Molly Darling

by Laurie Paige

  Except his eyes had tiny flecks of gold mixed with the brown, she noticed for the first time. Like hidden treasure.

  “No, ma’am, we’re not,” he replied solemnly.

  She stiffened, wondering if he was making fun of her. She did tend to be a little… stuffy. Inhibited was the term her parents had used when she frowned upon their hedonistic behavior. Prudish was the teasing way her brother had put it.

  However, she decided her companion was no more prone to uncalled-for levity than she was. “Good,” she said approvingly, drawing a sardonic glance from him.

  “It was raining when I left the house, but I think we’re getting the dying gasp of the storm,” he said, picking up her conversational tidbit. “I rode the river today, checking for erosion along the banks, but everything looked fine.”

  “I’m sure that was a relief. We’ve had so many floods the past few years. The ranchers must worry each time a cloud appears on the horizon.”

  He laughed suddenly, unexpectedly. She stared at the tanned column of his throat. He’d bathed and shaved before coming to pick up Lass. His face was smooth, and she got a whiff of his after-shave once in a while. His jeans and white shirt were fresh. He’d rolled his sleeves up, exposing tanned forearms with fine black hairs sprinkled generously over them.

  For a second, she had the oddest sensation… as if she’d like to kiss him, right where his neck joined his shoulder. And perhaps along those strong cords running up his throat. The impulse to do so was almost irresistible.

  She cleared her throat. “Do share the humor, Mr. Frazier.”

  His laughter was brief, but a smile lingered at the corners of his mouth like the promise in a rainbow. “I was thinking of clouds. That seems to be all that’s on my horizon these days.”

  “I see.” She instilled the proper amount of sympathy in her tone, indicating a willingness to listen if he wished to talk.

  “Please, call me Sam.”

  A definite change of subject. She followed his lead. “Is that short for Samuel?”

  “No. It’s just Sam. Sam Watson Frazier.”

  “Is Watson a family name?”

  He shot her a glance from under the dark slash of his eyebrows that made her heart jump erratically. “It was my mother’s maiden name.”

  “How nice. I think names are so important. They convey a sense of continuity, handed down from one family member to another like that. I’m named after my grandmothers, Millicent Dorothea.”

  “I thought you were called Molly.”

  “I am. I chose Molly when I was four and refused to answer to Millicent thereafter. My parents thought the name suited, so Molly I’ve been ever since.”

  “You must have understanding parents.”

  “They’re very liberal, one might say.”

  “Might one?”

  There was the slightest sarcastic edge to the question. She ignored it. “Yes, indeed. Interesting, too. In fact, most people find my parents fascinating. Actually I do, too.”

  He nodded, but said nothing as he concentrated on his meal once more. Sam. She mentally tried the name, picturing herself saying it to him. After months of thinking of him as Lass’s father, it sounded odd, much too personal.

  “Your accent is Eastern. Where are you from?” he asked after a bit.

  “A tiny hamlet in Virginia.”

  “Did your folks object when you moved out here?” He seemed sincerely interested in her answer.

  “Actually they were horrified, but then they said it was like me.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Contrary.” She smiled nostalgically. “My parents said I was born to be their conscience.”

  His eyebrows rose fractionally. “Were you?”

  “Not really.” She was never less than truthful. “However, I was rather a sober child and I worried about things…”

  “What things?”

  “Starving children and…and things like that. I used to send my allowance to a fund for feeding the children until the counselor at school called my parents in to ask if I needed to be on the free lunch program. They were pretty angry with me over that one.”

  “What else did you do?”

  She tried not to feel flattered at his obvious interest. After all, this wasn’t a date, merely a recompense on his part for keeping her late. “I fed a starving dog once. It followed me home, so I took it to my room and let it sleep with me. It had some kind of seizure the next day. My father had to shoot it. Then I had to take rabies shots.”

  “Dangerous,” he murmured. “What else?”

  “Another time I brought home a kitten from the woods. I was so disappointed when my mother told me to take it back at once.”

  “Your parents wouldn’t let you have pets?”

  “Not this one.” She looked down as if saddened by the memory. “It was the prettiest kitten, too—black with a silver line on its head that divided into two lines along its back.”

  When she looked up, she saw comprehension and amusement flash into his eyes, followed by a low, genuine chuckle, unlike that earlier hollow parody of a laugh. She smiled, enchanted by two surprising dimples at each side of his mouth. She hadn’t noticed those before.

  “I think you were a trial to your folks,” he commented.

  “I’m afraid so.” She paused. “Were you?”

  He was silent so long she didn’t think he was going to answer. Instead he gazed into her eyes as if looking into her soul. It unnerved her. When the waitress stopped and poured more coffee in Sam’s cup, Molly was relieved.

  When they were alone again, he studied Lass, who had fallen asleep, before glancing back at Molly. “My dad died when I was twelve. I hated my stepfather.”

  “That’s sad,” she said quietly. She had very firm ideas of how families should support and love each other. “I adore my parents and my brother. They love me, too, although they find me as perplexing as I find them.”

  “Because you’re quiet and they’re flamboyant?”

  His insight was startling. “Something like that,” she murmured. “Um, this is quite good.” She indicated her chicken dish. “How’s your steak?”

  “Great. I rarely get steak. My cooking tends toward the quick and easy.”

  “I thought all ranches had an irascible old cook who dribbled ashes into the pots and shot anyone who complained about the food.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t afford one.”

  The hardness crept into his voice. She guessed his pride was pricked at having to admit he didn’t have a lot of money. His life had been hard, it appeared, then to lose his wife and have a baby to take care of… Her heart went out to him.

  She tried to stifle the feeling, knowing herself to be the softest of soft touches when it came to another’s pain. If ever there was anyone less needy of her pity it was Sam Frazier.

  During the rest of the meal, she was aware of the glances directed their way and wondered if others saw their being there as a date. The spinster and the cowboy. It was almost a parody of every dime novel ever written.

  Except she was real, and so was he.

  After he cleaned up every bite on his plate, he ordered more coffee and settled back in the booth with a tired but satisfied sigh. “I could go to sleep right here,” he told her.

  “Please don’t. You’re too big for me to carry.”

  His eyebrows jerked upward in surprise. He studied her for a long minute before asking, “Would you take me home and tuck me into bed the way you do Lass when I bring her to your nursery?”

  Chills tumbled down Molly’s spine at his sexy question. He probably didn’t realize how provocative he’d sounded, his voice dropping into a deeper, quieter register while he spoke.

  She glanced into his eyes. The dark intensity of his gaze stalled any answer she might have made. Words went flying out of her head. Then the expression disappeared, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined it.

  “You’re not a baby,” she finally said.

  �
��No, I’m not.” He frowned suddenly, as if realizing he’d said too much. “How did you happen to start a nursery school?”

  She relaxed. The nursery was dear to her heart. She had definite ideas about the learning experiences of young children.

  “Most adults have very Little conception of the learning capacity of children,” she said, launching into one of her favorite topics. “For instance, Lass already knows to push a blue button when she wants to hear music, a red one when she wants food and a yellow one when she wants to play with a mobile over her crib.”

  “Is this learning or training them like Pavlov’s dogs?”

  “Oh, no. Babies know what they want. Lass won’t ask for food if she isn’t hungry. If you offer to push the red button for her after she’s eaten, she pushes your hand to one of the others, then smiles when the music plays or the mobile lowers.”

  “So maybe my kid’s a genius?” The hard-edged question was skeptical of her conclusions.

  “Lass is very bright,” she informed him. He didn’t seem to be taking her research seriously. However, she’d already had several articles published in various parenting magazines. “Most people don’t realize how much children absorb before they’re able to talk and express themselves coherently.”

  He nodded and looked again at his sleeping daughter. Molly realized she was lecturing him on the subject. Heat crept up the back of her neck, and she shut up.

  Really, she didn’t know why she always had this propensity to expound upon a topic until she bored everyone into a stupor. That had been one of her problems in high school and college, her mother had told her.

  Her serious nature coupled with strictly average looks hadn’t garnered her many boyfriends, although both males and females had regarded her as a friend. People had always come to her for advice. Her teachers had complimented her on being levelheaded.

  Glancing at the man seated opposite her, she wished she wasn’t quite so pedestrian. If she were more… exotic… maybe he wouldn’t be sitting there with his head resting against the back of the booth and his eyes half-closed, studying her as if she were from another planet.

  Oh, well. She finished her tea and laid the napkin aside. “I think it’s time to go home. I’m tired, too.”

  He nodded and sat up straighter. He signaled for the check, paid it, then lifted the car seat with the sleeping Lass.

  Molly spoke to several couples on the way out, people she recognized from the local church. Sam nodded but spoke to no one. She wasn’t surprised.

  The local people viewed him with suspicion and, as far as she could see, he made no effort to change their minds about his character.

  Some folks said he’d married his wife for her money. Molly didn’t believe the rumors. He was too straightforward, too bluntly honest in his dealings with her to be conniving.

  Of course she did tend to take the side of the underdog…or outcast, in this case. She didn’t tell him that. He wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.

  Chapter Two

  Sam leaned against the window frame, his stance deceptively calm compared to the frustrated rage he felt inside.

  “Marriage. That’s my best advice,” Chuck Nader said.

  Sam glanced at the attorney, then back at the busy street below. “What’s your second best?”

  “Take the kid, leave the area, change your name and go into hiding until she’s eighteen.”

  Sam dismissed the suggestion with an angry snort. This was his and Lass’s home. They weren’t leaving.

  He’d been a drifter for a few years after getting out of school. He’d left the ranch that had been his heritage because of his stepfather. He wasn’t about to take to the road again.

  When his mother had died, the land had passed to Sam. He’d returned home and fought his stepfather for possession of the ranch that was rightfully his.

  For the past two years, he’d worked hard to pay the taxes and mortgage and get the place back on its feet after his stepfather had drained all the cash he could, using the ranch’s money to set himself up in an easy life-style down in Texas. Sam clenched his fists in useless anger.

  This land represented his past and his future. He would guard and nurture it. Someday he would pass it on to Lass. He wanted her to grow up on Frazier land, to know her heritage and love it with the same intensity he experienced when he rode over its broad mesas and hidden arroyos.

  He cursed aloud, but it didn’t relieve the rage.

  “Tisdale isn’t going to give up easily,” the lawyer said. “He needs the money. If he has custody of his grandchild—”

  “And the two hundred grand that goes with her,” Sam added.

  “Right. With that money, he’d be sitting pretty.”

  “Until he ran through it the way he did with his wife’s inheritance.” Sam ran a hand over his face, feeling the utter frustration of trying to deal with the situation.

  It looked as if he was going to be involved in another legal battle. He was in charge of Lass and her trust fund. He’d set up the blasted thing for her.

  His former father-in-law fancied himself as a wheeler-dealer. Mostly he was a loser. He’d gone through all the money he could get his hands on. Now he wanted Lass’s fortune.

  Over Sam’s dead body.

  Sometimes he worried it might come to that. William Tisdale was getting desperate. Two hundred thousand dollars would go a long way toward relieving his worries. The Tisdale land was mortgaged to the hilt. Tisdale assumed the Frazier ranch was, too. It wasn’t, thanks to Sam’s depleted savings.

  Sam cursed again. “I feel so damned trapped.”

  “Marriage is the best way out,” Chuck reminded him. “My sister said she saw you and the nursery schoolteacher at the truck stop Friday night. The woman is perfect. I couldn’t have picked a better candidate if you’d asked me.”

  “Molly,” Sam said.

  “What?”

  “Her name is Molly.”

  The attorney hooked a leg over the arm of his executive chair and grinned. “Yeah. Molly Clelland. As I said—she’s one hundred percent perfect. The minute you’re married to her, Tisdale won’t have a leg to stand on if he takes this to court. Her reputation is impeccable. Half the county would testify on her behalf. And yours… if you’re married to her.”

  “I haven’t touched a penny of Lass’s money, not a red cent. There’s no way he can say I’m a fortune hunter…or an unfit father. I don’t even look at women, much less bring any home. Tisdale hasn’t a chance of winning, not based on the truth.”

  Sam paced the narrow space between window and the chair he’d sat in briefly when he’d arrived to discuss the charges being threatened against him by his wife’s father.

  His father-in-law had accused him of wasting Lass’s inheritance. An out-and-out lie. The old man had also implied he had evidence that Sam was an “unfit father.”

  Such talk had scared him. While he knew he loved Lass and would defend her from harm with every drop of blood in his body, he also knew evidence to the contrary could be fabricated against him. He remembered reading about a case in which a man had been convicted of child abuse and imprisoned for three years before it was found to be a false charge by a vengeful ex-wife.

  That was one of the reasons he’d put Lass in Molly Clelland’s nursery school at his attorney’s urging. The respected teacher could see that Lass was a healthy, happy baby who showed no signs of abuse or neglect. He intended to see that she stayed that way. Give Lass to his lying s.o.b. of a father-in-law? No way.

  “All right,” he said as if facing the firing squad.

  Chuck looked amazed. “You’ll marry her?”

  Sam set his hat on his head grimly. “I’ll think about it,” he said, mainly to get the attorney off his case.

  “Listen, I’ll have my wife invite the two of you over for dinner so you can see what married life is all about.” The attorney paused to laugh. “I’ll tell Janice she can’t nag or scold me while you and the teacher are there.”
r />   “Sounds like real married bliss,” Sam scoffed.

  Chuck grinned secretively. “Oh, it is. You’ll find out.” He became serious. “Call me before you do anything drastic. We’ll have to work out the prenuptial agreement first. Okay?”

  “Sure.” When he thought about marriage, Sam got a smothery feeling in his chest.

  He’d thought he was in love with Elise, but it wasn’t long after their marriage that he’d realized she’d married him to spite her father. Marriage to him had been her final rebellion against the old man. Within six months, she’d been restless and ready to move on…until she’d found out she was pregnant. Then she’d been as mad as hell at him.

  When he’d reminded her it took two to produce a child and she sure as hell had been a willing partner in their marriage bed, she’d screeched like a fury. Six months later, she’d died during the birth—a stroke induced by the high blood pressure caused by the birthing process. He’d watched helplessly during the ordeal.

  The doctor had explained about the weakness in the wall of the blood vessel, that the stroke could have happened at anytime and, in fact, would have happened sooner or later without the pregnancy. The explanation hadn’t relieved Sam’s guilt. He’d been the one who’d insisted she go ahead and have the child.

  And now his father-in-law was out for his blood. And his child. Lordy, how complicated life got.

  He was tired of hassles and legal wrangling. He was tired of people looking at him suspiciously as Tisdale spread lies about his marrying Elise for her money. He was tired of worrying all the time.

  He had placed all of his wife’s money, including the life insurance, into an irrevocable trust for Lass. However, irrevocable trusts could be broken if a person knew the right lawyers and judges. And Tisdale knew them all.

  With that rustling episode from his past, Sam figured the odds were against him. If his father-in-law had his way, he would be in prison for his wife’s death. As it was, the man was doing everything in his power to make life miserable.

  Sam clenched a fist. Let Tisdale get his hands on sweet, innocent Lass? Never.

  Marriage wasn’t something he looked forward to, not even for Lass and God knows, he’d do anything for his child, short of murder. Marriage might be the only way.