As for that pang inside her—the hollow, empty one inside her chest—it would dull and fade in time.
Finally the fountain was in front of her. She reached for the bag of pennies resting on the river rock ledge rather than her daughter. Too afraid she’d reach for Drew, as well. She pressed a kiss on Hazel’s sticky cheek.
“I lost the wipes somewhere between the ice-cream stand and First Street,” Drew confessed. “I thought about dipping my fingers in the fountain water, then pictured Ella scolding me.”
Molly noted a series of new dark stains on Hazel’s onesie that turned the plump white clouds on her outfit into storm clouds. The triple stains were like a dotted line connecting Molly to Drew. Accidents happened. Her urge to hold his hand and strengthen their connection wouldn’t be an accident. It’d be a mistake.
“Popsicles were a bad idea too.” Drew wiped at Hazel’s stomach, drawing out her quick giggle. “It broke right off the stick, rolled down Hazel’s front and onto the cement before I could catch more than a spoonful of the fruity swirl.”
“That’s what the washing machine is for.” Molly firmed her grip on the penny bag and lifted it into her sight line, forcing herself to redirect her focus away from Drew. “Looks like you two haven’t made too many wishes.”
“We detoured to touch the grass, the thick redwood tree trunks and sniff several flowers.” Drew showed Hazel a penny and tossed it into the fountain. Hazel clapped wildly.
“Are you at least making a new wish every time you toss a penny into the water?” Molly opened the bag and scooped out a handful of pennies. She blocked her heart from stepping forward, using a hard hit of logic. Wishing wells were a distraction. The same as her attraction to Drew. Wishes were forgotten and readily replaced. As for her attraction, she simply had to replace that too.
“We’re supposed to be making a new wish every time.” Drew laughed and shook his head. “I just keep repeating the same one over and over again.”
“I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.” Molly launched a penny into the air. “It’s one wish per penny. Otherwise you’re buying your way to your wish coming true.”
“How many pennies have you tossed into a wishing well?” Drew shifted Hazel to his other arm.
“The better question is how many of my wishes have come true from the pennies I tossed into the fountains.” Molly handed Hazel a penny. Let her look at it.
Drew’s hand covered Hazel’s palm and the penny. He captured Hazel’s attention and lifted his voice in wonder. “Where did it go?”
Hazel peered at her now-empty palm. Her eyes round. Drew continued his show, finally revealing the penny in his pocket. He tossed it into the water and slanted his gaze at Molly. “After the first two pennies went straight for Hazel’s mouth, I decided I needed to become a magician. She can touch, but not taste.”
“Another lesson from Ella?” Molly smiled, picturing adorable and intelligent Ella tutoring Drew on everything baby.
“No.” Drew tapped Hazel’s nose. “Actually, the magic trick idea was all mine.”
“It’s a good one.” Unlike Molly’s idea to listen to her heart. To step closer to Drew and test whether her attraction to him was reciprocated. But what she felt was merely appreciation for Drew. And she couldn’t fall for him because he treated her daughter well. Molly faced the fountain and rolled a penny between her fingers.
Drew stepped beside her and bumped his shoulder against hers. “Well, are you going to tell me how many of your wishes came true?”
None. Was there harm in wishing again? Perhaps not. But trying again. Opening her heart again. Not a risk she could afford. “When I was a kid, I wished for a house.”
“How come I don’t know this? Where did you live growing up?” Drew reached up and patted Hazel’s back. She rested her head on his shoulder and yawned several times, each one bigger than the previous.
“Apartments.” Molly sealed the penny bag but failed to seal off her childhood memories. Or the words tumbling free. “More than two dozen different apartments before I was ten and then I stopped counting.”
She reached for Hazel and settled her into the stroller. She covered Hazel from chin to feet with a blanket. If only covering her past made her feel as content as Hazel looked.
“Did you stop moving then?” Drew pushed the stroller toward a park bench behind the fountain, nestled in a copse of trees and shrubs.
“No. My dad left. Just walked out and never came back one night.” And Molly never wished for a house again. Until Derrick. Then she began to hope. Hope for that house and family she’d always dreamed about growing up. Derrick hadn’t shared her dream. Same as her own dad. And Molly had vowed not to let her dreams ever hurt her again. “I decided if I wanted a house, I was going to have to buy it for my mom and me.”
Drew angled Hazel’s stroller so he could push it back and forth with his foot.
He hadn’t known Hazel long, but he already knew how to calm her. How to put her to sleep. How to make her laugh. Drew would make a good father. Molly flexed her fingers in her lap, expanded those boundaries and her detachment. She wasn’t looking for a father for Hazel or a partner for herself.
Drew glanced at her. His gaze thoughtful. “Did you ever buy a house for you and your mom?”
“My mom passed away two years after we graduated from law school.” Emotions swelled inside Molly, testing her distance. She’d wanted to give her mom what her mom had never had, and she’d failed her. Molly couldn’t fail Hazel. Her throat felt scratchy. “I had student loans to pay off first, before I could afford a down payment on a house.”
“I’m sorry.” Drew reached over and linked his fingers around hers.
“I did rent a beach cottage for us.” Molly dismissed those boundaries and pressed her palm against Drew’s, seeking his warmth and his strength. “We spent her last few weeks gazing at the stars and listening to the waves roll onto the shore.” And finally finding peace with the past. “Mom had always wanted to live at the beach.”
“You granted her wish.” Respect tinged his words.
“She would’ve granted all mine as a child if she could have.” Molly tried to smile. That catch in her voice remained. “Mom always told me, One day, there will be sand between our toes and sunshine in our hearts, Molly. But only if we believe and work hard. The temporary beach cottage hardly felt like enough.”
“I’m sure it was everything to her.” Confidence flowed from him.
“I hadn’t realized until she was gone how much she meant to me. How much she’d been my everything growing up.” Molly looked to Drew. “I want to be the same for Hazel.”
“You already are.” He lifted his other hand, brushed her hair off her cheek.
“That’s kind.” She could hear the doubt in her own words.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” His earnest voice held Molly’s attention. He added, “You are because you put Hazel first, always.”
“But this is not exactly what I wanted for my daughter. What I wanted for us.” One parent. No house. No other family.
“You have more than you think right here.” He squeezed her hand. “And you’re not alone. You know that, right?”
She nodded because he seemed to be waiting for her agreement. Her gaze dropped to their joined hands. Nothing forced or awkward about her hand in his. Only warmth and a steady reassurance. And if she wanted to look deep inside herself, she’d admit it felt right to hold his hand and confide in him. More than right. “Enough about me. Tell me what you’ve wished for.” Did you wish for me?
“I used to wish for it to rain chicken nuggets and tacos,” Drew admitted. A wry grin curved across his face.
Molly smiled. “What about now?”
“Now my wishes are a little more complicated.” He leaned forward, brushed her hair off her cheek again.
Their gazes col
lided and held. She lost her breath and her focus. And the best kind of chill—the kind that awakened anticipation, swept away her doubt. Her voice rasped, “So, are you going to tell me one of your wishes or not?” Please let it be me.
“I wished for this.” His fingers slipped behind her neck. His head tipped toward hers. She leaned into the kiss.
One soft brush of their lips. One full surrender of her heart.
Her cell phone vibrated on the bench between them. Molly pulled away and picked up her phone. Pressing pause on her racing pulse wasn’t quite as simple as answering her incoming call. “I need to take this. It’s Lorrie Cote.”
Drew blinked slowly. His gaze lifted from Molly’s mouth, as if he’d been considering making another wish, and then his expression suddenly became serious and intent.
Molly answered her phone, kept her focus on Drew and her tone professional.
Lorrie Cote was nervous and hesitant. And not the Cote that Molly wanted to talk to. Still, she was grateful for Brad’s quick work tracking down the family to let them know she had to speak with Reuben. Molly persuaded Reuben’s daughter to listen to her side. Finally she put down the phone and touched Drew’s arm as she would any anxious and worried client. One simple point of contact and it seemed so much more. She had work to sustain her, she told herself, and her love for Hazel to fulfill her. One kiss in the park would change nothing. “Lorrie agreed to meet tomorrow in Sacramento.”
Drew exhaled, “Looks like we’re taking a road trip.”
And realigning my priorities. “We should head home. I need to get prepared for tomorrow.”
Once inside Drew’s truck, their kiss was like a fourth passenger, buckled in beside Hazel’s car seat in the back row and looming like a holdout juror forcing a mistrial.
She’d built a career on never running from a confrontation. Yet there she sat in the passenger seat of Drew’s truck and struggled to launch a talk about their kiss into the silence. Their kiss had been a major boundary violation.
When do you think we could try that kiss thing again? was what she wanted to say. Molly yanked her sunglasses from her face and cleaned the lenses. As if the smudged lenses were to blame for her lack of transparency. As if the lenses held her back from speaking her own truth. “What’s the first thing you plan to do when the hearing is over, and your innocence is proven?”
“Set up my new office.” He never hesitated.
Molly nodded and concentrated on cleaning her sunglasses. What had she been expecting? They’d shared one small kiss. Hardly anything to build a relationship on. She seriously had to impose a penalty for crossing her own boundaries again and again. Hadn’t Derrick hurt her enough?
“What?” he asked. “You’re scowling.”
“I have a scratch on my sunglasses.” Molly returned her sunglasses to her face and buried those soft treacherous emotions. The ones that led to bruised hearts and tears. “Won’t you want to celebrate then with your family and friends?” With me?
“Sure, but that’s what an hour or so one night.” He shrugged. “My new office is where my future starts. Where I get to make a difference again.”
He’d made a difference in Molly’s life. “Your work completely fulfills you then.”
“It’s all that matters,” he said. “I want my life back. There’s still so much I want to prove. To accomplish.”
Molly and Hazel were simply a diversion until his old life began again. The same as Molly had been for Derrick. Molly watched the city pass by outside her window. Caution tape and large orange cones surrounded an uncovered manhole in the street, warning drivers and pedestrians of the danger. Molly wrapped her arms around herself and tried to ignore the sign.
It was simple and straightforward really. Molly had to win Drew’s case so that he could resume his life and his career. Just as he wanted. She’d add another checkmark in the win column and consider the case and their relationship closed.
She rubbed her chest and the twinge of an ache there. Nothing she couldn’t backstop with more clients and more cases.
If they failed to secure Reuben’s sworn testimony tomorrow, Molly would have regrets. She’d regret failing Drew. Even more, she’d regret that she had given Drew hope.
And if you’re merely spending your time hoping, then you’re not doing.
More of her mother’s advice.
Molly wasn’t hoping for love or a family. She was looking after her own family of two.
As for love, she could do without that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DREW ANSWERED HIS phone, eager for the distraction from the heavy silence inside the truck. He’d upset Molly. That much he knew. He just wasn’t certain how.
His brother offered a quick hello followed by, “Meet me at Dan and Brooke’s house.”
“Is this another dog rescue?” Drew asked.
“You were supposed to meet me in thirty minutes at my office,” Brad said. “But I’m not there. I’m at the Sawyers’ place looking after Nala. Brooke had to take the puppies to the vet and Dan has a shift.”
Drew rubbed his forehead. He’d been distracted tossing pennies into the fountain and discussing wishes. He’d completely lost track of time. He could’ve easily lost more time kissing Molly. He concentrated on his phone call. “Right. I’m dropping Molly and Hazel off there now, so I’ll head to the main house.”
Drew disconnected and focused on the traffic, not reaching for Molly.
“You were supposed to meet your brother?” Molly asked.
“Brad and I scheduled a meeting this afternoon.” Drew stepped on the gas pedal, eager to put more distance between himself and the park. He had to stop thinking about kissing Molly. She was his legal counsel, not his girlfriend. “Brad was just switching locations.”
“I would offer to help with Nala, but Hazel needs a nap.” Molly paused as if searching for something else to add to her excuse.
Drew nodded. He needed a moment to revise his strategy.
He hit every green light and reached Brooke and Dan’s place in record time. Molly and Hazel went to their apartment and he escaped inside the main house.
He needed to take a step back. Yet he wanted to return to Molly’s porch, apologize and kiss her. Kiss her longer, hold her tighter and lose himself completely. He shook his head and forced himself to repeat the reason he was there.
“Interesting place for a debrief.” Drew walked into the laundry room and greeted his brother. Nala lifted her head and her tail swept rapidly back and forth across the tile floor.
“She didn’t greet me with a tail wag.” Brad sat between the floor-to-ceiling cabinets and Nala’s makeshift bed.
Drew lowered himself to the floor and rested his back against the washing machine. Nala crawled toward him and laid her head on his leg. Her tail sweep continued.
“My wife and Brooke would say that you are Nala’s person.” Brad chuckled. “That she’s claimed you.”
Drew ran his hand over Nala’s back. His fingers still sank between her ribs, but he couldn’t deny the dog’s spirit. Nala was a fighter like another mom he knew. “And if I’m not a dog person?”
“I don’t think it matters much to Nala,” Brad said. “She trusts you.”
“Is that all it takes?” Drew asked. “Trust?” And one kiss—brief, but extraordinary. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d kissed a woman and completely forgotten his surroundings. Like he had earlier with Molly.
Putting one memorable kiss aside, Drew knew it was all wrong between Molly and him. How could it be anything else? They were both at crossroads in their respective careers. She was a single mom, responsible for her daughter. He had his large group of friends and his family to focus on. And the kiss was a distraction neither he nor Molly could afford.
Brad stacked his hands behind his head, crossed his feet at his ankles and considered Drew. “Wa
nt to tell me about it before we debrief or after?”
“There’s nothing to tell.” Or discuss. One kiss was all they could share. Both Drew and Molly had to remain clearheaded and objective. And Drew couldn’t afford to forget himself like that again. Not with his future on the line. And Molly’s. And Hazel’s. And Sophie’s... “We’re heading to Sacramento to meet with the Cote family tomorrow.”
“That’s a lot to tell.” Brad set his phone facedown on the floor. His gaze never tracked from Drew. “Now tell me about Molly?”
“She’s fierce as an attorney and a mom.” He admired that and even more about her. That wasn’t unusual. He admired all his friends. “She’s also dedicated. Smart. And compassionate.”
“But,” Brad pressed.
“But I’m okay with my life.” Drew smoothed his hand over Nala’s back. “Or at least I am with the life I had. And I fully intend to get back my career.”
“So then you plan to devote your life to your work once again,” Brad said.
Drew nodded. “That’s what I do. How I’m wired.”
“Maybe.” Brad shrugged. “Or maybe you just never had a reason to change directions.”
Drew looked at Nala. She gazed up at him, one blue eye, one brown, watching him as if she understood his secrets. Understood him. He changed the direction of the conversation instead. “You think Nala is turning me into a dog person?”
“I think she already has.” Brad chuckled. “Yes or no. You decided you’d do anything for that dog when you first saw her under that dumpster?”
“Yes.” And he’d been determined to do whatever he could for Molly and Hazel. That hardly meant he’d be a good father or partner. “And it means I’m going to have to approve of the family who adopts Nala.”
“Why can’t you adopt her?” Brad asked. “Why can’t you be her family?”
Those pesky wires tightened. He lived for his job. Always had. “I don’t have the best home for a dog.” Or a toddler.
“There’s a park two blocks from your loft,” Brad argued.
“Dogs are a big responsibility.” As were relationships. Families. Careers. And failing at any of them had consequences. “The cats only want attention on their terms. But dogs are different.”
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