Otherwise Engaged (19 page)

“After we made love, you didn’t say anything—”

Pres laughed, a hot burst of frustration. “Because after what we did, I was only semiconscious. Mother of God, Molly—”

“I need to know how you’re feeling,
what
you’re feeling! Chuck never gave me that, and I’m not going to fall into that same emotional trap.”

“I’m not Chuck!”

She moved toward him, imploringly. “Then talk to me!”

What could he say to her? What could he tell her? That he was scared to death because of the strength and depth of these emotions he was feeling? Was he supposed to tell her that he’d felt this exact same way with Merrilee, and because of that he needed to back away, keep some distance from Molly? Was he supposed to say that he didn’t trust his own emotions, didn’t quite believe that what he was feeling was truly real?

Was he supposed to tell her that if Merrilee hadn’t come first, he’d probably be down on his knees right this moment, begging Molly to be his wife? How could he possibly tell her that?

“There are some things I just can’t tell you,” he said tightly.

She nodded. “I know. Like I said, you can’t give me what I need.”

He stood up, reaching for her. “Can’t you give me some time to figure all this out?”

Molly backed away. “Pres, I’m sorry. I can’t take that kind of a chance.”

She was out the door so fast, Pres couldn’t stop her. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to stop her.
But he did follow her, trailing along a distance behind her as she hurried down the beach toward the resort.

He followed her until he saw that she was safely inside the main building, and then he turned and automatically walked home.

His bungalow smelled like Molly’s sweet perfume. And sitting right in the middle of his kitchen table was the sapphire engagement ring he’d given to her.

It wasn’t an engagement ring. They’d never really been engaged.

So why the hell did seeing it there make him feel as if his heart had been ripped from his chest?

Pres went into the kitchen and took that last pack of cigarettes from the drawer. He removed the cellophane wrapper and opened the box. He couldn’t find any damn matches, so he lit it directly from one of the stove’s gas burners and drew a deep breath in.

He blew the smoke out, praying it would erase the sweet scent that Molly had left behind.

But all it did was leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

———

The morning sun was much too bright.

Molly put her sunglasses on as she drove Zander to school.

He was late. She had overslept in the quiet peacefulness of the hotel suite, without the roofers to wake her up at the crack of dawn. She’d returned to the resort the night before, fully intending to take Zander and go home. But Zander had been sound asleep, and the thought of carrying the gangly ten-year-old all the way up to his bedroom in the Kirk Estate was daunting.

So she’d stayed.

And overslept.

“I don’t have anything to write a note on,” she told him as she pulled into the school parking lot. “So I’ll walk you in, okay?”

Zander was clutching his backpack. “Do I
have
to go to school today? Since I’m already late, can’t I just stay home?”

“Don’t you want to go?” Molly asked. Zander loved school—or at least he had before. “Is your new school okay?”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “It’s … new, I guess.”

She turned off the engine and turned to face him. “Zander, is something wrong at school? You haven’t talked about it that much. Is something going on that I should know about?”

He opened the car door and started to climb out. “Is it okay if we don’t talk about it right now? You’re not in the best mood. …”

“Is whatever you’re going to tell me going to put me in an even
worse
mood?” Molly got out and looked at him over the top of the car.

“It might.”

“Is whatever you’re going to tell me something that’s dangerous, or something that could hurt you or make you sick?”

Zander shook his head. “No.”

“Then will you promise to tell me right after you get home from school?”

“I promise.”

Molly started toward the school entrance, giving Zander a quick hug around the shoulders. “Then okay.”

Zander hugged her back. “Mom, you’re so cool.”

She had to smile.

“You’re as cool as Pres,” he added.

Her smile faded. Pres Seaholm. She didn’t want to think about him, but she’d thought of no one and nothing else from the moment she’d awakened. And last night she’d dreamed about him endlessly.

She didn’t want to love him the way that she did. She didn’t want to take that kind of emotional risk. And maybe if she could just keep away from him, her feelings wouldn’t grow any stronger. Maybe if she didn’t see him all the time, her feelings would start to fade.

But it was damned hard to avoid him when he invaded her every thought.

She pulled open the door. As she and Zander stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of the school, she tried to banish Pres from her mind.

The school’s main office was directly to the right of the entrance. Kim Kavanaugh, the principal, came out as they approached, her sixteen-month-old daughter on her hip.

Mrs. Kavanaugh greeted Zander brightly. “Oh, great, you made it. We’re having an assembly this afternoon—a string quartet from Sarasota is
going to play for the school. I was afraid you were going to miss it.” She turned to Molly. “And I’m glad you’re here too. I’ve spent the past two hours calling the fifth- and sixth-grade parents—Mr. Towne handed in his resignation this morning. As of today, he’s gone.”

Zander dropped his backpack. “Mr. Towne did
what?
He’s
what?”

“Gone,” Mrs. Kavanaugh repeated. “He gave his resignation—that means he quit. Just like that. Can you believe it?”

Zander started to laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I can believe it. Pres is the
best!”
He did a little dance in a circle in the hall. “Yes! Yes, yes,
yes
!”

Molly caught his arm. “Zander, what’s going on?”

“Yesterday I told Pres all about how mean Mr. Towne was, and now Mr. Towne is gone!” Quickly, and nearly all in one breath, Zander recounted everything about Mr. Towne that he’d told Pres the evening before.

Kim Kavanaugh was livid. “The nerve of that man!” she exclaimed. “Stanley Towne had no right
—no right—
to be a teacher. The school
board had been trying to get rid of him for years. But he had tenure and we couldn’t afford to pay him the amount he was demanding for an early retirement.”

Molly was numb. “Zander, why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Her son had told Pres, but he hadn’t told her.

He gazed at her solemnly from behind his glasses. “I didn’t want you to break Mr. Towne’s nose.”

“I wouldn’t have broken his nose! I would have been very, very angry, yes, but …” Molly pulled Zander into her arms and gave him a hug. “Please, don’t ever not tell me something like this again.”

“I won’t,” he promised. He looked up at her. “Do you think Pres really took his diving spear and went after Mr. Towne?”

“What?”

“He said he oughta—”

“Zander, we don’t even know that Pres had anything to do with Mr. Towne leaving.” But even as she spoke the words she knew they were ridiculous. Of course Pres had done something. He’d no
doubt paid the man off, made it worth Towne’s while to leave.

“Who’s gonna teach my class?” Zander asked Mrs. Kavanaugh.

The principal shifted her baby to her other hip. “Actually, Mr. Young is going to be your substitute teacher—until we find a permanent replacement.” She looked up at Molly. “You know Hayden Young, right? Tall, long blond hair? Of course you do—he’s Zander’s speech teacher, right?”

“He’s so cool,” Zander exclaimed. Coolness in Sunrise Key was apparently contagious. “Is he here now?”

Mrs. Kavanaugh nodded.

Zander was poised, quivering, eager to be on his way to his classroom. “Can I
—may
I go?”

Mrs. Kavanaugh nodded again. “Please don’t run, Zander,” she called after him. “We’ll be looking to hire someone with special-education experience to replace Mr. Towne,” she told Molly. “Although I have this secret dream of talking Hayden Young into taking the job on a permanent basis.”

“I had no idea,” Molly murmured, hardly hearing
the other woman. “Zander didn’t say a word. But I should have known. It took him so long to get ready for school these past few mornings. I should have guessed that something wasn’t right.” She glanced at Kim Kavanaugh, lowering her voice. “Did Mr. Towne give you a reason for his leaving? I mean, he broke his contract, right? Surely he gave you some excuse.”

“He told me only that he’d suddenly come into a great deal of money, and that he was willing to accept the school board’s last offer for early retirement on the condition he would be able to leave immediately. As in today. Do you think …”

“That Preston Seaholm was behind that ‘great deal of money’?” Molly nodded grimly. “There’s not a doubt in my mind.”

She turned to go, but Kim Kavanaugh’s soft words stopped her.

“He must love you and Zander very much.”

Love. Yeah, right.

Pres didn’t know how to share his love. He didn’t seem to be able to share anything but his money.

P
RES HAD A
head-on collision with Molly at the door to Millie’s Market. She was going in and he was coming out.

He gazed down at her from behind his dark glasses. She didn’t look happy. In fact, she looked downright
un
happy. Well, hell, that made two of them.

“I was just on my way over to your place,” he said.

“I just came from
your
place.” She was unable to keep from glancing at the pack of cigarettes in
his hand. “I want to talk to you. About Stanley Towne?”

He looked around, searching for news cameras and stray photographers. There were none in sight. “Let’s walk.”

“Did you pay off Zander’s teacher so that he’d quit?”

Pres didn’t answer right away. He peeled the cellophane wrapper from the pack and threw it into a trash barrel. Seeing Molly again made his craving for cigarettes fade to almost nothing. Instead, he desperately craved
her
. It was a deeper, stronger, more powerful need, and his entire chest hurt from wanting her. He put a cigarette in his mouth instead. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Yes.”

“But we’re outside. …”

“You asked, and yes, I do mind. I don’t want you to smoke, all right?”

She was upset, and she wasn’t the only one. Pres broke the cigarette in two, turned back to the trash barrel, and threw it in. He slammed the entire rest of the pack in after it.

Molly was astonished. Cool, imperturbable Preston Seaholm had actually lost his temper. As
she watched he gripped the edge of a pay-phone booth, as if trying to cool down. But when he turned back to her, his mouth was still grimly set.

“I can’t believe after what we shared last night, you don’t want to make even the
smallest
attempt to make it work between us,” he said.

“Did you or did you not give Stanley Towne money?”

Pres yanked off his sunglasses and his eyes looked stormy. “Yes, I did. I went to see him this morning. I paid him off so that he’d leave town. So yes, I’m guilty of using my money to help you and Zander. No, I’m not trying to
buy
you. No, I didn’t think doing this would bring you running back to me, arms open wide. I did it because I wanted to. What’s the use in having money if you can’t spend it the way you want to?”

“It feels so wrong to me,” Molly said hotly. “Every time I turn around, there you are, ready to spend another small fortune on Zander and me. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It makes me start to doubt my own reasons for wanting to be with you—I mean, face it, my life would be so much easier if I took that grant. Or if I became your lover, and just let you pay for everything.”

Pres stared at her, trying to understand, wanting to understand so that he could figure out a way to persuade her that she was wrong.

“So how do you know that the reason you think you
don’t
want to be with me isn’t because you’re afraid of being influenced by my money?” he finally asked.

Molly gazed back at him. She was afraid of many things when it came to Preston Seaholm, but that wasn’t one of them. “That’s not why I … can’t be with you.”

Pres crossed the sidewalk and sat down on the bench in the shade of the florist’s awning. “That’s right. I almost forgot. You think I’m too much like what’s-his-name.”

Molly sat down tiredly next to him. “I can’t willingly enter a relationship that seems so much like one that didn’t work. You’re the same kind of person Chuck was—so careful of your privacy. I don’t want to be in a relationship where I have to guess what my lover is thinking.”

Pres put his head in his hands. “Well, you’ll never guess in a million years what I’m thinking right now.” He took a deep breath, glancing at
her out of the corner of his eyes. “We need to get married.”

“Excuse me?”

He leaned back on the bench, long legs stretched out in front of him as he ran both hands through his hair and then down his face. “Somehow the rumor got started that we’re getting married on Saturday. Instead of the camera teams going away, the entertainment news programs are sending more equipment down to Sunrise Key to cover what’s promising to be the wedding of the year.”

Molly had to laugh, giddy with disbelief. But she knew Pres wasn’t kidding—why would he kid about something like that?

“I called a friend of mine who works for a major public-relations firm up in New York City,” Pres continued. “I asked him the best way to handle this, and he recommended that we give them what they want. And pray that this time it works.”

“Would you care for something from the dessert cart, madam?”

“Mom? Yo. Mom!”

Molly blinked and focused on Zander’s face. He pointed behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to see a tuxedo-clad waiter standing there, dessert cart at the ready.

“No thanks,” she murmured. She glanced to her right, where Preston was sitting quietly. He’d said no more than a few sentences all night. It was her birthday,
and
it was the night before her so-called wedding. It would have been considered odd if she and Pres hadn’t appeared out together. She’d thought it would be less awkward, bringing Zander along with them to dinner, but now she wasn’t so sure it had helped.