After they both got two more drinks and grabbed a few hors d’oeuvres, they made their way to a little patch of grass near the twenty-five-foot, Bon Ami waterfall.
Molly looked upward, noticing the gray low hanging fat bellied clouds.
“Is it supposed to rain?” Lucian asked.
“I hope not.” On cue, a large drop of water splattered down on Molly’s head, followed by another.
“We better find some cover,” Lucian suggested.
“Yeah, I think…” Molly didn’t even finish her sentence before the skies opened up and buckets of rain dropped down on them.
A flurry the guest ran for cover toward the cave where the wedding was held.
Molly started to run in the same direction.
Lucian grabbed her arm and pulled her up short. “Let’s go this way.”
Molly didn’t need to be told twice. She would happily follow him wherever he wanted to go.
“Head over there,” he yelled over the pounding rain, pointing toward a small cave across from the waterfall.
“Okay.” Molly gathered her skirts in her hand and ran until she was just inside the mouth of one of the caves. This one was small and very dark in the back. She hadn’t been in it before. When she worked here, it was flooded by water.
It wasn’t long before Lucian was back at her side with the bottle in his hand. The winds picked up and slashing rain hit them. “Let’s get further inside.”
“Okay.” She wiped her wet hair from her face and followed him.
Lucian stopped and leaned back against the wall. “This is better, don’t you think?”
“Ye-yeah,” she chattered.
“Let’s get you warmed up.” He shrugged out of his jacket and placed it over her shoulders. “How’s that?” He rubbed her arms.
“Much better, thank you,” she said, even though she was still shivering.
“Here, this will help.” He lifted the bottle out to her.
Molly took the bottle. “I didn’t bring my glass with me.”
“Who cares,” he said. “Be daring.”
Molly gave him a questioning look.
“Drink straight from the bottle,” he said. “I promise I don’t have any germs.”
Molly looked at his lips and swallowed hard. Taking the proffered bottle, she took a big swig. Coughing, she handed the bottle back to Lucian.
“To us.” He tilted the bottle back and took a hefty swig of his own.
Molly smiled up at him stupidly. She felt giddy, free, like she did before Dan. Back to when she was in High School, when she used to hide behind the bleachers at football games with Peggy and drink. With the only difference being, they were usually hanging out with a bunch of losers, never the hotties. But now, she was with a hottie and it was… amazing. When he handed the bottle back out to her again, she took another big swig not even stopping to think about how tipsy she was starting to feel.
Like old friends, they took turns handing the bottle back and forth until it was halfway gone.
Molly was always the quintessential ‘good girl’. She waited three months to sleep with Dan because she thought he was the one. The one she would eventually marry. That didn’t turn out to be true of course, obviously. But as she looked at Lucian, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had tried out Dan sooner, test drove him so to speak, if she would have stayed with him so long or gotten back together with him so many times. She wasn’t a quitter. She told herself she could make it work—like she had some kind of point to prove to herself and the rest of the world that she could keep a man. What a joke that had turned out to be. Now with Lucian, a man she barely knew, she wondered if she should just take the plunge; try him on for size. See if he fit. And if he didn’t, well, she would have a damned good time in the process.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Her face heated. “No reason,” she said.
Lucian was feeling no pain at this point. The lack of food probably had more to do with it than the whiskey he was drinking. Actually, he was surprised he hadn’t worked up a better tolerance since he had picked booze over eating lately. He could only afford one or the other and numbing his brain took precedence to sustenance.
“What is the mine for again?”
“Well, it does have an abundance of emeralds, per the name but what it is really famous for is the feldspar.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a cleaning agent.”
“A what?”
“You know, to clean with, like comet.”
“Why would they do that?”
“It was during the depression and the demand for emeralds and semi-precious stones weren’t that great, but the cleaning agent was. So the workers were actually told to throw out a lot of the stones.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s the truth.”
“Wow.”
“I know, right.”
“Did they really throw them out?”
“Not sure. I think some of the workers may have kept some for themselves but I can’t say for sure.”
“I would have,” Lucian said.
“Me too,” Molly agreed and took another drink.
“So,” he said after a few minutes. “You never did tell me what happened with you and that guy?” Lucian wasn’t sure why he was even asking. He didn’t care…at least he didn’t think he did.
Molly shook her head. “He dumped me.”
Lucian felt her pain. “What a dick.”
She burst out laughing.
Lucian raised his brow, giving her a curious look.
“It’s not that bad. He did me a favor.”
“How so?”
“I wouldn’t be here with you and …”
He slung his arm around her shoulders. “You know, I’ve never had a girl for a friend before,” he admitted.
“Well,” she sighed, figuring this was just her luck. She finally found a guy that could make her forget all about Dan and he was cramming her in the friend zone. “I guess I’ll be your first.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, his gaze smoldering as he looked down at her. “You would be my first.”
Molly felt a rush of heat climb to her face. “So… is that a good thing?” She was pretty warm in other areas as well.
Lucian wrapped his free arm around her back and pulled her firmly against his body. “What do you think?”