Songbird's Call

by Herron, Rachael

  She fell, landing on her knees and her left wrist. She was up on her feet so quickly she felt light-headed – maybe he hadn’t seen, hadn’t heard her land like the freaking elephant she was.

  Colin’s tread was heavy and rapid on the stairs behind her. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” Molly brushed her wet, dirty hands against her jeans. It didn’t matter what she looked like, after all. “I’m fine. I do it all the time.” She wasn’t fine – that was a lie. Tears pricked at the back of her eyelids, and they weren’t tears of pain, even though her wrist was screaming and her right knee felt warm, like it might be bleeding.

  They were tears of anger. At herself.

  She didn’t care what other people thought of her. She loved herself as she was.

  Or that’s what she’d been working on for most of her life. God, she’d thought she’d gotten so much better at it, until this exact moment.

  She gulped, an audible noise. Just another embarrassing thing about herself to feel badly about. Was she actually on the verge of a panic attack? Here? Now?

  Awesome.

  “I’d like to go home.” And as she said it, she realized she didn’t know where she meant by that. Home couldn’t be just a room in an old hotel. Home wasn’t any of the cabins on any of the cruise liners. Home wasn’t Nashville, not anymore. Home wasn’t Darling Bay. Maybe home was her sisters, but they’d been so far-flung for so long she didn’t believe that, either. She stopped the sob where it started in her chest, pushing it back down, choking with the effort. She was being ridiculous, and she couldn’t make herself stop.

  “Let’s go up to my house. We can put ice on your bruises. You hit hard enough you must have got some good ones.”

  Hard enough. Was that a veiled reference to her weight? How she’d hit the ground?

  No, no – now she was just being ridiculous. It had been a terrible night. That was all there was to it. She needed to go to sleep and start over fresh tomorrow.

  “Molly?”

  “Can you take me back to the hotel?”

  Colin stood in front of her. He put his hands behind his back, as if he knew she was on the very edge of getting so spooked she’d run as far and as fast as she could from this exact moment, which was pretty close to the truth. “I can. I can absolutely do that, and if it’s what you want, I’m totally, one hundred per cent happy to do that.”

  Molly bit the inside of her mouth.

  “But,” he continued, “my house is closer than the hotel is. I have ice, and more importantly, I have bourbon. And a view.”

  She closed her eyes. Bourbon did sound good. Except…

  “I swear to God I won’t try anything. Not one single thing.”

  Of course he wouldn’t. Because he wasn’t attracted to her. Or maybe he was – how could she trust herself to know the difference between attraction and pity? The silly tears wanted to start again, and now they were just because she was feeling sorry for herself.

  Which was so dumb it was almost unbearable.

  Molly had decided a long time ago that she would be honest with herself and those around her. That she’d cut off this kind of feeling before it even got started. She was strong and healthy and just right as she was, and if those around her couldn’t take it, then to hell with them.

  It took bravery to be truthful.

  She touched the badge in her pocket. It helped, just enough. “I would like some bourbon, and if it means going up to your place would get me that a little quicker. Does that trail lead up to your house? Or do we have to go back the way we came in?”

  “That one goes up.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Strong. She was strong. She didn’t worry about what other people thought of her.

  I don’t care.

  I don’t care!

  I don’t care that the hottest man I’ve met in ten years is following me up a trail while looking at my ass. At least it’s dark.

  It wasn’t true. She’d been truthful with him, but she wasn’t being the same with herself, she knew it.

  She cared. So much.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Colin hadn’t been so confused by a woman since his girlfriend in fourth grade, the one who’d wanted to French kiss him, except her version had involved no tongues – like he’d expected it to – but the actual French language. To this day, just hearing a simple S’il vous plaît could bring back the smell of her raspberry lip gloss.

  Molly had agreed to bourbon and that was enough.

  He’d screwed something up, maybe by kissing her earlier at the hotel. He shouldn’t have done it – he knew that now. She was a move-slow kind of girl. A woman who made him weak in the knees the way she did deserved to be wooed, and he’d blown that.

  He’d thought he’d been recovering a little bit in her graces, by showing her the folly – his pride and joy – but then he’d gone and scared her off by just holding her hands and looking at her.

  She wasn’t attracted to him.

  That was fine. (It wasn’t fine.)

  But, God, what about that heat between them when he’d kissed her earlier?

  Molly was climbing the trail quickly, even though he could tell that her right knee was stiffening. She’d knocked it good. At the top of the path where it widened, he passed her as he dug out his keys. Sudden nerves hit him right in the belly, and he realized that he wanted a drink as much as she probably did.

  “This way. Watch out there, I need to put pavers in here but I haven’t gotten around to everything I need to do yet. Is it too dark?” He pulled out a pocket Maglite in the same instant as she shook her head.

  “The moon is still bright enough. Oh, my God.” She stopped. She looked up at the old, two-story house. “This is gorgeous.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, it’s not that great inside. Come on in.” He unlocked the door, hoping to hell that he’d at least washed the dishes before leaving the house.

  “Are you kidding me?” She passed him and headed right for what he loved most about the house – the living room that opened up to a solid glass wall. “The view must be amazing during the day.”

  If this had been a date, he would have told her truthfully what was going through his mind: that it was a great view. With the lamps on, all he could see in the glass was her.

  And she was incredible.

  But this wasn’t a date, and he’d already overstepped, and he’d be damned if he was going to do it again. “Yeah. It is.”

  “Is that a deck?”

  “Go on.” He gestured. “I’ll bring out your drink and your ice pack.”

  She let herself out, and Colin went into the kitchen. He stared at his blurred reflection in the stainless-steel door of the refrigerator. Get it together, McMurtry.

  He poured two bourbons, neat, and made an ice pack. He wrapped a dish towel around the plastic bag. He put them on a tray and grabbed the biggest, thickest blanket he had from the back of his sofa.

  “Here,” he said.

  Molly had propped her head on her fists and was leaning forward against the balcony, watching the line of waves break on the beach below. “Thank you.” She took the blanket and wrapped it around her.

  “If you’re too cold we can go inside.”

  “Why would we do that, when we can see this? Why would you ever spend any of your time at all inside?” She sat on the low swing that ran along the edge of the deck that had no railing, and no obstruction to the view. “That sound. I miss that the most.”

  “I love the crashing waves.”

  She shook her head. “Not even that. It’s deeper than that. The roar under the waves. That’s what I heard at sea, every day for years.”

  “You sound like a proper sailor.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s me. Stuck in my office or my cabin most hours of the day.” She gazed over the railing again. “But I could still hear this. Feel this.”

  It was true, this was the best part of the house – he’d added the redwood deck himself two years be
fore. “I built it The deck.” He wanted to groan in embarrassment – could he toot his own horn any more? – but kept himself from doing so. Barely.

  “Wow.” She shot him a look he couldn’t decipher. “A builder and a cop. You must get all the girls.”

  As far as he could remember, he hadn’t invited a woman out here since he’d finished construction.

  “I’m just teasing,” she said gently, and he felt like an even bigger idiot.

  “Cheers,” he said lamely, clinking his glass against hers, spilling liquid he knew would dry sticky on his hand.

  “Thanks.”

  Then silence fell as they watched the black ocean and its lines of brilliant-white breakers. The stars sparkled overhead, draped like shining spider webs, glittering and winking. It was late now, and the moon would be lumbering out of the sky soon.

  “You’re not…” he trailed off. He felt like apologizing, but he didn’t know what for. Sure as hell not for kissing her earlier, although he did wish he hadn’t spooked her so much. “Sorry that you fell,” he ended lamely. What were these nerves doing? And how could he get rid of them? Wasn’t there a button he could push that would remind him that he was thirty-two years old and usually smooth with women, a button that would give him the next words to say?

  “Look, this is weird. You want to just admit it?” Molly took a long sip of her drink and then pulled up her legs, carefully balancing the ice pack on her knee.

  “So weird.”

  “You kissed me.”

  Colin cleared his throat. He felt himself stir, at both the memory and the way she said the word kissed. “I did.”

  “I feel badly that you did that.”

  God, this was going to be so much worse than he’d thought it could be. “Molly, I’m –”

  “No, let me finish, if you don’t mind. I just want to say this, and it’s hard to say, and I’d rather just get it over with.” Then she squealed. “What is that?”

  “Jesus, what?”

  “Is that the kitten?”

  Asiago had come through the open sliding door, padding silently. She stood at Molly’s foot and looked up. She made the most pitiful mew, almost inaudible, as if Colin never fed her. “That’s her.”

  “I was right?” Molly scooped up the cat and held her against her chest. Lucky kitten.

  He nodded. “She’s a girl. And a handful, I have to tell you. The other day she got herself stuck at the top of the shower stall. She eats all day. And then she poops all night.”

  “She’s huge.” Molly stroked the kitten’s head with one finger.

  “What’s it been, a month?”

  “More.”

  He knew exactly how long it had been since Molly Darling came back to town. He just didn’t want to admit it to her.

  “I can’t believe you kept her.”

  He shrugged. “John Skinner said they were overrun with kittens at the shelter. He wasn’t sure they could get her adopted.” It was a line Colin himself had used on citizens when they brought baby animals to the sheriff’s office. Sure, thanks, we’ll have to hope it gets adopted, not looking too good right now, but we can try. It was always funny how quickly they took the animal back, giving in to the pleading look in their kids” eyes. “I’m a sucker, that’s all.”

  The smile Molly gave him made every second of scooping Asiago’s box completely worthwhile. “You’re amazing, you big brute.”

  His heart stuttered and stalled in – well – if he had to name it, he’d call it happiness.

  Total joy.

  He leaned forward and rubbed Asiago’s ear. He was rewarded with a headbutt and a purr audible even over the waves. “We’re pals.”

  “Hey, look.”

  He pulled his hand back and tried to keep his face even. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve seen you with Nikki. I know you hate that she’s working with me, and it’s kind of you to be so worried about her.”

  “It’s not that I don’t –”

  She interrupted him again. “And you’re so nice to her. It’s lovely to see. I get that you’re a great guy. But you honestly don’t have to do this for me.”

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend to flirt with me.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You know.” She shook her head and focused her attention on the kitten. “The…pity kiss.”

  “Excuse me?” Did she really think he’d kissed her to be nice?

  “I’m a big girl.” She gave a hollow laugh. “I guess that’s the point. I’m fine with how I am. Exactly like this.”

  “You think that kiss was because of what Scott Tinker said?” It felt like he’d been dropped out of an airplane and landed on his head. Surely he hadn’t heard her right.

  She tilted her head. “We’re both adults. We can talk like adults.”

  “That’s so not what it was about.”

  “You didn’t have to kiss me, you know. I figure you want to get me on your side so I can help talk Nikki into getting another job, is that right?”

  “What?” Now he felt like the airplane that had dropped him was buzzing him, and he couldn’t quite hear what she was saying over the roar in his ears.

  “Or to leave her boyfriend or something. But I’m saying that you can just talk to me. I’m on your side. I think Nikki could be doing better, too. God knows she’s smart as hell and –”

  “You honestly think I kissed you because of my sister?”

  She looked startled. “Well, yeah. Either that or because of that guy in the bar. You want to make me feel better? Honestly, I’m just fine.” She stood and handed him Asiago. Then she moved to the steps that led down to the bluff. She sat on the top one, her back to him.

  He placed the cat inside the house and slid the door shut, his heart racing.

  If it wasn’t so insulting, it could have been actually funny. “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “You’re for real.” He followed her, and then stood three steps below where she sat. His back was to the ocean. Their eyes were level. If he reached out he could touch her.

  But he wouldn’t.

  “I think so.” She looked into her glass. “I’ve only had a few sips. Still sober.”

  “Honey, I don’t kiss girls because of anything about my sister. And I sure as hell don’t kiss them out of pity.” He drove his fingertips into his thighs to keep his hands off her. The way she was looking at him, all open and sweet and soft and gorgeous – he wasn’t going to make it much longer without touching her and then she’d be upset and they’d have to start all over again.

  “Seriously, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

  He had a sudden hunch, and he knew enough about intuition from his days working beats to follow it. “Is this some kind of a daddy thing?” He might as well ask.

  The night couldn’t get much worse, after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Excuse me?” Heat snapped in Molly’s eyes, and Colin watched her set her drink carefully down on the step next to her.

  “I seriously mean no offence.” He didn’t, that was true. “My sister has all sorts of crap packaged up when it comes to men. She knew she was a folly to our dad.”

  Molly’s mouth made an O.

  “So, what, your dad didn’t think you were good enough?”

  Molly cleared her throat. She seemed to be weighing whether or not he deserved an answer.

  Colin jammed the hand that wasn’t holding his drink into his pocket and crossed his fingers.

  Finally, she seemed to accept that he was truly looking for an honest answer. “Dad always thought I was perfect. He just thought if I worked a little harder, I could be even more perfect, you know?”

  “How?” Colin couldn’t think of a single thing to improve the woman in front of him. Her eyes, her face, her body – she could be on the front of a magazine and he’d buy it, even if it was about knitting. Her laugh made his blood feel carbonated.

  She looked at him in surprise. “Looks-wise. You know.”
<
br />   He didn’t. “No.”

  “I was the one who needed to lose weight.”

  “Bullshit.” It was a kneejerk answer, and the only one.

  “Do you think my sisters were too skinny?”

  “I never thought about it.”

  “But you thought about my weight.”

  It was a trap. He’d fallen into it. It wasn’t a good trap, and she’d dug it in the wrong place. “Only because I was a human being when your band was big.” He’d seen the covers of People and US Magazine.

  She shrugged and took a quick sip of her bourbon. “There you go. Every tabloid trumpeted my weight. What they guessed I was up to. Or down to, if they happened to grab nothing but a good angle.”

  “That’s a dumb thing to say.”

  “Sorry?” One eyebrow arched, and he wanted to reach out with his thumb to smooth it back down.

  “You believe what’s on the front of those things? Yesterday when I was buying gum at the market, I read that Angelina Jolie’s getting a sex change.”

  Molly made a pissed-off sound between her teeth. “I don’t know how they get away with it. Most of it isn’t even embellished or exaggerated. It’s all just flat-out lies.”

  “So you’re saying that they’re full of shit.” He arched an eyebrow.

  “God. I know.” She rubbed her cheeks. “I should know that, I should know that in my bones, but when you read those headlines when you’re eighteen and nineteen, it screws with your head, you know? It was hard. The band broke up in two thousand and five, right before social media really became a thing. I can’t imagine how young women – young people – deal with it today. The worst I got was being cut out of the video for “A Secret Made for Keeping”.”

  “They cut you out? But you were the lead singer, right? The voice.”

  “You wouldn’t know it in that video. They usually put me behind something, or behind one of the other girls, but for that one, they cut out every image of me. I didn’t even know it till the video-release party. I was the voice, all right. And that was all. But whatever. It’s okay. I’m over it now.”