Walk On The Wild Side (13 page)

“Ready to move on to bigger better things?”

Unbidden, an image of Brady and all of the ways he was bigger and better than Josh could ever be flashed in her head. “Something like that,” she said, and hoped the doctor wouldn’t notice the hot flush creeping into her cheeks.

“You look like you have something in mind.”

Molly shook her head. She wasn’t ready to share this—whatever you wanted to call it—she had going with Brady with Dr. Stewart.

She didn’t have any interest in having it analyzed and picked apart. She wanted to keep it fun, easy.

Though between the shock of hurt she felt when he told her he didn’t want to talk about whatever had put him in such a bad mood, and her own shocking response to his less than gentle approach to sex, last night didn’t exactly qualify as either.

You’re the last person I want to talk to about this.
The memory of his blunt refusal hit her like a fist in the gut. She gave herself a mental shake.
You knew going into this that with Brady it would only be about the sex. If he doesn’t want to tell you about what’s going on in his life, it doesn’t matter.

“You look upset. Is there something else you want to share?”

Since she wasn’t about to tell her about Brady, Molly told her about running into Josh’s parents the day before. “I didn’t expect to miss them so much.”

“You haven’t talked about them before.”

Molly shrugged. “I came to you to help me get over losing Josh. I didn’t realize I’d have to get over losing his family too.”

“You were close?”

She told Dr. Stewart about not just how she felt about the Pattons, but what they represented.

“That’s interesting, in light of what we talked about last time. You said you were contemplating getting in touch with your father.”

A tight, fluttery sensation formed in her stomach. “I googled his address after our session. He’s living in Colorado. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s him. But I don’t think I’m going to do it.”

Dr. Stewart cocked her head, but said nothing. It was a tactic, Molly was pretty sure, to get her to divulge more.

And as usual, it worked, as Molly, like most people, couldn’t stand more than a few seconds of silence before giving in to the urge to fill it. “I think I got caught up in the idea of Ellie’s wedding, and her being pregnant and everything, and it made me sad to think that my dad is missing all of that.”

“You don’t think you have anything important to share with him?”

Molly let out a mirthless laugh. “What, so I can tell him how I wasted more than ten years chasing a guy only to end up dumped and alone? I’m sure he’d be really proud.”

“There’s much more to you than your failed relationship with Josh.”

Sometimes Molly wasn’t so sure. She shook off the self-pitying thought. “Even so, he probably wouldn’t care anyway, about any of it.”

“But you care.”

Though she left Dr. Stewart’s office resolved not to do anything as foolish as trying to get in touch with a man who hadn’t bothered to contact his children in nearly twenty years, she couldn’t shake the hollow feeling in her gut that always crept up when she thought about her father.

Which is why she tried not to do it very often. But as she’d said to Dr. Stewart, lately he’d been cropping up in her thoughts, due not only to the big family events she’d cited, but Dr. Stewart’ suggestion in an earlier session that part of her attachment to Josh was due to a fear of abandonment caused by her parents’ split.

While Molly conceded that made a lot of sense, she didn’t see what there was she could do to fix it.

“It’s not always about fixing it, but acknowledging that it’s there,” the doctor had replied.

Still, in the past few weeks, Molly had found herself dwelling more and more on her father, and why he had lost all interest in them. Though she tried to keep it at bay, she couldn’t get rid of the nagging sensation that if she could just understand why, maybe that hollow fearfulness inside her would finally disappear.

Chapter 7

The thought was still nagging at Molly the next day when she went to the restaurant to do some paperwork. Ellie, who was setting up the bar for the evening, greeted her when she came in.

“Hey Moll,” she said around a mouthful of mixed nuts.

“Hey. Thanks again for bartending this week,” Molly said as she ducked around the bar to give her sister a quick hug. “I need to get payroll done for JT and settle the accounts for Damon’s store and I’m totally behind.”

“Since you were busy covering me when I was barfing nonstop or helping me with the wedding, it’s the least I can do. Besides,” she said as she stroked her palm down her just visible baby bump, “I think a pregnant bartender adds an extra dash of class, don’t you think?”

“Definitely,” Molly grinned as her mother came out of the kitchen and settled at the bar for her afternoon coffee.

“Don’t forget—” Adele started as Ellie handed her a carton of half and half to dilute her coffee.

“I know, I need to put together next month’s budget before I go,” Molly said before she could finish. When Damon had signed on as their partner in the restaurant, he had realized immediately that part of the reason the business was failing was that despite Molly’s regular analysis of their expenditures and income and attempts to keep the costs down, Adele had no appreciation or aptitude for budgeting.

Part of their partnership agreement was that Adele had to work with Molly and Brady to come up with a monthly budget and stick to it.

“Thank goodness you’ve got a head for numbers,” Adele said as she sipped at her coffee. “You must have gotten that from your grandfather, because I sure don’t have a lick of math sense.”

Ellie’s brow furrowed. “Grandpa Bob worked for the county doing road maintenance.”

“I’m talking about Patrick’s father,” Adele said, oblivious to the way both of her daughters stiffened at the rare mention of their father. “You know he was a CPA too, right?”

“No, we didn’t know that,” Molly said. As always, when her mother dropped these all too infrequent tidbits of her father or his family, her chest bubbled with thousands of questions.

And as always, Molly bit them back, knowing from experience that her attempts for more information would only be brushed off.

“Yep, he had a successful practice in Spokane before he died,” Adele said as she rose from her barstool and headed back to the kitchen to prep for dinner service.

Molly glared for a second at her mother’s retreating back and then turned back to Ellie. “I hate it when she does that.”

“Does what?” replied her sister, apparently unfazed as she unloaded a rack of clean glasses and began storing them behind the bar.

“How she goes years without talking about him at all, and then drops a little crumb like it’s no big deal.”

Ellie shrugged. “She’s always been that way. She doesn’t want to talk about him until she wants to talk about him.”

Molly was silent several seconds. “Did you ever think about trying to get in touch with him, you know recently?” When their father had first stopped returning their calls and letters, Molly and Ellie had both continued to reach out. Until one day their letters were returned stamped Return to Sender, no forwarding address, and their phone call was met with a disconnection notice.

Adele had tucked them into bed that night, kissed their tear-streaked cheeks, and offered up the simple but heartbreaking explanation that sometimes parents made mistakes, but that she loved them enough for two parents.

“He doesn’t want to be our dad anymore,” Ellie had whispered after their mom turned off the light and left the room.

They hadn’t talked about trying to contact him again until just now.

Ellie set down the glass she held and pressed her lips together. “I did, briefly, right after Anthony was born.” She unconsciously ran her hand over the curve of her belly. “But then I thought, why do I care about my baby knowing a grandpa who hadn’t been interested enough in his own kids to send a card or pick up a phone once in a while? He doesn’t deserve the privilege of knowing him. He doesn’t deserve the privilege of knowing us,” she said and gave Molly a pointed look. “But you know me, I’m not one to try to impose my company where it’s not wanted.”

Though she knew in her heart that Ellie didn’t mean anything by it, the comment hit Molly square in the gut. Unlike her sister, she had spent the better part of a decade pushing herself on someone who was no longer interested. “You’re probably right,” Molly said, and excused herself to go work on the budget.

But as much as she wished she could share her sister’s confident, cavalier attitude, as she went back to the restaurant’s tiny office she couldn’t get rid of the gnawing ache in her stomach.

And when she sat down at the desk and clicked on the computer, instead of pulling up Excel so she could fine tune the monthly budget before sending it to Damon, she opened up her browser to Google Maps and typed in the address she’d found earlier last week.

According to her rudimentary internet search skills, Patrick Tanner, aged 54, lived at 11629 East Montana Place in Aurora, Colorado. Just an hour’s flight from Billings.

Not that she’d do anything crazy like show up on his doorstep unannounced. But how much harm could come from sending him a letter or a postcard?

“Hey Molly.”

She jumped at the sound of her sister’s voice and quickly closed the browser window, even though with the monitor facing away from the door there was no way Ellie could see the page.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Ellie said, “but I wanted to make sure you can cover breakfast tomorrow so I can do that thing in Anthony’s class. I’ll be back in time for lunch.”

“Of course,” Molly agreed, wondering why a guilty flush was creeping up her cheeks. “I just have to be out at the Thornton Ranch by one to meet with Jack and Pete.”

Over the summer Molly had picked up Sadie’s father and his business partner, Pete, who along with Pete’s son ran a horse breeding operation outside of town, as clients after an embezzlement scheme by their former housekeeper almost put the ranch out of business.

Ellie went back to the bar and Molly gave herself a mental shake as she pulled up the spreadsheet, determined to put all thoughts of contacting her father out of her mind.

What would she say, anyway?
Dear Dad, what have you been up to for the last twenty years?

Ellie was right. If he didn’t care about her, she shouldn’t care about him.

###

Over the next several days, Molly was so busy catching up on with her bookkeeping clients and working at the restaurant she didn’t have much trouble keeping her father out of her thoughts.

And that was before her nighttime distractions came into play in the form of a six foot four inch human incarnation of tall, dark, and dangerous.

They’d been together every night except one since the wedding—she’d begged off Tuesday since she had to get up at the crack of dawn Wednesday to cover the breakfast shift.

Only to find herself tossing and turning until the wee hours, her body hot and aching as she imagined Brady stretched out naked on his bed, his tan skin against his white sheets. Wondering if he missed her the way she was missing him.

She’d gotten her answer the next morning when he’d come up behind her while she was unloading her tray into the sink.

His hands settled at her hips and his lips teased her earlobe as he pulled her back against him. “I don’t know about you, but my bed was pretty goddamn cold last night.”

Molly’s breath caught in her throat as she felt the outline of his erection, huge and hard, straining at the fly of his jeans as he rubbed himself against her back. “You’re obviously not suffering from shrinkage because of it,” she said and tilted her head to the side in invitation.

He took it, settling his lips on her neck in an open-mouthed kiss that had her nipples hardening against the cups of her bra and her thighs clenching against the throbbing pulse at her core.

“Come keep me warm tonight,” he said and let her go with another nipping kiss.

It didn’t occur to her to hesitate, that night or the nights that followed. Even though she asked herself as she pulled up to his house, how casual was it possible to keep things with someone she was sleeping with every night?

As long as you keep your heart out of the picture, eventually your body will get over this.

That’s what she told herself anyway as her heartbeat picked up its pace as she let herself into his house.

“I’m back here,” he called as the door shut behind her. “And you better be naked by the time you get back here.”

She couldn’t stifle a grin as she obediently left a trail of clothing as she walked the short distance to his bedroom.

By the time she got there only her bra and panties were left.

“I thought I said naked,” he growled.

Her hands froze on their way to unclip her bra at the sight he presented, reclining naked on the bed. For several seconds she could do nothing but drink him in, her eyes tracing his body from his big feet to the top of his head.And in between… she unconsciously licked her lips at the sight of his huge cock, standing straight up from his body, rock hard and straining.

For her.

She unclipped her bra and let the straps slowly slide down her arms, loving the way his silvery gaze traveled over every dip and curve. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties, watching him lick his lips as she shoved them slowly off her hips and down the length of her legs.

“That’s better,” he said, his lips quirking in a half smile. “Now why don’t you come over here and sit on my dick?”

Molly let out a startled laugh even as a rush of heat and wetness pulsed between her thighs. “You’re so romantic,” she said as she walked over to the bed. She loved that she could be like this with him, free to enjoy herself and him without getting all up in her head about what it did or didn’t mean.

He already had a condom in hand and was rolling it down his long length as she joined him.

“If you wanted romance you know I’m not your guy,” he muttered as he circled her waist with his hands and pulled her on top of him until her knees fell open over his hips.