every child in the room demanding his attention. He solemnly accepted the offerings, treated each as if it was a culinary adventure from the five-star restaurant he was dressed for.
He began to really let loose—something Molly sensed was very rare in this extremely controlled man. He began to narrate his culinary adventure, causing spasms of laughter from the children, and from her.
He did Bugs Bunny impressions. He asked for recipes. He used words she would have to look up in the dictionary.
And then he laughed.
Just like he had laughed in the garden. It was possibly the richest sound she had ever heard, deep, genuine, true.
She thought of all the times she had convinced Chuck to do “fun” things with her, the thing she deemed an in-love couple should do that week. Roller-skating, bike riding, days on the beaches of Long Island, a skiing holiday in Vermont. Usually paid for by her of course, and falling desperately short of her expectations.
Always, she had so carefully set up the picture, trying to make herself feel some kind of magic that had been promised to her in songs, and in movies and in storybooks.
Molly had tried so hard to manufacture the exact feeling she was experiencing in this moment. She had thought if she managed this outing correctly she would show Houston Whitford the real Second Chances.
What she had not expected was to see Houston Whitford so clearly, to see how a human being could shine.
What if this was what was most real about him? What if this was him, this man who was so unexpectedly full of laughter and light around these children?
What if he was one of those rare men who were made to be daddies? Funny, playful, able to fully engage with children?
“I told you, you don’t laugh enough,” she whispered to him.
“Ah, Miss Molly, it’s hard for me to admit you might be right.” And then he smiled at her, and it seemed as if the whole world faded and it was just the two of them in this room, sharing something deep and splendid.
Molly found herself wanting to capture these moments, to hold them, to keep them. She remembered the camera he had given her, took it out and clicked as he took a very mashed celery stick from a child.
“The best yet,” she heard him say. “To die for. But I can’t eat another bite. Not one.”
But he took one more anyway, and then he closed his eyes, and patted his flat belly, pretending to push it out against his hand. The children howled with laughter. She took another picture, and Molly laughed, too, at his antics, but underneath her laughter was a growing awareness.
She had thought bringing Houston to her projects would show her the real Houston Whitford. And that was true.
Unfortunately, if this laughing carefree man was the real Houston, it made her new boss even more attractive, not less! It made her way too aware of the Molly that had never been put behind her after all—the Molly who yearned and longed, and ultimately believed.
“Will you stay for story time?”
No. Nothing that ended happily-ever-after! Please! She suddenly wanted to get him out of here. Felt as if something about her plot to win his heart was backfiring badly. She had wanted to win him over for Second Chances! Not for herself.
He was winning her heart instead of her winning his, and it had not a single thing to do with Second Chances.
“Not possible,” Molly said, quickly, urgently. “Sorry.”
It wasn’t on the schedule to stay, thank goodness, but even before the children started begging him, it seemed every one of them tugging on some part of him to get him up off the floor, his eyes met Molly’s and she knew they weren’t going anywhere.
With handprints and food stains all over the pristine white of that shirt, Houston allowed himself to be dragged to the sinks, where he obediently washed his own hands, and then one by one helped each of the children wash theirs.
After he washed “Princess’s” face, the same child who had sat beside him at snack, she crooked her finger at him. He bent down, obviously thinking, as Molly did, that the tiny tot had some important secret to tell him.
Instead she kissed him noisily on his cheek.
Molly held out the camera, framed the exquisite moment. Click.
He straightened slowly, blushing wildly.
Click. She found herself hoping that she was an accomplished enough photographer to capture that look on his face.
“Did you turn me into a prince, little princess?” Houston asked.
The girl regarded him solemnly. “No.”
But that’s not how Molly felt, at all. A man she had been determined to see as a toad had turned into a prince before her eyes.
Again she realized that this excursion was not telling her as much about Houston Whitford as it was telling her about herself.
She wanted the things she had always wanted, more desperately than ever.
And that sense of desperation only grew as Molly watched as Houston, captive now, like Gulliver in the land of little people, was led over to the story area. He chose to sit on the floor, all the children crowding around him. By the time they were settled each of those children seemed to have claimed some small part of him, to touch, even if it was just the exquisitely crafted soft leather of his shoe. His “little princess” crawled into his lap, plopped her thumb in her mouth and promptly went to sleep.
Molly could not have said what one of those stories was about by the time they left a half hour later, Houston handing over the still sleeping child.
As she watched him, she was in the grip of a tenderness so acute it felt as if her throat was closing.
Molly was stunned. The thing she had been trying to avoid because she knew how badly it would weaken her—was exactly what she had been brought.
She was seeing Houston Whitford in the context of family. Watching him, she felt his strength, his protectiveness, his heart.
She had waited her whole life to feel this exquisite tenderness for another person.
It was all wrong. There was no candlelight. It smelled suspiciously like the little girl might have had an accident in her sleep.
Love was supposed to come first. And then these moments of glory.
What did it mean? That she had experienced such a moment for Houston? Did it mean love would come next? That she could fall in love with this complicated man who was her boss?
No, that was exactly what she was not doing! No more wishing, dreaming! Being held prisoner by fantasies.
No more.
But as she looked at him handing over that sleeping little girl, it felt like she was being blinded by the light in him, drawn to the power and warmth of it.
Moth to flame, Molly chastised herself
