When Hearts Collide (11 page)

The pain medication began to work, and he drifted to sleep with the sensation of softness and the scent of vanilla.

Gracie settled in bed for the night, Molly returned to the kitchen. Pearce had cleaned up the supper dishes and was wiping off the table.

“Do you want coffee?” she asked.

“I guess I shouldn’t have anything stronger with the antibiotics and pain pills, should I?”

When he raised his eyebrows and grinned at her, she felt her heart do a series of somersaults that left her dizzy. Leaning against the doorframe, Molly waited for her heart to settle. She needed to know more about him. She’d told him about her life. Would he tell her about his? Keeping busy making the coffee, she was relieved when he left the confines of the kitchen. She didn’t want him to notice how distracting his presence made her.

Molly took two mugs of coffee and a plate of cookies to the family room and placed them on the coffee table. She sat at the other end of the chesterfield.

“You look like you have something on your mind,” Pearce said.

Molly added sugar and cream to her coffee, took a sip, then turned to face him. “I need to ask you something.”

“Ask away.”

Molly hesitated, wrapping her fingers around the cup as if its warmth could penetrate her body, give her the courage to ask questions he may not want to answer. She met his gaze. “What happened to Gracie’s mother?”

She saw his mouth tighten and noted the tiny twitch on the left side of his cheek.

“I don’t want to talk about her. She’s dead.” The fingers clutching the mug went white.

“I don’t want you to speak ill of her. I need to know what happened in Gracie’s past so I can help her. You’re safe at home now, and she’s still having the occasional nightmare. And,” Molly said, “at the hospital she was afraid of her grandmother.”

Pearce harrumphed. “Wouldn’t you be afraid of that woman?”

Molly couldn’t help grinning. “Well, she is rather formidable.”

His voice turned harsh, and the anger blazing in his eyes turned their usual bright blue to charcoal. “You’re being overly kind. That woman is a cold, uncaring bitch.”

Molly shrank back from the force of his anger. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “What did she do?”

“Let Gracie be put in foster care, that’s what she did.”

Molly let out an audible gasp.

“So you can see why I hate her.”

“How could she let that happen?”

“You met the woman. She’s an iceberg.”

“But her granddaughter...” Molly stammered.

“I don’t want to talk about her. Help me back to bed.”

Molly had more questions, but his rage, reflected in his blazing eyes and the clench of his jaw, kept her silent. She had no idea how deep his anger lay and had no desire to trigger something both of them would regret.

Pearce leaned back into the vinyl seat and let his forearms flop onto the armrests.
How long will I have to be in this damned thing?
He clenched his fist around the unresisting plastic support until the knuckles blanched. He hated how doing something as simple as getting out of bed, or getting dressed, drained him. He hated being weak, hated it with a passion. Being dependent on anyone rankled him more than he chose to admit.

He had been on his own since he was sixteen when his mother remarried, and he ran away from home. She’d doted on him, when she wasn’t trying to capture some potential husband. But when his newest stepfather decided he needed rules and militaristic discipline, he’d bolted.

He’d worked hard to make something of himself and everything had been going along so well. Then, with the car accident, the proverbial sky had fallen. He hated having to beg a stranger to take care of his daughter, having to deal with his injuries, having to deal with pain and incapacitation, and now, having to deal with someone prying into his past.

His hands gripped the chrome wheels of the wheelchair and jerked it into motion. He rolled down the empty hall. Molly had been in the kitchen ten minutes before. Rationally, he knew he should calm down before he spoke to her, but he was too angry to think of the consequences. Last night’s conversation about Gracie’s mother and grandmother still rankled him.

He maneuvered the wheelchair into the kitchen. It was empty. Where the hell was she? Was there nothing in his life he had control over? He jerked the wheelchair around, slamming it into the doorframe. He swore at the dent it made in the pine. She wasn’t anywhere in sight, or sound. Another thing in his life he had no control over. His anger simmering, he headed back to his office.

Gracie was in the family room playing with her dolls when Molly took Pearce his lunch. The wheelchair faced the window, and he made no acknowledgment of her presence. She wondered if he’d fallen asleep in the chair. Crossing the room on tiptoes, she went to place the tray of food on the table near him and almost dropped it when she heard the whispered rage in his voice.

“My daughter’s mother is none of your business. And, I would appreciate you staying out of my personal life.”

“What?”

Molly felt like a child caught stealing gum from the store. She knew her cheeks were as red as her hair. She stuttered, “I need to know...”

“You need to know nothing.”

Her red-haired temper left prudence behind and her voice hardened. “You want me to look after a child who is withdrawn and having nightmares, and you think I need to know nothing. How in God’s name can I help Gracie if I’m kept in the dark about what’s made her this way?”

“Gracie has no mother,” he announced bitterly.

His voice was as hard as granite, and his blue eyes had darkened and glowed like molten steel. Molly took a step back. His words were so full of anger and hurt, she felt as if she’d suffered a physical blow.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t ask me about her again.”

“I’m sorry.” She had to look away from the anger smoldering in his face. “I only wanted to know for Gracie’s sake. To be able to help her.”

“Well, you don’t need to know.”

Molly turned away before he could see the tears welling in her eyes. Hurrying out of the room, she shut the door with a sharp click and raced up the stairs. She threw herself on the bed and let the tears flow. She reasoned with herself that she was justified in needing to know about Gracie’s life, her past, her relationships, her traumas. How else could she help the child become more outgoing and stop the nightmares? Molly swiped at the sodden stands of hair coating her tear-stained cheeks. Emotions held in check for too long refused to be shackled.

By the time her tears had saturated the pillow, Molly could see Pearce’s side. She couldn’t blame him for his anger. Like herself, he didn’t want anyone prying into his personal life. She dried her tears. She needed to apologize.

It took her several minutes to repair the damage the tears had done before she knocked on the study door. Pearce’s “come in” was short, and Molly swallowed the lump of panic in her throat. She took a fortifying breath before grasping the handle and thrusting the door open.

Her initial bravado teetering, Molly leaned against the doorframe. She might be able to hide the trembling in her knees, but she couldn’t cloak the quiver in her voice. “Pearce, I’m sorry. I had no business...”

“No, Molly, I’m sorry.”

“I had no business prying into your life.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” He shrugged. “It was a very bad experience and talking about it brings back all the pain and anger.”

Silence loomed for several seconds, and Molly was surprised when Pearce spoke again.

“We met at a wedding—an instant attraction. She was beautiful, confident, spoiled. Born into a wealthy family, she was used to getting her own way. I guess she decided she wanted me.”

He shrugged his shoulders again as if he couldn’t understand her attraction to him. Molly could tell him. She could tell him how he made her heart race every time he looked her way, spoke her name, touched her. Yes, she could tell him, but she wouldn’t.

“It was a whirlwind courtship. We married within three months, and we were happy, for the first year. Or so I thought. Then she wanted out. She didn’t want to be tied down anymore.

“She’d put her modeling career on hold. I hadn’t asked her to, but she blamed me. I guess I cramped her style. She said marriage kept her from getting the good jobs. I couldn’t reason with her. Then she found out she was pregnant. I was ecstatic, but she was devastated. She wanted an abortion. I begged her to reconsider. I told her as soon as the baby came she could go back to modeling, and I’d look after the baby, get a nanny.” He stared out the window.

“I thought it would change her, but it made things worse. She blamed me for forcing her to have a baby, and resented the pregnancy for what it did to her figure. She became bitter and vengeful. She didn’t want the child, but didn’t want me to have her either.

“She left one night. Wouldn’t see me, or speak to me. Later, she wrote and told me she’d lost the baby, our marriage was over, and she wanted a divorce. I signed the papers. I never heard from her again.”

He paused as if it was too painful to go on. “I didn’t even know I had a child. It was only by accident I found out Rachel had been killed in a car accident. If I hadn’t run into her friend, Janet, I would never have known about Gracie.”

His voice held so much bitterness, tears welled in her eyes. She wanted to reach out and hold him, but fear of his reaction held her back.

“I can’t forgive her for giving Gracie up for adoption. I missed out on so much.” His palm hitting the desk sounded like a crack of thunder. “My own flesh and blood put in foster care like a homeless orphan.” He shuddered. “What if I’d never known about her? What if I’d never found her?” He closed his eyes, the muscles on his face as taunt as a bowstring.

Would he ever get over his anger? Would he ever be able to trust again?

When he did turn back to look at her, anger smoldered in his eyes. “Her leaving and not telling me about Gracie, it was her way to punish me.”

“I’m so sorry, Pearce.”

A familiar ache rose in her chest and she wanted to reach out and touch him, make some sort of contact to ease the pain. She wanted to tell him that all women weren’t like his wife, that some women would give their eyeteeth to have his child. She wanted to tell him how desperately she wanted to be that woman.

“But now,” he said, his voice becoming less bitter, more determined, “Gracie and I are together again, and I won’t let anything come between us.”

Molly’s heart plummeted.
Yes, you and Gracie are together, but is there room for me?

Molly’s bare feet sank into the thick carpet. Her heart felt as if it were sinking along with her feet. She’d left the door open a crack so she could slip in and give Pearce his antibiotic without waking him. After their earlier conversation, the rest of the day consisted of monosyllabic communication.

Molly had tended to his needs. And she’d brought Gracie in for meals, and a short visit before she put her to bed. Despite Gracie and Trooper’s rambunctious play, the atmosphere between Pearce and her remained tense. She was glad Gracie kept her busy. It kept her mind off all the things she didn’t want to think about–her job at the hospital, her future, her feelings for Pearce, and her aching heart.

She crossed the room on tiptoes and flipped on the nightlight on the alcove of the sideboard. A soft glimmer of light illuminated the medical supplies. She glanced at Pearce. He snored softly. Molly smiled to herself. Would he admit that he snored? Probably not.

Molly mixed the antibiotic. Crossing to the bed, she attached the mini-bag to the intravenous line. It would take a few minutes. Should she go and get something to drink? Or she could just stand here and watch? She let her eyes roam over Pearce’s sleeping form.

It had been a while since he’d had a cut and his hair was ruffled and unruly. Dark tendrils coiled at the nape of his neck. As a concession to the weather warm, he was bare-chested. Her gaze traveled down the matte of short wavy chest hairs until the cotton top-sheet concealed them.

Her imagination, though, didn’t stop at the sheet’s border, but traveled farther south, awakening a sensuality Molly had repressed for far too long, sparking an internal kiln until the room felt as hot and arid as an Arabian desert.

As if he too felt the heat, Pearce let out a strident sigh, and Molly was drawn back to his face. A solitary lock curled in the middle of his forehead, almost covering his left eye. Her hand stretched out to touch it. It was halfway there before she realized what she was doing and jerked her hand back.

She had almost touched him. She might have wakened him. What would he say if he knew his nurse was staring at him while he slept, having urges to stroke his hair, his body? This was her patient. Oh, but how she wished he weren’t.

Glancing at the antibiotic, she sighed with relief—empty. She disconnected the bag and dropped it in the garbage. The intimacy of the darkened room was doing strange things to her hormones. Thank heavens Pearce would be finished with the intravenous antibiotics in a couple of days and could go on oral ones. Sadly, it would mean the end of her nightly forays into his room. It might also put an end her mind’s uncontrolled wandering. But if it was a good thing, then why did she feel such a sense of loss?

Molly tiptoed out of the room as silently as she’d come in. The upside of oral antibiotics would be that she’d get a full night’s sleep. Unless Gracie woke her with one of her nightmare. But they seemed to be less frequent, and as soon as Molly held her for a few minutes, Gracie settled back into a peaceful sleep. Molly stifled a yawn as she slipped under the bedcovers. Her last conscious thought was of running her hands through silky black curls.

Pearce lingered at the window. A smile came to his lips as he watched Gracie and Molly playing tag on the lawn. She had such a way with the child and had drawn her out of her shell. He thought of her caring for his daughter—comforting her when she scraped her knee, reading her bedtime stories, giggling together over some game they were playing, coercing a smile out of her when she pouted. Molly would make a wonderful mother. He sidestepped the thought that she’d make Gracie a wonderful mother.

Molly came toward the house and Pearce had a sudden desire to get out of the confines of the wheelchair. He wanted to feel fresh air against his skin again, smell the outdoors, be in nature. Pearce called to her.

She approached the window, standing beside him where she could still keep an eye on Gracie. “Yes, Pearce?” She kept her smile professional.

“I don’t think I’ve told you often enough how grateful I am. I’m so glad you agreed to look after Gracie until I’m better. You’re amazing with her.” Pearce winked at her. “Despite being coerced into it.”

“It’s been an education. I’ve learned to do ponytails, braids, barrettes that stay in, and detangle hair without removing half her scalp. I’ve learned no gum before bed, and just a dollop of honey on the peanut butter.”

“Gracie has really taken to you.”

“She’s a wonderful child.”

His eyes misted over. “Yes, she is.” His hand reached out for her wrist, holding her there. “Molly?” He pulled her closer.