he’d stashed her car in the barn and assured her she could always come to him, but he hadn’t actually thought she was moving in.
“Uh, Molly, just how long are you planning on staying?” he asked. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep his sanity with her living here.
The honey-toned skin on her face turned red, and she stammered, “I didn’t think—I should have asked—I shouldn’t have just assumed I could stay. You have a life of your own. You’ve always known what you want.”
Her. He’d always wanted her.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” she continued, her words rushing together. “I don’t want to mess up your life like I’ve messed up my own.”
“Molly, you’re not messing up my life.”
“But I don’t want to get you in trouble with your girlfriend.”
“You don’t have to worry about my girlfriend.”
“She’s understanding, then?” Molly asked anxiously. “She knows we’re just friends?”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to worry about my girlfriend because I don’t have one.”
Her slim shoulders slumped, as if she was relieved. Was it just because she felt she had no place else to stay?
“But you have a fiancé,” he reminded her.
She reached for the veil that Eric had dropped on the counter and knotted her fingers in the lace. A square diamond glinted on her left hand. “I don’t anymore.”
“Does he know that?” Eric wondered.
“He’s a smart guy,” she said. “I think he probably figured out our engagement was over when I went out the window.”
The thought of perfect little Molly slipping out a church window had a chuckle rumbling in his throat. “You really went out the window? You—Molly McClintock?”
“You don’t need to sound so shocked,” she protested, sounding offended.
“Going out a window is something Abby Hamilton might do.” He referred to another member of their group of friends, the one who had always gotten into trouble. And had occasionally gotten the rest of them into trouble, as well. He glanced down at the tattoo encircling his arm. Getting ‘tats’ had been Abby’s idea, yet she was the only one of the friends who hadn’t actually gotten “inked.”
“She’s back, you know,” Molly said, her eyes glimmering with happiness.
“That’s great. I can’t wait to see her.” Abby Hamilton had left town eight years ago, and she hadn’t returned once to Cloverville. But since then Eric had visited her and her daughter a couple of times in Detroit and Chicago.
“You would have seen her and Lara if you had come to the rehearsal dinner last night.”
But then he would have had to see Molly’s fiancé, too. Not that he hadn’t seen Dr. Josh Towers before. The plastic surgeon was on staff at the hospital in Grand Rapids where Eric often brought patients, via ambulance or aeromed helicopter. Eric had skipped the rehearsal because he hadn’t wanted to see Towers with Molly, holding hands, kissing. Whatever people in love did.
He had never really been “in love.” He didn’t count the crush he’d had on Molly in the second grade and for most of the following years. But even with his limited experience, he doubted that people in love climbed out windows and left their beloved alone at the altar, humiliated in front of the entire town.
“It’s not like you to take off this way,” Eric pointed out. “And Abby’s not been back long enough to be a bad influence on you again.”
Despite the tattoo, Eric had considered Abby more good influence than bad; she had taught them all how to have fun. But Clayton, Molly’s older brother, had always considered her to be nothing but trouble.
“Who was really the bad influence on whom?” Molly asked as she flashed a smile. “Abby doesn’t have a tattoo.”
Eric closed his eyes as he remembered where Molly had gotten hers—not that a shoulder blade was a particularly sexy spot, but she’d had to strip down to her bra so that the artist could tattoo an open book onto her skin. Because she’d been in pain, she’d wanted Eric to hold her hand.
And that was why she’d come to him now—because she was in pain. He wouldn’t push her for answers she didn’t have. He would just hold her hand. He reached for her fingers and linked them with his. “It doesn’t matter what you did or why, you’re always welcome here.”
She stared up at him. “You really don’t mind that I stay?”
“You can stay however long you want,” he assured her.
Molly rose from the stool and pressed her body against his, sliding her arm around his back to hold him tight—as if she needed someone to hold on to to keep herself from falling over or falling apart.
His body tensed as she clung to him. One of her curls tickled his chin as her soft hair brushed his ear and his neck. He resisted the urge to pull her closer yet and press his lips to hers.
“Thank you, Eric. I knew I could count on you.” She slammed the heel of her hand against his shoulder. “Even though you bailed on me. You never said why you backed out of standing up for me.”
He couldn’t tell her; he couldn’t add to her burden. She already had one man in love with her whom she apparently didn’t love back—or hadn’t loved enough to marry. Not that Eric was really in love with her, but old crushes died hard. At least that was the way it was with his crush on her.
“Molly, I—”
“If it wasn’t because of your scar, why did you change your mind about being in my wedding party?” Her dark eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You knew, didn’t you? You’ve always known me so well. You knew I was making a mistake and you didn’t want to be part of it.”
“It all seemed kind of sudden,” he admitted. She’d certainly taken him by surprise. He hadn’t even realized she was dating anyone when she announced her engagement.
“Too sudden,” she agreed as she pulled herself from his arms to pace back into the living room.
“So that’s why you went out the window?” Because it was too soon and not because she didn’t love her fiancé?
The phone jangled again, but this time Eric let it ring.
“You’re not going to answer it?”
He shook his head. “It’s one of them—Colleen or Abby or Brenna.” Brenna Kelly, the maid of honor, had been perhaps the most upset of Molly’s friends and family. She’d always been the mother of their group of friends.
“I asked them to leave me alone, so I could think,” Molly murmured.
“You left a note.” Abby had told him about the note pinned to the wedding dress, which had been addressed to her and not the groom.
“I
