Molly's Mr. Wrong
Page 1
They’re both learning from scratch
Molly Adamson has moved back to the place that made her happiest: Eagle Valley, Montana. Teaching college English classes is also a fresh start...even if he’s one of her students. Finn Culver. Athlete, heartthrob, homecoming date. After that disastrous night all those years ago, Molly never wanted to see Finn, now a handsome military veteran, again. But as she gets to know him through his writing, helping him conquer an undiagnosed learning disability, Molly sees much more than the swaggering charmer. Both teacher and student will learn a lot about love, and each other, if they can let the past go...
“I think you should continue the class.”
“I don’t see a lot of point in taking it.”
“I’ll...”
Molly’s voice trailed off and Finn’s expression shifted. “What, Molly?” One corner of his perfect mouth curved into a wry expression that was somehow both cold and amused. “Be gentle with me?”
The way he said it brought more color to her cheeks. “Yes. I will.”
“Thanks for the offer, but no.”
“I’ll...help you.” What on earth was she saying?
“No. Thank you.”
He pulled the truck door open and Molly heard the word “Chicken?” emerge from her lips. Finn stopped dead and turned back.
Had she really just said that?
Dear Reader,
Molly’s Mr. Wrong is all about trying to get life right. During high school, Molly Adamson was a shy, bookish teen with a raging crush on one of the high school elite. You know how that usually works out, right?
Right...
Well, in Molly’s case, she got a (mercy) date with her dream guy—Finn Culver—who then brought her home early from the homecoming dance and went out with another woman. Ouch. But those are the kinds of moments in life that inspire people to change, and that was when Molly decided to reinvent herself.
Fast-forward a decade and Molly is a successful college English teacher. She knows what she wants in life and she also knows what she doesn’t want. Top of the list for Doesn’t Want? Finn Culver blasting back into her life. But Finn is now one of her students, and Molly finds that while she knows exactly what she’s looking for in her Mr. Right, she keeps feeling a tug toward Mr. Wrong.
Is she ever going to get life right?
This was a fun book to write because once upon a time I was Molly. I didn’t have her homecoming experience, but I did have a couple of cringe-worthy high school moments. But don’t we all? I hope you enjoy Molly’s Mr. Wrong.
Happy reading,
Jeannie Watt
JEANNIE
WATT
Molly’s Mr. Wrong
Jeannie Watt splits her time between her homes in rural northern Nevada and western Montana. In Nevada, she enjoys the quiet life living off the grid, and in Montana she and her husband help with the family cattle ranch. Jeannie enjoys riding, hiking, sewing and making mosaic mirrors. She also enjoys adding to her small menagerie and has her eye on a baby goat. Shh—don’t tell her husband. Check out Jeannie’s website, jeanniewatt.com, for more information.
Books by Jeannie Watt
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
The Brodys of Lightning Creek
To Tempt a Cowgirl
To Kiss a Cowgirl
To Court a Cowgirl
The Montana Way
Once a Champion
Cowgirl in High Heels
All for a Cowboy
Too Many Cooks?
The Baby Truce
Undercover Cook
Just Desserts
Crossing Nevada
Maddie Inherits a Cowboy
Once and for All
Always a Temp
Cowboy Comes Back
A Cowboy’s Redemption
Cop on Loan
The Brother Returns
The Horseman’s Secret
A Difficult Woman
HARLEQUIN WESTERN ROMANCE
Montana Bull Riders
The Bull Rider Meets His Match
The Bull Rider’s Homecoming
Visit the Author Profile page at
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This book is dedicated to the Mathews Clan. You guys are the best!
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM THE OTHER TWIN BY NAN DIXON
CHAPTER ONE
“BE CAREFUL OF that box,” Lola Martinez called from behind the cash register as Finn Culver came in through the front door of the feed store. “It’s full of pottery.”
“Right.” Finn sidestepped the box blocking the aisle and barely kept from shaking his head as he crossed the store to his grandfather’s office. Two weeks had passed since he’d returned from overseas deployment, and he was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the changes that had occurred here during the year he’d been gone.
He’d left a dusty space containing the bare essentials for serious ranching and farming and come back to a full-blown Western gift boutique and coffee corner—thanks to his cousin’s new fiancée, Jolie Brody. The crazy thing was that his grandfather, Mike, who’d taught him his frugal ways, was good with it. No, he was great with it—because his friends hung around the store now, and he didn’t have to wait for Thursday-night poker to be with the guys. Business was booming, despite competition from chain ranch stores, and how strange was that when a year ago he could have fired a cannonball through the store and not come close to hitting someone?
“Hey, Finn.” Karl Evans, one of Mike’s best friends, hailed him from inside the office, where two of the three chairs that usually sat side by side in front of the small television had been swung around to face Finn’s desk. “We need an opinion.”
Finn gamely made his way to stand behind the chairs. He’d given a lot of opinions and settled a lot of bets since returning home. Debating and small-time wagering were a way of life for his granddad and his friends Karl and Cal Sawyer.
Karl looked over his shoulder at him. “We’re thinking of introducing Cal into the wonderful world of online dating. Which photo?”
On the desk were printouts of three hilariously unflattering photos of the missing member of the geriatric trio.
Finn’s face grudgingly split into a smile as he picked up the photo that made it appear as if Cal’s eyes had rolled back into his head. “You guys wouldn’t.”
“We’re just going to mess with his head,” Karl said with a laugh. “Teach him that it’s dangerous to miss buddy time.”
Finn pointed at the photo he’d just set down. “That one. Definitely.”
He left the two guys cackling and typing up Cal’s bogus profile.
“I have the grain order ready for app
roval,” Lola said as he came out of the office. She was an easygoing woman in her midforties who used to live next door to Mike. She was there temporarily until his cousin Dylan and his fiancée, Jolie, returned from Colorado, where Dylan was training in forensic biology. But with the way business was going, they could probably keep her on. He went to the counter and pulled the papers closer, reading through them slowly and making a checkmark by each item as he approved it.
“You okay?” Lola asked.
Finn glanced up in surprise. “Yeah. Why?”
“You seem...preoccupied?”
He jerked his head at the office door. “Just concerned that I might be the next guy in their sights for a prank.”
“Yeah. That wouldn’t be good. Those guys...they have too much time on their hands.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
* * *
“THIS IS A CUTE HOUSE and all, Molly, but what’s with these closets?”
Molly Adamson’s younger sister, Georgina, stood in front of the pint-size closet, holding a fistful of hangers and looking perplexed. At nineteen, she was a year older than Molly had been when the family moved from Eagle Valley, Montana, to Darby, Illinois, where her father had been tasked with reviving yet another failing store. Moving every year or two, depending on how long it took her father to work his magic or declare the store a bust, had been a fact of Adamson family life. But Molly had been lucky that the family had stayed in the Eagle Valley for three whole years, allowing her to finish high school there. It’d been the longest she’d ever lived in one place and probably the reason she was back. Eagle Valley was the closest thing to a hometown that she had.
Georgina set the hangers on the dresser and propped a hand on her hip as she regarded the space. “Didn’t people hang up clothing in the 1940s?”
“They probably didn’t own as much clothing as you do.”
“Point taken, but seriously, look at the size of this thing.”
Molly had to agree it was small, but other than the tiny closets, the house was perfect. Situated on the edge of town with a creek on the other side of the backyard fence and beyond that fields and mountains... It was more than she’d hoped for after making the decision to return. Housing options were limited in the Eagle Valley, unless you were rolling in money, which Molly definitely was not. Thank you, Blake. Her ill-fated relationship with an almost-pro ballplayer had played hell with both her finances and later her self-esteem, but it had also helped her to grow a backbone.
“I would have loved this closet when I was eight,” Georgina said. “Kid-size.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “Maybe I could build something. You know, shelving and stuff.”
Molly had seen that light in her sister’s eyes before. “Uh...give me a heads-up before you start knocking out walls, okay?”
Georgina flashed a smile. “I’ll probably be too busy with classes to do any serious renovation, but at semester break...don’t worry,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll have a plan in place.”
“Yes, I’d appreciate a plan.” Then it wouldn’t be like the time her sister had taken it upon herself to join her room to Molly’s by knocking out a space between wall studs with a hammer. Both girls had gotten a lesson in drywall installation and repair shortly thereafter, with Molly handling the brunt of the work, since she was sixteen and Georgina had been six. Their brother, David, who perfectly split their age span, being five years older than Georgina and five years younger than Molly, had enjoyed himself immensely, since for once he wasn’t the Adamson in deep trouble.
Molly walked down the hall to the kitchen, which was crammed with unopened boxes. She leaned against the door frame, letting her glasses slide down her nose as she regarded the room. Yes, she would make order of chaos, but she didn’t have much time, because her new job started in less than a week. Feeling a surge of adrenaline at the thought, she pushed off the door frame and opened the box closest to her and starting unwrapping her grandmother’s china and loading it carefully into the cupboards. Rain beat on the roof as she worked, a sound she hadn’t heard all that often in Phoenix, where she’d recently finished up her degree. Now it was a sound she’d been hearing for the past twelve hours.
“Need some help?” Georgina, apparently having given up on closet plans for the time being, drifted into the room. She opened a box without waiting for an answer and began unpacking kitchen utensils.
Finally, at nine o’clock, Georgina straightened from where she’d been kneeling next to the linen drawer and pushed her long dark hair away from her face. “Maybe I should go get us some takeout or something.”
“I don’t know how much takeout you’re going to find here. Maybe we should hit a grocery store instead.”
“Are you sure they’re open this late?” Georgina asked with a tiny smirk. “And that the sidewalks are still down, for that matter?”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to move with me to a small town,” Molly said as she looked around for her purse. Although Eagle Valley was bigger than it had been when she left a decade ago.
“I’m all over this small-town thing.” Georgina lifted a piece of packing material and handed Molly her simple brown leather purse. “But I was eight when we moved. There’s a lot I don’t remember.” And a lot that she did. She’d talked about it on the drive from Arizona to Montana, wondering what had changed and who still lived there.
Molly had been surprised when newly graduated Georgina had decided to move back to Montana with her and start postsecondary at Eagle Valley Community College. She’d also been glad for the company. She’d spent a lot of solitary hours while Blake had been on the road, blithely unaware that he wasn’t as alone as she was, so being alone felt different now. It reminded her of how stupid she’d been.
Georgina rolled up the rickety metal garage door, putting up her hand as a blast of water blew in. “You know, I used to like the rain.”
Half an hour later they were back with a carload of groceries. Georgina rolled down the garage door while Molly gathered as many bags as she could carry in one trip. She was starving, and the sooner the frozen pizza was in the oven, the better. She started for the steps leading up to the kitchen door only to stop dead as she came around the front of the car.
“What?” Georgina asked as she almost ran into her from behind.
“That.” Molly pointed to the far wall where water was starting to seep across the garage from under the edge of the door that opened to the yard.
Her cute house had a problem more pressing than closet space. Her cute house was flooding.
“Did the creek overflow?” Georgina asked.
“I don’t think so. It seemed pretty low yesterday.” Molly quickly climbed the steps and unlocked the kitchen door, set down the groceries and headed out to the back deck. The creek was still in its banks, but something was making the garage flood.
Using the small flashlight on her key chain, Molly walked around the edge of the house and shone the light on the concrete garage entryway, which was lower than the surrounding landscape and created the perfect place for runoff to flow. Water lapped against the bottom of the door.
“Damn. That’s at least three inches deep.”
“Poor design for sure,” Georgina muttered. “What do we do?”
Molly pushed her wet hair back. “We get out of the rain and cook our pizza.”
“Seriously?”
Molly shrugged as she led the way back to the deck. “We have nothing in the garage other than the car. The house sits a couple feet higher than the garage, so we ignore it until morning.”
When she and the real estate agent were going to have a chat.
But it turned out that the agent was on vacation for the next week and a half.
“I have half an inch of water in my garage from the storm last night and I want something done about it.”
No. She needed to know why this situation wasn’t mentioned when she specifically asked about flooding and plumbing problems and was told there were none. “Have Mr. Hettle call me when he gets back, please.”
There was a hearty sigh on the other end of the line and Molly forced herself to stay silent. Not to apologize. It was hard to break that habit, but hitting her breaking point with Blake had changed her, helped her find her backbone, and people with backbones didn’t apologize so that other people would play nice with them.
“I’ll connect you to his voice mail.” Molly was abruptly switched over and after the greeting, she left a short message. One problem not solved. She glanced at her watch, then went to the closet to grab her dark blue blazer. Even though her job didn’t start for another week, she had to attend orientation meetings over the next several days. “Hey, George! I’ve got to go.”
“See ya.” Her sister’s voice drifted down the hall from her room, followed by the sound of hammering.
Hoping all the walls would be in place when she got home, Molly backed her car out of the still-damp garage, then stopped when she noticed the older man next door digging around his rosebushes. Molly rolled down her window.
“Excuse me,” she called. The man looked up, then set down his shovel and crossed his yard to the fence. “My garage flooded last night during the rainstorm... Do you know if the people who owned this place before me had the same problem?”
The man shook his head. “Flooded, you say.”
“Water filled up the entry leading to the side garage door. It’s receding, but if we get rain again...”
“Ah. There’s a drain in the bottom of that concrete slab. Yours must be clogged.”
A clogged drain. Easy fix. Suddenly the world seemed brighter and Molly smiled at him. “Could you recommend a good plumber?”
“If you don’t mind waiting. They’re building more houses on that hill near the lake and the guy I know is pretty busy, but he’ll get to you. Eventually.”