Page 6 of In Her Sights
She glanced at his bemused face and quickly turned away. She could already tell that this wasn’t going to end well. There was going to be cuteness, and she was going to get mushy, and it was all going to end with someone’s death.
He smiled, flashing that aggravatingly adorable dimple as he settled in next to her, and she had to admit…it wouldn’t be the worst way to go.
Chapter 2
Molly yawned and blinked, trying to clear her fuzzy eyesight. It didn’t help. The spreadsheet’s numbers still looked like someone had smeared Vaseline over the laptop screen. Letting out a huff of frustration that morphed into another yawn halfway through, she sat back in her chair and squinted at the clock on the microwave display.
“Almost one. No wonder I’m tired,” she muttered, rolling her head to stretch out her tense neck muscles. Her right leg felt stiff, and she was dying to move it, but a snoozing Warrant was resting his huge head on her foot, and she didn’t want to disturb the dog. She knew she should just go to bed and finish work in the morning, but it was almost impossible to get anything done while everyone else was awake. There were always distractions and crises to manage, as well as research to be done. It was good to be busy, to be offered almost too many jobs, but it was also tiring. The business was solidly established now, but Molly still hated to turn away work. Even though it wasn’t exactly logical, she worried that everything would collapse underneath them if she paused to take a breath.
Glancing back at the screen, she grimaced. The numbers weren’t any clearer than they’d been a minute ago. Saving the file, she shut down the laptop. If she tried to finish it tonight, she’d just have to fix mistakes tomorrow.
The kitchen was dimly lit by the gentle glow from the light over the stove. The room was just large enough to fit the small table that Molly used as a desk. No matter how much she would’ve loved to have an office with a door she could use to shut out the hubbub, space was at a premium when six women shared one house. There were officially three bedrooms, although solitude-loving Norah had tucked a twin bed into what was supposed to be an upstairs sitting room and had appropriated the hall closet for her own use. Molly and Felicity shared one room, and the twins—Cara and Charlie—took another. It irked Molly that their mother, who contributed the least to the household expenses, had her own room.
Tapping her finger absently on the closed laptop, she frowned, knowing that she was going to have to have a conversation with her mom soon about paying her way or finding another place to live.
With a groan, she let her head tip forward to rest on the cool laptop lid. She dreaded the drama that conversation would cause. Molly’d had similar talks with her mom over the years—the first was when she was twelve—and Jane had always somehow wiggled out of her promises or negotiated more time or had such a fit that Molly had backed off. Lifting her head, she drew her shoulders back. Not this time. She was determined to stand strong.
The overhead light flickered on, making her blink from the glare. Warrant’s snuffled snores cut off abruptly. He raised his head off of her foot when Jane swept into the kitchen as if Molly’s thoughts had summoned her. Her tall, angular form was dressed in black skinny jeans and a dark, formfitting top, with her red hair pulled back in a severe bun.
“Molly!” Bending, Jane pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.
“Hey, Mom.” Molly turned in her chair so she could examine Jane’s outfit as her mother pulled a water bottle out of the fridge. “What’s with the…look?”
“What?” Keeping the refrigerator door propped open with her hip, Jane took a long drink of water, screwed the cap back on, and returned it to the shelf before letting the fridge close again. Molly resisted the urge to ask her mom if she planned to air-condition the entire house via refrigerator. Even though Molly was only twenty-seven, being around Jane somehow made her feel like a cranky parent. “You don’t like it?” Jane asked as she did a turn, as if modeling.
“It’s very…cat-burglar chic, I guess.” When Jane jerked around with a reproving look—presumably for her skeptical tone—Molly just shrugged. She was used to having her mom’s disapproval. Molly was much too responsible to ever be the favorite. Usually, that was Felicity or Charlie, depending on Jane’s whim, but they’d all learned not to allow their mom to play them off one another. They were sisters first—sisters who shared the misfortune of having an often irresponsible mother. “Where are you off to at one on a Wednesday morning?”
Jane flipped her hand as if the words smelled bad. The familiarity of the gesture caused Molly to blink. She did exactly the same thing when she wanted to change the subject. She immediately made a firm resolution to stop. “I have to ask my daughter for permission to go out?” Jane scoffed. “Don’t forget who the mother is around here.”
Unfortunately, Jane made it all too easy to do exactly that. Her words reminded Molly of her earlier thoughts. “Will you be back by tomorrow—this afternoon, I mean? I need to talk to you.”
Smoothing her hair even though the strands were perfectly flat, Jane lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “Possibly. If the perfect opportunity to be spontaneous presents itself, I’m not going to pass it up. You’re an adult now. You need to learn that you don’t need your mom around all the time anymore.”
Molly had to clench her jaw and count to fourteen before she trusted herself to speak semicivilly. “Text me if you’re going to be gone more than a day so I don’t have to start searching hospitals and jails.”
With a light laugh—as if the suggestion was ridiculous and not a regular thing her kids’d had to do since they’d been much too young to be dealing with that nonsense—Jane headed for the door to the garage.
“Why are you going that way?” Molly asked, standing up, prepared to tackle her mom if necessary. There were hard lines, and her beloved Prius was one of them. “Your car is parked in the driveway.”
“Oh!” Jane paused, her hand on the doorknob. “I thought we could swap for a few days. Yours gets better gas mileage, and mine’s making this strange rattling sound every time I go over eighty.”
There were so many things wrong with what her mother said that Molly couldn’t decide where to start. She ended up going with a flat “No.”
“Molly…” It was her stern mother voice, which had lost all of its power by the time Molly was a teenager.
“If you take my car, I’m going to report it stolen.” Molly grabbed her backpack off the hook next to the door and rummaged through it, searching for the key fob that she always kept tucked in the front pocket. It wasn’t there. Setting her backpack down with a solid thump, she held out her hand, maneuvering her body to block the garage door. “Keys.”
“My car isn’t safe right now.” Jane tucked her fingers into her back pocket, but Molly knew that she was protecting her access to the keys rather than moving to pull them out and hand them over. “Do you really want your mother driving around Denver in a dangerous vehicle?”
Molly kept her hand outstretched, palm up expectantly. “Do you want your daughter driving around in a dangerous vehicle?”
Jane did that familiar sweep of her hand again, doubling Molly’s resolution to remove the motion from her own repertoire. “You’re in Langston. You don’t need a car. Where would you need to go that you couldn’t just walk to?”
“Work.” Molly’s tone was heavy with sarcasm, but her position in front of the door didn’t waver. “I need to work, so that we can eat and have nice things like heat in the winter. The same work that often requires me to go to Denver to chase after skips or meet with bail-bond agents. Why don’t you stay home tonight and take your car to the shop tomorrow morning?”
Dropping her chin, Jane peered at Molly through her lashes. “I can’t afford to have it fixed. Can I borrow some money from you?”
