Page 18 of The Scars I Bare
Where was she staying?
Walking up to the front door, I didn’t bother knocking or ringing the doorbell. The one time I’d tried, shortly after Molly and I broke up, she’d nearly hit me over the head with a wooden spoon, reminding me that family did not knock.
Stepping into the wide foyer, I took a peek in either direction, feeling like a damn spy, as I tried to pinpoint Cora’s location.
Of course she was staying here.
Why was I even surprised? Jake and Molly were two of the most giving people I knew. A single mom relocating to a town she knew nothing about? Those two had probably insisted on it as part of her employment.
“What are you doing, standing out here like a lurker?” Molly’s voice filled the empty space, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“What? Who? Me? Nothing. Just wondering where you were. That’s all.”
Her blue eyes studied me for a moment, obviously seeing my bluff. “I was in the kitchen. Where else would I be? Come make yourself useful before Jake tries to. I sent him on a fool’s errand to grab charcoal for the grill. We have gas.” She grinned mischievously.
Shaking my head at her deceit, I followed her back into the kitchen, briefly looking over my shoulder like I was searching for some sort of ghost. She must have picked up on my distracted behavior because, the second we entered her sacred space, her hands reaching for a wooden spoon to stir something savory simmering on the stove, she began her interrogation.
“So, Jake said you were at the clinic today. How’d that go?”
Oh, she was a sly one.
“Good. And Jake didn’t say that,” I answered with a smirk, refusing to give in so easily. If Molly was going to prod me for answers to something she clearly already knew, I wasn’t going to make it easy for her. “You and I both know, I mentioned it last week.”
She made a face, momentarily scrunching her nose but letting it go almost immediately before going for round two. “Nothing out of the ordinary happen?” she said, giving her sauce a little taste before adding a pinch of salt.
I leaned back against the counter, not surprised in the least that she hadn’t given me anything to do yet. She didn’t need help; she rarely did. She just wanted me to tell her all about Cora because Jake couldn’t. Or he wouldn’t.
Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.
Jake was a stickler for it but living in place where gossip was about as common as salt water, I couldn’t really blame him. Whatever happened inside the walls of that clinic, whether it be a chat with a patient about the game or the results of a test, he kept it to himself. Dealing with a small town, it was the only way he found he could keep it separate—the two sides of himself. And, as much as Molly respected it, it sometimes drove her insane.
Like right now.
“Nope,” I replied, enjoying the sight of her as she fought for answers.
“Are you sure? No one new there? No one you recognized?”
I pursed my lips like I was deep in thought before answering, “Mr. and Mrs. Joyner were there. Lovely couple. They remind me a little of you and Jake—or at least, you and Jake in the distant—”
“Dean Sutherland!”
A wide grin spread across my face. “What?”
Dropping her cooking utensil on the porcelain spoon rest next to the pot, she turned to face me, both hands at her hips, like she was ready to scold a misbehaving young child.
Not too far off, I thought.
“You know well and good what I’m talking about!”
Laughing, I nodded. “Of course I do. So, why don’t you just come out and ask me instead of going through all this trouble to draw it out of me?”
Her eyes tore away from me, a twinge of embarrassment coloring her fair cheeks. “Because. I don’t know,” she replied. “I didn’t know if you’d want to tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe it’s none of my business.”
Eyebrow raised, I pushed off from my spot against the counter. “Since when has my life not been any of your business? Pretty sure it was all your business at one point.”
