before until she could look back while surrounded by all these wonderful people. She had no idea what she’d done to deserve any of it.
Especially Declan.
Molly hugged herself tightly as the lights in the cabin were turned down and knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep much. She shouldn’t have left him. She didn’t know what else she could have done, knew she couldn’t have sat there not doing anything after that phone call, but she still felt like she shouldn’t have left him.
Which was crazy, because they weren’t… Molly didn’t know what they were. She thought Declan didn’t, either. Which somehow made it scarier. Because she knew now, sitting alone in an airplane, wishing more than anything that Declan was sitting beside her, that she loved him.
“I am so screwed,” she whispered.
No one answered.
Well, no, maybe not screwed. Maybe not entirely. She thought about all the things Declan had given her in such a short time, all the things he’d taught her, even beyond her submissive tastes—how to let go, how to let herself feel, how necessary that safety valve was for her—and she knew all those lessons would stick. They were hers now. Part of her. She’d always have them.
But the idea of being without him still felt like a smaller kind of death.
So Molly spent the whole flight trying to reason with her heart. It wasn’t something she’d ever had success with before, obviously, but Molly was the type to take on impossible tasks.
She was actually moderately successful.
By the time they started their descent into L.A. and the rest of the passengers were waking up from their incredibly uncomfortable naps, groggy and grumpy and realizing they now had three extra hours in the long day ahead of them, Molly had convinced herself of one immutable fact: Life on a tour bus wasn’t real life.
She and Declan had this insane attraction, this whirlwind emotional whatever, and all of it was predicated on the intense intimacy and forced confinement of a tour bus.
Which wasn’t real life.
It wasn’t real.
All of which left Molly comp
letely unprepared to encounter Declan Donovan in her very real home.
***
Molly set her jaw and physically forced herself to make the turn. Pleasant Valley Park. She didn’t think it would bother her this much to come home. She’d lived there her whole life, and suddenly every approaching mile felt like pushing against an imposing, malevolent force. Driving the last leg had been like biking uphill, every second a battle against the natural forces of the universe.
Nobody and nothing wanted Molly in Pleasant Valley. The bright sun felt hard and merciless, the heat was oppressive. Molly kept looking around to see faces she knew but that didn’t know her—or at least who she was now. And that was the problem. All these people, they all knew her as someone else. Someone they thought had slept around as a teenager and gotten pregnant, someone who’d let herself become a victim of everyone who had decided to hate her for that fairly unremarkable event, just because Robbie had decided it would be so.
She hated coming back here. And like with so many things in the past twenty-four hours, she didn’t realize how much she had changed except in contrast to who she’d been in this place, even a few weeks ago. Molly could feel her old self creeping back on her, like an old haunted dress that demanded to be worn. Like some demented form of ghostly peer pressure. There was this weird desire to fall back into old patterns, to accept old truths—that she wasn’t a woman people respected, that everybody hated her—and she had to fight to shake it off, hunched over in her car, gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands.
Thinking about Declan helped. Thinking about the things she’d experienced with Declan helped.
Maybe this place wasn’t any more real than a tour bus. Maybe the whole point was that Molly should get to choose what would be her reality from now on. She wasn’t sure what that would mean, exactly, but she was damn sure it wouldn’t involve this place.
And she was just as sure that she wouldn’t be that weak, traumatized girl in front of her sister. Lydia needed support, so support was what she was going to get.
Molly pulled the LeBaron up to the curb and stared at the car occupying her packed dirt driveway. It was a sleek silver BMW. It shined so brightly it was nearly blinding. Who belonged to that car? And then a moment later, it hit her: how had Lydia gotten here? It must be the father.
The father.
Molly threw her head back and laughed from pure joy. She had made so many assumptions, all of them based on her own crappy experience, all of them based, in the end, on what a supreme asshole Robbie had turned out to be. But maybe Lydia, thank God, had better taste in men. Maybe the father of Lydia’s baby was a good guy. Maybe he’d decide to actually be there for her, and double plus bonus points if the guy turned out to have the means to support her, too.
Well, assuming he wasn’t much older than her. Molly still might have some ass to kick. The BMW certainly raised questions. Molly wasn’t ready to relax, and she still had every intention of supporting her sister entirely if necessary, no matter what Lydia chose to do, but the idea that she might not have to do it alone was such a relief that Molly started to cry.
Like, really, really cry. Sobbing. That’s what she was doing. Ugly crying, in her car, outside her crappy old trailer, by herself.
Which was exactly how Lydia found her.
“Molly,” she said, tapping on the window. “You ok?”
Molly just stared stupidly for a moment. She hadn’t seen Lydia in over six months, and here she was, her hair tied back in a lazy ponytail, wearing her favorite Ramones shirt and a pair of jeans that didn’t much hide the little bump, if you knew to look for it.
And Molly knew. She couldn’t stop looking for it. She got out of her car and wordlessly walked over to Lydia—Lydia, who was looking at her like she’d just escaped from the nuthouse or something—and wrapped her sister up in the fiercest hug she could manage.
“Molly, are you ok?” Lydia asked again, her voice muffled. “What’s wrong?”
Molly choked on her little sister’s hair, determined to never let go.
“Nothing,” she sobbed. “Absolutely nothing is wrong. I am so happy to see you, Bug.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I have no idea,” Molly said, finally letting Lydia go from her death grip. “I missed you, Bug.”
“Well, don’t cry about it,” Lydia said, starting to tear up herself. “I missed you, too.”
Molly gave Lydia her best serious look and took her little sister’s face in both hands. “You know everything’s going to be ok, right? We’re going to make sure everything’s ok. No matter what, we will handle it. I promise.”
“Yeah,” Lydia said. “That’s what your friends said, too.”
Molly opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She didn’t have any…
“You know, if you’d waited for me,” a deep male voice said from the door, “you could have flown private, too.”
Declan Donovan. Leaning in the doorway of Molly’s house, arms crossed, eyes gentle, looking like everything Molly hadn’t allowed herself to dream she could have. Strong, dedicated, and here. Molly started to cry all over again.
~ * ~ * ~
The trip back to L.A. had been tense. Declan’s phone began blowing up almost immediately. First the guys had been pissed; postponing tour dates with no notice was a big fucking deal. Declan had explained that it was Molly, and it was a emergency, and Brian had backed off, but the suits back at the label and at Madison Square Garden had been less impressed.
Good thing Savage Heart was such a big act. Declan had never traded much on the power of fame and money, but he was glad to have it at his disposal now, because his mind was well and truly fucked. All he could think about was Molly. Not knowing what was wrong, whether she was ok, what had happened—it was all driving him insane. And he hated the idea of finishing the rest of the tour without her, found himself wondering whether he could do it all. Which was a whole other level of mindfuck when he realized what that implied.
So his phone kept ringing, but it was never the one person he wanted to talk to: Molly. Eventually he’d turned it off, but not before calling the one person he couldn’t blow off: Uncle Jim.
And that had turned out to be another mindfuck.
“We’re not going to make it fishing,” Declan had said. He had just landed in L.A. at the ass crack of dawn, Pacific Time, which meant Jim had already been up for a while on the east coast.
“What? I’m not calling about a goddamn fishing trip, though tell that girl of yours I want a rain check. I’m calling because Bethany’s done with her program. She’s got the all clear, and she wanted you to know, only you don’t pick up your phone.”
Shit. Declan should have been on top of that. Bethany deserved real congratulations and support, and a whole bunch of other things.
“That’s fantastic,” he’d said. “But I can’t be there right now. I’ll call her.”
“You got something more important?”
Declan didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes.”
There was a lengthy, suspiciously satisfied-sounding pause.
“Good,” Jim said, and hung up.
It wasn’t until later that Declan thought to ask himself how the hell Uncle Jim had known that Bethany was out of the hospital. But by then he’d already pulled into Volare, where Adra was waiting, looking almost as worried as he felt, and the whole thing came rushing back to him.
Right then he decided he’d cancel the tour if he had to. Declan wasn’t going to fail Molly if he could help it, not the way he’d failed Bethany, even if risking it was the one thing left on this planet that could scare him. Molly very clearly did not need him, but Declan didn’t give a shit. He defined the man he was by the things he did, good and bad, and he was going to be the man who helped Molly Ward if he could.
Because he fucking loved her.
“You find out what happened?” he asked Adra, getting out of his crappy last-minute rental. The air conditioning did
n’t even work.
“No,” Adra said. “You’re sure about—”
“Just take me to her place, Adra,” Declan said. “If she wants me to leave, I’ll leave. But between the two of us I bet there’s something we can do for her. Just put it all on me if you have to.”
Declan had realized on the plane he didn’t even know where Molly lived. His only shot was Adra. He felt like the world’s biggest jackass, that he knew so much and so little about Molly, but he was stuck with it for now. He’d fix that later; right now he just needed to get to where she was.
Adra gave him a long, appraising look, and whatever she saw there, she approved of, because she got out the beamer and drove the two of them on out to Pleasant Valley Park, a dry, dusty looking place with little kids playing in the dirt and laundry on the line. Looked like a million other places, with a million other lives. Only this one had Molly.
“You know much about this situation?” he asked Adra.
“A little, not much,” she said. “I know she wants to get out of it.”
“She might not even be here,” Declan said. “Her sister doesn’t live here. It was just the only thing I could think of.”
“She picking up her phone?”
Declan frowned. “Not yet.”
And then they pulled into the driveway, only to be greeted before they even knocked on the door by a young, pretty woman who looked like Molly, only a little bit rounder in the face—and rounder in the belly. Declan got a good look at that bump and everything suddenly made sense. He said, “You’re Lydia.”
Lydia was tense, defensive. Arms crossed. “Who the hell are you?”
“She’s not a Savage Heart fan,” Adra smiled.
“They’re ok,” Lydia said. “But this is private property, so—”
“Don’t be scared,” Declan told her. “We’re friends of Molly’s, not your father’s. We’re here to help.”
