“I can’t deny there’s some truth in that,” she conceded. “But I’ve been doing my best to wall off how I felt then from Cait’s situation. Cait’s too young to have a baby. I know that. Yes, I feel squeamish about her having an abortion, but my own history isn’t the only reason.”
“No.” He sounded thoughtful. “Squeamish is a good word. Who wouldn’t be?”
“I think she’s going to refuse to have one.”
“That’s what Trevor says, too.”
“Really? She is talking to him, then?”
He gave a rough laugh. “Who knows? But yeah, some. He says he offered to marry her.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”
“He’s really willing?”
“He’s scared to death.”
“If it’s any comfort to him, right now, I’d withhold permission. But she turns sixteen in April, and I think that’s the age of consent in this state.” She made a mental note to check. Surely, please God, Cait wouldn’t do anything that dumb.
Like you did?
Richard set his now-empty coffee cup on the ground and shoved both hands in his pockets. His rueful gaze met hers. “Do you ever wish you could think about something besides your kid?”
Molly’s half laugh felt surprisingly good. “Frequently.”
“Were we as self-absorbed at their age?”
“Um…yes?”
He laughed. “Probably. But my parents weren’t nearly as sympathetic.”
“Did they oppose you getting married?”
She could see that he was really thinking back. “I don’t know. Yes and no, I guess. Neither of them were college educated…they’d gotten married young, so the concept didn’t seem out of line to them. My father might even have been happy I had no choice but to go to work with him.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t?”
His chest rose and fell with a long breath and he let his head fall back. “I don’t see what else I could have done. I couldn’t force her to have an abortion. One way or the other, I’d have had to help support her once she had Trevor. How could I have left for college and done that?”
“You might have been able to work and take classes, too,” Molly suggested tentatively.
“Not on an athletic scholarship. Or, at least, I couldn’t have worked enough hours. I could have taken classes locally—but then she’d have been home alone all the time with a little kid and I’d have missed living with my son. So the answer is no. I thought in circles until I was dizzy back then, and ended up where I started.”
“No regrets?”
“Oh, I had ’em, but I’ve tried to get past them. I did go back to college after Lexa and the kids went to California. I finally had the time.” He slid Molly a look she couldn’t interpret. “But I did it only for myself. By then I’d built Ward Electrical into something I couldn’t walk away from.”
“What would you have walked toward?”
“Engineering. I dreamed big.” His mouth quirked. “Dams, bridges. I do mean big. I went ahead and got my degree in structural engineering.”
“So now you know how to build those dams. I’m glad you were able to do it,” she heard herself say.
His gaze seemed suddenly intense. “Why? Does that raise me a notch on the social scale?”
“What?” She stared at him. “That’s a jerk thing to say! I meant I was glad for your sake. Because it meant something to you.” She started to gather their lunch leavings. “I’d better get back to school.”
“No.” His hand shot out to grip hers. “Molly. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” His chagrin kept her from wrenching her hand away. “It’s me. I wondered whether you looked down on me. A guy who works with his hands, who didn’t get an education.”
“But you did.”
“You didn’t know that.”
She was suddenly so close to him, it was hard to breathe. She wrenched her gaze from those bitter chocolate eyes and looked down at his hand holding hers. That didn’t seem to help. He had wonderful hands, so big they dwarfed hers, long-fingered, calloused, sinewy. “I’m not a snob. You own a thriving business. I suspect you make two or three times the money I do. I was a high school teacher, for goodness’ sakes! Now I plan in-service days for classified staff. I decide when a student’s grades disqualify him for the football team. I made the earth-shattering decision to replace two urinals in the boys’ restroom this summer. All of that makes me superior how?”