Taking the Fall (16 page)

Hunter got out of his Jeep, grabbing the two bottles of water that became a habit and joined her on the paved path. Praying his self-control over his lower half wouldn’t pick now to fail him.

“Morning.”

“Hi,” she answered nice enough but avoided any sort of eye contact.

Hunter stretched too, twisting at the waist before lifting his knees high to stretch both the quadriceps and hamstrings.

Hunter cleared his throat a couple of times to see if she would react, but if anything, every time he did, she looked in another direction all further from where he stood.

“Ready?” she asked still without looking at him.

“Absolutely,” he answered kindly placing a bottle of water in each pocket of his track pants.

Molly began to jog.

So, we are running today. Interesting. Wonder if she is trying to run away from me?

“Like that is going to happen,” he muttered to himself.

Hunter caught up to her easily enough, falling into stride with her. They ran the first quarter mile in silence except for their steady breathing and the slosh of the water bottles in Hunter’s pockets. When they were closing in on the half-mile mark, Hunter’s curiosity got the best of him.

“Are we going for three miles of silence?”

Molly’s pace slowed, eventually stopping. She turned and looked at him with her hands on her hips.

Finally.

With a pinch of her face, which Hunter assumed meant something unpleasant, he waited for her to speak.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly as she looked at her feet.

Even though he wanted to question what she could possibly have to apologize for, his mind plotted another course—one that held the events of the past. Was she finally going to address what occurred all those years ago?

Was he ready for the answer?

“For?”

Stay in the present. Stay in the here and now, Hunter.

Now she looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. With the slightest smile on her face, her head dipping a bit and her brows going upward, she was obviously thinking her reason for an apology was apparent.

Her green eyes waited and when enough time had passed, she raised her hand turning it palm side up to indicate she was in fact waiting for him to reason it out.

She really does look adorable when she does that.

“Honestly, Molly, I don’t get it.”

A smile crossed her face and she crossed her arms. The action had her breasts pushing together and he couldn’t help but let his eyes stray if only for just a moment.

Thankfully, she missed it.

“You going to keep me guessing or you going to take pity on my too old brain?”

“Old? You are only a couple years older than me.” She rolled her eyes in outrage.

“I’m three years and two months older than you to be exact. Which would technically make me a few years older than you. But you are changing the subject.”

His long-winded reason had her smile growing. With the way the sun shone, her hair sparkled in a way that reminded him of the princesses that Leah used to be so obsessed with. Her jeweled eyes twinkled and her white teeth would make a gum commercial character awfully jealous. Molly Jenson truly was fabulous.

“You had wonderful news to share yesterday, and instead of celebrating with you, I kind of wigged out and vanished.”

Now it was Hunter’s turn to laugh. And laugh he did. To the extent, he actually hunched over succumbing to the fit of laughter her choice of wording had over him.

People in their vicinity were starting to take notice, so Molly grabbed a hold of his arm to bring them over to where one of the granite benches was. Neither of them sat down but at least they weren’t blocking the path any longer and this gave them a little bit more privacy.

Finally, his laughter subsided and Molly jumped to sarcasm.

“Are you quite through, Dr. Dennison?”

Her slight annoyance for some reason was humorous to him as well. When he thought he would finally be able to inhale and exhale without a fit of laughter, he asked incredulously, “Wigged out? Seriously?”

”Are you going to be serious about this or not?” She tried to be stern but was unable to keep a straight face.

As he continued to clear his throat in an attempt to stop his laughter, Molly rolled her eyes again.

“I’m trying, but like I said, beautiful, I don’t know where you are going with this.”

He watched as all the jovialness that they had just shared was gone. Her eyes went wide, her creamy porcelain cheeks reddened, and she wrapped her arms around herself in what he was sure was a defensive reaction.

The fact that he didn’t know why was killing him.

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

BINGO!

About damn time she caught on.

Rather than answer, he posed his own question.

“Why do you call everyone sweetie?”

Her brows scrunched together, looking as if she couldn’t find the connection from one to the other, but to his relief she replied, “I don’t know, it is just something I do. A habit, I guess.”

“So, why can’t that logic apply to me?” Hunter proposed with a tilt of his head. “Why can’t I use the same reasoning?”

At that moment, she looked so innocent, bringing back so many memories of times he would watch her from afar in a constant state of wonder.

Unlike before, she didn’t break the hold his eyes had on hers. She swallowed, and if ever there was a time he dreamed of taking her in his arms, it was now.

When she spoke, his heart cracked. “Because when you say it, it sounds like a special endearment rather than a habit.”

How could she not see what he was trying to tell her?

Did she not comprehend that he wasn’t satisfied with just a platonic friendship and that he wanted her for more than that?

It was time to no longer hide behind the smoke screen charade he had been playing at for more than half his life.

He pondered how to begin, even after all the years and ways he thought this would happen. When thrown into the actual situation, he had to admit he was unsure.

Honesty is the best policy.

“That particular endearment I use for you and you only. So, yes, I think it is very special. Just like I think you are.”

He had hoped unadulterated joy would overtake her when his words finally sunk in. That he would feel vindicated for all the years that had slipped away but, unfortunately, that didn’t occur. Her speechlessness wasn’t due to the emotion he had hoped, and he could clearly see when shock turned to panic. The pride he wanted to feel suddenly manifested into real fear.

Molly began taking slow steps back, distancing herself physically from him, and he feared mentally, too.

He wasn’t about to let that happen.

Extending his hand out, he grabbed hold of her forearm and halted her progress.

“Don’t run away from me, Molly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand that I find you beautiful and think you deserve to know that,” Hunter whispered, as they now stood very close. Her breasts rubbed up against his chest and he wanted to groan aloud for the sheer incredible feeling. “What I’m telling you isn’t something new for me; I’ve just been an ass and took long enough in telling you.”

He watched as her lovely eyes feverishly searched his as his heart felt the moment his words settled over her.

And this time when she stepped away from him, he allowed it.

“You know what; I’m really not up for a run anymore.”

He watched as she turned and walked back the way that had come. With her shoulders hunched and her head hung low, she raced back to her car.

Well, that didn’t exactly go as planned.

But then again, nothing ever does where you and Molly together are concerned.

She knew she was acting childish by skipping out on the rest of the weeks’ worth of morning walks, but every time she thought about what had occurred earlier in the week, she couldn’t help but panic.

And how fucked up is that.

Hunter Dennison all but came out and said the words, “I have feelings for you, Molly,” yet Molly couldn’t seem to celebrate the glory at such a realization.

Instead, she went into full-blown anxiety.

Bring on that padded room.

Regardless of the fact that she replayed his words over and over in her mind, she knew she wanted to scream her happiness from the rooftops. But no scream came, and no happiness emerged.

Denial became her friend.

She suddenly could think of hundreds of different ways this, this whatever it was, could end badly. Like really badly.

Hunter Dennison’s name might have been scribbled all over every piece of paper she’d owned in her teenage years, but that was in her control. She could crumple it up when she wanted to.

This . . . an open confession and opportunity was far from her control. And that scared her.

Hell, they weren’t kids anymore. Throw in the fact that they each had their own kids, and Molly could only focus on the bad. So many things have happened and their lives were in different places.

Weren’t they?

She just didn’t know how in the hell she was supposed to feel. Every time she felt one way, she guilted herself into feeling something else.

Her feelings for him hadn’t changed, and that was what was so hard for her.

She knew this should be such an easy answer, but she also knew the roads paved with the best of intentions weren’t always the smoothest.

She needed to weigh the chance that if things went the way of one of the painful scenarios she couldn’t rid her mind of, would she be willing to lose her friend for a non-guaranteed chance at something more?

Along with whatever “more” meant undoubtedly, there would be incredible, steamy, HOT sex.

Yes, don’t forget about the sex, Molly.

Oh, shut up!

Molly knew she was taking the coward’s way out by ignoring the situation, but honestly, she just didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, she chastised herself for not jumping into his arms when he revealed how he felt. But then, on the other hand, she would remember the pain from way back when and knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to go through it again.

There was too much at stake.

Every day since she walked away from him in the park, when the bell at the restaurant would chime indicating the door opened, her heart jumped to her throat that it would be Hunter. However, it hadn’t been for five long days.

With each passing day, she became more sure that she had missed her chance, even though it still remained up in the air as to whether she would have taken it or not.

The more time that went by seemed to solidify the fate that Hunter and she just would never be, on any plane and in any form.

You have no one to blame but yourself for that one.

As much as Molly’s mind wanted to rest with Hunter, he and the inner turmoil she was feeling had to take a backseat.

Jess was her current focus.

Convenient or unavoidable?

Molly stood in her kitchen above a busy restaurant having a faceoff with her teenage daughter.

“Where the have you been? I have been worried sick! Tracey called me over four hours ago saying you weren’t at the school when she arrived to pick you and Sammy up!”

Molly just couldn’t figure out why Jess continued to push the envelope in regards to her behavior. As far as Molly was concerned, Jess wasn’t even trying to be considerate—she was just blatantly acting out. As she stared at her daughter’s annoyed look, she noticed sometime between when she left this morning and now, Jess had added a lime green stripe to a lock of hair next to her left temple.

“I don’t know what has gotten into to you, but I’m not as dumb as you think I am.” Molly went to the small butcher-block island, the only sturdy thing between Jess and herself.

Jess stood on the other side of the island against the kitchen sink facing her mother. The love bite on her neck by her left ear was hardly unnoticeable, but Molly chose not to take the bait that her fifteen-year-old was obviously dangling in front of her.

Jess took a bite of an apple spitefully slow and just stared at her mother.

“Why didn’t you go to your father’s?” Molly was proud of the soft and patient tone she asked in.

Jess’ black lace oversized shirt hung off her left shoulder revealing both her the small strap of the black camisole she wore under it and her red bra. Molly listened as Jess just continued to take one bite after another of the Red Delicious apple.

“I’m waiting, Jessica,” Molly fumed. Patience was no longer her ally, and she gripped the wide butcher-block a little bit tighter.

Jess turned, placing the almost bare apple core in the sink before placing her hands in her back pockets and facing her mother. “I didn’t want to go. It’s not like he would even know if I was there or not. Besides, Marc had band practice, and I didn’t want to miss it.”

“I don’t care if Marc had a meeting with the President of the United States. I’ve told you before what I think of him and that I am less than pleased with you spending time with him.” Molly walked around the island so she now stood in front of her daughter, who in her combat boots was just an inch taller than she was. “And seeing that you can’t seem to listen, I will make it easy for you. You are no longer allowed to see him other than at school.”