Molly nodded again. He was scaring her, a little—but that was ridiculous. Woodford County was not exactly a hotbed of crime, and even a Peeping Tom was unlikely. The nearest neighbors were the Atkinsons, and they were half a mile away.
Besides, J.D. patrolled the farm all night long.
Will released her hand, waved a general good-bye to her watching family, and let himself out.
His parting words to Molly were a stern “Lock the door. And for God’s sake, get rid of that gun.”
19
October 14, 1995
When Molly pulled her car into the driveway, it was about 5:30 p.m. Already she was bone tired. Saturdays at Keeneland were hectic at best; it was the busiest day of the week. With Lady Valor out of the Spinster, there’d been heartbreak to deal with as well. The filly’s arch-rival, Alberta’s Hope from Nestor Stables out in California, had won with a time Molly was sure Lady Valor could have bested. Don Simpson thought so too. As a result, he was as grouchy as a bear with a sore paw. Plus none of the horses whose names Will had slipped her the previous night had been ringers. It had taken a great deal of effort to check every one (this time he’d given her six!), and it was aggravating not to find anything amiss.
All in all, it had been a heck of a day.
Ashley’s best friend, Beth Osbourne, was leaving the house as Molly slid out of the car. Molly chatted with her for a few minutes before going inside. Beth inquired slyly about her new boyfriend. With a mental kick for Ashley, Molly smiled and made an offhand reply. Beth laughed. Molly wondered what Ashley had told her.
With Beth gone, Molly went in.
“Hi, gang, I’m home!” she called, dropping her purse on the kitchen table and heading toward the refrigerator. There had been no time for lunch today, either, and she was starving. Supper was going to have to be something that cooked fast, she thought, and then she remembered the chicken Will had brought: perfect.
“Hi, Moll.” Ashley walked into the kitchen, her head wrapped turban-style in a green towel.
“Why’d you wash your hair at this time of day?” Molly asked, pausing in the act of filching a cold chicken leg from the bucket she had pulled from the refrigerator. With biscuits and a salad, supper would be a snap.
“We were trying out hairstyles. Beth curled it on these foam sticks she has, and I ended up looking like I stuck my finger in a socket. The more I tried to brush it out, the frizzier it got. So I washed it.”
“Oh.” Still standing by the open refrigerator, Molly took a bite out of the chicken leg. “Is Beth going to the dance too?”
“Yes.” Ashley’s sudden smile was bright. “With Andy Moorman. The four of us are going to go out to eat together first. Isn’t that great?”
Outspoken Beth had always been more popular with boys than shy Ashley, though in Molly’s opinion Ashley was the prettier of the two.
“Great,” she agreed, and took another bite of chicken. “Where are Mike and the twins?” she asked around the mouthful.
“Mike’s upstairs, lost in some tape one of his friends loaned him. Sam’s over at Ryan Lutz’s, and Susan’s at Mary Shelton’s. Susan called to ask if she could spend the night, and I said it was okay. Sam will be home around eight.”
“So there’s just you, me, and Mike for supper,” Molly concluded, polishing off the chicken leg and tossing the bone, with commendable accuracy, into the trash. She closed the refrigerator door, one arm around the bucket.
“That depends.” Ashley gave her a severe look. “Jimmy Miller called. He said to tell you he’d pick you up at six forty-five.”
“Oh, my gosh! I forgot!” Molly clapped a hand to her mouth.
“You seem to be forgetting dates a lot lately.” Ashley crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side. “You’re not going, are you?”
Actually, Molly was just wondering whether it would be better to call Jimmy at the garage or at home, to tell him something had come up and she couldn’t go. But as she thought about it, she realized why she didn’t want to go, and the reason scared her: Will.
He is not my boyfriend! she reminded herself grimly.
“Sure I am.” Molly turned her shoulder on her sister, gave the bucket of chicken a fleeting look of regret, and restored it to the refrigerator shelf. “Why not?”
“You can’t!”
“Why can’t I?”
“What’s Will going to think?” Ashley burst out.
Molly closed the refrigerator door before replying.
“Does it matter?” she asked lightly, and walked out of the kitchen. If she was going out to dinner and a movie with Jimmy Miller—he had asked her on Monday, two days before Will entered her life—she had to shower and change.
“Molly!” Ashley followed her.
Crossing her tiny bedroom and pulling aside the curtain that served as a closet door, Molly surveyed her meager wardrobe. Ashley stopped in the open doorway. Molly did her best to ignore her sister.
“You can’t do this,” Ashley said.
“What?” Molly pulled out a black skirt and examined it. The garment was clean and pressed. It was even still in style. With a sweater or a shirt and blazer, it would do. “Can I borrow your gray blazer?”
“No!” Ashley sounded outraged. “Not to go out with Jimmy Miller, you can’t! What about Will?”
“What about him?” Molly rifled through the items remaining in her closet and located the black turtleneck she’d been seeking.
“Don’t you have a date with him?”
“No.” Strictly speaking, it was true. Will would probably stop by—all right, she was almost certain he would stop by—but they didn’t have a date. Any information exchange could wait for tomorrow at the track.
“You mean he’s not coming over tonight?”
Molly shrugged. “He might. If he does, tell him I had a previous engagement.”
“What do you think he’s going to think about you going out with Jimmy Miller?”
“Know what?” Molly dropped to her knees to rummage in the bottom of her closet for her good black pumps.
“What?”
“I don’t particularly care.”
“Did the two of you have a fight?” Ashley sounded anxious.
“No, we didn’t have a fight.” Molly stood up, shoes in hand, gathered up the turtleneck and skirt, and turned to lay the outfit carefully on the somewhat faded but still pretty yellow floral comforter that covered her bed.
“Then why—” Ashley began, only to be interrupted by her sister.
“Will Lyman doesn’t own me,” Molly said fiercely, and crossed to her dresser. Yanking open the top drawer, she tossed fresh underwear on the bed, then dug beneath the music box and her lingerie to hunt for panty hose. The square mirror threw her reflection back at her. Mouth set obstinately, eyes flashing, she looked hell-bent on something. Molly just wasn’t sure what that something was.
“I really like Will, Moll.”
“Then you date him.”
“We all do. Except Mike, but you know how he is. He’ll come around.”
“Look, Ash.” Molly found the pair of black panty hose that she sought, shut the drawer, and faced her sister. “Number one, Will is too old for me. Number two, he’s not really my type. Number three, he’s from Chicago and he’ll be going back there when Keeneland’s over. So don’t be imagining we’re having some deathless romance. We’re not.”
“I bet you could turn it into a deathless romance if you wanted to.”
“Can I please borrow your gray blazer?” Molly tossed the panty hose on the bed and turned to root through her small jewelry box for her silver earrings and chain.
“You’ve gone out with him the last two nights. You never date on weeknights. You must like him a lot.”
“It’s nothing serious, Ash. Trust me, it’s not.” Molly found one earring and the chain, but the other earring eluded her.
“You ought to see the way you look at him.”
“It’s your imagination.
” Molly found the other earring and shut the jewelry box with a snap.
Ashley shook her head. “I know you, Moll. Don’t tell me you don’t have the hots for him big time. I know better.”
“Shut up, Ashley, will you, please?” Molly said through her teeth. Gathering up her plastic bag of toiletries, she headed toward the bathroom. Ashley stepped back out of her way, and Molly sailed past her.
“I bet you could make him fall in love with you,” Ashley said from behind her.
“You’ve been reading too many romances,” Molly snapped, and closed the bathroom door in her sister’s face.
When she emerged thirty minutes later, showered, shampooed, blow-dried, and made up, Ashley was nowhere in sight. Carrying her toilet bag and dirty clothes in one hand and holding the towel that was all she wore closed with the other, she made a beeline for her room. If she was quick, she could have the door shut and locked before Ashley realized she was no longer in the shower.
Her sister, minus the green towel, was sitting on a corner of Molly’s bed, fluffing her drying hair with one hand. Her gray blazer lay across her lap with a small vial of perfume on top.
Molly stopped in the doorway. Ashley glanced up. The sisters exchanged measuring looks.
“You can borrow my blazer,” Ashley said. “And I got a free sample of Knowing last time I was at the mall. You can use that too.”
“Thanks.” Molly walked into the room and took the perfume, which Ashley held out to her. “Why the switch?”
“I decided it would probably help things along if you made Will jealous. You know how men are.” This from Ashley, the worldly-wise.
Molly groaned. “Would you get out of here? It’s six-thirty, and I’m not even dressed.”
“Will’s just right for you, Moll,” Ashley said seriously, standing. “If you were with him, I wouldn’t have to worry when I leave for college next fall. He’d take care of you. And Mike and Susan and Sam too.”
“Get out of my room!” Molly pushed Ashley out the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. She stood for a minute with her forehead resting against the white-painted wood panel. Finally she straightened.
“Will’s going back to Chicago in two weeks! Get that through your head!” she yelled to her sister through the door.
“Jimmy Miller just pulled up,” Ashley called back by way of a reply. Cursing under her breath, Molly began to dress.
Jimmy Miller had tobacco-brown hair, a stocky build, and a sweet smile. If his square, snub-nosed face was not precisely handsome, it was attractive. He was considered a catch by the local girls. After all, he would be sole owner of Miller’s Garage one day. Everyone knew the volume of business generated by Versailles’s only auto repair shop. To top it off, Molly liked him.
The problem was, that was as far as her feelings for him went.
He bought her dinner at the Sizzler, and she smiled at him while he told her all about his plans for opening a second shop in the nearby state capital of Frankfort. He held her hand during the movie, and she let him. When it was over, he tried to talk her into letting him take her on to a nightclub in Lexington, but she said no, she had to get up and go to work in the morning.
He said that was something he really admired about her: her sense of responsibility.
Like the good sport he was, Jimmy drove her home. It was not quite 11:30 p.m.
Will’s white Ford Taurus was parked in the driveway behind her own blue Plymouth, Molly saw as they pulled in. She sat up straighter as every muscle in her body tensed.
“New car?” Jimmy asked, turning off the ignition and sliding his arm along the back of the seat.
“It belongs to a family friend,” Molly answered. Jimmy was going to kiss her good night—he had kissed her before—and she was going to let him, to give him more than he had bargained for, even.
Because Will was in her house. And because deep in her heart she realized that the man she really wanted to be kissing her was Will.
Sock-footed, clad in a blue button-down dress shirt and a pair of gray slacks, Will was sprawled out in the surprisingly comfortable old lounge chair in the Ballards’ living room when he heard the faint crunch of tires on gravel. Outside, Pork Chop began to bark.
She was home. His fingers closed over the chair arms, tightening, as he considered. He could stay where he was and wait for Molly to come in. Or he could go out on the porch like an overprotective father and cast a damper over her and her boyfriend’s goodnight kiss.
It annoyed him that he didn’t much like the idea of that good-night kiss. And it annoyed him even more that he didn’t feel in the least bit fatherly toward Molly.
Sam was curled up on the couch, having fallen asleep during the closing credits of the rented movie Will had brought with him. Ashley sat at Sam’s feet, her eyes heavy-lidded as she watched Jay Leno exchanging chit-chat with Elizabeth Taylor. Mike was upstairs. He had retired to his room immediately after the movie ended. But not even to avoid Will’s presence had Mike been able to resist the lure of seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies.
“Molly’s home,” Ashley said, sliding a glance across the darkened room at Will. Not for the first time that evening, Will wondered what Ashley was up to. When he had arrived around seven-thirty, bearing sacks of groceries and a movie, he was greeted by the surprising, infuriating news that Molly was out on a date. Ashley insisted he stay. To watch the movie with them, she said. And continue her dancing lessons, if he didn’t mind. And—and to protect them, because without Molly there she and Mike were just the teensiest bit afraid.
Will noticed that Mike wasn’t anywhere around when Ashley said that. And he didn’t think Ashley was afraid. But, since Ashley’s invitation exactly coincided with his own desires, he had acquiesced. He’d fixed the screen door and the upstairs bedroom window, practiced dancing with Ashley—dancing didn’t seem to be her natural thing—and wrestled with Sam. And watched the movie.
He carefully kept a lid on his temper all the while.
“Is she?” Will continued to stare at the TV, as if engrossed in Elizabeth Taylor’s recounting of her latest illness. In fact, he could have been watching a blank screen for all the show registered on him.
It was taking Molly a long time to get out of that car and come in.
“I think I’ll go to bed,” Ashley said, and stood up. “Thanks for staying, Will.”
“You’re welcome.”
He continued to stare at the TV as Ashley roused Sam and pushed him before her toward the stairs.
“ ’Night,” she called softly.
“ ’Night,” Will answered, and hoped he didn’t sound as sour as he felt.
It didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess what Molly was up to in that car.
A well-to-do local businessman, was how Ashley had described Molly’s date. Crazy about Molly.
Hell, half the men in the Bluegrass seemed to be crazy about Molly.
He wasn’t about to join their ranks.
He was too old, and too experienced, to let himself get involved with a woman who drew men like a porch light did moths. A woman fifteen years his junior, with a face like an angel’s—and a body that made men salivate.
His mama hadn’t raised no fool.
But what the hell was she doing in that car?
Stupid question.
Will couldn’t stand it any longer. If she wanted to screw the guy, she should damn well have the decency to do it somewhere other than her own driveway.
He wasn’t going to sit twiddling his thumbs for an hour while she topped off her evening in some yokel’s backseat. He was going to drag her out of that car, tell her what he had to tell her, then go back to his hotel room and go to bed.
He was already on his feet when he heard a car door slam, followed almost instantaneously by another. Either the yokel didn’t believe in opening a lady’s door for her, or Molly hadn’t waited.
Two sets of footsteps crossing the porch were followed by the sound of the screen door being drag
ged open, and Molly’s key in the lock.
Silence.
Will took a couple of instinctive steps forward, stopped himself, leaned a shoulder against the door-jamb, and waited.
It took her long enough to open the door.
“One more, Molly. Just one more,” the yokel begged as the heavy wood door swung inward.
“Good night, Jimmy,” Molly said, laughing, and stepped inside. Pork Chop pushed in with her, spied Will in the opening between the living room and kitchen despite the darkness, and came over to greet him, tail wagging. Molly and her swain never even bothered to look around.
“Next Saturday?” God, the yokel sounded abject. Will remembered how his body had reacted that day at Keeneland when all he had done was kiss the girl’s hand, and felt a sudden spurt of fellow feeling for the yokel. Hell, even dancing with her made him hard, and her brothers and sisters had been watching the entire time!
The girl was a menace, and that was the truth. He wasn’t about to join the pack that panted after her. After that dance, he had made up his mind: His policy toward her was strictly hands off.
“Call me,” Molly promised without promising anything at all. The yokel grabbed her hand, pulled her forward for a kiss. He had brown hair, a thickset body, jeans with a crease down the center of each leg—and he burrowed his hand deep into Molly’s hair as he kissed her.
What he appeared to lack in technique he more than made up for in enthusiasm.
Will straightened away from the doorjamb. Realizing how aggressive his stance was, he made himself relax.
She wasn’t his, he reminded himself. Not for real, only for show. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Good night, Jimmy.” Molly pulled free, smiling, and reached for the handle of the screen door.
The yokel stepped back with obvious reluctance as she pulled it closed.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he promised thickly.
“Okay. Good night,” Molly said through the screen. Then, with a smile and a wave, she at last shut the door. The lock clicked home. Molly turned away into the room.
Will reached over and switched on the kitchen light.
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