by Jami Alden
He was talking to the other woman, not her, Molly realized, as the sinking feeling in her stomach grew so strong she felt like it was going to turn her inside out.
“Really? You can explain to your new wife that you have a fiancée too?”
Molly’s cold fingers released their death grip on the grocery bags. They hit the floor with a thud, their contents spilling across the tile of Josh’s kitchen floor.
Her head screamed at her to run, but her feet remained rooted in place, as though her body didn’t want to compute, didn’t want to accept the message her brain was processing.
Wife.
He had a wife.
“Listen,” she heard Josh’s voice over the roaring of blood in her brain, over the sound of the other woman’s increasingly angry voice. “It will be fine, I promise,” Josh said, soothingly—soothing her. “Just let me take care of this.”
Take care of this. The words echoed in Molly’s brain as Josh wrapped his hand around her arm and pulled her to the door. Take care of this, like she was an old couch that needed to be removed to make room for a new one, she thought as she let him guide her to entryway, where he gathered up her purse, and then onto the front steps.
“Wh-when, what, h-how—" Molly sputtered when Josh pulled the door closed behind them.
“I met Shayna at a conference last spring, and we hit it off.” Josh said in a voice so deadpan she knew he’d been rehearsing this speech for a while.
“How long have you been fucking her?” Molly spat out, her entire body shaking with rage and confusion.
Josh rubbed the back of his neck, his every cell radiating the fact that he’d rather be anywhere in the world other than answering to his girlfriend of over a decade and fiancée of five years. “Does it matter?” he said lamely.
Molly planted both hands against his bare chest and shoved him. Though Josh had several inches and at least fifty pounds on her, rage infused the push with enough force to knock him on his ass onto the brick stoop in front of his house.
“Take it easy!”
“Take it easy? Take it easy?!” Molly shouted and resisted the urge to follow her shove with a kick to the nuts with her booted foot. She didn’t think Josh would go after her for assault, but she never thought he’d marry someone else either. “You leave town for a week and come back married and I’m supposed to take it easy?’
“It’s not like we planned to get married,” he said as he pushed slowly to his feet.
“Oh, that makes it so much better!”
“It’s just, we were in Vegas, and we’ve got this great connection, and we thought, why not.”
“Why not!” Molly echoed, a hysterical sound, half laugh, half cry erupting into the cool fall evening. “I mean, it’s not like you have someone waiting back home for you, someone who’s been with you for over a decade, waiting five goddamn years for you to pick a wedding date!”
“Come on Molly, we’ve been growing apart for a long time. You have to admit it.”"No I don’t! I don’t have to admit anything. I haven’t been growing apart.” She shook her head as though she could erase the last ten minutes of her life from existence.
“Well it hasn’t been working for me for a long time,” he said quietly. “I thought you would figure it out. I guess I should have been more clear.”
“Marrying someone else makes it pretty clear.”
“I’m sorry, Molly,” he said and reached for her hand which she promptly snatched away. “I know I should have been more direct, told you what was going on with me, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings with the truth.”
“And what is that? What’s the truth?”
He shook his head, his mouth opening, then closing a few times as he struggled for the right words.
“If you’re worried about hurting me, don’t,” she said. “Whatever you can say, it can’t possibly hurt me more than I’m feeling at this second.”
“I don’t love you anymore.”
Oof. It was a punch in the gut, but one she was subconsciously prepared for. After all, how could he love her and do want he did.
“I haven’t for a long time.”
That one she took to the ribs, as her heart slammed against them so hard she was surprised they didn’t crack from the inside.
“You’re a great girl, Molly, but when it comes to what I want in a wife, in a life together… I feel like I outgrew you a long time ago.”
And that was the kicker, the killing blow that sent her heart exploding out of her chest to land with a fleshy plop on the bricks. Not that he didn’t love her. Not that he didn’t want to be with her.
But that she had been clinging, so hard, for so long, not realizing that the man she clung to no longer wanted her.
Hadn’t for a long time.
“Okay,” she said and turned to step off of his porch, feeling like she was going to step into an abyss.
“We’ll both be happier, you’ll see,” he offered lamely. “Once you have a little time to think about it, you’ll see that it’s time to move on.”
Move on? She thought as she made the less than one mile drive home on auto pilot. Move on? She thought as she unlocked to door to her emptier than usual feeling house.
Since she’d been a junior in high school, her life had revolved around Josh. Josh, and her dreams of her quiet, secure life in Big Timber. No drama, no heartaches, just marrying her high school sweetheart, having a couple of kids, then spending their golden years holding hands and teasing each other about what hot stuff they used to be. That was all she ever wanted. All she ever dreamed of. All she ever planned on.
Now all that had been upended like a table flipped by one of those crazy women on the Real Housewives.
How the hell was she ever supposed to move on?!
Chapter 1
Three weeks later
It was nearly eight PM when Brady McManus turned his truck down Big Timber’s main street. Most of the windows of the shops and small businesses lining the street were dark at this hour. One of the few exceptions was his destination, Adele’s Cafe.
As he pulled into the parking lot, he joined only a handful of cars, evidence of how much dinner business slowed down during the off months.
It was early October, but there was already the cold nip of frost in the mountain air. A stark contrast to the warm gust that greeted him when he pushed open the door to the restaurant.
“Brady!”
He felt his lips tug in a smile as several people said his name like he was Norm from Cheers or something. One of those people was his best friend and co-owner of Adele’s, Damon, who was busy washing glasses behind the bar while his fiancée, Ellie, served a glass of wine to an older woman he recognized as one of the people who worked at a financial planning office down the block.
The bar and all the tables, he noticed, were decorated with miniature pumpkins and little ears of dried corn. Ellie’s doing, no doubt. Since she’d returned to work at the restaurant, she was always switching up the centerpieces to reflect the seasons.
Damon came out behind the bar to give him a back thumping squeeze. “Good to see you man! Wasn’t sure you were going to make it before we closed.”
Ellie also came out from behind the bar to greet him. As usual, she looked gorgeous, but tonight she was especially so, her skin glowing, her thick dark hair spilling over her shoulders. Due, no doubt, to her pregnancy, which made her usually flat belly stick out just the slightest bit, but enough for him to feel its faint press as she gave him a welcoming hug.
“Let me get you a drink” she said. She ducked back behind the bar, grabbed a pint glass and reached for the tap.
“Actually tonight I’m in more of a Macallan mood,” he said, gesturing his chin to a bottle of twelve year on the shelf behind her.
Damon cocked a brow. “Rough drive?”
He stifled a scoffing laugh. The seven hour drive from Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, was like a vacation after the last brutal month of his life. “Something like that.” El
lie handed him a glass holding two fingers of amber liquid and single ice cube. Brady raised it in a little toast before downing the contents in one gulp.
“How’s the situation back home?” Damon asked. “You get everything resolved?”
“As much as I could.” Brady could tell Damon wanted to ask more questions about the “family emergency” he’d left to take care of a month ago. But even though they’d been tight ever since they met in Ranger school, Brady had never been inclined to offer up any details about his completely fucked up family. He sure as shit wasn’t going to spill his guts about the latest mess some members had gotten themselves into.
He’d left home as soon as it had been humanly possible for a reason, and he made a point not to drag his past along with him.
Trouble was sometimes it dragged him the opposite direction.
“Oh, you’re here.”
All unpleasant thoughts of his family fled in a whoosh of awareness at the sound of the feminine voice. A familiar tightness formed in his chest, threatening to choke off his breath as he turned to face her, bracing himself for that punched in the gut feeling he would get at the first sight of her.
It never failed. From the first day he’d walked into Adele’s and seen her, struggling to keep her composure while simultaneously waiting on six tables while running back and forth to the kitchen to help with plating, every single time he laid eyes on Molly Tanner he felt like all the breath was being sucked out of his body.
Even after knowing her for nearly a year, he still couldn’t make sense of it. He’d known a lot of beautiful women in his life, arguably more beautiful or overtly sexy that Molly.
But with her buttery blond curls, big blue eyes and delicate, cupid’s bow mouth, Molly had an angel’s face contrasted sharply with a body that was custom made for sin, tempting him at every turn.
Not that she ever played it up—not on purpose anyway. But with a body with more curves than a mountain road, she made even a body hugging sweater and a slim fitting pair of jeans look sexy.
There was something else. Something about her that made him yearn for her the way he’d yearned for all of the things he couldn’t have as a kid. Because he couldn't afford them, or because people took one look at him and knew he wasn’t worthy.
Somehow, Molly had become the epitome of everything he always wanted and could never have.
He gave himself a mental shake and forced himself to put on his game face. “Don’t tell me you missed me, sweet thing?” He said, injecting his smile with just the right amount of leering quality.
Unsurprisingly, the blue eyes rolled. “Your cooking, yes. You, not so much.”
“Looks like you’re covering it pretty well,” he said, admiring the plate of skirt steak Molly set in front of the customer next to him. “That looks almost as good as mine. Obviously my lessons paid off,” he added with a small burst of pride.
When he’d gotten the call from his cousin, Erin, that he needed to come back to Idaho, he had hated the idea of leaving everyone—including Molly—at Adele’s in a bind. He wasn’t being cocky when he admitted that the day Damon had brought him in as the restaurant’s cook was a turning point for the struggling restaurant.
Though he didn’t have more than a couple of years of formal training, Brady knew he had a gift for cooking, an instinct for putting together ingredients. That, combined with the discipline and resilience instilled in his years as an Army Ranger, enabled him to develop the skills that helped transform Adele’s from a run of the mill diner into a restaurant locals flocked to and tourists made a point to visit.
He’d hated the idea that the food quality would suffer during his absence, so before he’d left, he’d put Molly, Ellie, and their mother, Adele, through an intense kitchen boot camp until they were able to recreate his recipes to his satisfaction.
All of them, Molly in particular, had stepped up to the challenge, and from the looks of the plates he saw, they were continuing to succeed.
“I’ll say they did,” Ellie said with a grin. Funny, aside from the difference in hair color, she looked almost exactly like her sister. But Ellie’s smile never made him feel like he wanted to haul her off to his lair, caveman style, and keep her there until she promised never to leave him.
“Mom and Molly have been doing most of it since up until recently I could barely look at food without barfing, but as far as I can tell the customers haven’t noticed a difference. Speaking of—” she paused and gave a huge yawn,—“you must be hungry from the drive—what can we get you?”
Brady tried to wave her off, but Ellie wouldn’t have it. “If you think Mom will let you leave without feeding you, you’re crazy.”Finally he conceded and ordered a burger. When Ellie started to the kitchen, Molly stayed her. “I’ve got it. In fact why don’t you take off?”
Ellie shook her head. “Damon and I are supposed to close tonight—“
“I can handle it. You’re exhausted, and there’s hardly anyone here anyway,” Molly gestured toward the dining room, where only half a dozen tables were occupied, and most of those were already on dessert.
“Are you sure?” Ellie said, already untying the apron around her waist. “You closed every night last week.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “You’re exhausted, and you need to rest up for the big day,” she said waggling her eyebrows. “Only two more days before you’re Mrs. Decker.”
“Can’t come soon enough,” Damon said with a smile so sappy Brady was tempted to demand he turn in his dude card. “But really, Molly, between this and helping with the wedding, you’ve been doing way more than your share.”
“I don’t mind, really,” she protested. “Besides, it’s not like I have anything better to do.” She gave a little laugh, but there was no missing the strain.
Brady felt his spidey sense go on high alert. When he’d left, Molly had balked at taking on any more work at the restaurant, intent as she was at moving her long standing engagement to Josh Patton to the finish line.
“Thought you were too busy planning the wedding of the year to put in any extra time here,” he said and took a sip of scotch from the glass Ellie had thankfully refilled, though the burn of the liquor did little to quell the twisting of his stomach at the thought of Molly’s grade A douchebag of a fiancé.
It was the ultimate salt rub in the wound, that not only was she off the market and wholly committed to someone she’d been dating since high school, but that she’d committed herself to someone so obviously unworthy.
“Oh, you didn’t hear? The wedding happened.”
Brady swallowed hard as the Scotch roiling in his belly threatened to make a reappearance. Why he was so upset, when he’d known this had been coming from the moment he met her, he didn’t know.
What, like he really thought she was going to fulfill his most secret fantasy and dump that loser Josh and realize she was as crazy about Brady as he was about her?
“Oh, uh, congratulations I guess.”
She let out a shrill laugh, the only sound in a room gone completely silent. “Oh, it wasn’t to me.”
His shook his head, utterly confounded.
“You didn’t hear? A few weeks ago Josh went to a convention in Vegas and came back with a wife. I’ll go let Mom know about that burger,” she said perkily, as though she hadn’t just imparted information that completely rocked his world.
He turned to Ellie and Damon, who wore matching expressions of dismay. “Is she serious?”
“You didn’t tell him?” Ellie asked Damon accusingly. “I thought you guys had been in touch.”
“We have been,” Damon said with a shrug, “but it never came up.”
Ellie gave an exasperated sigh. “It was like, the biggest scandal to hit town since, well, since I came back. How could it not come up?”
Damon shrugged. “We had other stuff to talk about, I guess.”
“Guys are so weird.” She turned to Brady. “Yeah, she's serious as a heart attack. Apparently he met this woman”—
her voice dripped with disdain—“last spring at another conference and was doing her behind Molly’s back for months. Then they were in Vegas together and now they’re married and Josh has moved with her to Texas.”
“So he’s completely out of the picture,” Brady said, feeling a burst of what he could only call joy erupt in his chest. Sensing that a goofy grin was not the right response to this news, he schooled his features into a look of sympathetic concern.
Ellie nodded. “Yep. Told her he didn’t love her anymore and that he’d outgrown her a long time ago.”
He didn’t have to fake the disgust in his expression as he wished Josh would reappear from Texas long enough for Brady punch him in his evidently nonexistent ball sack. “What an asshole.”
Ellie nodded. “I know. I’m not going to lie, I never thought Josh was good enough for her, but still…” she paused as another yawn burst forth. She shook her head. “Anyway, now you know the skinny.” She turned to Damon. “I’m going to grab my purse and then we can head out.”
Damon nodded. “Sorry I can’t hang out, but duty calls.”
“Right, like going home with your beautiful fiancée is such a hardship,” Brady’s smile quickly faded. “So how’s she doing?”
“She’s okay,” Damon replied. “You know Molly, she likes to put up a tough front like nothing bothers her, but she’s hurting.”
Realistically, Brady knew it would take time for her to get over it. But that didn’t make him any less resentful that she was wasting her time and energy pining after that loser.
“So, you know, go easy on her,” Damon continued.
Brady’s expression must have shown how taken aback he was by the comment.
“I know you like to needle her and try to get a reaction out of her.”
Brady couldn’t argue. From their first meeting, it was clear to him he’d rubbed Molly the wrong way. He liked to think it was because she was as aware of the sexual chemistry sparking between them as he was, and it made her uncomfortable.
And because he sure as hell couldn’t be up front about the feelings that went well past mere sexual attraction, he’d perversely settled for any kind of attention he could get from her, negative or not.