Chapter Nine
Time flew that afternoon, as it always did when the Bitter Bark Kilcannon vet office was packed with well-pet checks, minor emergencies, and, like that day, the occasional surprise visit from a teacup pig named Chumpy. Molly didn’t have a lot of time to mull over the conversation she’d had with Trace, or think about what she, or they, would tell Pru, or when they’d have that conversation.
But still, she was humming with the jitters. It had to be the situation, the anxiety of telling Pru, and the upending of life as she knew it that had her feeling so on edge.
She steadied herself long enough to give a teeth cleaning to Queen Victoria, an old English bulldog she’d been seeing since she’d taken over Dad’s practice. After that, she headed into the examination room to remove sutures from a pure-white stray cat adopted by a local woman who had at least a dozen cats in her home, all Molly’s patients.
As she turned the corner, she heard a familiar laugh in the reception area, one that never failed to make her heart soar and her lips curl in a smile. She might be a serious straight-A little Dudley Do-Right, but Prudence Anne Kilcannon had a frequent and delightful laugh, and Molly loved that sound more than anything.
Instantly, she detoured from the exam room to pop her head into the lobby.
Pru sat cross-legged on the floor, holding a long, lean tabby cat Molly knew was her next appointment. She looked up, and her whole face lit at the sight of Molly, a reaction that never got old.
“Hi, Mom. Can we get a cat?”
Molly angled her head, not even having to answer a question she’d been asked a hundred times. Considering the number of dogs she brought home from Waterford when one needed special home care, they couldn’t have a cat, although looking at her daughter with that sweet baby on her lap, she wished it could be different.
But…wait a second. “I thought you had choral practice today,” Molly said, flipping through her mental calendar. “And weren’t you and Brooke going to work on your history project until six thirty?” Giving her time to pick up Trace and take him to Waterford. Except, now…
“Canceled.” Still holding Jack, Pru popped up in one easy move that only thirteen-year-olds and maybe gymnasts could manage. “And Brooke’s mom wanted to take her to her brother’s orthodontist appointment. Or something.” She shrugged, as if this minor adjustment didn’t upset a well-ordered apple cart that only a mom, especially a single mom, could balance and make it look easy. “So here I am, the latchkey kid begging for attention.”
“You are not a latchkey kid,” she said. “You want to do homework in the break room?”
Maybe she could sneak out and run over and tell him—
“Not really.”
Molly frowned at the answer. For most kids, that would be the expected response. For Pru, it meant something was wrong. Pru never delayed homework. It was one of her many rules.
“You okay?” Molly asked, only now seeing that there were slight shadows under Pru’s eyes. Had she worn mascara to school and rubbed it off…or not slept?
“We never talked last night.”
Molly tried to tamp down a tidal wave of mom guilt. “I was late with that dog.”
Pru started to respond, but Jack meowed noisily and squirmed to be let down. Like a kid who’d been raised in a vet’s office, Pru handled the animal carefully, putting him back into the cat carrier and smiling at the owner, who sat reading a magazine.
“I don’t feel like doing homework.”
Oh boy. This was serious.
“Can I shadow you for the rest of the day?” Pru asked.
“So…you’d come home with me after work?”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
A big, fat problem. “I actually have an errand to run.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Oh crap. Now what?
“Oh, Mom, you don’t want me to shadow,” Pru guessed, completely misreading Molly’s horrified expression. “Do you have a…you know? Because I’ll go to the library or something.”
She didn’t have a “you know” this afternoon, but lying about having to put an animal down would ensure that Pru took off in a heartbeat. It was the sad aspect of Molly’s job that Pru absolutely hated. But Molly refused to lie to her, even if it was convenient.
Truth was, she couldn’t keep Pru and Trace apart forever, especially since he’d be working at Waterford Farm, so why not let her come along to pick him up? It would be weird not to.
Molly reached out an arm and hooked it around Pru’s slender waist to pull her closer. “It’s all well-baby checks from three o’clock to close. And there’s nothing I’d like more than having my very own well-baby with me.”
Pru gave her a big blue-banded braces grin. “Okay, then. I’ll shadow. But I can’t count it.”
“Count it?” Molly asked as they headed back to the exam room. “Count it for what?”
“Community service hours for the semester,” she said. “I need twenty-five before the end of the year and have to submit my project for approval by tomorrow. But you can’t use your parent’s job. I have no clue what I can do.”
“Twenty-five hours? Last semester it was ten.”
“Inflation.” She grinned at her, then looked skyward to acknowledge the fib. “Okay, there’s a trip to Carowinds if you make twenty-five hours and get them done before the middle of February.”
“February? How is that even possible?” Molly asked.
“I don’t know, but if I make it, then I’m not only able to qualify for a trip to the theme park, but I also get to submit to the state competition.”
“Don’t tell me. Twenty-five more hours.” Which was wonderful, except for the mother of the overachieving student.
“No, but the state winner goes to…” Pru grabbed her arm and squeezed, dragging out the anticipation.
“The moon?”
“Better. Disney World, Mom. Dis. Ney. World. Park fees paid.”
“Wow.” Molly nudged her into the hall toward the exam room. “Come on, let’s ask Mrs. Carpenter if she needs help with her twelve cats.”
“Which would be a lame community service project and related to your job,” Pru said. “Mr. Margolis said it has to be totally ‘independent of family,’ and we have to find the project on our own. No help from parents. And they’re looking for creativity and really helping someone in need.”
“You better start looking then, because Mickey Mouse is waiting for you. Also, Lily, one of my favorite kitties. Come on.”
With the exception of a standard poodle with a serious case of the runs, the afternoon whizzed by uneventfully. By the time Molly finished making a few calls and reviewing the patient schedule for the rest of the week, it was close to five and time to pick up Trace.
She waited until they were in the car to break that news to Pru.
“So, this errand,” Molly said slowly. “It’s over near Sutton’s Mill.”
“’Kay,” Pru said, taking out her phone. “Oh my gosh, Mom, did you see Gramma’s blog yet? She did one on Meatball.”
“She did?” Her grandmother’s blog was a mix of Irish wisdom, country living, child-rearing, dog loving, and more Irish wisdom. The eighty-six-year-old had discovered a passion for blogging a few years earlier when Pru introduced her to the wonders of the Internet. She’d built quite a little following, too, and unexpectedly became one of Waterford’s strongest marketing tools, along with Darcy’s hilarious Instagram account of dogs being groomed. “She doesn’t usually blog about my patients.” Or their owners. “Did she mention Trace?” Molly tried to not let her voice rise with low-key panic.
But Pru looked up, eyeing her suspiciously. “Why does it matter so much?”
Of course she’d pick up every nuance. “I don’t know,” Molly said, trying to sound like she didn’t care. “It’s just that…”
“I know, Mom.” Pru reached over and patted Molly’s arm. “He’s a murderer. Working at Waterford. It’s a little scandalous.”
A lot of things were scandalous where Trace Bancroft was concerned. “That’s not why I asked,” she said. “And you have to let go of that. He’s out of prison, and he’s going to help train some dogs at Waterford while Meatball is recovering.”
“Mom, please. I know he’s rehabilitated, and it’s quite forward-thinking of us to help him out.”
Molly swallowed, taking in her sometimes too mature daughter.
“That’s why I went and talked to him last night,” Pru said.
“I knew it,” she murmured, only a teensy bit satisfied that she understood her daughter better than anyone else.
“Well, Grandpa embarrassed me at dinner,” she admitted sheepishly. “I shouldn’t be creeped out by the man because he murdered in cold blood.”
He didn’t murder in cold blood. “Were you? Creeped out, I mean.”
“Not at all,” she said, pulling her seat belt on. “He was really nice. And so worried about his dog. He even had a nickname for me.”
“He did?” There went that voice on high again.
“Umproo,” she said with a smile, then waved it off. “Inside joke.”
She had an inside joke with Trace now? Molly didn’t even begin to understand the emotions that kneaded her chest like kitten paws.
“We just need to be careful around him,” Pru said, sounding more like the mom than the daughter, a role reversal they often joked about. Pru was neat, Molly loved clutter. Pru was on time, Molly had to set her watch ahead not to be late. Pru was a rule-follower and Molly…got pregnant in a Plymouth Voyager with a bad boy.
“Why do we have to be careful?” Molly asked, swiping that last thought away as fast as it came.
“He could do it again.”
“Honey, you don’t even know what happened.”
“Do you?”
Molly stared straight ahead and twisted the key in the ignition. “It’s not my place to tell you. Let him.”
“But you know? Was it cold-blooded? Premeditated? What weapon did he use?”
No, no, and only his two hands to protect a woman being assaulted. But Molly shook her head and knew exactly how to get Pru to stop asking. “He can tell you,” she said. “As a matter of fact, we’re going to get him now and you can ask him.”
As she pulled out of the parking spot, she caught a glimpse of Pru’s mouth open in shock. “Right now?”
“Yep, so you can talk to him.”
“About committing a murder?” She shifted in her seat and returned her attention to the phone, thumbing so fast Molly doubted she was reading a word. “No, thank you. And you can relax, Gramma doesn’t mention he was in the pokey for fourteen years.”
Molly didn’t laugh, even though Pru’s tone was funny, and “in the pokey” would have been something they’d have laughed about…before Trace. Truth was, this was going to upset Pru’s world worse than Molly imagined.
“Then you might as well know all the bad news,” Molly said softly.
“Oh, don’t worry, Mom. I already know you’re canceling this weekend.”
“How do you know that?”
She held up the phone. “Because Gramma’s blog says Meatball had another surgery this morning.” She had nothing but disappointment in her voice, which Molly understood. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t, but Molly didn’t fight it. She couldn’t make that trip this weekend unless Trace was on board and told Pru ahead of time.
Pru shoved the phone into her backpack and turned to stare out the window. “I hate that guy for ruining our weekend.”
Molly sighed. She might hate him for more than that very, very soon.
* * *
Trace heard the car pull up outside the house around five thirty and pushed himself out of a noisy, thirty-year-old recliner to answer the door. But before he took two steps, he heard voices…plural. Female voices.
Dipping down to peer between broken plastic blinds, he felt his heart skip when he saw the long, dark hair and waiflike form of…his daughter. It was the first time he’d seen her since he’d known the truth, and if she’d have been sprinkled in sunshine and glitter, she couldn’t have looked more beautiful to him.
Along with the woman next to her, who was every bit as beautiful in a completely different way. Molly said nothing as Pru stood stone-still, put her hands on her hips, and took in the run-down eyesore where he’d grown up. Here and Huttonsville Correctional Center—the only two places he could call home.
Shame crawled up his body, pressing against his skin like another tattoo. Conflicting emotions, the two that had been at war in his head and heart for the last three hours, took up their battle positions again and started firing bullets into his brain.
Tell her because she’s your daughter and you have a right to know her.
Run away and forget her before you ruin her life and humiliate the poor kid.
Of course, it wasn’t entirely his decision, but Molly seemed as hell-bent on taking the high ground as she claimed her daughter was. All he could do now was…answer the door.
One of them tapped lightly, probably because making contact with the door would give them germs. Damn it. He’d stood here debating like an idiot, and now they’d see the inside. He should have been waiting out on the street where he had Molly drop him off earlier.
Taking a steadying breath, he opened the door and looked from one to the other. Blinding, both of them. One delicate, innocent, young, and…good God, she had his mother’s little nose, and that tiny cleft in her chin was not unlike the deeper one in his. How had he missed that last night?
Because he’d had no idea he was chatting with his daughter.
“Hello, Trace.” Molly held his gaze, a challenge and apology and question all at the same time in her eyes. She still looked a little tired and stressed, but she wore it so well, he could have…
No. No kissing. Ever.
“Hey,” he said, adding a regretful smile. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“You live here?” Pru asked, trying valiantly to hide her distaste.
“I don’t exactly live anywhere,” he said. “But my mother owned this house, and when she died, it became mine.”
“I didn’t know your mother died, Trace,” Molly said. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you know his mother?” Pru asked.
Oh, nothing was going to get by this one, Trace thought. Not a single thing.
“Actually, no, I never met her.” Molly looked beyond him, clearly hoping for a fast change of subject. “Can we come in?”
Holy shit, no. He scratched his jaw, angling his head in invitation. “Yeah, sure. But there’s not much to see.”
Pru went first, leaving Molly and Trace to look at each other and silently communicate a fast what the hell? and sorry to each other. If it hadn’t been potentially the most emotionally fraught moment of his life since that bastard of a judge handed down sentencing, Trace would have actually gotten a kick out of the fact that he and Molly could silently communicate.
After all, it wasn’t like they’d had a relationship. Just sex. Really amazing teenage sex fourteen years ago.
He had to let that go.
“It’s actually got decent bones.” The unrequested assessment pulled him back to the result of that sex. Pru stood between the kitchen and living room, looking out of place in her sharp jeans and crisp white shirt and navy-blue hoodie with a WF logo that matched the one on the front gate of Waterford Farm.
She looked clean and preppie and all wrong in front of his mother’s tie-dyed peace symbol sheet hanging on one wall and a painting of a sun and moon with faces that she bought at a flea market on the other.
“Who has decent bones?” Molly asked, her voice tight enough to tell Trace she was every bit as nervous as he was.
“This house,” Pru said. “You could live here.”
“Until it rains.” He pointed to the ceiling and a huge watermark in the shape of Australia. “Also, the plumbing’s a little iffy, and two windows are broken.”
“So it’s a good thing you’re moving to Waterford for a while,” Molly said.
“You’re going to live at Waterford?” Pru asked, her voice catching in disbelief. “In the house?”
“In the training student housing,” he said simply, trying not to react to her absolute disgust for the alternative.
“But you’re not staying here?” she pressed.
“I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. Guess a lot depended on how she took the news.
“Pru.” Molly’s voice had enough of a motherly reprimand to get a reaction from the kid. “I don’t know if that’s any of your business.” The bite left her voice by the last word because, as they both knew, it sure as hell was Pru’s business.
She just didn’t know that yet.
“I’m thinking,” Pru said. “Can I look around? Is that okay?”
A little surprised by the request, Trace nodded. “There’s not much to see. One bathroom, two bedrooms, and this. Fair warning, no one has been in this house for a long time. Might see a dead bug or two.”
And his mom must have blown out of here in a hurry, because all her old stuff was still in the bedroom, boxes of crap he’d have to throw away at some point.
She shrugged. “Bugs don’t scare me.” She walked off with a bit of toughness and square shoulders that told him so much about her and made him want to know more.
When she left, he looked at Molly, who watched her, too.
“When?” he whispered.
She just closed her eyes.
“Why don’t I take my bag to your car?” he suggested, and she nodded, getting the hint that they could talk outside.
“That’s all you have?” she asked as he picked up a duffel bag.
“In the whole world.”
She sighed at that. “Pru? I’ll be right back.”
“You need closet doors!” she called back, making Trace bite back a laugh.
“At the very least.” He opened the front door to let Molly step out. “She’s…something.”
That made Molly smile. “Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out what.”
“Other than amazing?”
She beamed up at him, the mom pride bringing out a gorgeous green light in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. “Thanks,” she said, her voice still very soft, so the words didn’t travel through the door he’d left open. “She is amazing. And this is really hard. I don’t know what to do, but I think we have to do something. We have to tell her.”
“We?” He gave a slight smile. “You still like that plan.”
“I’m honoring your role in this.”
The words squeezed his chest. “Wow.”
“Wow, what?” she asked as she lifted the small hatchback.
“Wow, I don’t think anyone has ever honored anything of mine in my entire life.”
She searched his face, her shoulders sinking a bit as the words visibly hit her heart. “That’s…sad.”
“Don’t mean it to be. Molly, what should we do?” he asked after a beat.
“Tell her?”
“God, it’ll wreck her. It’ll hurt her. In one second, with one confession that makes us both feel better, you’ll take her perfect little life and turn it upside down and inside out.”
For a long time, she stared at him. “I can’t believe you.”
“What?” He drew back. “Do you want to tell her that badly?”
“No, I mean I can’t believe you…you get that. It takes a parent to get something like that.”
He smiled. “I am a parent. Now.”
“Well, I appreciate the way you’re approaching this. So, what do you want to do? What would be your number one choice?”
The fact that she was giving him a choice practically clamped his throat with gratitude. “I’d still like to wait a little,” he admitted. “I’d really like her to know me first. Not, you know, like best pals, but to see that I’m not a killer who lives in a hovel. Well, I am, but…”
“There’s more than meets the eye.”
More gratitude strangled. “Yeah.”
She let out a slow sigh. “That’s fair. I don’t know how long I can put her off, but—”
“I have it! I got it!” Pru came tearing out of the house, both hands extended in victory like she’d just crossed the finish line and broken the ribbon. “I know what my community service project is going to be!”
Her what?
“What is it, Pru?” Molly asked.
“Oh, please say yes,” she replied, directing the request to Trace. “Please, please say yes, because if I can do this and take pictures and get an interview with you, I might not only get the trip to Carowinds, I could win the state competition for best community service project. Heck, I could go national!”
Nothing made sense, not a thing. But he couldn’t help smiling because her enthusiasm was infectious.
“Pru, what would the project be?” Molly asked, clearly a little more in the know than he was.
“This house!” she exclaimed with a loud clap. “I can help you fix up this house. I mean, not the roof and plumbing, but I can paint and clean and fix it all up so you can live here again or sell it or whatever, and can you even imagine?”
“Imagine the house fixed up?” he asked. “Yeah, I could. It would be a lot of work.”
“Can you imagine how I would blow everyone else out of the community service water if I did a house renovation for a mur…a guy…a con…a person who was in prison?” Color rose on her cheeks, diminishing some of her excitement and turning into embarrassment.
As he knew it would.
“I mean, as community service projects go, this one would beat even those overachiever Eagle Scouts who like to collect canned goods or give used books to libraries. This would rock. So would you be okay with that?” Pru asked him. “How would it make you feel?”
Other than humiliated and confused and maybe a little bit excited to help her? “Uh, great. Yeah. I mean, I’d be impressed if I were judging.”
“You can’t judge if you’re part of the project,” Pru said, as if the rules mattered as much as the project itself. “And you’re not immediate family, so it’s perfect and valid.”
It took everything in him not to exchange a look with Molly. A look that might have given away the truth that he most certainly was immediate family.
Molly stepped forward. “Pru, are you sure you want to take on something this big? It’ll be much more than twenty-five hours.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “I could work evenings and weekends and enlist some friends who want hours but aren’t going to compete for the state prize. Oh, please say yes.” She looked from one to the other, a classic kid pleading with her parents.
Only this one had no idea these were her parents.
“Twenty-five hours?” Trace asked.
“That’s all. Twenty-five hours.” Pru beamed at him. “Please, Mr. Bancroft. Pretty, pretty please with lots of paint and curtains and nice stuff on top.” She put her hands up in a prayer position. “Please.”
He laughed in spite of himself, in spite of the fact that it was crazy, in spite of the fact that nothing was funny. But deep inside, all he could think was that after twenty-five hours, she’d know him well enough to maybe not have the truth wreck her. Maybe.
“If your mom says it’s okay.”
They both looked at Molly, who was a little pale, but she nodded.
“Oh, thank you, Mommy!” She threw her arms around Molly and looked up at Trace. “And thank you. It’s just twenty-five hours, I promise.”
When she pulled away, he shared a look with Molly, and they both said the same thing at the same time. “Twenty-five hours.”
That’s how much time he had to make his kid like him. Until then, he was her personal community service project. Great.
Actually, it kind of was.