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“Oh, Kendra, what’s going on with you?” she whispered as she pulled a blanket over the girl. “I can’t hide you forever, not with Daniel breathing down my neck.”
Not that Molly minded the prospect of going a few rounds with Daniel. In fact, if there was some way she could turn his life into a living hell, she was all for it. It would be downright exhilarating.
And maybe a little too much like the old days, she admitted honestly. That could be dangerous. She wasn’t over Daniel, not by a long shot. If she hadn’t already known that, the sparks flying between them this afternoon would have been a wake-up call. Anyone with any sense knew that hate was the flip side of love, that so much passion could turn on a dime into the opposite emotion. Hating Daniel was a habit, but so was loving him. It was easy enough to hate him deeply and thoroughly from a distance, but proximity had a way of confusing things. Hormones kicked in, and common sense flew straight out the window.
So, she needed to get him back out of her life for her own protection. And the only way to do that was to resolve the situation with Kendra. Easier said than done.
In just a couple of days the girl had stolen a piece of Molly’s heart. She was smart and full of life. She was eager to help, desperate for praise. She was all the things Molly had been when she’d come to live with her grandfather. Jess had been there for her, steady as a rock. Now it was her turn to do the same for another scared child.
Resolved to stand by Kendra, no matter what, she went into her room and tried to see it as Daniel must have seen it earlier. Had he remembered the times they’d spent together in her bed? Had he noticed that his picture was no longer on her dresser?
She reached into a nightstand drawer and found the photo, taken on a rocky cliff overlooking the Atlantic. His hair, normally so neatly trimmed to keep the natural curl tamed, had been caught by the wind and mussed. A navy sweater made his blue eyes seem even darker. And his smile…she sighed just looking at it. It was a heartbreaker of a smile, complete with devastating dimples and a flash of pure mischief in his eyes. This was the Daniel she’d fallen in love with, the one with his guard down and nary a rulebook in sight.
The Daniel who’d barged back into her life today was the hard professional without so much as a glint of humor in his eyes. When he was like that, it was easy enough to pretend that she’d never felt a thing for him. Of course, the pretense was just that, a lie to keep her safe.
Her hand instinctively went to her belly, covering the empty womb where her child—hers and Daniel’s—should have been safe, should have grown until ready to face the world. She struggled against a flood of tears.
“I am not shedding one more tear over that man,” she said staunchly. And she’d shed all she could over her lost child.
But despite her intentions, the tears fell anyway. She sank onto the edge of the bed, still clutching the picture, mentally cursing herself for not having thrown it away years ago.
A whisper of sound had her wiping her eyes before she faced Kendra, who was standing uncertainly in the bedroom doorway.
“Are you okay?” the teen asked worriedly.
“I’m just fine,” Molly reassured her, then patted the edge of the bed. “Come sit here for a minute.”
Kendra sat next to her, keeping a careful distance between them. “I tried to wait up for you. I guess I fell asleep.”
“That’s okay.”
“We can talk now, if you want.”
“Sweetie, I need to know why you ran away from home. That’s the only way I can help you.”
“I can’t say,” Kendra said, her expression apologetic. “I’m sorry. You’re being real nice to me, but I can’t. It will ruin everything.”
What an odd thing to say. Puzzled, Molly studied her. “What will it ruin?”
“Can’t I just stay here a little longer, please? I’m helping Retta. She said I was doing good. She taught me to make chowder today, and the customers liked it. I heard them say so.”
“You are good, and if it were just about a job, you could stay,” Molly told her. “But you have a home, Kendra. You have parents who are worried sick about you. I have to think about them, too.”
“Is this just because you don’t want to keep fighting with that man who came today?”
“No, it’s because I feel guilty standing between you and your parents when I don’t know what’s going on.” She tucked a finger under Kendra’s chin and forced the girl to meet her gaze. “What did they do that was so awful?”
“It’s not what they did,” Kendra said at last. “It’s what they’re gonna do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They’re going to send me away,” she said, barely choking back a sob. “I’m just saving them the trouble.”
And before Molly could ask a single question, Kendra was out of the room and out of the apartment, thundering down the stairs and out into the night.
Molly raced after her, then stopped when she got to the front door of Jess’s. Kendra was outside, but she hadn’t gone far. Molly pulled a chair over by the door and waited, leaving light from the bar spilling into the street. She wanted Kendra to know that when she was ready, this was one home she could come back to.
Chapter Four
Daniel tried to spend as much time as possible burying himself in work. Even so, for the next few days he made it a point to stop at Jess’s at various times, and at least once a day. He hoped to catch a glimpse of Kendra, but mostly he wanted to keep Molly rattled and aware that he was not letting her off the hook. He hadn’t quite decided what time to show up today—probably around dinnertime, maybe not until just before closing when she’d be breathing a mistaken sigh of relief that he hadn’t turned up.
In the meantime, he went out to do follow-ups on five cases, checking on at-risk kids to make sure that their situations at home were under control. The unseasonably hot temperatures could escalate tensions, and family members who’d been making positive progress could suddenly revert to old ways. He tried to show up unexpectedly often enough to make sure that didn’t happen.
But as he went from home visit to home visit, he couldn’t shake the image of Molly from his head. Why the devil did she have to be so damned stubborn? Couldn’t she see that she was just prolonging the inevitable? Sooner or later he would talk to Kendra. It would be best if their first meeting wasn’t when he walked through the door with her parents. He liked to make sure such reunions went smoothly, but right now his back was to the wall, thanks to Molly.
He picked up a tuna on rye and a can of soda from the vendor in the basement of his office building in Portland, then climbed the stairs to his office. He found Joe Sutton waiting for him, his feet propped on Daniel’s tidy desk, his chair tilted back precariously, his eyes closed. Though it was barely noon, he looked as rumpled as if he’d slept in his clothes.
“About time you got back,” he said, startling awake when Daniel knocked his feet off the desk.
“Some of us spend our days out in the field checking on clients,” Daniel said.
Joe stared hopefully at the sandwich Daniel was unwrapping. “Is that tuna on rye?”
Daniel sighed. Joe was notorious for always stealing whatever food was around. Apparently there was plenty to be found, because he was at least thirty pounds overweight. That didn’t mean he couldn’t move when he had to.
“Here,” he said, handing the policeman half of his sandwich.
“No chips?” Joe asked, disappointment etched in the lines on his face.
“There’s a vending machine at the end of the hall. You’ll have to buy your own.”
“It’s out. I already checked.”
“Then you’re out of luck.”
“So how’s the Morrow girl doing?” Joe asked Daniel as he chewed.
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