Page 6 of Homecoming Heartbreaker

Molly felt the old, oh-so-familiar wave of frustration. “When Jameson is better, I will tell him what I did. He’ll probably fire me and I’ll be out of a job. And the free ride will come to an end for all of you.”

Beth had the audacity to smile. “You don’t have the guts to cut them off, Molly. If you did, you would’ve divorced yourself from your family years ago. No, you still think they are going to snap out of this slump and you are all going to be a family and sing ‘Kumbaya’ around the fire.”

Molly dropped her eyes, knowing that Beth had nailed her biggest wish, her secret desire for a loving and supportive family. Her mom had never been there for her—she didn’t think Vivi even liked her much—and her brothers were consistently unreliable. She didn’t need a psychologist to tell her that part of the reason she attached herself to Jameson, and his family, was her need to be part of a unit that loved and valued her. In Jameson she had a father figure and a mentor, Travis and Grey were her brothers, and Mack? Well, she’d thought she’d have her own family, the family she’d always wanted, with the oldest Holloway son.

Dead wrong there, Haskell.

Molly looked up and met Beth’s icy eyes.

“The ball is yours to play, Molly. Don’t confide in your old boyfriend, keep paying the family’s bills and none of us will tell Jameson. He might or might not believe us but either way, it will upset him and we don’t want that, do we?”

No, they definitely didn’t.

Beth sent her another mocking smile and Molly considered throwing a stapler at her head. But before she could finish the thought, Beth stepped back into the hall and glided away.

Holy crap, could this day get any worse?

An hour later Mack stood outside Molly’s office door and instead of knocking and entering, he took a moment to look at his onetime best friend, his first love. She was still as slim as she’d been at seventeen, with impossibly long legs, rounded hips and breasts that once fitted his hands perfectly.

Move your eyes up, Holloway.

Molly’s body was world-class but her face still had the power to stop him in his tracks. Her grandfather was from Cuba, her mother’s family had Scandinavian roots and she was a mixture of ethnicities. Her hair was still a riotous mop of blond, tight curls and he loved her sun-kissed, clear, gorgeous skin. Her nose was long and straight, her mouth wide, with a full sexy bottom lip he’d loved to nip.

But it was her eyes that always had the ability to drop him to his knees. They were a curious color, sometimes an aqua-blue, sometimes a light, direct green, sometimes a combination of both and touched with silver. The ring holding in all that color was a deep, dark blue, close to black, and her lashes were dark, long and thick. Her eyebrows, shaped and dark, were perfectly arched.

He’d loved her once, intensely, crazily. Fifteen years ago she’d been the reason why the sun rose and set, why birds flew and waves crashed. She’d been all that mattered.

That all changed the night of the accident and, last night, he’d spent many hours last night recalling every detail of that night from hell.

And, as always, he couldn’t forget that it was his biological dad’s voice he heard as the wheels of his truck left the road.You killed your mom and now your brothers might be dead, too. Leaving you was the best decision I ever made!

The memories hadn’t faded, not even a fraction. The storm had been wild and wicked, both inside the truck and out. Grey sat next to him on the bench seat of his F-150; Travis had been next to the door. The wind rocked the vehicle and his wipers battled to keep up with the pounding rain, and his headlights barely cut through the darkness. Travis was pissed that he and Grey hauled him away from his then girlfriend and hadn’t stopped bitchin’ since they left the restaurant’s parking lot. He’d told Travis to shut the hell up, that he was trying to concentrate on the road but, instead of silence descending, Grey, normally the peacemaker, added gas to the bonfire when he ripped into Travis.

The combination of low visibility, speed and temper caused him to miss the curve of the road. Someone had been yelling as the truck became airborne and the right-hand side of the vehicle slammed into the side of the ravine.

And it was all because he’d lost control; he’d acted without thinking. He’d almost killed his brothers and while he and Grey escaped with minor injuries, Travis shattered his leg, lost his football scholarship to a prestigious college and had to rethink his life and make new plans.

When he lost control, bad things happened. And the person most able to make him lose control was Molly. And that was why he walked away from her, without a word or explanation.

To Mack, love meant losing control, and he was damned if he’d ever let that happen again.

Mack rubbed his chest above his heart and hauled in some air, remembering that a few years after he’d made peace with Jameson, he’d come home to visit his dad and, feeling cocky, decided to end the years of silence between him and Molly.

They weren’t, he reasoned, kids anymore and they could put the past behind them. Shortly after arriving home on a fantastically hot Saturday in July, he’d gone in search of her and eventually tracked her down to the pond on the far northwest boundary of the property.

They used to make the walk often, crossing the steel-covered bridge and taking an overgrown path through a small copse of trees to the little lake. The guests never made it to the pond; the trail wasn’t well marked and he, Molly and his brothers considered the pond to be their private swimming hole. It was where they built their treehouse, where they’d camped out under the stars.

He recalled approaching the pond from the trees and she’d been standing on the bank, dressed in a small bikini, poised to dive into the water. He instantly swelled in his shorts, desperate to reach her and haul her into his arms, thinking they could make love on her towel, in the sunshine. The need to have her, taste her, to make her his again had been overwhelming.

Memories collided with lust and he recalled the plans they’d made, the house they were going to build, the kids and dogs they were going to adopt, the life they were going to lead. The longing that swept through him at lost dreams and unfulfilled wishes caused his knees to liquefy, and he placed his hand on the nearest tree trunk to keep his balance.

Molly made him lose control and because control wasallthat was important, he turned around and walked away, determined to embrace his life of surface-based relationships and being responsible for only himself.

Subsequently, he’d only come back to Moonlight Ridge for flying, in-and-out visits. But now he was stuck in Asheville, overseeing the resort for two months or so. When his time was up, he’d hand over the responsibility to Grey. Or to Travis.

But in the coming weeks, he needed to talk to and interact with the manager of the hotel.

And that person was Molly.

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