Chapter Fourteen
Molly parked her car in one of the few empty spaces at the fairgrounds and sighed out loud. She pulled down the visor on the driver’s side of the car and flicked the cover open, looking at her reflection. She stared at herself, searching for the woman, the doctor the world saw, but she didn’t see that woman.
She saw the girl, the twenty-year-old. Maybe that was when she’d stopped being the real Molly. All these years she’d been this other Molly—the shell. The other one, the real her, was gone. She blinked, noting the fine lines beside her eyes and wondered if they were from nights filled with tears and crying herself to sleep, or if they were from too many night shifts at the hospital. She ran her index finger over her mouth briefly, remembering Ben’s kisses, the only kisses in so many years, and she wondered how she’d been able to go on without him, without anyone. Was she cold? Was there something seriously wrong with her that she could have shut out so many people?
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath before opening them again. She’d rehearsed what she was going to tell him. This time, the eyes she stared into were her own, and she saw the warmth. She saw that she was a good person, one who loved and cared deeply, but one who had been deeply wounded and scarred and had retreated inside. But no more. Life was too short, too unpredictable to keep playing it safe. Ben was in her life again. He was falling in love with her again, and she knew she wouldn’t take that for granted. She was a grown woman, and she knew her mother had been dead wrong about everything.
She grabbed her small pumpkin-shaped straw purse and clutched the handle tightly, opening her car door. She was ready to face her future.
She was twenty all over again.
Her heart raced, like she was still the optimistic, idealistic girl who thought she had her whole world in front of her. Her gaze cherished the sight of Ben in the distance, in his strong, tall form, in his beautiful masculinity.
She stood still as the memory of them nine years ago, standing out there, washed over her, drowning her in waves of feeling. Everything had been perfect then—their plans, their future. They had been so confident. They had known what they wanted—each other. They had spent the day at the festival eating and kissing and holding hands. They had danced under the stars, and when dusk turned into night, Ben had dropped down on one knee and told her that he didn’t have a ring yet, and he knew she was too young, but he promised her that she was the only woman he would ever want and that when she was ready, he would marry her.
He’d taken her breath away. He’d been so handsome and strong and fearless. He’d been her rock, her everything, and she had known that marrying him was right.
She inhaled shakily, her eyes still on him. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t go back to that night. She needed to move forward. She needed to fix the present.
She took a step forward and then another, slowly making her way through the crowd, but following the string of white twinkling lights. The warm autumn breeze held a note of nighttime to it, and the scent of pumpkin and cinnamon hung on, despite the vendors getting ready to close. The band was still playing, and kids were still running around; people strolled through the rows of craft tables and food stands.
Her heart squeezed when she saw Ben look down at his watch. She took a deep breath and pulled her cardigan a little closer as a nervous shiver stole through her. She picked up her pace, not wanting him to doubt her, and cursed Addie for making her order the sandals with the three-inch heels—not practical for a harvest festival.
She was almost at the edge of the field when he turned in the opposite direction and started walking away. She ran forward a few steps and yelled his name, just in time for him to turn around and witness her heels getting stuck in the soft ground while the rest of her body was still moving forward with momentum and then crashing to the ground with a thud and a roar of outrage.
“Crap, are you okay?” Ben’s hands were on her shoulders and helping her up.
“This is all your fault, Ben,” she grumbled, trying to wipe the mud stain off the front of her overpriced but impossibly adorable dress.
“What? How?”
She glared up at him. “I was chasing after you because you were walking away! Look at these heels; these aren’t chasing shoes. This isn’t a running competition!”
His lips twitched for a moment, his brown eyes twinkling. “Well, because we know what would happen if it were…”
She punched him in the shoulder as his voice trailed off. Instead of continuing the banter, he gave a low laugh and pulled her into his arms. She instinctively wrapped her arms around him, even though he was technically still laughing at her. “I’m sorry I was late,” she whispered against his hard chest.
He pulled back slightly. “You don’t have to apologize. Oh no, Finn is coming this way,” Ben said, with a frown, looking over his shoulder.
Molly laughed, and he put his arm around her as Finn approached. Soon they were surrounded by old friends. Music filled the air and Molly and Ben laughed and talked to their friends. Chase and Julia Donovan had joined them, along with Luke and Gwen, and Lily and Jack Bailey. For that hour, she felt as though nothing had ever changed. She felt welcome; she felt at home. She didn’t want to leave again. She wanted to believe this was a new beginning.
“Well, Ben, are you going to introduce me to your fiancée?”
Molly turned in the direction of the deep voice filled with amusement.
“Sir, I’d like you to meet Molly Mayberry,” Ben said, his voice filled with pride.
Molly shook the older man’s hand and smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
He chuckled. “Well, I have to say, I didn’t think you actually existed. But I’m pleased Ben has finally settled down. Mayberry…you’re Marlene’s daughter?”
“Yes, she is. My eldest daughter has finally come home to head up the pediatric ward at the hospital.”
Molly stiffened as her mother appeared. Her mother had her fake smile on, and Molly felt the urge to run. She knew Ben would want to confront her, but she knew he would never do it publicly. The air suddenly felt cold, and she noticed the sun was completely gone, the blanket of night surrounding them.
“You must be very proud,” Chief Wade said to her mother.
Her mother lifted her chin, her fake smile not faltering an inch. “And what about you, Ben? Have you decided to postpone your run to be the next fire chief?”
Molly’s stomach dropped. The entire group stopped talking, and she felt Ben tense beside her. Oh, God. “No, I haven’t, Marlene. Why would I do that?”
Molly wanted to pull him away. Her mother’s gaze snapped to her, her eyes flashing. She had actually believed Molly would do it.
“Ben is an exceptional firefighter and leader,” Chief Wade said, and Molly hated that she couldn’t have enjoyed hearing that praise, because she was so focused on the tension between her and her mother and Ben. “You will make quite the power couple.”
“They definitely will. It takes a big man to put aside the fact that his future wife was a teenage unwed mother who gave her baby up for adoption.”
…
Ben felt that blow as though it had been made for him. Molly’s hand dropped out of his, and he immediately grasped it, trying to remain calm, trying to reign in the rage coursing through his body. “I’m very proud of Molly, and I always have been. I’m even more in love with her than I was nine years ago and can’t wait to get married. If you’ll excuse us, we have a busy night ahead of us,” he said. Everyone mumbled a goodbye, but he didn’t wait to hear it. He wanted to get Molly away from her mother and away from everything her mother was trying to do.
She walked beside him and when he glanced over at her, his stomach churned at the way her chin trembled. But she held her head high and her shoulders were back as they walked away. Her hand clutched his tightly, and they walked in silence until they reached his truck. He opened the door for her.
“Molly,” he said, tugging her hand to stop her from getting in.
She turned to look up at him, her eyes shining with a pain that hurt to look at. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He pulled her into him, and she wrapped her arms around him. “I just want to get out of here,” she said.
“Okay. Let’s go,” he said, closing her door and taking a deep breath. He needed to focus on being what she needed and not flying into a rage over her mother. They drove back to his place in silence, and he had no idea what to expect from her when they arrived back home. He had thought this night would have led them in a very different direction. He also knew that he wasn’t going to let Marlene get away with any of this.
Ben unlocked the door to his house and held it open for Molly. He watched her make a beeline for the bottle of merlot he kept on hand for her; he knew she was fighting nerves and hurt. He was torn between anger and sympathy, anger for what she’d been through and sympathy for the woman who was trying so damn hard to overcome her demons.
“Why would your mother try to humiliate you like that?” he asked, leaning against the counter as she poured herself a hefty glass.
She took a sip and then looked down at the counter. “She approached me a couple weeks ago about not wanting you to get the position of fire chief. I think in her sick, twisted mind she thought that by humiliating me and you tonight that you’d leave me. You’d look bad in front of Darren, and then Dan would be favored for the promotion.”
Hell, that was cruel. “Let’s get something very clear, before this conversation goes any further.”
She took another long drink, still not looking at him.
“She didn’t humiliate me tonight. There’s nothing she could say about you that would humiliate me, Molly. I got the hell out of there for your sake. I wasn’t running, but I didn’t want you standing there, under attack like that.”
She looked up at him, and her eyes glistened with something pretty damn close to love. He’d take it, because he hadn’t seen that in a helluva long time, and that look, from Molly, was all he wanted. “This isn’t how I wanted our night to end. I want to pretend it didn’t happen. I don’t want my mother to have that power in my life anymore.”
“Then let’s not think about it tonight,” he said.
She nodded and then finished her glass of wine and placed it on the counter. She looked up at him, her blue eyes filled with panic even though she gave him a wobbly smile. It only pulled at his heartstrings even more. Instead of remembering her face looking heady with desire as it had when he’d kissed her before her mother ruined everything, he remembered when they’d been together: Molly had wanted him just as much as he’d wanted her. Their chemistry had been off the charts—something he’d never experienced again with anyone. When he’d kissed her tonight, it had been the same earth-shattering hotness. He knew it was the same for her. But then she’d closed up. It was okay. He was going to be patient.
He locked the door, mostly because his brother was notorious for bursting into his place unaccounted. Especially after tonight’s display at Harvest Fest, he didn’t want anyone bothering them. Tonight, he wanted it to be the two of them. He wanted that connection with her, to build that trust with her again. Tomorrow…tomorrow he’d find a way to deal with her mother.
He eyed Molly who was now refilling glass. She raised it to her lips and glanced over at him. Her face turned red, and she lowered the glass without taking a sip. “Did you want a beer?”
“No,” he said, walking toward her slowly. Her blue eyes grew wider, and she took a large gulp—like the kind of gulp a person would take if they needed to get wasted really fast—and then took a deep breath.
“Okay. Well, I’m a bit tense. First my mother and then…I think I need to settle down first.”
“Hey, we don’t have to do this. No pressure. I told you that.”
She nodded and then held up her index finger, apparently signaling for him to wait while she downed another quarter of her wine glass. “I know you. I want to do this. I’ve always wanted to do this…with you. When I was twenty and insecure and head over heels in love with you, I would go to bed at night imagining what it would be like. What you would be like,” she whispered, looking up at him, all her vulnerabilities shining in her blue eyes.
He swallowed past the emotion in his throat and stepped close to her, watching the way her pulse accelerated, the way her cheeks turned pink. He stood close enough that he caught the scent of lilacs, close enough that he could bend down and kiss her. “Molly, you have no idea how many times I would imagine the same things. I’ve been blessed with a very good imagination.”
He smiled when she laughed.
“But I knew how good we would be together. Right from day one. I still know. Now. Everything.”
Doubt still shone in her eyes, and she raised her wine glass. He didn’t want her to think he was telling her what to do or that he was judging her, but if she finished that glass, they wouldn’t be ending their night in bed. He would not take advantage of her. “Can you put the wine glass down, sweetheart? I don’t want you to be drunk. I don’t want you to need something to numb you before I make love to you. If you need that, you’re not ready and that’s okay, Molly.”
She nodded and placed the glass down on the counter. “Can I tell you something?”
He nodded, wanting to touch her, but resisting. He crammed his fists into his front pockets and listened, just trying to be whatever she needed him to be.
“I feel incredibly stupid and vulnerable. I am thirty years old. I finished school years before I was supposed to. I am a doctor. I have been living a lie for nine years. I would go around and think something was wrong with me. Colleagues would date, would gossip about their love lives, who they slept with, who had had great sex on the weekend, who was getting married…and I just stood there on the sidelines, fake smiling or fake laughing. Sometimes I’d make up fake boyfriends. Everything about me was fake. Inside I was this frightened girl. I hated working with men when I first started. I hated working late nights. I’d never park my car in the underground parking area. I would break out in a sweat when I had to go back to my condo at night. I called you. I would call sometimes just to hear your voice. Sometimes I’d want to just talk to you, like we used to.”
He stared at her, his teeth clenched so tight, his nails grinding in the palms of his hands, because she killed him. He ached for her. He wanted nothing more than to take it all away, to give her a new life, one where she never had to worry about anything, where she could be cherished and protected and feel safe. He pushed his thoughts aside because she didn’t want his pity. He slowly raised his hand to cradle the nape of her neck. “I wished you had. I used to hear your voice. I used to imagine that one day you’d just walk through the door and tell me you were sorry and had made a horrible mistake.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Would you have taken me back?”
“Always,” he whispered, finally lowering his head to her mouth. “You’ve always owned a part of me, Molly.” He kissed her gently, waiting for her to touch him, to move into him. When she did, he deepened the kiss. He felt her soft curves press into him, and he wrapped his arms around, feeling her knees wobble. He lifted her onto the counter, and she wrapped her legs around him. His hands framed her face and he looked into her eyes—reading the desire in them, feeling the ache in his body—and felt humbled by the enormity of what she was entrusting him with.
He kissed her again, this time with the urgency and passion he’d always had for her. She gave it right back, and he felt the difference in her, the relinquishing of control as her fingers tugged at the hair at the back of his neck. He lifted her off the counter and carried her to his room, placing her on the bed and then lying on top of her, his weight on his forearms, wanting to give her time to adjust to where they were going from here.
“Ben,” she whispered, pulling back slightly.
He immediately stilled. “Yes.”
“I don’t know if I can promise anything. Tomorrow or a future or—”
“I don’t care,” he whispered harshly. “I don’t care. I just can’t handle one more day without you. Molly, you have always been the woman I’ve wanted. God, I missed you,” he said, kissing her again, trailing kisses down her neck, until he felt her back arch toward him.
He kissed her, her warning floating to the back of his mind, as he concentrated on the moment in front of him. He kissed her, remembering the girl she was, the girl he’d lost. He kissed her, the woman she had become, the one he knew he still loved, the one he wanted to have another chance at forever with.