Finally a Bride (5 page)

She lifted her legs, bare but for the boxer shorts that barely reached midthigh, and stretched out beside him, tight against his side. “Just you, Eric. That’s all I expect from you.”

Friendship. That was all she had ever wanted from him. He sighed and lifted his arm, curving it around her bare shoulders. Her head settled onto his chest, her hair brushing his chin. “No.”

Molly’s face tilted toward his. “No?”

“You don’t smell like garbage anymore.” A grin teased his lips. “But if trouble had a smell…”

“I’m sorry.”

He caught her chin in his free hand. “What did I tell you about that? No more apologizing.”

“But I dragged you to the reception, after making you get all dressed up.”

He sighed. “I’m used to it. You used to do that when we were kids—make us get all dolled up to act out some play you’d read.”

“And Brenna would be the director.” Her breath hitched. “Do you think she’s very mad at me?”

He shook his head, but he didn’t say what he really thought about Brenna—that she was falling in love with Molly’s ex-fiancé. Although Towers wasn’t actually Molly’s ex yet. They hadn’t officially broken up; Molly still wore his engagement ring.

Hell, maybe Eric had only imagined the attraction between Brenna and Towers. The doctor had probably actually attended the reception in the hope that Molly would show up there.

Eric’s arm tensed. While he’d been in the service he had seen too many guys lose the loves of their lives to other, more available men. Eric had vowed then never to be either man in that equation—not the one left by the woman or the one stealing the woman.

“It’s late. We should head off to bed,” Eric suggested.

Molly’s head shifted on his shoulder as she burrowed closer. Her lips brushed his throat as she agreed, “It is late.”

“You’re half-asleep.”

“No. I’m wide awake. I think I’ll stay out here and watch the sun come up over the lake.” She draped an arm around his waist. “You don’t have to stay with me. I’ll be fine alone.”

God, he wished he could leave her alone….

Awakened by the first peal of the doorbell, Molly hovered in the shadows of the living room as Eric stumbled toward the front door. A fist hammered at it now, the visitor impatient. Molly shouldn’t have expected them to give her any peace. This was Cloverville after all. And apparently Mrs. Hild couldn’t keep a secret. Or had Pop given her up—or worse yet, Mom?

The only person she could really trust was Eric. He wore drawstring shorts, his heavily muscled chest and legs bare but for a patchwork of thin scars. Her heart clenched at the pain he’d clearly felt—the pain she remembered feeling herself over him.

No, Eric was the last person she could trust. He had already hurt her; she couldn’t trust him not to hurt her again, even more.

“You want to hide?” he asked, without even turning toward her. How had he noticed her? Because Eric never missed a thing….

Had he missed her when he’d been in the Marines for six years?

She shook her head but shifted closer to the wall. Eric drew open the door, planting his foot behind it as if to discourage a salesman.

The door pushed against his arch. “Good morning, Eric,” Molly’s mother greeted him with a pat on his unscarred cheek. “You look tired, honey,” she observed with concern. “My daughter keep you up late?”

They had stayed awake all night—until the rising sun had streaked the sky with pink and orange, which had reflected on the dark water of the lake.

“Hello, Mrs. McClintock,” Eric said, stepping back from the door as she pushed her way inside the small living room.

“Is my daughter still sleeping?” she asked, then turned and spotted Molly. “There you are.”

“I’ll just go put on some coffee,” Eric murmured, backing away from the women as if wanting to avoid a messy confrontation.

Molly had brought entirely too much drama to his quiet life at the cabin. With a stressful job such as his, as an EMT, he probably needed peace in his downtime. She had disrupted that.

Her mother’s head turned, following Eric’s retreat to the kitchen. Then her attention refocused on Molly, her big brown eyes widening as she took in her daughter’s attire. “Did I interrupt anything?” she asked.

When the air had chilled the night before, Eric had given Molly his shirt, which she wore over her cami and boxer shorts. “No, Mom, this isn’t what it looks like….”

Mary McClintock sighed and shook her head. “That’s too bad, honey.”

“Mom!” Molly shot a glance to the kitchen, to see if Eric had overheard the comment. She only caught a glimpse of his bare back, muscles rippling as he reached for a tin in the cupboard. Maybe her mother was right. Too bad…

Her mother’s fingers closed around her chin, pulling Molly’s attention back. “Mmm, hmm…” Her eyes glittered with a matchmaker’s delight.

“No,” Molly insisted. “It’s not like that….”

When he’d left for the Marines Eric had proved that he considered her nothing more than a friend—no matter what everyone else had always believed.

“Why are you here?” she asked. Then she peered out the window to where her mother had parked her minivan on the driveway. “Are you alone?”

Mom nodded. “Abby’s off on a run through town. Colleen’s hanging out at the park—hopefully with that handsome best man who came calling for her early this morning. And Rory and Lara are home watching cartoons.”

“Best man? Nick Jameson came calling for Colleen?” Concern for her younger sister stiffened Molly’s spine. “And you told him where she was?”

When Molly had volunteered at the hospital, she’d heard things about Jameson—not very flattering things about his arrogance and his predilection for purely superficial relationships. Colleen had volunteered at the hospital longer than Molly had, so surely she had to know Jameson was not to be trusted.

“Your little sister’s a big girl. Bigger than you,” Molly’s mother pointed out with a grin. “She can take care of herself.”

So her mother was obviously more worried about Molly than her sensitive sister? Then she had reason to worry, because Molly had never acted more out of character than she was right now.

“Why are you here?” Molly repeated. “I told you I need time…”

“I know. I know,” her mother assured her. “But you also need food. I brought some wedding leftovers for you.”

“I already had a few of those,” Molly admitted. The shower had washed broccoli, gravy and mashed potatoes from her hair. She touched a riotous curl and wished for a brush. The scent of her strawberries-and-champagne shampoo drifted around her nose…along with the scent of cinnamon. “Did you stop at Kelly Confections? I thought they’d be closed today.”

“Some of Brenna’s staff were working at the store today. They open on Sunday mornings now.”

“Do I smell cinnamon rolls?” Eric called out from the kitchen.

Water gurgled as the coffee brewed, the rich aroma mingling with the cinnamon. Molly’s stomach growled. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. She’d pretty much lost her appetite the minute she’d accepted Josh’s proposal.

“Because I know you have a sweet tooth,” her mother said as she walked toward Eric in the kitchen, “I also brought you some cake.”

Eric bussed a kiss against the older woman’s cheek when she joined him at the counter. With curly dark hair like Molly’s and eyes just as wide and warm, she was like a living age progression of her beautiful daughter. “That’s why you’re my best girl, Mrs. Mick. You’re joining us for breakfast, right?”

Blushing, she shook her head. “No. I have to get back home. I don’t quite trust Rory as a babysitter.”

Did she trust
him?
Eric studied the older woman’s face. He knew what she must have thought when he’d opened the door. He was only wearing shorts, Molly was in his shirt, and they were both rumpled with sleep. Since she had found an excuse to stop by, she obviously didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame her. He’d been tempted last night to give Molly more than his shirt.

But she was still engaged to another man. She needed time to sort out her feelings; she didn’t need
him
as anything more than a supportive friend.

Mrs. Mick touched his face again, patting his scarred cheek this time. “You keep an eye on my girl, Eric. Make sure she’s really okay.”

“I am okay,” Molly insisted. Then, bristling with pride, she added, “No one needs to keep an eye on me.”

“Sure, honey,” her mother said with gentle condescension. In a flurry of movement Mrs. McClintock stowed food in Eric’s copper-toned refrigerator. Then she kissed and hugged both of them before rushing back to her van.

“What was that?” Eric murmured as he splashed some coffee into a mug.

“A bird. A plane. Nope. Supermom,” Molly joked, bumping her hip against Eric’s as she helped herself to coffee.

His house was too small for the two of them. If they kept rubbing up against each other, he might forget that he was supposed to be only a friend.

“I’m sorry about her barging in like that,” Molly said.

“Sorry about what? She filled the fridge.” Eric bit off a gooey chunk of cinnamon roll. He could handle that Kelly Confection. But he wasn’t sure he could touch the wedding cake.
Again.
“She’s a sweetheart.”

And Molly, more than any of the other McClintock children, had taken after her mother. She always tried so hard to please everyone else. Had she ever really taken time for her own pleasure? Maybe that was what she needed to figure out—what would make her happy? Eric’s guts twisted as he acknowledged that, from everything he’d heard about him, Towers would have made Molly happy, if she had given him the chance.

“Yeah, she’s pretty great,” Molly said with a smile. “Poor Colleen, though. Sounds like Mom’s trying to play matchmaker with her and the best man.”

“The way they were dancing last night, your mother might not have to work too hard on that,” Eric reminded her.

“I hope Mom’s right, and I don’t need to worry about my little sister,” Molly said, gnawing at her bottom lip again.

“You’re infringing on Clayton’s territory,” he admonished her.

“How’s that?”

“He’s the McClintock who worries about everyone else.”

“He needs to worry about himself,” Molly said. “I’m sure our matchmaking mother has been giving him hell since Abby’s home.”

“Especially if she saw that kiss last night.” Eric couldn’t help but smirk, remembering all the times Abby Hamilton had insisted she hated Clayton for being humorless and bossy. “I can’t wait to give Abby hell myself.” He owed it to her for all the times she’d teased him about Molly.

Molly bumped her shoulder against his arm, right where the barbed-wire tattoo encircled his bicep. “You can’t. Remember we promised not to bring it up.”

That wasn’t the only thing they’d promised not to bring up again. Eric’s muscles tensed as he remembered the night eight years ago when they’d made that promise. Because he couldn’t indulge in memories, not now, not with her living with him, he pushed the past aside and pretended to gripe, “You’re no fun, Molly McClintock.”

“You’re right.” She sighed. “I stopped being fun a long time ago.”

“You stopped
having
fun,” he qualified. “Until last night. Didn’t you enjoy dressing up in a disguise and crashing your own wedding reception?”

“Sure,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “The Dumpster diving was my favorite part.”

“Mine, too,” he admitted, grinning. “You looked so cute with mashed potatoes in your hair.”

“You weren’t laughing when I went out the window,” she reminded him.

Eric’s scar twitched as his grin faded. “I’m probably not the only one not to laugh when you went out a window yesterday.”

Molly sucked in a breath as if he’d sucker punched her. And in a way he had. But he had to remind himself about Towers, that even though she hadn’t married him, she must still have some feelings for her fiancé. Or she wouldn’t have accepted his proposal in the first place.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he admitted as shame gripped him. She was his friend. She had come to him for support, not derision.

“Why not?” She shrugged. “It’s the truth. I trust you to always tell me the truth.”

He wouldn’t lie to her, but over the years he had learned to keep some things to himself—such as hope. “I know Mrs. Mick wants me to keep an eye on you—”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she insisted. “You don’t have to watch me.”

The problem was that he couldn’t stop himself from watching her. He needed some space. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“There’s something I do every Sunday….”

“Then do it,” she urged him. “Don’t let me disrupt your life any more than I already have.”

“Molly…” He couldn’t lie. She had disrupted his life. “I’m going to take a shower now. Don’t eat all the cinnamon rolls.”

“Eric…”

He turned back, and his heart clenched at the forlorn expression on her beautiful face.

“If I’m in your way, I can leave,” she offered.

“Are you ready to leave yet?” he asked.

Her dark brows furrowed with confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Have you figured out what you want to do?”

She shook her head.

He swallowed a sigh. “Then you better stay until you figure it out.”

Years ago he had hoped that one day she’d figure out she loved him. But now it wouldn’t matter if she did. He couldn’t love her back. His old crush had died with all his other dreams…when he had nearly died in the Middle East.

E
RIC CAST
a sideways glance at Molly as they walked up the steps of the veterans’ hospital. He’d wanted time to himself and distance from her.

“You really don’t mind that I’m coming along?” she asked.

He’d been looking forward to that drive alone from Cloverville to Grand Rapids, to an hour of solitude to regroup and some necessary miles between him and his tempting houseguest. But he shook his head.

“I haven’t seen your uncle in so long,” she said.

“He probably won’t remember you,” he warned her. “He usually doesn’t remember me.”

“I understand. I know a little about Alzheimer’s.”

“Of course. You’re the med student.”

Tension etched a deep line between her brows, and she said, “Not right now.”

“Are you going to go back?” He couldn’t believe she would give up a dream she had spent eight years chasing, even if he had given up
his
dream of being with her.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Is that something—” along with whether or not she would marry the man she’d left at the altar “—you need time alone to think about?” Not that she seemed all that eager to spend time alone.

“I have to think about my whole life.” She expelled a weary sigh. “I think I’m beginning to question every decision I ever made.”

He reached out, brushing his knuckles across the back of her hand. “If you need someone to talk to…”

“I have you.”

She had had him. For so many years.

But then he’d gone away from her and Cloverville. And he hadn’t come back—not completely. He’d left a piece of himself in hell. And he was never reminded of that more than when he came to visit Uncle Harold.

Wheelchairs lined the halls, some of them sitting empty outside darkened rooms. Most of those chairs were occupied by old soldiers who fought now—against age and ailments.

Dread tightened his stomach into knots. Was this his future? His dream for anything more than what he had had been destroyed—along with too many good soldiers. Soldiers Eric should have been able to save.

“Sergeant South,” murmured an elderly man who stiffly reached out a hand to grasp Eric’s arm. “It’s good you came to see the major.”

“Isn’t he doing well?” Eric asked, bending over to search the corporal’s face. Corporal Underwood’s mind was sharp despite his failing body. Did he know something about Eric’s uncle’s condition?

“He’s fine, boy, and although the old major gets confused I think he instinctively looks for you every Sunday afternoon.”

Molly suspected Eric’s uncle wasn’t the only one who looked forward to his visits. The corporal had stationed himself in the hall, as if waiting for Eric. His watery gaze slid to her.

“You’re running a little late today,” he said, “but I think I understand why.”