Dutifully Molly repeated, “They’re the kids, we’re the grown-ups.” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “Rafe, did you ever get the feeling after your mother left Stu with you that you were just acting the part of an adult? You were scared stiff, but you had to pretend like crazy to keep him from finding out you didn’t know all the answers?”
“You, too, huh? Most of the answers I didn’t know by then, I found out in a hurry. A few I’m still working on.” He chuckled softly as he stopped for a red light. “I had a teacher once in the seventh grade who barely managed to stay one lesson ahead of the class. I know how she felt.”
“I can’t remember how many times I pretended to be calm and steady and reasonable when I was so scared, I was sick to my stomach.”
He nodded. They followed the signs to the hospital and found a parking space not too far away from the main entrance. When Rafe leaned across her to unfasten her seat belt and Molly caught a hint of his cedarwood shaving soap, it struck her all over again—that stunning affinity she felt for him that she had never felt for another man, not even the one she had married. Dear God, what had she done, besides shattering her concentration just when she needed it most?
A few hours ago she had been naked in bed with this man, doing and feeling things she had never in her wildest dreams imagined doing or feeling. And now, here they were, acting as if it had never happened. As if she didn’t know about the scar on his left thigh where a stingray had stuck him and the barb had had to be cut out.
As if he didn’t know about all her stretch marks, all the convexities on her body where she would have dearly loved to have concavities. Her rounded belly, for one. Her full cheeks, without a single sign of a cheekbone, for another. She was the plump one, and he was about to meet the gorgeous one. Even as a little girl, strangers would stop to admire Annamarie. Molly had always taken pride in both her sisters, because they were special and she loved them both dearly. They were both enough younger so that sometimes they felt more like her children than her sisters.
Just once, though, she would like to see a man look at her with the same awestruck expression Annamarie never failed to inspire. Just once.
And just this one man.
Please God…
They asked directions and assured Reception they were family. “I’m his, she’s hers,” he explained. It was enough to get them onto the elevator at least.
Annamarie was pacing outside in the hallway. She rushed forward as soon as the elevator doors opened. “What took you so long? Oh, Molly, I’ve been so worried—no, no, I’m sorry—I know it must have been awful trying to get through rush-hour traffic, and…you must be Stu’s brother. I’m his wife. That is, I’m Annamarie. I’m Molly’s sister.”
“I would have recognized you anywhere.”
“You would?” Both Molly and Annamarie spoke at the same time.
Rafe’s smile came on slow and gathered strength. “Yeah, you’re a lot alike.”
Before Molly could pursue the matter, Annamarie grabbed both her hands and pulled her aside. “I’m sorry, Moll. We should have waited at least until morning.” She turned to Rafe and explained. “It’s this habit we all have, you know. Not just family, but half the people in Grover’s Hollow. Whenever anything goes wrong, everyone calls on Molly to sort it out. When we were growing up, even before Mama and Daddy died, Mary Etta and I used to depend on her. Mama was never what you’d call a hands-on parent. I think Mary Etta and I were afterthoughts—or maybe accidents. Molly was always there, though. She stood up for us and looked out for us—she even made my wedding gown. Did she tell you?” Rafe opened his mouth to speak, but the exquisite creature with the eggplant-colored bruise on her forehead rushed on. “Anyway, when all this awful mess happened, naturally the first thing I thought was to call Molly. I just didn’t know what else to do. I mean, here we are in a strange city with no car, no clothes—all our notes and the film Stu shot—” Her face suddenly crumbled and Molly opened her arms.
Over the shoulder of his sobbing sister-in-law, Rafe met Molly’s eyes and nodded. “See what I mean?” he mouthed silently. “You’re just alike.”
He left her to figure it out while he went in search of his brother’s room. He’d recognized Annamarie easily from her wedding pictures. Although she was somewhat the worse for wear at the moment, she looked more like a Hollywood starlet than a linguist. More like a luxury beachfront condo than a two-bedroom cottage with little more than the basic amenities. More like a pedigreed pooch with a rhinestone collar than a pair of ragged, profane parrots and a lazy tomcat.
Rafe decided to reserve judgment on the newest member of the family. When it came to the Stevens women, what you saw was not necessarily all there was. He seemed to remember hearing about another sister who was some kind of research scientist. Hadn’t paid much attention at the time because it hadn’t seemed important to learn all there was to know about what would probably turn out to be only a temporary alliance.
In the space of a few days it had become vitally important. Molly was what—seven and nine years older than the two youngest sisters? Which meant she’d have been a young teenager when they were just starting school. Their parents had still been alive then. Funny thing though, he had a feeling that however they’d turned out, Molly was largely responsible.
She had made the wedding gown? All that white satin and lace? When the hell had she had time?
Dammit, it was about time people stopped using her and began appreciating her for what she was—one of the sweetest, kindest, most patient, most responsible, most generous women he’d ever had the good fortune to meet.
Not to mention one of the sexiest.
Stu, wearing a thin white turban, was sitting in a chair by the window, staring morosely down at the cast on his left hand. He glanced up when Rafe stepped inside the room. “Boy, did I screw up this time.”
“I’m afraid to ask what you mean.”
“Old chimneys. You know me and old chimneys. One look at a burned-out hearth and I get to wondering who lived there, and when, and what the living conditions were like when the house was first built. We’d just passed a set of rock ones and I started to say something to Annie, and whamo!”
Whamo. Rafe could remember any number of whamos in his kid brother’s past. There were countless skateboard whamos, fortunately with full protective gear, the TR-6 whamo that had doubled his insurance rates, not to mention any number of spectacular surfing wipe-outs. Once Stu had stopped trying to live up to his older brother’s example and accepted the fact that he was never going to be an athlete, he’d settled down nicely to become a fairly serious scholar.
Rafe did his best to reassure him that the accident hadn’t been his fault, and that even if it had—Rafe hadn’t read the report yet, so he didn’t honestly know—that these things happened. The kid had enough to deal with without taking on the burden of guilt. “That’s what insurance is for. You, uh, you have kept up your premiums, haven’t you?”
Glumly the younger man nodded. “Annie sees to all that kind of thing. She’s good at paperwork.”
“Great. You can trade off, then, because you’re good at—”
“Screwing up.”
“Knock it off, will you? You must be good at something, to get a beauty like Annamarie to marry you.”
Stu’s smile started slowly and broadened into a full-blown grin. “Yeah, well…I don’t like to brag, but…”
And then the women were there, and there were more formal introductions to be made and plans to be laid. By the time Rafe and Molly left, promising to return during evening visiting hours, Rafe had a pretty good idea of what had to be done. Molly had a list of her own. Outside the hospital, it occurred to Rafe that they hadn’t yet secured a place to stay. There were a lot more options here than on Ocracoke Island, but still…
“First priority is finding a bed. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night.”
Molly blushed. Seeing it, Rafe wanted to wr
ap her in his arms and hold her until the rest of the world went away. Instead, he did his best to ease her embarrassment. “What do you say we hunt up a good restaurant first? I have a feeling we’re both going to need to keep up our strength.”
She rolled her eyes, and he had to laugh. After a few moments, Molly joined him, and he said, “That’s what I like about you—your sense of humor.” And then he shook his head. “It’s not all I like about you—don’t misunderstand me. What I meant was—”
“Rafe?”
“Yeah.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you talk too much when you’re ill at ease?”
“It must be catching.”
“That’s right, blame someone else. Now hush up and let’s go find that restaurant, all right? I’m in the mood for fried chicken and lots of mashed potatoes, with maybe coconut pie for dessert.”
There were times, Molly told herself, when calories simply didn’t count.
Nine
Molly yawned all the way to the hotel. She was uncomfortably full, because another thing she did besides talk too much when she was upset or worried or ill at ease was eat. She tried to keep pretzels on hand—the fat-free kind—because they crunched so good, but she’d been known to devour a whole bag in one sitting. Pure nerves, but that didn’t help the end result.
“A suite?” She gaped at the luxurious surroundings the minute they were alone. “Rafe, that’s five whole rooms! It must cost a fortune!”
“Bathrooms don’t count.”
She shot him the kind of look such a remark deserved, and he shrugged and tossed his jacket at the velvet love seat. “Call it market research if it’ll ease your conscience. I’m involved with a couple of hotels—I need to keep up with what the competition is offering.”
“You could have done your market research at Ocracoke instead of moving into a cottage that’s not much bigger than this—this—” She indicated the comfortable lounge that separated the two bedrooms, each with a private bath.
“No vacancies, remember?”
“I wonder how hard you really looked.”
“What, you think I wanted to be stuck there with you?”
She shook her head. They were at it again. Where Rafe was concerned, there was no such thing as a moderate, reasoned response. Almost from the first, every cell in her body had been aware of the man. If she were fifteen years old with typical teenager roller-coaster hormones, it might have been understandable. But she was a thirty-six-year-old divorcée, considered by practically everyone in Grover’s Hollow to be seriously, dependably mature. Of the three Stevens sisters, she was said to be the only one with a lick of common sense.
Great. So now the sensible sister had gone and fallen in love with a man who never would have given her a second look if they hadn’t been stuck together in a five-room cottage. She would simply have to fall out of love. It might not be easy—it was probably going to hurt like the very devil, but eventually she’d get over it.
At least she could take pride in one thing—her taste in men had improved enormously, she thought as she explored the closets and the bathroom amenities. She was too embarrassed to admit that although she had stayed in motels before—the economy kind where you had to go outside and locate the machines if you got hungry or thirsty—she had never stayed in a real hotel.
Shampoo and conditioner, bubble bath and body lotion, a hair dryer, a sewing kit—and mercy, there was even a phone in the bathroom and a bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. If she’d needed a reminder of the vast gulf between a man who owned an airplane and a hotel, and a woman who had never even been inside either until today, this was it. It made her want to crawl into that massive bed, pull the covers over her head and sleep until she could wake up in her own narrow bed, in her own two-and-a-half-room apartment with the wag-tailed clock in the kitchen and the fake Oriental rug in the tiny living room.
However, that wasn’t possible, and Molly was nothing if not a realist. She surveyed the huge, gleaming bathtub. Her apartment held only a cramped shower. The tub in the only cottage Annamarie had been able to rent on short notice was small, rust stained and uncomfortable, the hot-water supply barely adequate. The hotel’s water heater was probably the size of a city block.
Besides, there was that lovely basket of toiletries, just waiting to be sampled. And while she might lack sophistication, she had never been short of common sense.
When Rafe called through the door some twenty minutes later, wanting to know if she was all right, Molly could hardly find the energy to answer. Up to her shoulders in scented bubbles, her hair wet, smelling of passionflower and dewberry bodywash, she seriously considered spending the night right where she was. The water was growing cool, though, and what little energy she possessed had gone flat, along with the bubbles. “I’m fine, thank you,” she called back, her voice sounding as drowsy as her boneless body felt.
“Good. We need to talk about tomorrow,” came the brisk response.
Molly didn’t want to talk about tomorrow. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow. All her life she’d had to think about tomorrow. Just this once she would like to wallow in a cocoon of luxury and think of nothing more serious than whether or not she should polish her toenails.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” she called through the door.
Silence. She could picture him standing on the other side of the door, frustrated and unable to do anything about it. It gave her an exhilarating sense of power.
“Are you sure you’re all right in there?” His voice was mild, even concerned. “You’re not feeling sick, are you? That pie was pretty rich.”
Oh, great. She really needed that. Her eyes suddenly started to sting and she blamed it on the highly scented shampoo. “Would you mind calling the hospital to see if Annamarie’s thought of anything else she needs?”
In other words, go away and leave me alone with my sweet-scented guilt and my busted bubbles.
“It’s too late to call tonight. You need to go to bed, Molly. We got a heavy schedule tomorrow.”
“Stop trying to plan my life. I don’t want it and I don’t need it. I told you—” She broke off with an indignant yelp as the door opened. It had never occurred to her to lock it. What was the point of having two bathrooms if you couldn’t count on a little privacy?
He opened the door and flinched as heavily scented steam surrounded him. “God, you need gills to breathe in here.” Holding out an enormous bath towel, he said, “Come on, honey. Time to get out before you turn into a prune.”
“Do you mind?”
Indignation was hard to hang on to when a woman was sopping wet, bone tired and fighting tears. Add to that about ten thousand calories worth of guilt….
“Get out of the bathtub, Molly.”
“Get out of my bathroom, Rafe,” she snapped back, but her voice lacked conviction.
“Come on now. You’re bound to be bushed. We won’t talk about tomorrow’s schedule until after we’ve both had a good night’s sleep, if you’d rather not. I left a wake-up call for seven.”
Using her toe, she opened the drain. Iridescent bubbles clung to her breasts as the water slowly drained from the tub. Rafe stood patiently, holding the towel outspread. “Anytime you’re ready, honey.”
“I’m not your honey, and believe it or not, I’m perfectly capable of climbing out of a bathtub.”
“Humor me. I’ve got about all I can handle with Stu’s busted head and broken hand. I’m not taking any chances on your slipping and breaking your…whatever.”
Well, there was that, too. She felt about as steady on her feet as a string of boiled spaghetti. Besides, he had seen it all before. “Then turn off the light.”
“No way. Want me to tell you what I see?”
“Don’t you dare,” she wailed. “And don’t look!”
“I see a wet, beautiful woman with skin like vanilla ice cream. I see a woman whose—”
She lunged into the towel and his arms closed around her. “And I see a m
an who swallowed the whole blooming Blarney stone,” she growled. “Vanilla ice cream?”
“French vanilla. Cream and sugar and—” He sniffed her shoulder. “Maybe a few exotic fruits and flowers.”
She choked back a laugh that ended with a sob. “It’s passionflower. And dewberries.”
“See? I knew it was edible.”
Her eyes were still burning from the shampoo, but she had to laugh. When Rafe would have held her there, she pulled away and, still clutching the towel, reached for another one, draping it over her head, face and all. She managed to escape into the bedroom without blundering into any furniture. “All right, you saved me from drowning. Now go away.”
“Make me,” he purred, grinning.
The towel still covered her head. How on earth did she manage to get herself into these ludicrous situations, one right after the other? Why would any intelligent, levelheaded woman marry a third-rate hustler? Why would she allow herself to be picked up by a sexy-looking fisherman she happened to meet on a ferryboat? Why on earth would she then fall head over heels in love with the very next man she met?
There was no hope for her, simply no hope. During the years when she should have been learning about boy-girl relationships, she’d been too busy pretending to be grown-up so that she could hold her family together. By the time she was free to be herself, it was too late. Ignoring the deficiencies in her social development, she had made one blind leap for the brass ring and missed, and now she was scared stiff of jumping again for fear of breaking something irreparable.
He was still there. She could feel his presence, even though she couldn’t see him. Shoving the towel off her face, Molly gave up trying to ignore him. “Scoundrel,” she muttered. Clutching the bath towel around her torso, she padded across to the luggage rack. While Rafe stood in the doorway and watched, arms crossed over his chest, she dug out her pajamas. Short of a suit of armor, it was the best she could do. There was certainly nothing seductive about yellow flannel and stringy wet hair. “Would you please leave, or do I have to call for help?”
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