by Gina Wilkins
“Fine. So stop doing it.”
“That’s easy enough for you to say. You’re—”
What? He frowned in confusion, trying to complete the sentence, but unable to come up with the right word.
Tommy looked at him with a smile that might have held a touch of pity. “I want you to have more than this, Kyle.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kyle glanced around the room, noticing that the place looked somewhat emptier than usual, but still nice enough. “I’ve got everything I need here.”
“Everything you need, maybe—what about everything you want?”
“Like—?”
“Like someone to share it with. Someone to hold in the night. Someone to grow old with.”
Kyle felt his cheeks warm. He and Tommy never talked about sentimental stuff like this. “You’re the one who’s thinking about getting married. Not me.”
“I did want to be married, you know. To have kids, a nice home, a relationship like my folks have. Even when I did stupid things that threatened my relationship with Connie, I never doubted what I wanted for the long run. It’s what I want for you, too, buddy.”
“I suppose you’ve got someone all picked out for me?”
Tommy’s grin seemed to brighten the room. “Dude, I’ve done everything but throw her into your arms, already.”
Kyle crossed his arms over his chest and sank lower into his chair. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Kyle, my friend, you’re an idiot at times, but you’ve never been stupid. Do us both a favor and stop acting that way now. And, by the way, if I find out you’re holding back out of some sort of misguided survivor’s guilt—you know, denying yourself because you don’t think you deserve the things I never got to enjoy—that’s seriously going to piss me off. You knew me better than anyone else on earth, Reeves. Is that really what I would have wanted for you?”
“No,” Kyle admitted dully. “That’s the last thing you’d have wanted.”
His friend nodded in satisfaction. “Damn straight.”
“Tom, I—” There were so many things he wanted to say, but the words seemed to be jammed in his throat. “I know.” Tommy smiled again, more gently this time. “I know, buddy.”
Kyle swallowed hard.
Tommy turned his head, as if he’d just heard something. “I’ve got to go. Take care of my folks for me, Kyle. And let yourself be happy, okay? If not for yourself, then do it for me.”
“No, wait.” Suddenly panicky, Kyle started to rise, one hand half extended in his friend’s direction. “Don’t go. Damn it, wait, Tom. I’m not—we haven’t—Tommy!”
“Kyle? Kyle, wake up.”
He opened his eyes with a gasp. He lay on his back in the guest bedroom at the Walker ranch, one arm outstretched. Molly leaned over him, her cool hand on his bare shoulder. Just as the moonlight filtering in through the thin curtains revealed her worried expression, he was afraid it let her see the moisture he felt on his cheeks.
Embarrassed, he turned his face away from her. “What is it?”
“I thought I heard voices in here. I knocked on your door, but you didn’t hear me, so I looked in. I think you were having a bad dream.”
“It wasn’t a bad dream,” he muttered, and he was telling the truth. The hard part had been waking up to the realization that Tommy had never really been there at all. That he was dead—a sentence Kyle completed all too easily this time.
“You were dreaming about your friend, weren’t you? I heard you calling his name.”
“Yeah. I guess I was.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He let out a long, weary sigh. “No.”
Accepting his answer, Molly straightened. The empty feeling the dream had left in him seemed to intensify when she took her hand away from his shoulder. “I’ll let you get back to sleep, then.”
“Yeah. Get some rest. I’m fine, Molly.”
“Of course you are.” She turned and moved toward the doorway, where she paused before stepping out. “Kyle? About those things I said to you earlier—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to you that way. I had no right.”
He started to tell her she wasn’t the only one who’d given him a similar lecture lately. But because it would be too hard to explain, he said simply, “Don’t worry about it. Hell, you might even have been right about most of it.”
The night-light in the hallway behind her made the white nightgown she wore look sheer and ethereal. With her fiery hair tumbling around her shoulders, her face a pale oval in the dim light, she looked as unreal and as untouchable as the talking memory in his dream. “I don’t have to go right now, you know. If you want me to stay.”
He knew exactly what she was so sweetly offering— and every nerve ending in his body screamed out for him to take her up on it. His voice was hoarse when he managed to say, instead, “I don’t think that would be a very good idea right now. Good night, Molly.”
He watched her chin rise in a proud little gesture that made his chest ache. “Good night, Kyle.”
She closed his door with a snap that spoke of injured pride. And Kyle would have almost sworn he heard a man groan in sheer frustration from a far corner of the room.
Maybe it was simply an echo of his own voice, he decided, giving up any pretense at sleep as he lay there waiting for dawn.
Friday was a warm and sunny day, perfect for all the outdoor final preparations for the party. Molly, Shane, Kelly, Memo, Graciela and Kyle worked all day in the yard, setting up rented picnic tables and folding chairs, stringing paper lanterns, filling big pots with dirt and plants and arranging them around the new outdoor kitchen.
It was an early-out day for the local school district, so there was plenty of help after Memo brought the boys home. Even Lucy and Annie got into the act, trying to help, but generally getting underfoot.
The phone rang all day—various aunts, uncles and cousins confirming details, other guests announcing their arrivals at local motels and asking last-minute questions about the plans for the next day. Molly and Kelly took turns fielding calls, politely refusing offers to come help for fear that too many people would be counterproductive.
They took a break late that afternoon for a treat of ice-cream bars and sodas. Molly, Kelly, Annie, Lucy and Graciela sat at one of the two tile-topped café tables set up in the outdoor kitchen, while the guys sprawled around one of the rented picnic tables.
Molly glanced at Kyle, who sat some distance away from her, involved in a conversation with Jacob. Kyle had been helping Shane all day, staying busy enough that there was no opportunity to talk privately with her.
She suspected that he was embarrassed that she had seen him at his most vulnerable the night before, still shaken from his dream, a sheen of moisture in his eyes. She had wanted so badly to offer comfort, but he’d made it clear that he wanted to be left alone.
She wondered wistfully if he would ever reach out to anyone to help him through the hard times, or if he would spend the rest of his life alone. Maybe he would meet someone who could get through to him someday—obviously she wasn’t the right one. As much as it hurt to picture him with another woman, she hoped he would find someone to love. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being alone with his unhappy memories.
“Something wrong, Molly?” Graciela asked in concern. “Is your leg hurting? I’ve been worried that you were overdoing it.”
Molly quickly smoothed her expression and smiled at the plump, kind-eyed woman whose patient smiles and prosaic manner had gentled several angry young men. “I’m fine, thanks. Just…thinking about something else.”
Feeling Kelly’s gaze focused on her, she cleared her throat and nodded toward the big planters arranged so artfully around the tile floor. “Kelly, I love the plants you picked out. They look perfect out here.”
Still looking thoughtful, Kelly went along with the conversational switch. “I like the easy-care factor of cacti and succulents, and the
nursery owner assured me these are all hardy for this area. There should be blooms by next summer.”
Molly held on to her smile determinedly. “I can’t wait to see them,” she said, though she couldn’t help wondering if she would still be living here next summer. Would she have found another place by then—or had Kyle been right when he’d accused her of being afraid to strike out on her own? All those years she’d fussed about everyone making decisions for her—had she really allowed them to do so because she was secretly afraid of making choices for herself?
Darn Kyle for making her doubt herself, she thought with a sigh and an impatient shake of her head. For taking away some of the joy in the simple, mostly carefree existence she’d been living. For making her want things he couldn’t—or didn’t want to—offer.
Her cousin B.J. called after the break. Wiping her dirty hands on a towel, Molly sat in a folding chair to take the call, noting that the shadows were getting longer as late afternoon bled slowly into early evening.
“Is there anything I can do to help there?” B.J. asked, as so many others had.
“No, we’ve got it all under control. Just be here tomorrow. And don’t forget you volunteered to bring a couple of bags of hamburger buns.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Is there anything else?” They chatted a few more minutes, and it was impossible for Molly not to notice how happy the newlywed B.J. sounded.
Lucky B.J., Molly thought, unable to suppress the tiniest pang of envy. Through her job at D’Alessandro Investigations, B.J. had been dispatched almost five months earlier to track down another elusive former foster boy—Daniel Andreas—to invite him to the party. She had found the undercover federal agent, all right— and during the ensuing adventure she and Daniel had fallen in love.
Daniel had followed B.J. back to Dallas, where they’d married in a quiet, simple ceremony. Daniel had joined the Dallas police department as a homicide detective. To keep the party plans secret, they’d had to make up a cover story for Cassie and Jared about how they’d hooked back up.
B.J. could be confident that the man she had brought home with her wouldn’t be leaving as soon as the party was over, Molly thought with a sigh as she completed the call.
A sudden outburst from the far corner of the yard, close to the path that led to Shane’s house made her whip her head around. What she saw made her grab for her cane, her heart suddenly beginning to pound.
A man with a reddish-brown ponytail and a mean expression had a grip on Jacob’s arm. The man was a few years older than Shane, several inches shorter and a good thirty pounds heavier, most of the extra weight concentrated around his waist. He wore a denim shirt with the sleeves torn off, grubby jeans and heavy motorcycle boots. Jacob looked terrified as the man-his father—shouted at him and tried to drag him away.
Glancing quickly around the yard, Molly saw that Graciela was already herding Lucy, Annie and the other boys into the dormitory, though Elias looked as though he wanted to stay and help Jacob. Kelly had her cell phone already pressed to her ear—undoubtedly calling the police—while Shane and Memo, looking determined to rescue the boy, flanked Hayes and Jacob.
As for Kyle—blinking in confusion, Molly looked for him. He seemed to have simply faded into the background, disappearing from view.
Turning back to the confrontation in the corner of the yard, she saw something she had overlooked before— and the sight almost stopped her racing heart. Hayes was holding a knife in his right hand as he kept a cruel grip on this son’s thin arm with his left.
Shane and Memo were also looking at that knife. Shane was talking, and while Molly couldn’t hear his words, she heard the soothing, reasonable tone he was using as he tried to defuse the dangerous situation. It didn’t seem to be helping. Hayes appeared completely immune to Shane’s usual charisma.
She didn’t know what she could do to help. She wavered in indecision, her knuckles white around the simple black cane, her other hand slightly extended in a subconscious appeal for the boy’s safety. She strained to hear sirens or any other sign that help was on the way, but there was nothing.
Hayes shouted something at Shane and waved the knife. Molly choked back a scream, and Kelly talked more frantically into the phone. Her eyes locked on Jacob’s pale, tear-streaked face, Molly found herself praying, wishing there was something she could do. Anything except standing here and watching helplessly as someone got hurt…
Kyle seemed to appear from out of the same nowhere he’d vanished into only moments earlier. Somehow he’d gotten behind Hayes, and he moved with a fierce, furious speed that made Molly gasp. It seemed that one moment he was leaping forward, and the next Hayes was on the ground and the knife was in Kyle’s hand.
It would be a great mistake for anyone to underestimate Kyle on the basis of a few scars and a slight limp, Molly realized dazedly. There was no doubt that this man was still a warrior, battered though he might be.
Shane and Memo reacted instantly to the change in the situation. Shane threw himself on Hayes while Memo pulled Jacob to safety. The faint whine of a siren sounded in the distance, growing steadily louder as it approached.
Seeing Kyle’s expression as he moved toward Hayes, Molly suddenly hurried forward, her cane thumping loudly against the ground. The danger was most definitely not over, she decided.
She caught Kyle’s arm just as he seemed ready to reach for Hayes, whom Shane had pulled to his feet. “Shane has him,” she said quickly. “It’s okay.”
Hayes had been struggling against Shane’s grip, but Molly’s voice made him glare her way. His eyes locked on Kyle’s face, and the fight seemed to fade out of him. He wasn’t drunk enough to mistake the dangerous look on Kyle’s face—or the way Kyle held the big knife poised and ready.
“Look, I just want my boy,” he blustered, shrinking back a bit from Kyle. “It ain’t right to keep him away from his father.”
Kyle spoke in a quiet, clipped tone that made Hayes go a shade paler. “You ever lay another hand on that boy, and I will personally make sure you never hurt anyone again. That clear enough for you, Hayes?”
A spark of temper lit the older man’s bleary eyes. “Who the hell are you? What gives you any right to—”
“Kyle, no!” Molly clung more tightly to his arm as he surged forward again, nearly dragging her with him. “The police will take care of him.”
He didn’t even glance at her, his impassive gaze never leaving Hayes’s face. “I can take care of him more permanently.”
Shane looked at Molly from behind Hayes, his expression both relieved and bemused. “I think we’ll let the cops handle it this time, Kyle,” he murmured. “But thanks for the offer. If this guy ever shows up here again, we’ll gladly take you up on it.”
Hayes sputtered in drunken outrage. “This man threatened to kill me,” he shouted at the two officers who rushed around the side of the house, prepared for trouble. “And this other one is conspiring with him.”
Kyle offered the knife hilt-first to the closest officer, his expression unruffled, his voice even when he said, “We took this away from him.”
Officer Rick Bulger—who’d spent a few months on the ranch while his parents had recuperated from a near-fatal car accident ten years earlier—looked questioningly at Shane. “This the same guy you’ve had trouble with before, Shane?” he asked, nodding toward Hayes.
“Yes, he is. This is Gene Hayes. He tried to kidnap his son, even though there’s a court order forbidding him to come near the boy. And, as you can see, he came armed.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Hayes yelled, even more furious now that it was obvious that Shane knew the officer. “That other guy threatened to kill me. Everyone here heard him.”
“All I heard was my friend Kyle politely asking you to stop frightening the kids,” Shane replied, his mouth twisting into the first sign of a smile since Hayes had appeared. “How about you, sis?”
“That’s exactly what I heard,” Molly seconded, still keeping a precau
tionary grasp on Kyle’s arm.
Rick looked from her hand to Kyle’s eyes, then nodded. “Okay, then. Doug, escort Mr. Hayes to the cruiser while I take a statement from these folks. I won’t be long.”
“I’d be happy to,” Rick’s partner drawled, reaching for Hayes’s arm. “Come along, Mr. Hayes. We’re going to take a ride.”
Hayes was still bellowing when he was led away, though he was no longer resisting the arrest. Maybe because Officer Doug was roughly the size of a minivan, Molly thought, finally beginning to relax a little.
Rick opened his notebook. “Now,” he said to Shane, “you said your friend here asked Hayes to hand over the knife?”
“I took it from him,” Kyle replied. “And I had to knock him down to do it, which will explain the bruise on his jaw.”
Rick looked at Kyle again, then nodded. “Shane?”
Shane began to summarize what had happened. Finally feeling secure enough to release Kyle, Molly did so reluctantly, turning to check on Jacob, who was now surrounded by Kelly, Graciela and the other three boys, all of whom had been watching from the dormitory windows.
Molly noticed that the boys were now looking at Kyle with something akin to awe, and she knew he had only unwittingly reinforced their image of him as a hero.
She couldn’t blame them, since she felt much the same way about him.
Chapter Fourteen
Kyle sat on the side of his bed, weariness draped heavily over his slumped shoulders. He couldn’t remember being this tired in a very long time. The adrenaline rush of bringing down Gene Hayes had drained away, taking every ounce of his energy with it.
Everyone had treated him like a friggin’ hero after Hayes was hauled away. He’d hated that. He’d done what was necessary, nothing more. Given the chance, he’d have returned Hayes’s knife to him, point-first. Judging by the way Molly had clung to his arm, she had been well aware of that ugly fact. Which might have explained why she’d spent the rest of the day carefully avoiding looking at him.