Tinker stared at Molly. A grin wobbled across his wet lips. “Oh, shit, you’re a Songbird. Right?” He jabbed a knuckle in her direction. She appeared frozen, two paces from Benny. She glanced at Colin and then back at Tinker.
In one fluid motion, without ever taking his eyes off Tinker, Colin lifted the guitar strap from around his neck and put the guitar in its stand.
“You’re the fat Darling Songbird. You’re the one with the tits!” He made the universal badaboom signal with his hands, moving them towards and away from his own fleshy pecs. “I love the fat one!”
Heat swept up the back of Colin’s neck like someone had thrown lit kerosene on him. He leaped down from the stage and grabbed the man’s left arm. “Scott Tinker –”
Tinker swore viciously. He jerked hard and swung with his other arm at Colin.
And it was just what Colin needed. With one leg sweep, Tinker went down, hitting the floor with a thud that echoed to the beams overhead. “You’re under arrest.”
Tinker’s wet groan sounded like a wounded, very drunk bear. “For wha-aaa-aat?”
“Outstanding warrant. Resisting arrest.” And for being a goddamned asshole. The just-in-case disposable restraint he always carried in his back pocket was around Scott’s wrists in less than a breath.
Colin jerked Tinker up to standing. “Let’s go.”
“But she’s the –”
Colin leaned forward as he marched him out. “You say the word fat one more time and you’ll be in my cell till you come out skinny.” He looked over his shoulder at the only important person in the room.
Molly didn’t look at him as she ran out the back door, her head tucked, her stricken-looking sister right behind her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Adele could knock all night, but Molly wasn’t opening the door. Maybe ever.
“Go away!” she yelled.
“Open!”
Molly slid farther into the bed. She’d barely managed to take off her sneakers before she’d tunneled under the covers.
“Molly! I order you to open the door!”
That tone of voice had always worked on Molly in the past. But not anymore.
Another hard knock. “Molly!” A pause. “I’m going to get the master key. You have to talk about this.”
Molly sat bolt upright and yelled at the door, “I will punch you right in the nose you if you come in here! Leave me alone!” She meant it. She’d never hit another person, but a girl could start.
“Honey.” Her sister’s voice was softer. “He was a drunk idiot. That’s all.”
It would be nice if that had been the only problem. Just a drunk. Molly had run into her fair share of them in bars over the years, both when she was playing and when she wasn’t. She didn’t give a shit if an old alcoholic thought she was fat.
She really didn’t. Screw that guy.
The problem was that Colin had been there. Colin, the guy she’d been both sort of avoiding and also hoping she’d run into every day for the last six weeks.
He’d watched her be humiliated. His face had twisted with something, instantly, something Molly didn’t know how to define. Rage? Disgust?
Then he’d chosen to make sure no one would ever forget what the asshat had said. If Molly had been the only one to hear it, she could have ignored it. She used to ignore it on a daily basis, after all, and she’d been so much younger then, so much weaker.
She knew Darling Bay. This would be all the town talked about for at least a week, and if it was a slow month (and it probably would be), it would be gossip fodder even longer.
She listened to her sister’s footsteps go down the stairs – she could almost hear the sadness in them, the way Adele scuffed her heels on the ground.
Comforting Adele wasn’t what she wanted to do right now. Adele would think she was helping Molly, but she’d be wrong. Molly would be the one doing the heavy lifting. I’m fine. I don’t mind. I know you think I’m pretty. Yes, I know I’m pretty, too. I sure do. I absolutely trust you. I have confidence, don’t you worry.
The weird thing was that she did have confidence these days.
Or at least, she usually did.
When she’d been on board the cruise liners, she’d felt great. Of course, it hadn’t hurt that she had been the nutritionist. It had said that, right there on her door. On each of the three ships she’d been on over the last six years, she’d had her own office, and the last two had had tiny portholes. Between clients, she could stand and look out over the water. Sometimes, if they were a day or less out from port, birds would swoop along the sides. She would routinely watch dolphins joyfully flip themselves out and back into the water. The way they raced alongside was so gleeful that even after Molly had gotten good and used to them, she still couldn’t take her eyes off them. The only onboard marine life lectures she’d ever gone to had been about the dolphin pods.
Dolphins were so graceful.
And they weren’t thin.
The dolphins were strong. They had wide deltoids and broad external obliques. Their flippers were thick and useful. They had layers of fat to protect them from the cold and to be used as energy. They were robust – maybe the healthiest things Molly had ever seen.
Sometimes, on board, she’d felt like them. She swam in the Olympic-sized pool every morning at six, and no matter where they were, there would always be a couple or three older guests, pulling themselves through the water. All of them had a bit of fat, too.
Solidity was good.
Molly had liked the way she’d stood on the ships, her feet firmly planted hip-distance apart. The huge cruise liners barely rolled except in the biggest of storms, but she’d been always ready for the surge, ready to steady herself.
When she’d fallen for Rick, he’d loved that about her. He’d been such a small man, barely five foot four, and she’d been two inches taller and forty pounds heavier than him. Even his T-shirts had looked like they belonged to a child. But he would confidently wrap his arms around her and say he adored her just the way she was, even though his whole reason for being on the boat was exactly the opposite of hers. He was the bariatric expert, the second nutritionist. She was the counselor. She talked to people who wanted to talk about their struggles with eating, with their weight. She helped them draft plans to get healthy when they reached dry land again. And while she was the therapy, Rick was the “science.” He made the liquid shakes for their guests on restricted diets. He measured things, locked away their treats, and praised them for bypassing the lobster rolls.
One client had said that during an offshore excursion, Rick had sold her uppers to help burn off extra fat.
Molly had chosen not to ask him about it. Before she’d taken the job, she would have thought that a person on a liquid weight-loss diet prescribed by the doctors would want to be anywhere but at a floating buffet table.
Rick had said it was the opposite. “It’s about the cheating, babe. It’s about the fact that someone like me can oversee what they’re supposed to be eating, and then they can sneak away from me and eat three pieces of cheesecake. Then they go to you to confess. You’re good cop. I’m bad cop. I tell them what they’re really supposed to eat or drink, and then they go screw it all up again.” He’d wrapped his arms and legs around her. She’d always had the feeling that he would have climbed her like a tree if she’d let him.
“Why do they even take a cruise, if that’s the plan?”
When she’d asked him that, he’d stuck a knuckle softly into her side. “Is there ever a plan? I mean, come on.”
Dread had filled her, thick and cold like one of his disgusting shakes. “What do you mean?”
“They listen to you. They love you, they tell me that all the time. But you could stand to lose a few pounds.”
“I’m healthy.” Molly’s heart had hammered in her chest, and she’d wanted nothing more than to get away from him, to get out of his cabin, to get back to her own, where she could close the door and never come out again. “You k
now I am.” Her heels could hit the mat in a downward dog. She could plank for three minutes before her arms started shaking. She’d been taking a Jump’n’Pump class at the onboard gym for employees and she was getting good at lifting the small weights while dancing to a beat. Sometimes it reminded her of the choreography she’d done on stage with her sisters years before.
“You’re sturdy. Like a fat peasant.” He’d thumped her belly like he was testing a watermelon.
And she’d let him, that was the worst part.
“You really think I’d look better thinner?” She’d lost weight. She’d been fifteen pounds heavier the year before. He didn’t know that – he hadn’t known her then.
“No girl actually looks good with a belly.” He’d spun sideways on the bed so that he could put his mouth on her belly button. Instead of kissing it, he blew a raspberry that made her breasts jiggle. “If you worked harder, you’d be a lot prettier. Not like you’re not fuckable now—you are. You’re not a total fat cow. Yet, anyway. But you’d be more fuckable skinnier.”
He’d been doing her a favor, saying that.
Months. For months she’d let him tell her how she wasn’t good enough. She’d listened. She’d believed him.
Then he’d jiggled her belly in the staff dining room with a derisive laugh after she finished eating a bowl of oatmeal – as wobbly as your breakfast, huh? Molly had caught the look that flew between Janette and Chase.
Abusive.
How had she not seen that was what he was immediately? Why had she put up with it? She’d thought he’d been being bossy, maybe a bit demanding. How had she let herself get in this situation? It wasn’t like he was physically abusive with her, of course.
They were just words.
But goddamn, they were enough.
With Janette’s urging and Chase’s encouragement, Molly had broken up with Rick for good by the time they’d docked in Cabo, just as the FDA had come asking questions about the kelp smoothies. He transferred to another ship, taking her seed money with him. She knew she’d never see the cash, or him, again. Her heart had ached for him – traitorous, stupid heart – and she’d worked out like a mad woman. She’d taken her own nutrition advice and lost another ten pounds, then she’d looked in the mirror and she’d seen herself as she was – a plump girl who, no matter what, would always be a little heavy. Big, double-D breasts. A softness at her chin. A belly that wanted to spread into a muffin top if she wore too small a belt.
And maybe, just maybe, that was okay.
As an experiment, she’d refused the lure of the scale on board the next three-week journey. She didn’t count calories. She did yoga when it felt good, and she ran a few laps around the boat’s track, but only when she could honestly say it was what she wanted to do. She watched her body get firmer. Not smaller, healthier. For the first time since tabloids used to trumpet their guesses for her weight, she didn’t care what the scale said or how her skinny(est) jeans fit. She thought about how she felt.
And with the assistance of three self-help books, four onboard counseling sessions, an online message board, and a couple of affirmations that made her cheeks flame with embarrassment when she said them out loud to herself in the mirror, she’d gotten comfortable with her body.
Well.
She’d thought she had.
Molly groaned and rolled over in the bed. There was only one working lamp in the small rose garden outside the window, but since she hadn’t shut the curtains all the way, a thin line of light crept up to the ceiling. If she closed her eyes and imagined hard, she could hear the ocean’s shuuush a block away.
The most difficult part wasn’t just the fact that the guy in the bar had said it. It wasn’t hearing that she was totally the fat one.
It was the way a woman had laughed. While the people closest to the stage had just blinked silently, one woman’s laugh had cracked through the air from near the door. Loudly. Of course, it was absolutely possible the woman hadn’t even heard the guy’s comment and had been reacting to something Norma or Dixie had said. But if she had been laughing about the man’s comment…oh, it would hurt. Molly couldn’t say it wouldn’t.
And Colin – the way he’d been so embarrassed for her that he’d had to arrest the guy. Sure, he’d mentioned a warrant. But he’d leaped off the stage in one bound to seize the bastard because he’d felt her shame. Because he’d felt badly for her.
Molly was mortified.
She put her hands over her face and listened, pretended she could hear ocean air out the window. Six years on the water – she felt lost without it. She’d been too far from the ocean for the last six weeks, even if it was never more than a few blocks away. If she pulled open the hotel-room door and walked briskly, she could be touching the water in less than four minutes.
Well, why the hell didn’t she do that? Molly sat up resolutely.
She pulled on a thick cream sweater over her thin blue one. She slipped her feet into her orange sneakers. She tucked her phone and room key into her jeans pocket.
A knock came again at the door.
Crap.
Adele had probably been sitting out there on the porch steps since the last time she’d knocked, just waiting to hear her move around again. But Molly had meant it – she would not deal with Adele and her feelings. She swung the door open hard and fast.
“I’m sorry if you feel hurt, but –”
Colin stood in front of her, his hands jammed into his pockets.
Umph. “You are so not my sister.”
Colin looked down and then back up, as if to check. “I’m not.”
An open pit emptied in Molly’s midsection. “Why are you here?”
He parried, jerking his chin towards her. “You’re dressed to go out.”
“Is there a law against that, officer?”
He rubbed his chin with his hand, hard. “Mind if I join you?”
Molly sighed. “I was just going to the beach.”
“Let me come with you.”
It was an order.
It was bossy.
She hated bossiness, so she opened her mouth to say No again, but what came out of her mouth was, “Okay.” And even more strangely, she wanted to say it.
“Okay,” he repeated.
She bobbled on the soles of her feet.
He swayed, too.
Then, out of nowhere, the sheriff kissed her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Colin didn’t mean to kiss her. He’d knocked on her door meaning to apologize quickly and leave just as rapidly.
But Molly had opened the door expecting her sister and instead got him, and something about the vulnerability in her eyes mixed with the way her cheeks had flared with color had made him move forward, put one hand behind her neck, and draw her to him.
Her lips were as soft as they looked, and her breath, as she’d gasped, was hot and sweet.
And that would have been enough. More than enough. He wanted nothing more than to make her feel better. He wanted the kiss to help.
A simple, sweet kiss.
Then the kiss changed.
Instead of pulling back and smiling at him, Molly Darling kissed him back.
Sometimes, when Colin took the Chevelle out for a spin, he’d punch the gas with his foot and open her up, just to feel the speed push him backwards, to feel the change, the rush.
That was how Molly kissed him. Like she was opening the throttle, ready for speed. She kissed him harder, this time with her hand behind his neck. She met his intensity and matched it, raising the heat until he thought the core of him would turn into molten steel. Her tongue tasted faintly of bourbon and mint.
She pushed into him, her breasts against his chest. He was hard, instantly. Both of her arms had gone around him, and Lord have mercy, if he just took five or six steps forward, leading her like he’d wanted to on the dance floor just an hour earlier, he could have her on the bed.
Not that he would do that. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that wou
ldn’t be right for her, and some small reserve of grace and will kept his feet in place.
One more second of this and he wouldn’t have any more will left. “Hang on.”
Molly blinked. Her pupils were dilated in the dim light. Or was it the kiss that had done it? God knew he felt like he was over the limit and he’d only had one beer, hours ago.
She touched her bottom lip. “What the hell?”
Colin immediately wanted to try nibbling on the tip of her finger, chasing it to her lips again, restarting what he’d just paused.
But he hadn’t thought any of this through. He hadn’t thought about a damn thing since he’d heard Tinker’s voice and watched the crushed look cross Molly’s face. It was a good thing the guy had a warrant, because Colin had to arrest him for something better than just being a cruel, stupid jackass, which wasn’t against the law yet. Sadly.
He cleared his throat and tried to push oxygen back into his extremities by sheer force of will. He stepped away from her body, hoping she hadn’t noticed just exactly how turned on he’d gotten.
Say something. Anything. “Have you been to the old folly since you’ve been back?”
“No.”
Her voice was breathy, and Colin was struck with the urge to make it even more so. He jammed his hands back in his pockets so that he wouldn’t touch her again.
“Let’s go.”
She brought her hands in front of her belly, running the tips of her fingers against each other. He wanted to catch a hand and press it to his lips, biting softly on each knuckle.
She nodded.
Hope was so foreign to Colin that it almost felt like he was getting a cold. Right in the middle of his chest.
Hope for what?
Colin wouldn’t let himself name whatever it was.
He just let it flood through him, a rising tide that came in fast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Was this what it felt like to lucid dream?
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