by Renee Ryan
He simply needed to remove his emotions from the equation and address their issues as an objective outsider.
No easy task.
The man he was now might understand why Molly hadn’t wanted to hear from him after he’d left home. But the heartbroken, lonely boy of seventeen wanted no part in this discussion.
Garrett banished that prideful, lovesick kid from his mind and spoke with the honesty he’d requested of her. “I was miserable, especially in those early months.” Those early years.
“You seemed happy enough to me.” She snorted indelicately, a sure sign of her annoyance. “Your mother let me read your letters.”
He readjusted his hold on her hand, but didn’t let go. “All right, I was content. With school.” Honesty, old boy. “But only school. Outside of class I was cheerless and lonely. I desperately missed…”
You.
He should tell her that, but he couldn’t seem to push the truth past his lips. He’d missed Molly as much as a drowning man missed air. In fact, he’d nearly quit school ten times that first year, had even packed up once and headed to the train station.
But he’d stopped himself just short of boarding when he remembered her heart hadn’t been his. It had belonged to his family.
“I missed home,” he said at last, reluctantly releasing her hand when she tugged on it. “And you, Molly. I missed you most of all.”
She dropped her chin, but not before he caught sight of her expression. Solemn. Grave.
Unhappy.
“I missed you, too,” she whispered, looking up as she said the words. “So very much.”
Not enough to wait for him, he thought with a pang, not enough to keep from falling in love with another man. Two other men.
And with that horrible thought he remembered the reason for his offer of lunch. “Tell me about your engagements, Molly.”
She brushed a wisp of hair off her face. “What do you want to know?”
Everything. Nothing. “How did they start?” He swallowed past the thickness in his throat. “Why did they end?”
For a moment, she studied her curled hands as though all the answers were in her fingertips. Then, she looked back up.
And straight into his eyes. “I need to explain my state of mind after you left first.”
“All right.”
As she opened her mouth to continue, their food arrived. There was a moment of jostling and rearranging of silverware before the waiter set the plates on the table. Straightening, he turned to Garrett and asked if they needed anything else.
“Thank you, no. That’ll be all for now.”
“Very good, sir.” The young man glanced at Molly, stared at her a shade past polite.
She smiled. He smiled back, blinking rapidly, his gaze more than a little glassy-eyed.
Garrett cleared his throat.
The waiter hurried off.
For several moments, their food went untouched.
Molly set her palms on either side of her plate and leaned forward, her voice raw with emotion. “I was dreadfully lonely after you left.”
Garrett’s throat burned at her statement. When he spoke, his own voice came out rougher than usual. “Is that really how you felt?”
Every report from his mother had said otherwise.
“I know that probably doesn’t make sense to you. I was surrounded by family and friends, after all. And I put on a good show. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find joy in anything, or anyone.” She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “It was as if a large, gaping hole had taken up residence in my very soul.”
“Some would call that grief.”
A sad smile played across her mouth. “They’d be right.”
“Yeah, they would.”
Losing Molly had felt like a death, as though he’d lost a vital part of himself. He supposed he had. Molly had been more than a trusted friend, more than a confidant. She’d been his whole world. His entire life had revolved around her, around them.
And now, she was telling him she’d felt the same. Had he been wrong when he’d accused her of loving his family more than him?
“Oh, Garrett, try to understand. There came a point when I became tired of feeling sad. I wanted to feel whole again.” She fixed her blue eyes on him and his heart broke at what he saw in her gaze. Sorrow. Regret. Guilt. “I needed to feel whole again.”
He kept his face calm, even as he struggled with two undeniable, shocking truths. Molly’s love for him had been real. And he’d hurt her terribly. “I’m sorry.”
Acknowledging his apology with a brief nod, she continued. “I kept busy at first, attending plays, the opera. Church on Sundays. I also helped out at the Charity House School in my free time. I taught arithmetic, mostly.”
He smiled at that, thinking about her gift with numbers and how much she loved children, and they her.
“I’d barely turned eighteen when Bart Williams took notice of me.”
Garrett inhaled sharply at the name of her first fiance, a man he’d once considered a good friend.
“I was flattered by all the attention he lavished on me, a little dazzled even.” She picked up her fork, rolled it around in her fingers. “He was so much more sophisticated than most boys his age, well-educated and already running his family’s store on his own.”
True, Bart had been settled in his life by then. He’d known the course it would take when he was still in short pants. He’d also known Molly belonged to Garrett.
“Bart asked me to marry him after only three months of courting.”
Something dark and furious moved through Garrett. Good old Bart hadn’t wasted any time securing Molly’s favor. Some friend.
This was your idea, he reminded himself again. “Go on,” he urged.
Molly set the fork on the table and sighed. “I was shocked by his proposal. I didn’t give him an answer right away. In truth, I kept putting him off.”
“Why was that?”
“Because of you.”
He blinked at her answer.
“You were home for Christmas, and I thought…I don’t know…” She ran a fingertip across the fork tines. “I thought maybe enough time had passed and that we might be able to—”
“Reunite?”
She lifted a shoulder. “You weren’t interested.”
Oh, he’d been interested. But he’d also been angry she’d allowed Bart Williams to court her. Molly was supposed to have waited for him, Garrett thought. She was supposed to have been pining for him.
“You wouldn’t even speak to me,” she reminded him. “I tried, you know.”
Yeah, he knew.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, recalling his actions that Christmas break. He’d been intentionally rude to Molly. His pride had been stronger than his sense, his heart still raw and bleeding. No excuse, he told himself.
“When Bart pushed for an answer, when he said I was the best thing that ever happened to him, I accepted his proposal.” She shut her eyes a moment. “I liked being wanted, Garrett. And, well, he made me feel special, less—”
“Lonely?”
“Empty,” she corrected.
“Did you love him?” Garrett wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until she responded with a firm shake of her head.
Her answer sent a shock of satisfaction through him, until he noted that her eyes had become two pools of watery distress.
“It’s taken me a long time to realize my mistake,” she confessed.
Garrett cocked his head back in inquiry. “What mistake?”
“I should have never accepted Bart’s marriage proposal.” Her eyes were huge and mournful. “I sought comfort from a human relationship instead of turning to the Lord to heal my pain.”
Her honesty humbled him. And so he paid it back with some of the same. “I understand, Molly. I sought comfort in school, and then in work.”
“That’s different.”
�
��It’s exactly the same.” Instead of turning to God for comfort during those dark days of loneliness and grief, Garrett had buried himself in work. Perhaps he still did. The thought didn’t sit well. “So what happened between you and Bart?”
“He realized I didn’t love him.” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “He broke off the engagement. Marshall gave the same reason for ending our relationship, as well.”
“Let me get this straight.” Garrett felt his shoulders tense. “Both of your fiances begged off, not you?”
“That’s what I just said.”
He understood her exasperation, recognized it as the same sensation running through him. “Why did you let everyone—” me, especially, “—believe you were the one to break off your engagements?”
“Does it matter?”
He jerked his head in a nod.
“Pride,” she said simply.
Fair enough. But there was a portion of her story she’d left out, a portion that would always haunt him if he didn’t seek the truth now. “Would you have married either man if they hadn’t begged off first?”
Gaze tracking away from his, she didn’t answer right away. Then, she nodded, looking as miserable as he’d ever seen her and, yeah, that made two of them.
Garrett squeezed his eyes shut for a second and then opened them. Too many emotions struggled for a foothold. Anger. Pain.
Jealousy.
He experienced far too much of the emotion in the past seven years, both then and now. He remembered the ache in his gut when he’d heard about Molly’s engagements—both of them—and the joy he’d felt when he’d heard she’d called them off.
Except…she hadn’t called them off.
She’d planned to follow through with her promise.
Why did that have to hurt so much?
“Garrett.” Her voice trembled as she spoke his name. “I praise God every day that Bart and Marshall came to their senses. I’m glad I didn’t marry either man.”
And now he could add relief to the other emotions warring inside his head, mind-numbing relief.
“I should have never agreed to either proposal.” Tears welled in her eyes. Tears she valiantly fought back with several hard blinks. “I’ll have to live with that shame for the rest of my life.”
“Molly. I’m sorry.” He reached across the table and touched her arm. “I’m sorry your engagements didn’t work out.”
But that wasn’t entirely true. The only thing he was sorry about was the sadness he saw in her gaze now. “As my mother is fond of saying, God’s plan for our lives is always better than our own, even if we don’t see it at the time.”
“I always did like your mother. Your father, too.” She gave him a sweet smile. “All your family, for that matter.”
He kept his response short, but sincere. “I like your family, too.”
She smiled at that, nodding in agreement.
“Working as Mrs. Singletary’s companion has been a blessing. I might not have taken the position if my parents hadn’t insisted.”
He heard the love in Molly’s voice as she spoke of her parents. Although her “mother” was actually Molly’s half sister and Trey Scott was not her natural father, they’d loved Molly as their own. Their advice would have come from the heart.
“I’m pleased you took the job, too.” To his surprise, Garrett really meant that. Had it not been for Mrs. Singletary’s unprecedented interference in Molly’s life, including her matchmaking efforts, then Garrett would still be avoiding her, and she him.
Instead, they’d come to an understanding they wouldn’t have accomplished on their own. He could almost call Molly a friend again. Except friends don’t dream of kissing one another.
Perhaps friend wasn’t the right word.
He ran his fingertips down to her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips. “I wonder why she picked me for you.”
Molly’s cheeks turned a becoming pink. “She believes we’re each other’s soul mate, but we’re too stubborn to admit it. Apparently, we need a nudge in the proper direction. By her.”
Garrett’s chest felt extra tight, compressing until he was forced to take a large pull of air or suffocate. “At least we’re on to her game.”
Relaxing for the first time since they’d arrived, Molly turned her palm around to meet his. “And that puts us in control.”
“I do like being in control.”
“I know.”
His smile came quickly, as did hers.
This time, when the years melted away, Garrett didn’t resist the shift in mood. He simply set out to enjoy a new level of kinship between him and Molly. Not as the children they’d once been, but as the man and woman they’d become.
Perhaps he’d come home for this—for her—after all. Perhaps the compulsion he’d felt to take the job at Bennett, Bennett and Brand had been the Lord’s nudging and not his own doing. Perhaps he and Molly could find a way to start over, without the past standing between them.
Uncaring that the food had grown cold, he picked up his fork, dug into his chicken and dumplings.
“Garrett?” a familiar baritone called out from behind him.
“That you, little brother?” came another, equally familiar voice.
With deliberate slowness, Garrett set down his fork.
What were the odds that Hunter and Logan would turn up at The Brown Palace, in the middle of the day, when he and Molly were tentatively finding their way back to one another?
Just this once, Garrett had assumed he had Molly all to himself. But no.
Resigned, he rose from his chair and turned to face his older brothers.
* * *
Molly watched Garrett’s shoulders stiffen by degrees. The closer his brothers got to their table, the more rigid his stance became. Hunter and Logan appeared far more relaxed than their little brother, and generally pleased to see him. Their big, welcoming Mitchell smiles were firmly set in place.
She wondered if Garrett was smiling, too, or scowling. With his back to her, she couldn’t tell.
A sudden, dreadful thought occurred to her. Would the Mitchell brothers misunderstand this little impromptu lunch between her and Garrett? Would they think they were courting?
That’s the general idea, a small voice whispered through her thoughts. All part of the pretense.
She realized too late that neither she nor Garrett had thought through their plan as well as they should have. Now they had to face two members of his family completely unprepared. And not just any two Mitchells, either. The most perceptive two of the bunch.
From beneath her lowered lashes, Molly followed their progress through the large dining room. They were of a similar height, both over six feet, with the same lean, long-limbed, muscular bodies as Garrett.
Their hair was the same color as Garrett’s as well, a rich, sandy blond that stood in stark contrast against their tanned faces. Hunter, the older of the two, had tawny eyes like Garrett. Logan’s were a pale, steel-blue.
When they stopped at the table, Molly smiled up into their handsome faces so similar to Garrett’s. “Good afternoon Logan, Hunter.”
“Hello, Molly. Molly?” As if they’d rehearsed this moment on the ride into town, their smiles dropped simultaneously into frowns. They swung their gazes to Garrett then back to her.
Eyes widening in surprise, Hunter found his voice before Logan. “You two are—together?”
“We’re having lunch.” Garrett spoke with uncharacteristic impatience in his voice. “And, no, it’s none of your business how this came about.”
“No, it’s not.” Laughing appreciatively, Hunter slapped him on the back and winked at Molly.
She grinned back, then turned her full attention to Logan when he said, “Haven’t seen you at the Flying M for a while.”
“I’ve been busy with my new job.”
“So we heard.” Making himself comfortable, Logan sat in the chair Garrett had vacated and proceeded to eye the various offerings on the tabl
e with interest. Logan lived for food.
“Your father told us about your new position with Mrs. Singletary,” he murmured, his gaze zeroing in on a fluffy biscuit.
“You’ve seen my father?”
“Just left the jailhouse.” Logan plucked the biscuit off Garrett’s plate and began slathering butter across the top. “We were heading over to see our little brother next.” Confirming this with a nod, Hunter pulled up a chair from a nearby table and sat. “Thought we’d grab something to eat first. Fortunate for us we ran into Garrett here.” He winked at Molly again. “Two birds, one stone.”
Having always felt safe in the company of these two men, Molly settled back in her chair and relaxed considerably. There were several beats of silence as everyone glanced at everyone else. Then, all three at the table turned their gazes onto Garrett, who was still standing.
Sighing, he commandeered a chair from the same empty table as Hunter had and joined them. The waiter hurried over with additional silverware, napkins and glasses.
After the young man took Hunter’s and Logan’s orders, he left. Molly told the brothers about her position with Mrs. Singletary and then asked about their families. She’d have enjoyed finding out what the entire Mitchell brood was up to, but she sensed the strain in Garrett was growing stronger.
The moment the rest of their food arrived, she decided to give him a moment alone with his brothers. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I wish to secure a few loose pins in my hair.”
She rose.
All three stood, as well.
Garrett touched her arm as she passed by him. “Molly—”
“Talk with your brothers. I’ll be back shortly.”
He nodded, but remained standing until she moved around him. She could feel his eyes on her, but didn’t look back.
Not once.
Slipping into the ladies’ powder room, she let out a long breath of air and settled on one of the stools placed in front of a mirror that was really quite beautiful in design. The gilded frame added an exquisite, elegant touch.
Hoping to give the Mitchell brothers time to speak openly with one another, Molly let down her hair and began to rearrange the curls into a new style. As she worked, she studied her reflection. She looked unusually pale, a little fragile.