by Devney Perry
Letters to Molly
Maysen Jar Series - Book 2
Devney Perry
LETTERS TO MOLLY
Copyright © 2019 by Devney Perry LLC
All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 978-1-7323884-4-4
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No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in a book review.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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Editing & Proofreading:
Elizabeth Nover, Razor Sharp Editing
www.razorsharpediting.com
Marion Archer, Making Manuscripts
www.makingmanuscripts.com
Julie Deaton, Deaton Author Services
www.facebook.com/jdproofs
Karen Lawson, The Proof is in the Reading
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Cover:
Sarah Hansen © Okay Creations
www.okaycreations.com
Also by Devney Perry
Jamison Valley Series
The Coppersmith Farmhouse
The Clover Chapel
The Lucky Heart
The Outpost
The Bitterroot Inn
The Candle Palace
Maysen Jar Series
The Birthday List
Letters to Molly
Lark Cove Series
Tattered
Timid
Tragic
Tinsel
Tin Gypsy Series
Gypsy King
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
- LETTER -
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
- LETTER -
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
- LETTER -
Chapter 7
- LETTER -
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
- LETTER -
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
- LETTER -
Chapter 13
- LETTER -
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
- LETTER -
Chapter 16
- LETTER -
Chapter 17
- LETTER -
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
- LETTER -
Chapter 20
- LETTER -
Chapter 21
- LETTER -
Epilogue
Preview to Gypsy King
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Prologue
Finn
“Miss?” I snagged the waitress’s attention as she walked past our booth. “Could I get another beer?”
“You got it.” She smiled and hurried away as I downed the rest of my first Bud Light.
Drinking was necessary when my sister was cuddled up on the other side of the booth, lips locked with this new guy she was dating. Jamie. There wasn’t anything quite as uncomfortable as watching your little sister kiss a man with tongue.
I looked over my shoulder, searching the crowded restaurant for our waitress. If this was how the night was going to go, I needed to order two more beers instead of one. The waitress had disappeared. Damn.
“So, Jamie.” I forced myself to say his name nicely as I turned back to the booth. “Poppy tells me that you’re from a ranch around here.”
He and Poppy broke apart—thank fuck—as he nodded to me. “That’s right. It’s about forty-five minutes from here. You guys should come out there with me one of these days.”
Jamie stretched his arm behind her and rested it on the back of the booth. And there it was, the dopey grin. Clearly Jamie was just as infatuated with Poppy as she was with him.
I tipped the beer bottle to my lips, frowning when I remembered it was empty. As I set it down, I studied Jamie from the corner of my eye.
He was two years younger than I was but just as bulky, probably from growing up on a working ranch. He wore his hair too long and too shaggy. His green and white pearl-snap Western shirt was unsnapped one too many. And the guy was wearing flip-flops in September.
Despite his strange cross between surfer and cowboy, Poppy was enamored. She’d gone out with him three times already. Wasn’t that too much? It seemed like too much.
When she’d invited me along tonight to meet Jamie and her new roommate for burgers, I’d had no choice but to say yes. Poppy was already in deep, and I had to know what kind of guy we were dealing with here.
“You’re a senior?” Jamie asked. I guess he hadn’t completely forgotten I was in the booth too.
“Yep.” I nodded. “Landscape design. What are you studying?”
“Education. I figure working until I’m sixty-five will be a hell of a lot more fun if I get to hang out with kids all day.” He flashed Poppy a wide, white smile. Then he took the unopened straw on the table and ripped the paper free from the plastic.
With a spin of his fingers, he balled up the paper. I knew before he was finished that it was going into one end of the straw.
Sure enough, he loaded the ball, grinned at me and brought the empty end to his lips. Then he took aim. One hard puff and the paper ball went flying toward Poppy’s nose.
“Jamie!” She swatted the straw as they both laughed.
This guy was a goof. No wonder he wanted to be around kids all day. He’d fit right in.
I’d only met him one beer ago, but I’d already pegged him as the class clown. The guy cracking jokes and playing games. The guy who’d make a fart noise just to lighten a somber mood. He was the guy who always had a smile and made sure everyone else did too.
I liked that for Poppy.
Which meant I was going to have to get used to them kissing.
Poppy could use a good-time guy. She’d gone home to Alaska for the summer to live with our parents. She’d worked hard for three months to save some money for the upcoming school year, which meant there hadn’t been much in the way of fun.
If I took a black light to Jamie’s forehead, I was sure I’d find the word fun written in invisible ink.
“Where’s this new roommate?” I asked Poppy, hoping to keep her mouth busy with conversation instead of, well . . . Jamie.
“She called to tell me that she was running late.” Poppy checked her phone. “That was about fifteen minutes ago, so she’ll probably be here soon.”
“What’s her name again?”
“Molly,” she and Jamie said in unison, then smiled at one another.
“And I haven’t met her before?” I’d met quite a few of Poppy’s friends but I didn’t recall a Molly.
“Nope. She lived in the coed dorms last year.”
Our waitress walked past the table with a tray of waters but stutter-stepped when she spotted me. “Oh, shoot. I forgot your beer. Give me a few minutes.”
“You know what? It’s okay.” I held up a hand, already sliding out of the booth. “I’ll just go to the bar and grab one.” Or two. Maybe three.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yep. No problem at all. You guys want anything?” I asked Poppy and Jamie, but it was too late. In the ten seconds I’d stopped watching them, they’d returned to whispering in each other’s ears and I was all but forgotten
.
I walked away from the table, taking a necessary break from the happy couple. Along with watching them attempt to conjoin themselves in public tonight, I was also going to have to play nice with the roommate.
Poppy had assured me this evening wasn’t her arranging some sort of blind double date. This was simply dinner and a chance to meet Jamie and Molly before I got too busy with my last two semesters of school.
Though even with a heavy class load and part-time job in the evenings and weekends, I had a feeling I’d be seeing a lot of Jamie.
I had to admit, he wasn’t a bad guy. The constant touching was annoying, but call it guy’s intuition, I knew Jamie wasn’t in this for an easy score. He liked her.
I leaned my elbows on the bar and signaled for the bartender. “Bud Light.”
He came over and checked my ID, then went to the cooler for my beer. I dropped some cash on the bar, took a healthy pull from the longneck and, in no particular hurry, began making my way back to our booth in the far corner of the narrow restaurant.
Even from a distance, I could spot Poppy and Jamie making eyes at one another. She’d never been like this around a guy before. A pang of older-brother possessiveness hit hard. I didn’t want to think of her as a grown woman. I didn’t want her to find a man who’d take over the things I did for her now, like changing the oil in her car or buying her Chinese food on Sunday nights. I wanted her to stay my little sister.
But at the same time, I wanted her to find a decent guy. One I wouldn’t want to sucker-punch on their wedding day.
“Oh, shit,” a woman cursed just as a slosh of cold beer coated my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“No problem.” I switched my beer to the other hand and wiped off the wet one on my jeans. Then I looked at the woman who’d bumped into my arm.
My mouth went dry.
Framed by brunette curls was a face so stunning I wasn’t sure where to look first. Her brown eyes twinkled, their flecks of gold matching the shimmer of her eye shadow. Her skin was like porcelain, flawless and creamy except for the rosy blush of her cheeks.
Her lips were painted a pale peach. Their delicate, soft color was sweet, a sharp contrast to those chocolate curls bouncing down her shoulders. Those curls screamed sex. They begged to be twisted around my fingers. To be splayed across my pillow.
“You’re Finn, aren’t you? Poppy’s brother?”
I forced my eyes away from her hair. “Uh-huh.” Smooth, dumbass.
“I’m Molly.” She stuck out her hand, taking mine and doing the handshake for us both.
This was the roommate? Yep. The woman of my dreams was my sister’s college roommate. Fuck me.
“You don’t have freckles either,” she said, studying my face.
No, I didn’t. Poppy and I both had red hair, mine a shade closer to auburn than her ginger. We’d inherited it from our mother but hadn’t gotten her freckles. None of which I could tell her because I’d forgotten how to speak.
I took a swig of my beer as Molly glanced around the restaurant. I swallowed it down, remembering I was a senior in college, not mute. And definitely better than this with women.
“We’re back there,” I said, gesturing to where Poppy and Jamie were sitting—and kissing again.
Molly spotted them and groaned. “Those two are nauseating right now. I ate lunch with them yesterday and had to throw a chicken nugget at Jamie’s head before he even realized I was there.”
I chuckled. “Poppy didn’t have many boyfriends in high school. This whole PDA thing is a first for me. I’m not going to lie, I don’t like it.”
“I’m not much for PDA myself. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d take a heartfelt letter over sucking face in a restaurant any day of the week.”
“A letter? I think the most I’ve ever written to a woman was a question on a sticky note. Does that count?”
She giggled, the melodic sound stealing my breath. “No, a sticky note doesn’t count.”
My gaze wandered back to her hair, following the silky spirals up from the curve of her breast to the shell of her ear. I really wanted to touch it. Would it be weird to touch it? Yes.
“Excuse me.” The waitress pushed past me with another loaded tray.
“Sorry.” I shuffled toward an empty high-top table so I was clear of the aisle. Poppy was so focused on her new boyfriend, she hadn’t even noticed Molly’s arrival. “I’m in no rush to get back to the kissing booth. Care to sit? You can educate me on all of the other old-fashioned customs missing in today’s dating rituals.”
“Like bundling. They should bring bundling back. And the pet name darling. Not darlin’,” she drawled. “I hate darlin’. But darling is rather charming, don’t you think?”
“It is.” I grinned, pulling out her chair, then went to my own.
Molly glanced over her shoulder, dismissing Poppy and Jamie for the last time. When she turned to me and smiled, the whole restaurant disappeared. “Those two won’t even know we’re missing.”
“What two?”
One
Molly
Fifteen years later . . .
“Married, single or divorced?” the salesman asked, his finger poised above his mouse, ready to click the appropriate checkbox on the screen.
“Divorced.” Even after six years that word still felt strange on my tongue.
Why did they even need to ask that question? Every loan application, PTA volunteer form and church questionnaire wanted to know your marital status. I was going to start checking the single box. What was the difference? I was buying this car. The fact that I had an ex-husband didn’t make a bit of difference because me, myself and I had no intention of missing a payment.
“Address?”
I rattled off my address, phone number and social security number as requested, and after a hundred clicks, the salesman finally tore his eyes away from the screen.
“Okay, I think we’re set. Let me get the finance guy in here and we can go over the terms.”
“Great.” I stayed in my seat as he left the office. When he was gone, I checked the clock on my phone.
I’d been here for two hours already, test-driving, then negotiating the price of the new Jeep Rubicon I was buying. I still had an hour and a half before I had to be home to meet the kids, but this had already taken longer than I’d hoped. I was anxious to get home with this surprise.
Kali and Max had no idea I was buying a new car and they were going to flip when they saw the Jeep in our minivan’s parking spot.
Max hated the minivan because the backseat DVD player had quit a month ago. Like most eight-year-old boys, he thought any trip longer than twenty minutes was torture without something to watch. Not only did the soon-to-be-mine Jeep come outfitted with chrome rims and tinted windows, each of the kids would have their own entertainment consoles.
Kali didn’t consider the TV a necessity like her younger brother, but she had just turned ten and was approaching the age where mean girls found their nasty streaks and anything and everything could cause debilitating embarrassment—like the minivan I was trading in today. Tomorrow I’d be rolling through the school drop-off line with new wheels, which were sure to earn me some cool-mom points.
I’d been running low on those lately. Their dad was the cool parent, not me. My areas of excellence were laundry, housekeeping and nagging until homework was done and vegetables were eaten. But at least now I’d have a trendy vehicle.
“Okay, Ms. Alcott.” The salesman walked back into his office with a younger man following behind, a stack of papers in his hand. “We’ll just go over the financing terms, sign a few papers and you’ll be all set. I’m having the guys in the shop fill up the tank and do a quick clean. We’ll have you out of here in thirty minutes.”
I smiled. “Perfect.”
An hour later, I slid into the black leather driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel, taking a deep breath of my new Jeep’s smell. It wasn’t a brand-new car. I was a divorcee with a mortgage and t
wo kids who were constantly outgrowing their Nikes. I couldn’t afford brand-new. But I could afford a shiny three-year-old model with low miles and eighteen months left on the bumper-to-bumper warranty.
“Oh my God, I love this car.” With a happy squeal, I adjusted the seat and mirrors, then put it in drive and pulled off the lot. Excitement raced through my veins, and I fought to stay under the speed limit as I drove through town. The jitters didn’t settle until I was parked in my driveway.
As I got out to inspect the gleaming black paint, I hid my smile with a hand. This Jeep wasn’t just cool, it was badass, and so much better than the white minivan I’d left behind.
My gaze wandered to the garage where the minivan had lived and a pang of sadness hit. We’d nicknamed her Beluga and she’d been my trusty steed for years. She’d schlepped kids to soccer and me to work. She’d cared for hundreds of forgotten Cheerios and fruit snacks. She’d been there for me after the divorce, when I’d collapse into the steering wheel and let out rivers of tears before putting on a happy face to show the world.
I was going to miss Beluga. She’d been one of the last remaining artifacts from my married days.
Most of the relics from my failed marriage had been replaced over the last six years. The living room furniture Finn and I had bought together went first after Kali spilled grape juice on the upholstery and the stain had set. Next went the roof and siding of the house after a severe hailstorm. The beige home we’d bought was now white with black shutters and a charcoal tin roof. Pictures had been taken down. Memorabilia had been stowed in boxes and hidden in the attic.