Richard didn’t respond. The glass doors slid open and they walked in. Molly frantically searched the waiting room, but didn’t see either Cait or Trevor. Half a dozen people sat waiting—an exhausted-looking mother with two children, one held slumped against her shoulder, a man with a hand wrapped in a bloody bandage, a young Hispanic couple, the woman wearing one of those paper masks.
She and Richard went straight to the reception desk.
“Caitlyn Callahan?” Molly said, hearing her voice high and desperate. “I’m her mother.”
Richard’s hand settled, warm and reassuring, on her back. “Or Trevor Ward. I’m his father.”
The woman peered at her computer monitor and then leafed through several file folders that were in a graduated wooden rack. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t see either name. Are you sure they came here?”
Molly couldn’t seem to get a word out.
“No. No, we assumed. Excuse us,” Richard said.
He steered Molly away, to a quiet corner. “I tried calling him and he didn’t answer.”
“Let me try Cait. I don’t know why I didn’t.” As she was lifting the phone out of her purse, it vibrated. New text.
Mom were okay didn’t go to ER sorry if i scared you.
Looking over her shoulder, Richard growled. “All right, what the hell is going on?”
Molly was feeling shaky. “I could be wrong, but…I think we’ve been set up.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“SET UP?” RICHARD ECHOED.
“Give me a minute.” Molly sounded grim.
He watched as she typed a text on her phone. She turned it so he could see what she’d written before she touched Send.
Did you pay for half the flowers?
He liked that she bothered with the question mark.
When he suggested going out to the pickup, she shook her head. “Wait.”
The response came no more than a minute or two later.
Ummm yes you mad
She typed:
Yes
No punctuation this time.
“Please take me home.”
She didn’t say a word on the way. Richard used the time to think.
Trevor’s car still wasn’t outside Molly’s house. This time, Richard pulled to the curb, set the brake and looked at her. “May I come in?”
She didn’t seem to want to meet his eyes, but finally gave an awkward shrug. “Fine. I suppose we’d better talk about this.”
“Cait?” she called, the minute she’d opened the front door.
No answer.
“She’s past her curfew,” Molly muttered.
Richard grunted a laugh. “If only that was the worst thing she ever did.”
Molly huffed. “Do you want a cup of something?”
No, but he said, “Please.” It gave him an excuse to stay longer. As he leaned against the counter in the kitchen and watched her refill the teakettle and put it back on the stove, he felt something inside himself relax. This felt…normal. Plus, he loved the sight of Molly, even if she was stomping around and emitting occasional sounds that sounded like compressed steam.
“Hey,” he finally said in amusement. “They’re good kids. They were trying to help.”
“They don’t understand.”
Okay, his relaxed pose was more pretense than reality. Tension coiled in his gut. “Do you?” he asked after a minute.
Molly gave him a quick glance. Her eyes weren’t soft; they stormed with emotion. “I suppose I do owe you an explanation.”
“I owe you one, too.”
The kettle let out a first squawk, and she occupied herself pouring two cups of tea. She added sugar then handed him his cup. Taking a saucer, he presumed for the tea bags, she led the way to the dining room table. He understood that she needed the formality of sitting across from each other instead of more comfortably on the sofa.
He sat and put down his cup. “Me first, I think.”
Molly bit her lip, then nodded. Head slightly bent, she seemed to be concentrating on the unnecessary act of stirring her tea.
“I was angry,” Richard said abruptly. “Mostly, I was hurt that you hadn’t talked to me. It doesn’t say anything good about me, but I think I wanted to hurt you.”
She still didn’t meet his eyes. “You did.”
He nodded. God. Maybe he’d been right, what he’d said to Trevor. Maybe there was no going back.
“I still don’t understand,” he said finally. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were thinking, Molly?”
She did look at him now, and there was such desperation in her eyes, Richard felt a lurch in his chest. He never wanted to see her so unhappy.