chapter TEN
IN THE NEXT WEEK, Molly developed the unwelcome suspicion that Cait was enjoying the role thrust on her. She’d never in her life held such power over others. She was the martyr, suffering visibly; everyone else had to wait on her decision. And yes, she was probably genuinely scared and uncertain, but she was also petulant and, in a strange way, triumphant. Molly began to feel she didn’t know her at all.
Clearly, Cait was taking that decision down to the wire. Maybe she’d shared it with Trevor—but Molly doubted so, from the wary way he watched her on the occasions she saw them together.
The teenagers were talking, Molly knew that much. Secretly, which was disconcerting. A couple of times, she saw Trevor waiting for Cait after school. Once Molly arrived home to see him hurrying away from the house down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and face averted. Cait seemed to be spending a great deal of time closed in her bedroom on the phone talking to someone.
Which was probably good, because she sure wasn’t talking to her mother.
Molly might have found those days unbearable if not for Richard. One of them called the other almost every night. She thought about the few times he’d touched her, however casually. Maybe it was just as well that phone conversations allowed no opportunity for good-night kisses. Assuming, of course, he wanted to kiss her, and she wasn’t positive he did.
They’d plunged into such intimacy so fast, she was unnerved. The sound of his voice on the phone, warm, slow and deep, made her quiver. She was embarrassingly eager when he suggested getting together. He was certainly the sexiest man she’d ever seen, with his lean, dark face lit by a flicker of a smile. The sight of his very male saunter made her knees weak. She could hardly remember being so affected by a man, and gee, that had turned out so well.
Every time her self-esteem hit a low ebb, she reminded herself he had wanted to ask her out. Maybe he felt as cautious as she did, but he was definitely interested. That gave her something to hang on to.
The weird part was that in the meantime he had become her best friend. Her confidant, her prop, her reminder that it was possible to laugh.
He talked, too. Less willingly than her, she thought, but what man was happy baring his deepest feelings or most regretted failures?
So, okay, they hadn’t gotten there yet. She hadn’t told him about her marriage; he hadn’t told her about his. Neither had talked about the price they’d paid for those early marriages, or the divorces that had followed. But during one of their phone conversations, he told her more about the war and some of the things he’d seen. Hearing his horror, she asked why he’d joined the National Guard, and he admitted it had been mostly money.
“There wasn’t some other way you could have moonlighted?” she asked.
It took him a while to answer. “Yeah, I could have found something. I suppose I wanted to get away, too. I liked the camaraderie you build with the other members of your unit. The sense that maybe you’re doing something worthwhile.”
“Do you think you did?” she asked softly.
“No.” His voice was harsher than she’d ever heard him. “Look at the headlines. We didn’t change a damn thing over there. We tried, but we didn’t understand them and they didn’t understand us. I made friends, but I never knew if it was pretense. God, all I wanted was to come home.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry.”
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment. “My best friend over there lost a leg. I suppose I felt guilty I came home whole.”
“Did you?”
He laughed, if gruffly. “Maybe not.”
“The soldiers we send are so young,” Molly said. “Kids.”
“This once the Humvee I was in drove over an IED.” He paused. “You know what…?”
“An improvised explosive device.”
“Yeah. Cut right through the armor. Turned it to shrapnel. Killed the guy sitting next to me. He was eighteen years old.”
“Eighteen.” She grappled with that. “How old were you?”
“By then I was a real man. In my twenties.”
She was smiling, although she didn’t know how she could, as sad as she felt. “A father figure.”
“Something like that.” And she heard his smile, too. “I’ve never talked about any of this with someone who wasn’t there. No, that isn’t true. I tried with Lexa, when I came home that first time. She didn’t want to hear it.”
“Listening, isn’t that one of the most important things we can do for each other?”
It was hard to interpret his silences, but she relaxed when he answered. “I’m starting to think so.”
Today was a rare, almost warm day, weird considering Thursday was Thanksgiving. The holiday hung over Molly, who had come to think of it as D-day for Cait. Or D-week, anyway. She was nine weeks right now. She had to make a decision.
I will not think about that today.
Molly had picked up deli sandwiches and met Richard at the riverfront park. She felt almost daring, sneaking away from school to meet him in person. The “in person” part made her a little giddy, which she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know.
He got out of his Ward Electrical van when she pulled in next to him. Despite the sunshine, he put on a parka over his dark green uniform shirt, and she tucked gloves in the pocket of her own parka. He’d brought the coffee—plain and dark for him, a frothy latte for her. She bent and inhaled the steam before smiling at him.
“This was a good idea.”
“You say that now, but you may be shivering in a half hour.”
“If I am, we can sit in the car,” she pointed out reasonably.
They walked past the playground, where a young mother was pushing a toddler on a swing, then across short, damp grass to one of the benches that overlooked the river. It was running high and brown with snowmelt from higher in the mountains, but was still some feet below flood stage.
Molly laid out their food between them and accepted her cup, taking an appreciative sip. “This is so much better than a brown bag lunch at my desk.”
He made a sound of agreement. “Or a burger in the van.”
“Fast food’s not good for you.”
Richard laughed. “I do try to go a little easier on the grease than I used to.”
“I suppose not having anyone else to cook for cuts down on the incentive.”
“You could say that.” He sighed and stretched out his legs, stacking one booted foot on the other. “I’ve been trying a little harder since Trevor arrived, but he’s walked out on so damn many meals, it’s a little discouraging.”
“Still?”
He sipped his coffee before answering. “Not as often.”
“That’s good.” She hesitated. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s good. Sometimes I think he’s mellowed toward me, then something happens and it’s like a lit fuse. I don’t know what to think.”
“Does he talk to his mother at all?”
“Not according to her.” He unwrapped his sandwich.
“Do you talk to her often?” Belatedly, she thought, Not my business.
“No.” His gaze fixed on the river, face unreadable. “We don’t have much to say to each other.” About the time Molly was wondering if she’d been warned off, he spoke again. “You and your ex?”
“Heavens, no! I haven’t talked to him in years beyond saying ‘yes, Cait is here’ and passing on the phone. And not even that in a long time.”
“Years?” He glanced at her, some lines having deepened on his forehead. Not a frown, but…something. “You said he doesn’t see much of Cait, but I wondered if you’d told him…”
“No. Absolutely not,” she said strongly. “He has no interest in her whatsoever.”
“I don’t get that.”
“I don’t, either.” She was shredding her own multigrain roll, so that seeds pattered onto the paper wrapping that lay open on her lap. “The ironic thing is, he was hot to have more children. His pressure was one of the things that damaged our marriage.” Wow, did she want to tell him this?
“You didn’t want a brother or sister for Cait?”
“It wasn’t that. I did agree to try, but I was in grad school and the timing was lousy. We already had problems, and some of the pressure was coming from his parents. As it was he didn’t have much time for Cait.”
“His parents?”
“He’s an attorney. Did I tell you that?” When he shook his head, she smiled wryly. “Family law firm. Colt is the third generation to make partner. No surprise there. Believe it or not, he’s Colton Callahan the Third. He suddenly decided—or his parents decided, I’m not sure which—that it was time we hatched a Colton Callahan the Fourth.”
“Good God,” Richard muttered. “Caitlyn Callahan wasn’t good enough?”
“Apparently not. After all, she was only a Caitlyn the First. His parents weren’t what you’d call warm. They never made me feel as if I measured up. For one thing, in their world the wife didn’t work. She entertained for her husband, she served on the boards of charities, she put on fundraisers for appropriate causes. College was fine, good. Graduate school unnecessary.”
“And you stuck to your guns.”
His approving smile turned her to mush. “I did.”
“Wasn’t Colton in law school at the same time you were in grad school?”
“No, I was an undergrad when we met, but he was already in his second year of law school. Not thrilled when I got pregnant.”
“I don’t suppose you were, either.”
“No, of course not. But…” She looked down, evading the warmth in his eyes. “Once I felt her move, I was a goner.”
“So you ended up divorced before you could get pregnant again.”
Decision time. Did she really want to get this personal?
“It wasn’t that simple,” she said, stalling.
When he reached out and removed her sandwich from her hands, she realized she was mangling it. He rewrapped it, his eyes never leaving her face. “In what way?”
“I had endometriosis. Increasingly painful menstrual periods. It turned out the scarring was so severe, it would be difficult to impossible for me to get pregnant.”
His face hardened. “Tell me the son of a bitch didn’t leave you because you didn’t get pregnant on demand.”
“I think it contributed, but that wasn’t the whole story. We didn’t have much marriage by then.” Colt hadn’t taken well her rejection of his sexual advances when she hurt too much. She’d needed pampering and sympathy he never thought to give. Didn’t care enough to give, Molly had come to believe. Their marriage, their family, increasingly became for show, while at home they hardly spoke. “I’ve suspected for a long time that I never would have married him if we’d waited.”
“If you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”
She nodded.
“Ditto for me.” He wadded the wrapping for his own sandwich and tossed it from hand to hand. “I think Alexa got pregnant on purpose.”
“What?” Molly gaped at him.
“I never asked her. I mean, she was having my kid. I didn’t want to stir hard feelings we’d never be able to bury. But I knew. She was unhappy about me going away for college. She’d wanted me to stay close—the community college or Western Washington. I wasn’t breaking up with her—we talked vaguely about me coming home some weekends, you know how it is—but I was desperate to go away. I’d been recruited by half a dozen West Coast schools, and I chose UC Berkeley. I could hardly wait to go. Reality is, I wouldn’t have come home much. Not with airfare from California. Lexa knew that. She was taking the pill.”
“And you trusted her.”
“Yeah. I trusted her.”
Neither said anything. The silence was oddly comfortable, even companionable. Molly reached for her sandwich again and began eating this time.
“That’s why you’re antiabortion for Cait, isn’t it? Because you know what it’s like not to be able to get pregnant when you want to,” Richard finally said.
His insight surprised her. Why not tell him the whole truth? That she couldn’t get pregnant again, ever? That she’d had a hysterectomy? Because it was too much. He didn’t need to know. I will not live vicariously through my daughter to that extent.
“I can’t deny there’s some truth in that,” she conceded. “But I’ve been doing my best to wall off how I felt then from Cait’s situation. Cait’s too young to have a baby. I know that. Yes, I feel squeamish about her having an abortion, but my own history isn’t the only reason.”
“No.” He sounded thoughtful. “Squeamish is a good word. Who wouldn’t be?”
“I think she’s going to refuse to have one.”
“That’s what Trevor says, too.”
“Really? She is talking to him, then?”
He gave a rough laugh. “Who knows? But yeah, some. He says he offered to marry her.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”
“He’s really willing?”
“He’s scared to death.”
“If it’s any comfort to him, right now, I’d withhold permission. But she turns sixteen in April, and I think that’s the age of consent in this state.” She made a mental note to check. Surely, please God, Cait wouldn’t do anything that dumb.
Like you did?
Richard set his now-empty coffee cup on the ground and shoved both hands in his pockets. His rueful gaze met hers. “Do you ever wish you could think about something besides your kid?”
Molly’s half laugh felt surprisingly good. “Frequently.”
“Were we as self-absorbed at their age?”
“Um…yes?”
He laughed. “Probably. But my parents weren’t nearly as sympathetic.”
“Did they oppose you getting married?”
She could see that he was really thinking back. “I don’t know. Yes and no, I guess. Neither of them were college educated…they’d gotten married young, so the concept didn’t seem out of line to them. My father might even have been happy I had no choice but to go to work with him.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t?”
His chest rose and fell with a long breath and he let his head fall back. “I don’t see what else I could have done. I couldn’t force her to have an abortion. One way or the other, I’d have had to help support her once she had Trevor. How could I have left for college and done that?”
“You might have been able to work and take classes, too,” Molly suggested tentatively.
“Not on an athletic scholarship. Or, at least, I couldn’t have worked enough hours. I could have taken classes locally—but then she’d have been home alone all the time with a little kid and I’d have missed living with my son. So the answer is no. I thought in circles until I was dizzy back then, and ended up where I started.”
“No regrets?”
“Oh, I had ’em, but I’ve tried to get past them. I did go back to college after Lexa and the kids went to California. I finally had the time.” He slid Molly a look she couldn’t interpret. “But I did it only for myself. By then I’d built Ward Electrical into something I couldn’t walk away from.”
“What would you have walked toward?”
“Engineering. I dreamed big.” His mouth quirked. “Dams, bridges. I do mean big. I went ahead and got my degree in structural engineering.”
“So now you know how to build those dams. I’m glad you were able to do it,” she heard herself say.
His gaze seemed suddenly intense. “Why? Does that raise me a notch on the social scale?”
“What?” She stared at him. “That’s a jerk thing to say! I meant I was glad for your sake. Because it meant something to you.” She started to gather their lunch leavings. “I’d better get back to school.”
“No.” His hand shot out to grip hers. “Molly. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” His chagrin kept her from wrenching her hand away. “It’s me. I wondered whether you looked down on me. A guy who works with his hands, who didn’t get an education.”
“But you did.”
“You didn’t know that.”
She was suddenly so close to him, it was hard to breathe. She wrenched her gaze from those bitter chocolate eyes and looked down at his hand holding hers. That didn’t seem to help. He had wonderful hands, so big they dwarfed hers, long-fingered, calloused, sinewy. “I’m not a snob. You own a thriving business. I suspect you make two or three times the money I do. I was a high school teacher, for goodness’ sakes! Now I plan in-service days for classified staff. I decide when a student’s grades disqualify him for the football team. I made the earth-shattering decision to replace two urinals in the boys’ restroom this summer. All of that makes me superior how?”
“It’s not about you. I guess something’s been simmering. By high school a part of me had started looking down on my dad. Me, I was going to be someone. Look how all the colleges wanted me. Whatever I did, I’d be changing lives. Having to swallow my pride and accept that I’d live a life no different than Dad’s, that stung. I didn’t realize how much it still does.” He paused, his eyes never leaving her face. “I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice husky.
Molly offered a shaky smile. “It really is okay. We all have our triggers.”
His gaze lowered to her mouth. “You trigger all kinds of things in me.”
Her pulse bounded. “Yes,” she whispered, and his mouth settled on hers.
* * *
MAYBE THIS WASN’T THE time or the place or the mood, but, damn, he couldn’t help himself. She was there, her mouth soft and tremulous, her eyes dilating.
“Yes,” she whispered, and he was kissing her without making a conscious decision. The first touch of her lips was cold, but they warmed quickly and felt every bit as lush as he’d dreamed. That first faint tremble was the sexiest thing he’d ever felt. He wanted to dive deep, but somehow knew better. This was a woman to savor. He nibbled on her full bottom lip, touched the tip of his tongue to the dip in her upper lip. He brushed his mouth back and forth, licked the seam of her lips, nuzzled his nose against hers until she smiled, and he felt that down to the soles of his feet.
Finally, finally, her lips parted and he slid his tongue inside, meeting hers. She tasted of coffee and cheese, milk and her, an indefinable taste that was something like a peach. She was holding herself completely still, but she sighed, and then a sound like a moan vibrated her throat. Richard’s control broke, and he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck to position her better. Somehow they weren’t holding hands anymore, either; his squeezed her waist and hers both came up to clutch his shoulders. He kissed her with devastating hunger, and felt equal yearning from her. She sucked on his tongue, and he shuddered. If they were anywhere else…
That kiss might have gone on forever if voices hadn’t intruded. With a groan he lifted his head to look down at Molly’s face, tipped up to his. Her eyes were closed, her lashes long and thick, forming crescents on that creamy skin. He’d mussed her hair plenty, wiping out any pretence of Ms. Cool and Collected Vice Principal. She was a woman, aroused from the way she was breathing and from the dazed look in her gorgeous, smoky gray eyes once she opened them.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, kneading her neck and loving the thick textured silk of her hair tangling his fingers.
Her eyes searched his. Then a smile that was almost mischievous curled her mouth. “You’re sexy.”
He grinned, probably foolishly. “Seems like we’re on the same page.”
Molly gave a throaty chuckle. “And, oh, if our children ever flipped to this page.”
“Oh, hell.” It was next best thing to a splash of that snowmelt river water. “You had to say that.”
She sighed. “It was nice to forget them for a minute, wasn’t it.”
“Nice?”
Molly laughed at his outrage. “Okay, better than nice. I didn’t know if you really wanted to kiss me.”
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since that first meeting in your office, when I hated you.”
All trace of the smile vanished; there was something hugely vulnerable in the way she looked at him now. “Really?”
“Did I hate you?”
“Want to kiss me.”
“Yeah.” His voice was pure grit. He bent forward enough to rest his forehead against hers. “I still do. But we seem to have company.”
“Company?” She stiffened, pulled back, turned her head. “Oh, thank God.”
“Thank God?”
“What if it had been students from the high school?”
“That might not have been the best,” Richard admitted. “Do they make it over here to the river from school?”
“I’m sure they do. We have closed campus for freshmen and sophomores, but the juniors and seniors can head out for lunch.”
He hadn’t felt this good in he couldn’t remember how long. Years. Maybe never. “We’ll make out somewhere different next time,” he said, smiling at her wickedly.
She snorted. “In your dreams.”
“Oh, I’ve been dreaming.”
They’d started toward the parking lot, passing a pair of incurious mothers paying more attention to their offspring than to the other people at the park. Molly’s hand slipped into his. “I’ve been dreaming, too,” she said softly.
He almost said, I want you. He did. Desperately. But he had a bad feeling he knew what she’d say, what she’d make him admit—their kids had to come first right now. Richard had no idea how his seriously screwed-up son would respond to his dad suddenly having a sex life. A relationship. Oh, yeah, and with his pregnant girlfriend’s mother.
Richard hadn’t forgotten the way Cait had reacted the time she’d come home and found him alone there with her mother. The spoiled brat in her had come out. God knows, he thought, their lives were complicated enough right now, the way their kids had tangled them all into a knot.
No, he wouldn’t say anything that blunt, but he was damned if two selfish brats would make him wait indefinitely to go after the first woman he’d seriously wanted in years.
“We’ll work it out,” he said easily.
A choked laugh escaped her. “But not necessarily well.”
They’d reached their cars. He stopped her, taking her other hand, too, so she had to face him. He smiled, kissed her lightly, then not so lightly. They were both breathing raggedly. “I think it’ll go fine. I wish to hell it could right this minute,” he murmured.
Obviously not yet firing on all cylinders, she blinked bemusedly at him.
“Our time will come, Molly Callahan.”
She could have said, I’m not sure. Or stiffened and stepped back with a Maybe. Or even a suspicious, Time for exactly what? And, Do you plan to use a condom? She didn’t say any of those things. She gave him an astonishingly sweet smile. “Okay,” was all she said.
And, damn, his body surged at the sight of that smile. His fingers tightened on hers. He groaned.
Molly grinned. “Go back to work,” she said, then pecked him on the cheek and got in her car.
Leaving him with an aching erection and absolute faith that he would soon see every magnificent inch of her body bared. He would be able to touch and stroke and knead, kiss and suckle and lick.
He planted his hands on the side of his van, bent his head and groaned again.