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Molly sat at the counter in the hacienda kitchen, her cell pressed to her ear as she waited for Pepper to join the conference call. Neither Lauren nor Molly spoke. It was a rule that no one said anything or told any gossip or parted with any news until all three cousins were on the call.
She turned her head to check the stove, and inhaled the aroma of ribs and barbeque sauce that she’d made from scratch. She couldn’t beat the Hopeless sponge, so for dessert she’d made peanut butter cookies. He could eat those all day tomorrow, too, while they worked on the roof. He’d have his gear, and his construction calculator, and they’d be getting on with it. If he came home. Back. This wasn’t his home.
“I’m here,” Pepper said. “Do I need chocolate?”
“I thought you had the developers under control, Molly,” Lauren said, heading straight into the conversation now all three were on the line.
“Not quite.” Molly filled them in. It took minutes, but apart from the odd gasp or conciliatory murmur, her cousins remained silent as they listened—until Molly told them about her appetite.
“Slime,” Lauren said.
“Pure scum,” Pepper agreed. “Everybody knows you haven’t had sex in years.”
“Not proper sex,” Lauren added.
“Who are these people?”
Molly sighed. There wasn’t time to explain about Leo D’Pee, Ty “Slick” Wilson, or Bob Smith now. Her cousins simply knew them as ‘the developers’ or Donaldsons. “Slime and scum,” Molly said in response. “So are you both going to help?”
“You mean—come back?”
“Look,” Lauren said. “We all know you’re the one for the job, Molly.”
“And you’re already there...”
“That’s not the point,” Molly insisted.
“What’s this builder like?” Lauren asked, changing the subject. “I can’t find the newsletter online.”
“Momma took it down while she builds her blog, which she says is going to fix everything.”
“What does he look like,” Pepper asked, “if the whole world thinks you’re having karma tantric hot sex with him all day long?”
“Oh, you know—the usual builder type. Full of himself. A know-all who thinks he’s the boss.”
“Eeeww,” Pepper said. “I hate those kind of builders.”
“He’s constantly dirty and dusty and he uses his clothes to wipe sweat off himself.”
“Eeeww.”
“And he’s got a stalking woman in his life who says she’s pregnant.”
“By him?”
“He says not.”
“Scumbag. Bet it was him.”
Enthusiasm flowed through Molly’s veins. “From the first moment I saw him, I knew he’d be trouble. For all I know, he’s got a dumped ex-wife and six kids back home in Colarodo. Of course I hate him!”
Silence.
“Liar,” Lauren stated. “He’s hot and you want your hands all over him.”
“Photo, please!”
Damn, it was hard having cousins who knew each other so well they knew what the others were feeling. Or when they were lying.
Molly plugged her flash drive into her laptop and emailed them the hot Saul photos. “Do not give these photos to anyone else.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Lauren said. “I might come back after all.”
“Does he fancy you?”
“Has he made a pass yet?”
“I’m not right for him.”
“He said that?”
“Alice said that.”
“Oh.” Molly heard the pity in Lauren’s voice.
“We’re sorry, Molly.”
“Thanks, Pepper. I’ve got over it.” Sort of.
“You’ll find someone else, Molly.”
Molly rested her chin in her hand. She hadn’t wanted someone else and now there was possibly only one someone else, and she wasn’t right for him.
“I bet the grandmothers are saying it’s the curse,” Pepper said, and Molly pictured her hand shaking as she reached for another of her handmade chocolates. They all hated talking about the curse.
“It’s got a lot to answer for,” Lauren agreed, with a tremor in her voice. “You know the saying—fate keeps happening—I hope it isn’t true.”
At this rate, if fate kept happening this fast, they’d be barren, husband-less, and homeless before they took their next breath. Or Molly would be. Her cousins hadn’t been forced into returning to the valley, but they understood Molly’s predicament, and that she’d had no choice. It was just that Molly understood her cousins’ predicament equally well. There was no way they’d come home. In case the curse got them. Like it appeared to be doing with Molly.
“What do you want us to do?” Lauren asked.
“Except come home,” Pepper added. “I’m staying in Arizona. I’m not setting a foot in that valley—I might never get out again. Look what’s happened to you.”
Exactly. Molly had met a man she was falling for, whether she wanted to or not, and he wasn’t right for her. He’d leave. As all the Mackillop women’s men had left.
“I can’t come home either, Molly,” Lauren said quietly. “I’ve got a few things to tie up and rid myself of here in California. I’m sorry.”
It would be the problems with her business partner that Lauren was tying up. The problems she was refusing to talk about. “Don’t worry, either of you. I can cope.” Women who were making a stand always coped.
“That’s the spirit.”
“Just be careful how you use any spirit,” Pepper added. “It might be psychic abilities filtering into your system—you are stuck there surrounded by them, after all. You’re not used to having the gift and I don’t want to wake up tomorrow suddenly turned into a frog.”
“I don’t have a gift,” Molly insisted. “Otherwise I’d have turned the developers into spawn.”
“Molly,” Lauren said, sounding concerned on a different level suddenly. “The grandmothers. They’re not talking about me and Pepper are they?”
“Like, as in wanting us to—visit?” Pepper added, sounding wary about having asked.
“No,” Molly said, resolutely. There was no point in mentioning that both Alice and Momma had said something about it not being their “time.” “I’ve got this covered. I just need to talk to you now and again. To make sure I’m doing the right thing.”
There was a silence as each of her cousins digested this news, no doubt grateful, which made Molly feel a little proud of what she was attempting to do, all on her lonesome.
“We’re thinking of you,” Lauren said. “Call if there’s more news. I’m going to fully stock my wine fridge first thing tomorrow.”
“We’re here for you,” Pepper added. “And I’ve got so much handmade chocolate in my pantry I might turn into a hippopotamus any minute. But don’t count that as a wish!”
Molly said goodbye to her cousins and turned to look at the sparkling hacienda kitchen.
How long until Saul returned? If he returned, he should be back any time. So what to do now? Pace the kitchen? Reclean the countertops? It was almost dark so she’d lit all her lovely candles and switched off the fluorescents. It was peaceful, and possibly a bit too romantic. Would Saul see it as romantic? It was only candlelight in a kitchen that didn’t have a roof. He’d see it as sensible. Being sensible herself, she’d left the outdoor lights on for him. If he came home. Back! If he came back.
She spun on her stool, suddenly remembering that Winnie had put her mail into the backpack. Not that Molly was expecting anything except junk.
She pulled out two letters. One offered her the chance to win a million dollars, which she tore in half, then picked up the other letter.
It had a certain I’m a bill look. Molly frowned and ripped it open. How could it be a bill? She’d sorted everything out. She didn’t owe anyone a dime.
Saul ducked as he drove beneath the crumbling arch. It had taken hours to get hold of the shady guy who had the key to the lockup where Saul had stored his gear, and he was tired and wanted to get... He sighed. He’d nearly thought “home.” That would be Marie’s fault, telling him she’d send Molly home with cake.
“Molly’s home,” he murmured, pulling the pickup and trailer to a halt outside the hacienda. “Not yours, buddy.”
The lights burned from around the back, so Molly must be in the kitchen, eating one of her ready-meals. Saul was suddenly grateful she had those dinners. He was starving and almost brain-dead after the day he’d had.
He’d made arrangements for a crane to be delivered the day after tomorrow. He hadn’t bothered buying a new sat hone. He’d done nothing wrong and he wasn’t hiding from anything or anyone—except perhaps his sister. He’d called Sally-Opal’s detective daddy and explained the situation. Not that he listened, but Saul had tried. He’d told the man he didn’t have a paternity case unless Sally did a pregnancy test. If it was positive, he still didn’t have a paternity case unless a DNA test happened in nine months’ time, and that he still wouldn’t have a paternity case, period, because Saul hadn’t slept with his daughter or had any intention of sleeping with her. Daddy had taken offense to that part—but tough shit, Daddy.
He’d thought about calling his sister too, in case Sally-Opal went through with her threat to tell Karlie about the pregnancy and Saul’s supposed abandonment. But he’d thought better of it. He’d refused to listen to his sister’s apology two years ago. He understood her hurts, but he’d gone through his own agonizing time. She still had her family—Saul didn’t.
He locked the pickup, pocketed the keys, and made his way to the back of the hacienda, taking steady strides over the crazy-paving in the dim light. As he walked beneath an arch, next to the stone steps that led to the top story, a chill swept through him, as though he’d been showered in ice-cold water—then a crumbling noise overhead made him look up.
He ducked, skirted to his right and pressed against the wall of the steps as a section of stone and plaster from the single-story crashed to the ground beside his boots.
He stared at it, unable to move for a moment. He’d checked and double-checked all masonry. There were no cracks, no broken pits of plaster. There were hardly any flaws on the stucco on the interior walls either, yet here was a two-foot-wide section of the roofless wall, lying at his feet. If he hadn’t sidestepped so quickly, he would have been lying beneath it.
He looked up again and saw a glaring space in the exterior wall of the roofless section. How the hell could he have missed that?
There was no way he’d allow Molly up on the roof area again. Not until he’d triple-checked it once more.
It was too dark to clear the rubble now, so he made for the kitchen. If he discovered she’d been up on that roof today, he’d strangle her.
When he pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen, three things hit him at once. The soft lighting from candles, the aroma of something incredible coming from the stove, and Molly, standing by the counter, dressed in faded jeans and a sleeveless Hawaii-print shirt, tied at the waist and exposing the flesh above her hips, which looked soft and inviting enough to have him hold his breath. Except the look on her face sent a spear of worry directly to the center of his heart.
“Molly? What’s wrong?”
Her fern-green eyes were filled with pain, her face pale, bereft of its healthy glow.
She shook the letter she was holding. “I’m so angry.”
Then she burst into tears.
Saul strode across the kitchen and took her in his arms. He pulled her close, so close that her trembling pounded through his body. “Molly. What is it? Are you hurt?” He couldn’t hold her any tighter without squashing her, but he wanted to crush the trembling out of her.
Her hand moved between them, stuck to his chest, and he heard the paper crumple as she gripped the letter harder, but he didn’t let her go. He couldn’t let her go. “Tell me what’s happened,” he begged.
“My ex-fiancé—”
That jab hit him in his chest again. “You have an ex-fiancé?” He’d promised Marie he wouldn’t say anything about their conversation earlier. And he’d promised himself he really didn’t want to know the details.
“I know you know,” she said, sounding pissed. “Momma told you all about my sorry history, didn’t she?”
“I don’t think you’re a sexual deviant, Molly,” he said, trying to calm her.
She gasped and shot back, pushing from his arms. “She told you that, too?”
Shit. “No. Davie told me.”
“Davie? What’s wrong with everyone around here? Why can’t they all mind their own business?”
“Molly—”
“I can’t believe Davie told you! I’m never going to speak to him again. I’m never going to talk to anybody again.”
“Molly!” he repeated, louder and sterner.
She stilled and blinked up at him, her long eyelashes wet with tears.
He got another spear through the heart. It was hard keeping up a front when she was all but wiped out with misery, her eyes full of tears—which were about to roll over and down her cheeks again any second.
He took her face in his hands and wiped them away with his fingers, and since his hands were now on her face, he left them there. “I thought you were a Don’t-Mess-With-Me Mackillop.”
“I am,” she said, still sounding deflated.
“So tell me what he’s done and get it off your chest.”
“You don’t want to know.”
Spot on. But he’d never expected to see her crying. Or to see her undone in the misery of her woes. It did all these strange things to his chest, knowing she was hurt and that some jerk of a man had done the damage.
He dropped his hands from her face and stuffed them in his jeans pockets. “Of course I want to know.” It wouldn’t help if he got all sentimental. “I’m working alongside you. If I’m going to get the bad mood vibes all day long tomorrow, it’s going to piss me off. What has he done?”
She drew a breath and blew it out, attempting to calm herself, and seeing her relax a little helped calm Saul too. He dug his hands further into his pockets.
“He owes me money and he won’t give it back. Now he’s cheated on me again, only this time it’s not with another woman, it’s with the debt collectors.”
“It’s your money? Only yours?”
“Every dollar. Twenty thousand. Ten of it I gave him for the fit-out of his new office.”
“Gave him? So how come the debt collectors are on your back?”
“Because I took the lease on his sports car. I put ten thousand down and the other ten thousand was a loan. That lease and loan are in my name.”
Where had her head been? “Molly—”
“I told him to sell the car and he said he would. But he hasn’t, and now I owe back repayments and I haven’t got the money.”
What sort of a jerk had she hooked up with? “You need to talk to him.”
“He won’t answer my calls! He’s a jerk. Where the hell had my head been? I’m an—”
“No, you’re not an idiot. Not even close.”
She’d been used. The jerk had taken her good-heartedness and abused it.
“I’m so angry,” she said, clenching her fist and scrunching up the letter. “And I’m not crying!”
“Of course you’re not. Women who are making a stand as courageously as you don’t cry.”
“That’s right,” she said, her voice less trembly. “I don’t cry.”
“Not you.” His hands leapt from his pockets, all by themselves, and suddenly they’d taken hold of her and pulled her against him, her head on his shoulder. Then one of his hands had the temerity to stroke the back of her head. “You can sort it out, Molly. You can fix it.”
“I’ll fix him!”
Not if Saul saw him first. “Hey,” he said, “you’ve got all your big candles lit again. It looks great. And what’s that amazing aroma in this kitchen? It smells like ribs and peanut butter in here.” So close to her like this all he could smell was her fresh, desert-bloom perfume. Her hair was so soft beneath his jaw. Soft beneath the hand he had on her back, her hair trailing down to below her waist.
She sniffed. “I cooked and baked. From scratch.”
“You did? Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, misery still present in her voice.
“Hey,” he said again, taking advantage of her calmer frame of mind. “That guy I told you about who owes me a favor. He’s sending a crane over day after tomorrow.”
“Really?” She lifted her face to look at him, and his heart took a plug again. He really ought to let her go now.
“It must have been a big favor.”
“It was nothing.” He didn’t know a guy who owned a crane. He never bothered about having favors returned. He’d ordered the crane and paid for it himself because he wanted to do something for Molly. “So let’s have dinner and forget about our problems.”
“They’re my problems. Not yours. And I’m not a sexual deviant.” She sniffled again. “Just in case you needed clarification on that.”
He smiled. “That’s a shame,” he said softly. “Especially as you’ve made the kitchen look so romantic. We could have had dinner, then got it on in your den of sexual pleasure. Do you have toys?” he added, when a reluctant smile crept on her face. “You could show me yours and I’ll get my tool out.”
She spluttered a laugh and punched him in the chest.
“Come on, boss. Let’s eat. Then you can go to bed all by yourself and I’ll clean up the kitchen.” After which, he was going to take a midnight walk to visit Alice.
