Page 20 of Ten Kisses

"I'm glad you like it."

"I could not like it any more. It's better than anything I had in my mind. I imagined you using scraps, and I don't know, getting guys to build it on their break. I don't know what I was picturing, but it wasn't this. I honestly don't know what to say." Molly was keeping it together. Her voice wasn't giving out, and she was able to communicate clearly. But she could not control the tears that ran down her cheeks.

"Molly, what?" he said, stepping toward her.

"I’m just… it's happiness. Is this seriously mine? I can't even believe it."

"It is yours," Salem said. "I’m happy you like it."

She went to him, took his hand, and looked him in the eyes. "Salem, I…" She blinked. Her eyes were still filled with tears. "I'll call you tonight and we can talk about what else I owe you."

He gave her a small smile. She was beautiful. Her mouth was full and curvy, and she had no lipstick on, or any makeup at all. She had been swimming.

"I'm going. Nathan's waiting in the truck."

She squeezed his hand. "Thank you, Salem. I'll call you in a little while. Thank you."

He could tell how excited and sincere she was by the way she was acting. She squeezed his hand and stared straight at him, and he knew. He knew she loved it. He told Molly and her friend goodbye, and then he headed out the door.

"You were right about him!" were the words he heard just before the door closed.

It wasn't Molly who had said it. It was her friend. But what had Molly been right about? Was it about the furniture? Salem didn't have time to think about it. He was busy talking to Nathan and pulling out of that driveway.

Molly's landlord was outside with two other guys. It looked like one of them was leaving and the other two were standing near his car… a new, red Corvette. Salem had seen it when he pulled up.

This whole scenario was odd to him.

He didn't like the landlord.

Or maybe he did like Molly.

Something had changed.

Something was different.

Molly called him four hours later. For some reason, he expected to hear from her sooner, so four hours had seemed like a long time to wait.

Salem was by himself when she called. It was late Saturday afternoon, and he was in the shop. He had crews at his house this morning, but they had all gone home.

"Hello?" he said pushing the button to answer his phone.

"I sound like I'm on speakerphone," she said, her voice filling the room.

"You are. I'm in my shop."

"Are other people there?"

"No, I'm alone."

"I'm sorry I'm just now having the time to call. I was having to work for the last few hours. Those guys, the chef, Darren's friend, he wanted me to make him a chocolate recipe, and he paid me to do it right then."

"He paid you to cook?"

"Yeah, and we finally got the perfect recipe that he wants to use at his restaurant, indefinitely! He's going to have his chefs make a dessert out of it. that's what took me so long. We worked out this big deal where I'll deliver weekly. He wanted to use my double dark chocolate for two weeks, and the white chocolate was the one that he wanted to tweak my recipe. That's going to be on the permanent menu. That's what we've been doing the last few hours. Can you believe it? Isn't that amazing? It's happening, Salem."

She was so excited that he went with it. What was he going to do? He couldn't tell her that he was creeped out by those guys and thought they had less than honorable intentions. The fact was that he didn't know them. Maybe their intentions were honorable. He had no way of knowing that for sure.

She was beautiful, and there was a chance that these men were just trying to get close to her. But there was also a chance that the guy's intentions were pure. Salem didn't show his skepticism. He held his tongue.

---