Before Sierra, Molly had believed her Daddy was by far the best father in the entire world, or at least this continent. But in the end it was Dylan who had earned the title in Molly’s book. He’d never walked away like she had, or pawned off the raising of her to his mother, as Daddy had to Grammy.
Emily always said that Daddy had made life too easy for Molly, and therefore never realized how much she could really do. Maybe that was a little bit true. At the park, she’d seen that Dylan hadn’t picked Sierra up every time she fell.
Daddy had always rescued Molly, like she couldn’t handle anything on her own. Eventually she’d believed him. Only Emily had thought she could do better. And Dylan.
Or at least, he used to believe in her.
Molly loved her father, but sooner or later he would have to realize she’d grown up when he wasn’t looking. She had a baby of her own, and she’d just have to show him that she could handle Sierra. Handle Dylan.
Because Emily might be a first-class organizer, but she had no idea how to brush her teeth while simultaneously propping up a bottle for a baby with one elbow. Molly did. She could hold her baby while rocking and swaying like a palm tree’s leaves in a tropical night breeze. She had memorized all the words to her favorite lullaby, could carry Sierra in a football hold like an NFL champ, and occasionally sleep with one eye open. So maybe she hadn’t been a total disaster as a mother.
All right. Time to do this. Molly gathered her purse and her courage and marched to the front door. She held out her finger to push the doorbell and then pulled it back.
She didn’t know why, but Dylan scared her a little bit. There was no reason for it, as he’d never so much as raised a hand to her. Not a hand, but he had that look. She used to call it the Drill Sergeant glare.
But dammit, there was no world in which Emily had more hutzpah than Molly did. She pushed the doorbell and then once more for good measure.
Footsteps sounded from inside as did her baby’s deep belly laugh. Sierra used to laugh like that when they played peekaboo. Had Sierra outgrown peekaboo? What if Molly couldn’t think of any new games to play with her?
And then Dylan’s voice called out, “All right, all right, I’m coming.”
When Dylan opened the door, Sierra in his arms, it didn’t take two seconds before he’d given Molly the Drill Sergeant glare. “I might have expected this.”
“Hi, Dylan. Hi, Sierra.”
Sierra stuck her thumb in her mouth and smiled around it.
“What do you want?”
He wasn’t going to make this easy, was he? “I want to see my baby.”
“I thought we talked about this.” Dylan didn’t move from his spot as Door Guard.
“You talked about it. And here’s the thing. That’s not going to work for me.” Molly wanted to take the snippy comment back as soon as it had left her mouth. Dylan held all the cards right now, and she needed to play nice.
Dylan sighed. “Let’s not do this.”
“Sorry. We’re going to do this. I’m not going anywhere. Are you going to let me in or what?”
By some small miracle, Dylan hesitated only one second before he moved aside and nodded for Molly to come in. Once the door closed, he set Sierra down and she toddled off.
Molly tried to follow her baby girl, but Dylan grabbed her arm. “Wait.”
Why was it that, against all odds, she still felt a shiver roll down her spine? Dammit. “Wait for what? I’ve been waiting. I’m done with it.”
He let go of her arm. “Just don’t—confuse her. Please.”
Somebody stop the presses. Dylan had just said please. “I’d never do anything to hurt her. Is that what you think?”
“What I think—what I know is that you don’t always think things all the way through.”
Thank you, Dylan, for being right again. One day she’d tell him how annoying it was. “I just want to hold her again.”
What was it Emily said about letting Dylan know how much it hurt to be away from Sierra? But even now, her back tensed with self-righteous anger. She needed to take a deep breath and calm down. Dylan loved Sierra, too. He only wanted to protect her. The problem was, he seemed to think Sierra needed protecting from Molly.
She’d have to show him how wrong he was. When she turned into the living room, it was to see the most precious display on the planet. Sierra stood a few feet away at a little play kitchen, chewing on a plastic spoon.
Molly’s hands shook a little bit. What if she messed this up, too? “She’s gotten so big.”
Dylan stood inches behind Molly. “This isn’t some game we’re playing. This is my daughter’s life.”
Molly whipped her head back. “She’s mine, too. And I don’t know what game you think I’m playing.”
“We’re not going to fight over her like she’s the last slice of pie.”
“I didn’t say we were.”
Dylan moved toward the couch. “This isn’t a good idea if you’re going to leave again.”
Molly clenched and unclenched her fists. “I’m not. I made a mistake before.”
He grunted. “Some mistake.”
If only he’d had a clue of what she’d been through in those first few months. How tired she’d been every day. “You want to punish me for that, don’t you?”
“You have no idea what I want to do.” His voice was so cold it seemed like the temperature in the room lowered by several degrees.
But then he walked right over to Sierra and picked her up gently. “Sierra, this is your mommy.”
Molly expected he would argue the point and want them to ease into the situation so as not to confuse Sierra. But the truth could never stop being the truth. Whether he liked it or not, she was Sierra’s mother.
And so they were diving in, feetfirst. “Hi, Sierra.”
Sierra wasn’t impressed as she glanced at her and then laid her head on Dylan’s shoulder. Apparently, the words, the moment, hadn’t carried the same significance to Sierra.
“You realize she probably doesn’t understand,” Dylan said as though he thought he had to defend Sierra.
“Did she ever call someone else Mommy?” Finally, the question she’d been so afraid to voice for fear she’d rip Dylan to shreds when she heard the answer.
“Never,” Dylan said hotly. “She tried to call my mother Mama once, but now it’s Nana. Mommy is a brand-new name for her. But it might as well be ‘Molly’ or any other name for all she knows.”
“Right.” Molly let that settle in her stomach, currently residing at her feet. Her baby had no association with the word mommy.
Sierra wiggled out of Dylan’s arms and toddled back to her play kitchen. Molly walked slowly to Sierra and dropped to her knees beside her, picked up a pot and spoon and started stirring. Sierra ignored her as she put a picture book in the oven and turned knobs willy-nilly. But in the next moment, Sierra stared at Molly, as if she’d just noticed a shiny new object, then took out the picture book and offered it to her. “Cake.”
“Thank you,” Molly said.
Dylan still hovered, like he thought she might steal Sierra.
Molly narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not going to take her, you know.”
Dylan scowled. “I know because I won’t let you.”
Maybe she deserved that, but she didn’t like it when Dylan got all Alpha-man. “She’s my baby, too, and don’t you forget it.”
“You gave birth to her.”
Molly’s throat burned with the words she held back. It probably wasn’t good to cuss around babies. “I did a lot more than that. I took care of her the first few months, while you were out—”
“Earning a living?” he interrupted.
“You don’t know how hard it was for me. I cried every day. She cried every day and I couldn�
��t do anything to make her stop. I couldn’t do anything right.”
“So leaving? That was doing something right?”
“No.” She bit her lower lip. “You were right when you said Daddy spoiled me. And the thing is...the problem is I never could figure out how to fix anything on my own. So I left it up to you. I knew you’d both be fine without me.”
Sierra handed Molly a spoon and smiled. “Need ’poon.”
Just like that they were both reoriented to their daughter. The reason they were here. The best thing they’d ever done together.
“Here,” Dylan said, picking up another picture book. “She likes this story.”
As if they’d been doing it all along, Sierra situated herself in Molly’s lap, squirming until she got comfortable. Molly touched her baby’s soft curls and opened the book. She read the title and wondered if Dylan had picked this one only to hurt Molly.
I’ll Love You Forever. She remembered the story. Molly read the book, swallowing the golf ball in her throat so Dylan wouldn’t know how much it hurt. This mother had stayed. This mother had never left her baby. Unlike Molly. Point taken, Dylan.
Never let them see you sweat. She wouldn’t let Dylan have the satisfaction. Molly kept reading, as Sierra alternately touched the pages and sucked her thumb. Finally Molly closed the book to find her baby asleep in her arms. As though it was the most natural place in the world for her to fall asleep because maybe, on some cellular level, Sierra did remember.
“Sorry about that,” Dylan said, not looking the least bit sorry. “I forgot this book puts her to sleep.”
He came closer, as though he believed he had a chance in hell of taking Sierra out of Molly’s arms.
“But I just got here.” Molly pulled Sierra closer. “I don’t care if she’s asleep.”
“This is crazy. She doesn’t even know you’re here now. You’re basically visiting with me. Is that what you want?”
“What I want is to jump into a time machine and go back. I don’t want to miss her first steps, her first word. I want to take it all back.” Now the tears filled her eyes. Dammit. Sierra seemed to have the same skill that Emily did at turning Molly from an edgy cactus into a soft fluffy pillow. Had to be some kind of recessive gene on the Parker side that had missed her.
“Even leaving me?” Dylan asked.
For the first time since she could remember, Molly was speechless. What could she say? That she wished he could still love her, if she hadn’t done something so horrible, so unforgiveable that whatever affection he’d had for her had died? That she realized he couldn’t love her any more than she could love herself right now?
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Dylan said, a harsh edge in his voice.
“Go ahead and let me have it. You know you want to.” Holding Sierra gave her a kind of peace she’d forgotten existed.
Dylan took the invitation. “What did you think would happen when you showed back up? Am I supposed to just open up my arms and forget everything?”
“I’m sorry.” Molly realized in that moment it might have been the first time she’d said it to Dylan and meant it.
“I wish I could trust you, because I know Sierra needs her mother. But I don’t believe you’ll stay. I think you’ll get your fill of playing with her and take off again.”
“No, I won’t. It’s different now.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how, it just is. I didn’t want to leave, but I just didn’t know how to stay. I thought maybe someone else could raise her and do a better job than me. Like you. But I couldn’t forget her. And then I realized that I didn’t want someone else to raise her. Even if they could do it better than me.” She hung her head. “I’m sorry if that sounds selfish.”
“It is selfish. In a good way.”
Silence passed between them, and Molly bent down to kiss Sierra’s soft cheek.
Dylan stood. “Do you want to see her room? You can put her in the crib.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to let go, but Dylan had offered to let her see Sierra’s bedroom. This was progress. He wasn’t going to fight her anymore. “Okay.”
Dylan leaned down and took Sierra from her arms so Molly could stand up. She followed Dylan into a pink room, much like the room Molly had shared with Emily for years. Pink gingham curtains hung on the windows, rainbow colored letters on the wall spelled out Sierra, and a beautiful white canopy crib stood in the center of the room.
For the first six months of her life, Sierra had slept in a cradle beside their bed. Molly’s side, of course, so Dylan could get his sleep. Back then Molly had wondered if there would ever be a time when Sierra would sleep in her own bedroom, and now here it was in living color. A little princess room. “She sleeps in here?”
“Most of the time. I know you didn’t think it would ever happen, but she does sleep through the night now.” Dylan skillfully let down the side rail with his knee and laid Sierra down.
“Does she try climbing out of here yet? Because Emily says I climbed out of my crib when I was one.”
“I’m not surprised.” Dylan almost cracked a smile. “She hasn’t tried that yet.”
It didn’t seem possible, but he had nearly smiled. Molly loved Dylan’s smile, a cross between an altar boy who’d snuck a taste of wine and a sailor on leave. The problem was he was downright sexy. He always had been. Too hard to resist. That one factor combined with the failure of birth control at a particularly passionate time had led to Sierra.
Outside her bedroom, Dylan stopped in the hallway and turned to Molly. “How are we going to do this?”
For one moment, all Molly could think about was all the places they’d made love—the backseat of his truck, the bed of his truck, in a sleeping bag outside under the stars, in the shower. Some of those locations required some creative positioning. How are we going to do this? Dylan had once asked.
“How are we going to do what?” Molly reached out to touch his beard. The one she didn’t think he’d ever be able to grow. He’d done it. Just like he’d raised their daughter on his own for a year. Without Molly.
Dylan stopped her hand midair. A hot look appeared in his eyes, but it wasn’t sexy. Not by a long shot. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.”
Dylan ran a hand through that thick honey-hued hair. “All right. This is what I suggest. For now, you can come over three times a week to watch Sierra.”
Three times a week. She was the luckiest woman on the face of the planet. No more park visits. “I can? Thank you.”
“But there’s nothing going on between you and me. You get that, right?”
“Of course I do.” Just for one moment, she’d thought, maybe. She’d been kidding herself, of course. Dylan wasn’t all that forgiving.
Something they had in common.
“Because Sierra has no choice. You’re her mother, right or wrong. But me? I’m a different story. You’re not fooling me, Molly. Never again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FOR THE FIRST TIME in her life, Emily had free rein to decorate. And while Greg had preferred off-white walls and window treatments and every shade of beige on the color wheel, Emily went for big splashes of color. She hung amethyst drapes in the family room of the duplex she now rented, and burnt orange in the bedroom. Rachel had helped Emily find the couch—a deep forest green which she accentuated with gold, red and chocolate brown pillows.
When Rachel had come over last week to see the finished look, she’d declared it a “beige-free zone” and wiped away a tear.
“What do you think, Pookie?”
Pookie lifted her head from her new miniature couch on the floor and sighed. Emily would take that as official doggy-sanctioned approval.
Dad had gone back to Texas after all, but he�
�d promised to come back sooner this time. Emily thought maybe her words had had some impact and made him think about the choices he’d made for his family. Molly definitely thought they had.
The only thing left on her list was filling out paperwork for her pilot’s license. She’d been avoiding that. Stone had pulled her into his office yesterday, and while she’d wondered if he wanted to revisit her one-time rule, it seemed she was the only one who wanted to a second time.
He’d wanted to talk to her about applying for her pilot’s license. “You’re ready,” he’d said, his blue eyes edgy. He looked tired, a new tightness around the corners of his eyes she hadn’t noticed before. Lack of sleep? Guilt?
Maybe she didn’t want to know. “I think maybe I need to log in more hours. I’m not sure.”
“I am. You’re ready.” He’d told her to ask Cassie for the paperwork and to get the process started.
She hadn’t. Not yet.
He’d been distant since they’d made love. Or had sex. She wasn’t sure what to call it these days. Not that she’d had any yardstick against which to measure so-called casual sex. Because that’s what it was. What it was supposed to be. She didn’t know anymore, except that she’d assumed sex with no commitment would feel shameful. Wrong. This, somehow, didn’t. She had to believe it was because of Stone. He’d managed to make it special, despite its temporary nature.
Experience, she had to assume.
Her cell phone rang. No caller ID. “Hello?”
“Emily. Thank God you answered,” Greg said from the other end. “I was afraid you’d blocked my number.”
She had thought about it. “I’m glad you called. I can’t make it to the wedding.”
“No need. The wedding is off.”
“What? Why?” This didn’t make sense.
“One day I was at home sitting with Nika on the couch watching old Ghost Whisperer reruns, and I took a good long look at the couch. You picked it out, remember?”
Emily sighed. “I remember picking out the best-looking beige couch I could find for you.”
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