Daniel trusted Joe’s instincts almost as much as he trusted his own. “Then let’s get to work,” he said, rising to his feet, his own half of the tuna sandwich still untouched. He could always eat at Jess’s.
Joe grabbed the sandwich as they headed for the door. “No need to let this go to waste,” he explained.
“You’re gonna owe me lunch when this case is over,” Daniel said.
“Chowder at Jess’s?” Joe suggested slyly.
Daniel shook his head. “I’m thinking a good steak at the fanciest restaurant here in town.”
“Boy, you do have it bad for Molly, don’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m never wrong about these things,” Joe insisted.
“You’re a forty-year-old bachelor, for heaven’s sake.”
Joe laughed. “How do you think I’ve stayed that way? Great instincts.”
“Well, you’re wrong about this,” Daniel said defensively. “There’s nothing between Molly and me. Not anymore.”
“Never said there was. I said you had it bad. I’d have to spend a little time around the two of you together to say how she feels.”
“Trust me, she’s not interested in rekindling an old flame.”
And much as he hated himself for giving a damn, the truth of that still stuck in Daniel’s craw.
* * *
Daniel was about to drive Molly right over the edge. He’d been appearing at the bar more regularly than customers who’d been coming in for years. Midmorning, lunchtime, dinnertime...she never knew when she was going to look up and see him sauntering through the door with that grim, determined expression on his handsome face.
He’d been at it for a solid week now, and she was about to scream from the effort of being polite when what she actually wanted to do was throw a mug of beer in his smug face. At this very moment, he was sitting at the bar toying with the same soda he’d been pretending to drink for the past hour. He wouldn’t even touch a real drink.
Molly braced herself and walked behind the bar. “Are you planning to move in? Given the amount of time you’re spending in here, I should charge you rent, since the cost of that soda hardly compensates for the space you’re occupying.”
He leveled a look straight into her eyes. “You could get rid of me easily enough.”
“Oh?”
“All you have to do is produce Kendra Morrow and let me talk to her.”
“Give it a rest, Daniel,” she said, grateful that she’d sent Kendra off for the day with Retta’s daughter. Leslie Sue had taken a liking to the girl, and Kendra enjoyed spending time helping her out baby-sitting several neighborhood children, especially since it meant avoiding Daniel’s impromptu visits to the bar.
“I can’t give it a rest,” he told her.
“Why not?” Molly asked plaintively. Lying to him was beginning to get to her. Honesty and trust were big issues to her, and Daniel knew it. She was violating her own sense of decency, and it didn’t matter that Daniel didn’t deserve any better from her.
“Because she’s thirteen years old, Molly. She has a family.”
“How much of a family could they be if she felt the need to run away from them?” She very nearly blurted what Kendra had told her, that her parents intended to send her away. Molly hadn’t been able to get the girl to say any more than that, but it was just the kind of thing that might make Daniel leap to Kendra’s defense. After all, who knew more about the anguish of kids being sent away by their parents?
He met her gaze evenly. “Kids make some stupid decisions in the heat of the moment. This one could wind up with her getting hurt.”
“That won’t happen,” Molly said, eyes blazing.
“Because she has you to protect her?” he asked quietly.
Too late, she saw the trap. So far she’d managed to avoid admitting that she’d ever seen Kendra, much less that she’d provided her with a safe haven. She’d kept their conversations about Kendra purely hypothetical, or at least she thought she had. All the lying was getting to be more and more complicated.
She tried to dance around any admission. “Because she’s obviously a smart kid.”
“How do you know that?” he pressed.
“She must be, if she’s eluded you and Joe Sutton for all this time.”
He gave her a wry look. “She’s had help doing that, though, hasn’t she?”
Molly refused to look away. “I certainly hope so. All children should have someone willing to offer a helping hand when they need it.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that score. Usually that’s what I am, a helping hand. I could be that for Kendra, if you’d stop standing in the way.”
He said it as if there wasn’t a doubt about Kendra being there, so apparently Molly wasn’t half the liar she’d tried to be. Given the number of opportunities she’d had lately to practice, she was bound to be better before this mess was cleared up.
“I have a legal right and the experience to look out for her,” Daniel added. “You have nothing. In fact, quite the opposite. You’re interfering in a police matter.”
Molly felt her temper kick in at his reasonable tone and at the suggestion that he could be relied on to be anyone’s help in a crisis. “I know all about your kind of help,” she snapped. “Believe me, wherever she is and whoever she’s with, she’s better off on her own.”
Daniel actually winced at the cutting words. Molly hadn’t thought he could ever be wounded by anything she said, but it was apparent that he was. Not that she was going to take back her words or apologize for speaking the truth.
“I’m sorry you believe that,” he said quietly. “I won’t hurt her, Molly, and I never meant to hurt you. I was trying to protect you.”
“Is that what you call turning your back on your own baby and on the woman you claimed to love? Protection?” She could hear her voice climbing, so she turned aside before he could see the tears she was trying desperately to blink away.
She heard him move and thanked heaven that he had the sensitivity for once to go and leave her in peace. But before she could even finish the thought, she felt his hand on her shoulder, gentle, comforting.
“Molly, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
When she finally risked looking at him, there was so much torment, so much emotion, in his eyes that it nearly stole her breath.
“I really am sorry,” Daniel said, brushing awkwardly at the tear that slid down her cheek. He’d never been able to bear making her cry. “What I did was stupid and careless, but I honestly believed I was doing the right thing. I had no idea how it would turn out.”
She sniffed. “It could hardly have had a happy ending now, could it?”
“No, but I never thought you’d lose the baby. I never wanted that.” His hand cupped her chin. “Believe me. A part of me would have given anything for you to have my child, even if it meant watching him or her grow up from a distance. You would have been a wonderful mother.”
Because she so desperately wanted to believe him, because a part of her