Page 55 of Molly's Mr. Wrong
Molly drew in a breath as she held his gaze, not really caring that it shook a little. His breathing wasn’t exactly even. “You make it very easy not to.” With a poor attempt at a smirk, she jerked open the car door and got inside. Finn stood where he was until the lock went down on her door, then raised his hand in the barest of salutes and walked away toward his truck.
She’d expected him to go back into the bar, had assumed that “going home” was a ruse to get the better of her, but his door opened and closed as she backed out of the parking spot and the headlights came on. He followed her out of the lot, but whereas she turned right at the stop sign, he turned left.
She hit the heel of her hand on the steering wheel as she stopped at the light. A quick glance at the clock told her that less than thirty minutes had passed, but a whole lot had changed in that time.
She knew that Finn could kiss like no one’s business. She knew that she reacted to him in a crazy way.
She knew that she was never kissing him again.
And since Georgina was home, she knew she’d better act normal when she got there.
* * *
AFTERTHEKISSin McElroy’s parking lot, Finn decided to give both himself and Molly a break and keep his distance. Maybe it was because kissing Molly had been nothing like he’d thought it would be. He’d acted on impulse, expecting something pleasant, but not the instant heat that had flared between them. It was all he could do not to back her up against her car, fist his hands into her hair and find out what else the two of them could do together. In the parking lot.
Bad idea. Not only for the sake of decorum, but because he wasn’t messing with a woman who’d made it so clear that, while she found him attractive, she also found him lacking. She’d come after him in the bar out of guilt, but he’d be a fool to twist that into caring for him more than she did. When people did things out of guilt, they did them for themselves. He knew. He’d done things out of guilt a time or two.
For the next three weeks, he went to class, arriving just before the bell rang, so that he didn’t risk being alone with Molly before the rest of the students—some of whom were chronically late—arrived. He did his best to be pleasant, yet distant. A student to Molly’s teacher. He didn’t ask for help, didn’t go to her office with questions. He haunted the internet and also started doing something he should have done from the beginning—he started FaceTiming with Dylan. And the fact that it’d taken him so long to think of that showed that he might be a little slower on the uptake than he’d first thought.
Dylan was busy with his own studies, so it was often Jolie—who’d sucked at chemistry, but excelled in English—who helped him. When he didn’t ask for help, he faltered, which made him wonder if it was actually possible for him to get an honest degree and, more than that, to use it. Even teaching a hands-on course, there was a lot of paperwork and grading.
He hadn’t been aware of that until he’d spent time in the college automotives lab, saw what the classes looked like today. They were different from the classes he’d taken in high school, both in form and content. More computer usage. More writing, because apparentlyliteracywas the new buzzword in education.
Was he wasting his time trying to get an education degree? Setting himself up for failure?
A bigger question was did he want to sell feed and Western-themed doodads for the rest of his working days?
Meanwhile, as Finn questioned his life, Mike seemed to be taking great satisfaction with his since taking up with Ms. Fitch. No matter how many times she asked him to call her Elaine, it just seemed strange, so she remained Ms. Fitch in his head.
She and Mike ate dinner out several nights a week, cooked together on the weekends, went for long walks and drives. When Finn mentioned that they seemed to be moving mighty fast—not that he was getting parental or anything—Mike had laughed and said at his age, he couldn’t afford to waste time.
The best part was that Cal and Karl were both now trolling dating sites for real, trying to find their own Elaines. Wise man that he was, Cal had changed his profile photo to one where his eyes weren’t rolled back in his head, and Karl had taken about fifty headshots before he found one that he could live with.
“What do you think of her?” they’d ask Finn at least once a day, and he would give his honest opinion of a woman’s profile, pointing out any red flags he might see. The boys were getting as addicted to their online dating sites as Chase was to social media—most of which Finn was totally unfamiliar with.
He was getting old and he needed to figure out a career before he simply settled for the status quo.
His math class continued to go well, but his last English assignment hadn’t done his confidence any good. Molly now wrote neat comments in the margins in pencil instead of screaming red pen, and she tried to include examples and places where he could find helpful information. Of course they both pretended that that kiss had never happened, because what else could they do? He wasn’t about to put the moves on a woman who didn’t want him, even if she did haunt his thoughts at times. She’d surprised him by kissing him back in the parking lot—he had a strong feeling she’d also surprised herself.
Molly was distantly friendly during class, treating him no differently than any of the other students—other than modifying his assignments.
At the bottom of each graded paper she wrote a short note encouraging him to see her during office hours if he had questions, but she never voiced the invitation aloud. He did have questions, but the thing was, he had to do this on his own as much as possible. He’d never expected to need help every single step of the way.
Again, not a confidence-builder. At night, after finishing his assignments and exercises, he’d head to his shop and lose himself in his work. If he had the kitten for the night, Buddy would come with him and practice his mouse skills. So far, the little guy was batting zero, but he continued the enthusiastic search for rodents. Finn thought it might be for the best that he hadn’t yet encountered a mouse, because he was still very small and a mouse could probably take him in a fair fight.
Frankie the Monster was almost finished. His idea of putting the sculpture on the lawn for Halloween in a few weeks was squelched the first time he’d rocked the creation with one hand. He could probably move it on a handcart, but if the thing fell over, it could do some serious harm. His newest project, a hobbit-like creature, would be squat and have a more solid base. It’d be ready next Halloween. One scary sculpture a year was a good production schedule.
In the meantime, he was hammering out new fenders for an old motorcycle that Terry Tyrone had sold him for a few hundred bucks and rebuilding the Ford engine as he could afford the parts. Not a bad life...but missing something, and that something was causing a gnawing inside him. He needed purpose and he needed an outlet. A guy simply couldn’t pound metal all day to take out frustrations—he needed...substance.
* * *
CHASEWASBECOMINGa fixture in Georgina’s life and Molly told herself she was okay with that. Her sister was an adult. She had a good head on her shoulders. And Chase was a nice kid—who worked in a feed store. He’d been out of high school for three years and had bounced from job to job, a victim of the recent recession, until finally landing a part-time gig at the store and another part-time job at a local grocer, stocking on the midnight shift three nights a week.
When Molly commented on his jobs, Georgina had been quick to defend. Jobs weren’t easy to find in the Eagle Valley. Molly concurred...but she thought that some post-high school education would have helped his chances.
Molly was also smart enough to keep her mouth shut. She liked Chase. Twice now he’d cooked dinner for her and Georgina when they’d had overloaded schedules, and he was always willing to pitch in with dishes or whatever else needed to be done around the house.
And he hiked. Georgina had fallen in love with Montana on their day trips. “You can’t believe all the cool stuff outside the city limits,” she told Molly after her most recent excursion with Chase. Molly was aware of all the cool stuff, but didn’t mention how often she’d tried to get her little sister to leave the city limits. Nope. Nothing to be gained by that conversation except for sisterly discord.
