“Sorry I’m late!” He reached for her backpack, then saw the notebook on the floor. “This yours?”
She nodded.
He scooped it up and put it in her pack. “We had this group project in history. It took longer than the class time.” He looked miffed. “Because some people are too lazy to do their part.”
A voice called down the hall. “Riley! I’ll see you at six.”
He closed his eyes for just a second, his jaw tight. “Okay.” But he didn’t turn around and look at Codi.
Mickey said, “My mom’s coming to get me after work. You can go on.”
“Bullshit.” He started walking toward the doors to the student parking lot.
He had her bag, so she had to follow. He waited for her at the door.
“This group project—it’s due tomorrow. It’s Codi, Jen, and Jeff and me. We signed up for groups two weeks ago. I have to finish it.”
Mickey looked into his eyes. “You don’t have to explain to me.” She turned around and pushed open the door with her backside, then started down the walk. She heard him swear behind her.
They didn’t talk as they got in the car. When he climbed in the driver’s seat, he didn’t put the keys in the ignition and start it. They both sat there staring out the windshield.
He turned in his seat, the leather upholstery creaking in the cold. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me to Codi’s. You’re a brain when it comes to history—and everything else. That way we can get this done fast and I can get out of there.”
She screwed her mouth to the side. “I don’t think so.”
“Please. Codi’s being a real pain in the ass. She’s already hooked up with Nathan Pryor. She just wants to hurt your feelings.”
Mickey couldn’t help herself. She looked at him coolly. “I heard she dumped Nathan and was getting back with you.”
He reached over and grabbed her hand, which was fisted on her thigh. “You heard wrong. Probably from those same people who said I scored last week.”
She couldn’t suppress a small smile.
“Listen. Codi Craig can say or do whatever she wants. She’s a nasty, hateful person. Nothing will change my mind about that.”
Mickey looked down at their hands; his were so much bigger than hers. She liked that. And she wanted him to touch her in ways she probably shouldn’t. Sometimes at night when she was lying in bed, she thought about how his hands would feel touching her. But it made her so scared.
As if he could read her mind, he leaned close and kissed her, putting his hand on her neck. His tongue traced her lips, then gently slid inside her mouth. After a moment, his hand slid down her chest on the inside of her open jacket until it rested lightly on her breast. He didn’t get rough and grabby, he just let his hand lie there over her heart.
It started beating so fast, she was afraid he would feel it. Her body tingled—everywhere. A heat started where his hand rested and shot straight to the pit of her stomach. This was so much more powerful than any of her imaginings—and it was through her sweater. She trembled to think of what it might be like skin on skin.
When he stopped kissing her, he put his hand back on her cheek. “I love you, Mickey. I think I always have.”
She drew in a trembling breath. “Oh, I want to believe that’s true.” There was no way she could say the words to him that she’d been keeping locked away for so long. That just left her too vulnerable.
He leaned back into his seat and started the car. “I know I’ve been a jerk.” Then he smiled in a way that set her heart on fire. “But just give me some time—I’ll prove it to you.”
As they left the school parking lot, Mickey tried to absorb this moment, the skyrocketing joy that was in her heart. And spitefully, yet unashamed of it, she wished Codi was around so she could flip her off one more time.
Molly went home at the end of her second four-day rotation in the emergency room at Henderson County Hospital exhausted, but very happy to be back to doctoring. Coming in the back door, she smelled the tantalizing aroma of the stew Hattie had bubbling on the stove.
As always upon her return, Hattie and Nicholas were in the rocker that Hattie herself had carried in from the farm. Nicholas was freshly bathed and fed.
She never would have believed she could be so comfortable leaving Nicholas with anyone for twelve straight hours. But Hattie was like the mother Molly never had. Quickly seeing things that needed doing, Hattie handled them. She was like a guardian angel with Nicholas—Molly had seen that the first time she’d stayed with him while she’d had dinner with Brian.
He had called and, as time had been fast rushing toward her first day of work, Molly had agreed it was time for their dry run with Hattie. It was also a good time for her to explain things to Brian before the rumor mill had ground her story into a tawdry dust. She had ended the tale with the fact that she and Dean were trying to work out a long-distance relationship.
At first his eyes had clouded, then he smiled, sadly but sweetly, and wished them well. As they had parted ways at their cars, he told her if Dean proved unworthy, she should give him a call. He kept the mood light and kissed her on the cheek. He really was a nice guy—he just wasn’t Dean.
“Hello, you two.” Molly put down her purse and took off her coat and gloves. Then she took Nicholas from Hattie.
“How was your day?” she asked, nuzzling Nicholas’s soft warm cheek.
“He’s a reg’lar piglet today. Prob’ly time to add some cereal,” Hattie said as she got up and went to the kitchen to put their late supper on the table.
Molly liked it that Hattie completely ignored the fact that Molly was a pediatrician and therefore might just have some ideas of her own on what a baby should be eating, or when it should be doing certain things. It was good to have a practical hand helping her with the rudder. Both she and Nicholas benefited from Hattie’s no-nonsense hands-on wisdom.
It was also good to have someone to eat supper with at the end of a twelve-hour day. Molly had made another visit to McDougall’s Furniture and outfitted the second bedroom with a twin bed for Hattie, in case she wanted to stay over. Which, so far, she never did; always saying her chickens needed to be tended. The woman had the energy of three twenty-year-olds.
Molly also moved Nicholas’s crib into that room—his room. Someday, probably long before she was ready, he would be sleeping in that twin bed.
After the dishes were done, she saw Hattie to the door. Then she rocked and sang to Nicholas until it was time to put him down for the night. His bouts with colic had become more sporadic, making her spend fewer evenings in the steamy bathroom.
Dean didn’t call every day, but rarely let two days pass without. He never called before eleven, just in case Nicholas was having a bad evening. And he was always careful not to keep her too long on her work nights.
Just as Molly was slipping into her jammies, the phone rang. As always, she answered with excitement buzzing in her veins. Even in their briefest conversations, she felt his caring. Whenever she hung up, however, a hollow ache settled in her chest. No matter how much she told herself she was being foolish, she could not vanquish it.
“Hello,” she answered, her fatigue of four long days melting away in anticipation of hearing his voice.
“Is he asleep?”
“Yes. No colic tonight. Good thing too, I’m beat.”
“Hattie’s still doing fine?”
“Oh my gosh, the woman is a walking miracle. I could not do this without her.”
“You don’t have to, you know,” he said gently.
“What?” Maybe that fatigue was sticking with her; it felt like she was missing a cog in this conversation.
“You don’t have to do it—work. I’ll take care of you and Nicholas as long as you want to stay home with him.”
This suggestion took her completely off guard. She knew he offered with good intentions, but it made her feel . . . like a mistress.
“I
like being a doctor. I’m only working about 15 days a month. Hattie’s working out great. I want to stay with it—unless it proves to be detrimental to Nicholas, which I can’t foresee right now.”
“Okay. I just . . . I feel so . . . cut off. I need to be doing something.”
“You’ve already sent enough money to keep him for six months. Just come and spend time with him as often as you can. That’s the most valuable thing you can give him.”
“What about you?” he asked with the now familiar longing in his voice.
She smiled and felt warm all over. “Oh, that’s what I want, too—your time . . . and your body.”
He chuckled and she missed him terribly.
“God, I miss you,” he said, echoing her own thoughts.
“I miss you, too. Do you have any idea yet where you’ll be assigned?”
“Smitty’s being an ass. I’m still being punished and chained to my desk. I should know something next week.”
“Oh.” The thought of him seven hundred miles away was hard enough. Dean on the far side of the world was unbearable.
He tried to lighten her mood with a couple of bawdy jokes and a story about one of their Jewish reporters who got stuck in an elevator in Rome with three Cardinals for five hours.
Finally he said, “I should let you go. You’ve had a long day and the baby will be up early.”
She wanted to ask him to talk to her until she fell asleep, but he had to go to work in the morning, too.
“Okay. Nicholas says he loves you.” She hesitated. “And I do too.”
She heard his intake of breath.
“I’ve been waiting for you to say that,” he said cheerfully. “I didn’t want to scare you off, thinking I was jumping the gun. But, damn woman, I’ve loved you for over three weeks now.”
“Well, not to be outdone, I’m going on four.”
“What are we going to do about it?” his voice was just a little husky when he asked.
“Let it run its course?”
“I told you the first time I kissed you, we’re a dangerous mix. There’s no ‘running its course’ with us.”
She felt like jumping up and down. But she kept her voice calm and said, “We’ll see, Mr. Coletta.”
“Damn right, Dr. Boudreau.” And he hung up the phone.
Chapter 25
As it turned out, it was nearly two weeks before Dean called with the news Molly had been dreading. His scheduled visit to Glens Crossing the previous weekend had been cancelled because he had been sent to Switzerland at the last minute to cover peace talks. Of course, there was no peace agreement, just more finger pointing. But the fact that Dean’s boss sent him there was a bad sign to Molly—a very bad sign.
“They’re sending me back to the Middle East,” he said in a flat voice that Molly couldn’t read.
“When?” It was little more than a squeak.
“That’s the thing about the Middle East. If you’re going to catch something before the buzz dies down, you needed to be there yesterday. I leave tomorrow.”
“Can’t they give you a day or two to see Nicholas?” She was slightly ashamed of the childish pleading tone in her voice, but she couldn’t help it.
He sighed heavily. “As much as I want to see the little booger, it’s you that’s keeping me awake at night.”
Something just short of a hiccup came out of her mouth. She swallowed and tried to speak again. “How long?”
“I don’t know. Depends on the situation over there.”
“You’ll miss Nicholas’s first Christmas.”
“I know. I’m sorry—but short of quitting, I’m stuck.”
She wanted with all of her heart to tell him to quit. Quit and come to Indiana and write the great American novel, start a newspaper, be a ghost writer, anything he wanted. She could support them.
Instead, she tried to smile, hoping it carried in her voice. “He won’t remember this one anyway. But next year. . . .” A man like Dean would die of boredom in Glens Crossing. She couldn’t ask it of him, no matter how desperately she wanted to.
“Yeah,” he said softly, “next year.” Someone said something to him in the background. “Listen, I have to go. I’ll call you again before I leave.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together to keep from crying. “Bye.”
“I love you, Mol. Kiss Nicholas for me.”
Then he was gone. Gone to prepare to fly to the other side of the globe—where people would shoot at him. Tomorrow. Oh, God, she might never see him again.
Molly stood there with the phone in her hand for a long moment. A place deep inside her called out, only to be met with lonely silence. She should have said more. There was so much in her heart that defied words. He knew she loved him; but did he know the depth of that love, that she’d never given her love to anyone before?
He said he’d call again. It would be hard over the phone, but she swore to herself she would find a way to convey the frightening power of her feelings. Maybe that would be enough to keep him safe, to bring him home to her when his work was finally done.
But Dean didn’t call. She waited until one A.M. before she gave up and went to bed. She took the cordless handset to bed with her and fell asleep with it clutched against her heart, like a child’s beloved bear.
Nicholas awakened early and fussy with a runny nose and a low grade fever. The mother in her suddenly outweighed the doctor and she began checking his temperature much more often than necessary, fretting over all sorts of improbable illnesses. Of course, it was just a cold.
She dosed him with Tylenol and sat in the steamy bathroom with him to help clear his stuffy nose. That soothed his fussiness and allowed him to go back to sleep.
After putting the baby down, she paced the floor with the phone in hand. Finally, at one o’clock, she broke down and dialed Dean’s cell phone. It went to voice mail on the second ring.
He wouldn’t just leave, would he? What if his schedule had been bumped up? Then he’ll call when he lands.
Why hadn’t she gone ahead and spoken her heart yesterday?
When Nicholas awakened, nothing would soothe him, not even the steamy bathroom. Molly walked the floor, cleaned his nose and gave more Tylenol. She’d never understood that helpless plea she’d seen in mothers’ eyes when they brought their children to the clinic with just a simple cold. Now she did.
At five, she finally got him back to sleep. She was exhausted and heartsick. It was obvious Dean wasn’t calling before he left the country. She made herself a cup of tea, then went to lie on her bed and sip it while she looked at the newspaper.
It seemed every article she read depressed her. A child molester was busy in Indianapolis. A teenager shot and killed his girlfriend in Bloomington. The trial for the murder of a child starved to death in foster care was granted a continuance. Then there was the national news, which spoke of nothing but terrorist attacks around the world and warfare in the Middle East. She finally threw the paper down in disgust and curled on her side to stare out the window.
Snow was beginning to fall—fat, fluffy flakes that normally made her childishly giddy. Today they just looked cold. She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to look at them.
As she drifted into a doze, a single strand of music flowed over her, distant, yet distinct. She was torn between wanting to open her eyes and prove it was not real and allowing herself to ride on its melody to see where it took her. Her eyes remained closed. The melancholy violin escorted her deeper and deeper into sleep, until she heard it no more.
Seemingly an instant later she heard Dean whisper her name in a dream, his hand settling on her shoulder. It was so vividly real, it startled her to near waking, but she determinedly buried herself in sleep to hold him with her.
“Molly.” His lips rested on her cheek.
Her eyes opened. He didn’t vanish in the clash with reality.
She gasped and touched his face. Once convinced he was flesh and blood, not imagination and wi
shes, she threw her arms around his neck. His shoulders were damp with melting snow and he smelled of fresh outdoors.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He held her in a crushing embrace.
After a moment, her heartbeat began to settle back to a normal rate. She leaned back. “You’re supposed to be on a plane heading east.”
“I came west instead.”
“You quit?” She could hardly believe it. She felt like pinching herself to make certain she wasn’t still dreaming.
He cradled the back of her head with both of his hands. “It’s time for someone else to write those stories. I have other responsibilities now.
“And,” he said, “I couldn’t imagine living with an ocean between you and me. I don’t want to rush you, but Molly, we belong together. It’s stupid to deny it. Fate had a plan when it took Julie. Nicholas was born to bring us together. We can’t ignore something like that.”
She threw herself against him and kissed him, her body light, her heart on fire. “I love you.”
He rolled onto the bed with her, kissing her with a passion that burned brightly, but not so hot that it would consume quickly and soon be exhausted. She could taste the promise on his lips.
He said, “However much time you need, I’ll wait. But I’m not going away.”
Her lips felt swollen from his ardent kisses. She ran her tongue over them. Then she smiled and said, “Red raspberries.”
At first he looked confused, then a light gleamed in his eye. “You do know the consequences of that statement, don’t you? No one outside the Coletta family can know the secret ingredient in Grandma’s mulled cider. You leave me no choice but to marry you.”
“I accept the consequences—gladly.”
After they sealed their pledge with their bodies as well as their souls, Molly lay wrapped in Dean’s arms watching snow accumulate against the window glass, and childish giddiness didn’t begin to describe what was in her heart.
About the Author
Hoosier native, Susan Crandall grew up in a small town, loving the fact that if you didn’t know everyone, you at least knew of them—or their aunt, or their cousin, or the person who cuts their hair. She’s taken the warmth and emotion of that sense of community and flavored her books, drawing fond memories from those who’ve lived in a small town and a quiet yearning from those who have not.
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