Molly sighed. She might hate him for more than that very, very soon.
* * *
Trace heard the car pull up outside the house around five thirty and pushed himself out of a noisy, thirty-year-old recliner to answer the door. But before he took two steps, he heard voices…plural. Female voices.
Dipping down to peer between broken plastic blinds, he felt his heart skip when he saw the long, dark hair and waiflike form of…his daughter. It was the first time he’d seen her since he’d known the truth, and if she’d have been sprinkled in sunshine and glitter, she couldn’t have looked more beautiful to him.
Along with the woman next to her, who was every bit as beautiful in a completely different way. Molly said nothing as Pru stood stone-still, put her hands on her hips, and took in the run-down eyesore where he’d grown up. Here and Huttonsville Correctional Center—the only two places he could call home.
Shame crawled up his body, pressing against his skin like another tattoo. Conflicting emotions, the two that had been at war in his head and heart for the last three hours, took up their battle positions again and started firing bullets into his brain.
Tell her because she’s your daughter and you have a right to know her.
Run away and forget her before you ruin her life and humiliate the poor kid.
Of course, it wasn’t entirely his decision, but Molly seemed as hell-bent on taking the high ground as she claimed her daughter was. All he could do now was…answer the door.
One of them tapped lightly, probably because making contact with the door would give them germs. Damn it. He’d stood here debating like an idiot, and now they’d see the inside. He should have been waiting out on the street where he had Molly drop him off earlier.
Taking a steadying breath, he opened the door and looked from one to the other. Blinding, both of them. One delicate, innocent, young, and…good God, she had his mother’s little nose, and that tiny cleft in her chin was not unlike the deeper one in his. How had he missed that last night?
Because he’d had no idea he was chatting with his daughter.
“Hello, Trace.” Molly held his gaze, a challenge and apology and question all at the same time in her eyes. She still looked a little tired and stressed, but she wore it so well, he could have…
No. No kissing. Ever.
“Hey,” he said, adding a regretful smile. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“You live here?” Pru asked, trying valiantly to hide her distaste.
“I don’t exactly live anywhere,” he said. “But my mother owned this house, and when she died, it became mine.”
“I didn’t know your mother died, Trace,” Molly said. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you know his mother?” Pru asked.
Oh, nothing was going to get by this one, Trace thought. Not a single thing.
“Actually, no, I never met her.” Molly looked beyond him, clearly hoping for a fast change of subject. “Can we come in?”
Holy shit, no. He scratched his jaw, angling his head in invitation. “Yeah, sure. But there’s not much to see.”
Pru went first, leaving Molly and Trace to look at each other and silently communicate a fast what the hell? and sorry to each other. If it hadn’t been potentially the most emotionally fraught moment of his life since that bastard of a judge handed down sentencing, Trace would have actually gotten a kick out of the fact that he and Molly could silently communicate.
After all, it wasn’t like they’d had a relationship. Just sex. Really amazing teenage sex fourteen years ago.
He had to let that go.
“It’s actually got decent bones.” The unrequested assessment pulled him back to the result of that sex. Pru stood between the kitchen and living room, looking out of place in her sharp jeans and crisp white shirt and navy-blue hoodie with a WF logo that matched the one on the front gate of Waterford Farm.
She looked clean and preppie and all wrong in front of his mother’s tie-dyed peace symbol sheet hanging on one wall and a painting of a sun and moon with faces that she bought at a flea market on the other.
“Who has decent bones?” Molly asked, her voice tight enough to tell Trace she was every bit as nervous as he was.
“This house,” Pru said. “You could live here.”
“Until it rains.” He pointed to the ceiling and a huge watermark in the shape of Australia. “Also, the plumbing’s a little iffy, and two windows are broken.”
“So it’s a good thing you’re moving to Waterford for a while,” Molly said.
“You’re going to live at Waterford?” Pru asked, her voice catching in disbelief. “In the house?”
“In the training student housing,” he said simply, trying not to react to her absolute disgust for the alternative.
“But you’re not staying here?” she pressed.
“I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. Guess a lot depended on how she took the news.
“Pru.” Molly’s voice had enough of a motherly reprimand to get a reaction from the kid. “I don’t know if that’s any of your business.” The bite left her voice by the last word because, as they both knew, it sure as hell was Pru’s business.
She just didn’t know that yet.
“I’m thinking,” Pru said. “Can I look around? Is that okay?”
A little surprised by the request, Trace nodded. “There’s not much to see. One bathroom, two bedrooms, and this. Fair warning, no one has been in this house for a long time. Might see a dead bug or two.”
And his mom must have blown out of here in a hurry, because all her old stuff was still in the bedroom, boxes of crap he’d have to throw away at some point.
She shrugged. “Bugs don’t scare me.” She walked off with a bit of toughness and square shoulders that told him so much about her and made him want to know more.
When she left, he looked at Molly, who watched her, too.
“When?” he whispered.
She just closed her eyes.
“Why don’t I take my bag to your car?” he suggested, and she nodded, getting the hint that they could talk outside.
“That’s all you have?” she asked as he picked up a duffel bag.
“In the whole world.”
She sighed at that. “Pru? I’ll be right back.”
“You need closet doors!” she called back, making Trace bite back a laugh.
“At the very least.” He opened the front door to let Molly step out. “She’s…something.”
That made Molly smile. “Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out what.”
“Other than amazing?”
She beamed up at him, the mom pride bringing out a gorgeous green light in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. “Thanks,” she said, her voice still very soft, so the words didn’t travel through the door he’d left open. “She is amazing. And this is really hard. I don’t know what to do, but I think we have to do something. We have to tell her.”
“We?” He gave a slight smile. “You still like that plan.”
“I’m honoring your role in this.”
The words squeezed his chest. “Wow.”
“Wow, what?” she asked as she lifted the small hatchback.
“Wow, I don’t think anyone has ever honored anything of mine in my entire life.”
She searched his face, her shoulders sinking a bit as the words visibly hit her heart. “That’s…sad.”
“Don’t mean it to be. Molly, what should we do?” he asked after a beat.
“Tell her?”
“God, it’ll wreck her. It’ll hurt her. In one second, with one confession that makes us both feel better, you’ll take her perfect little life and turn it upside down and inside out.”
For a long time, she stared at him. “I can’t believe you.”
“What?” He drew back. “Do you want to tell her that badly?”
“No, I mean I can’t believe you…you get that. It takes a parent to get something like that.”
He smiled. “I am
a parent. Now.”
“Well, I appreciate the way you’re approaching this. So, what do you want to do? What would be your number one choice?”
The fact that she was giving him a choice practically clamped his throat with gratitude. “I’d still like to wait a little,” he admitted. “I’d really like her to know me first. Not, you know, like best pals, but to see that I’m not a killer who lives in a hovel. Well, I am, but…”
“There’s more than meets the eye.”
More gratitude strangled. “Yeah.”
She let out a slow sigh. “That’s fair. I don’t know how long I can put her off, but—”
“I have it! I got it!” Pru came tearing out of the house, both hands extended in victory like she’d just crossed the finish line and broken the ribbon. “I know what my community service project is going to be!”
Her what?
“What is it, Pru?” Molly asked.
“Oh, please say yes,” she replied, directing the request to Trace. “Please, please say yes, because if I can do this and take pictures and get an interview with you, I might not only get the trip to Carowinds, I could win the state competition for best community service project. Heck, I could go national!”
Nothing made sense, not a thing. But he couldn’t help smiling because her enthusiasm was infectious.
“Pru, what would the project be?” Molly asked, clearly a little more in the know than he was.
“This house!” she exclaimed with a loud clap. “I can help you fix up this house. I mean, not the roof and plumbing, but I can paint and clean and fix it all up so you can live here again or sell it or whatever, and can you even imagine?”
“Imagine the house fixed up?” he asked. “Yeah, I could. It would be a lot of work.”
“Can you imagine how I would blow everyone else out of the community service water if I did a house renovation for a mur…a guy…a con…a person who was in prison?” Color rose on her cheeks, diminishing some of her excitement and turning into embarrassment.
As he knew it would.
“I mean, as community service projects go, this one would beat even those overachiever Eagle Scouts who like to collect canned goods or give used books to libraries. This would rock. So would you be okay with that?” Pru asked him. “How would it make you feel?”
Other than humiliated and confused and maybe a little bit excited to help her? “Uh, great. Yeah. I mean, I’d be impressed if I were judging.”
“You can’t judge if you’re part of the project,” Pru said, as if the rules mattered as much as the project itself. “And you’re not immediate family, so it’s perfect and valid.”
It took everything in him not to exchange a look with Molly. A look that might have given away the truth that he most certainly was immediate family.
Molly stepped forward. “Pru, are you sure you want to take on something this big? It’ll be much more than twenty-five hours.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “I could work evenings and weekends and enlist some friends who want hours but aren’t going to compete for the state prize. Oh, please say yes.” She looked from one to the other, a classic kid pleading with her parents.
Only this one had no idea these were her parents.
“Twenty-five hours?” Trace asked.
“That’s all. Twenty-five hours.” Pru beamed at him. “Please, Mr. Bancroft. Pretty, pretty please with lots of paint and curtains and nice stuff on top.” She put her hands up in a prayer position. “Please.”
He laughed in spite of himself, in spite of the fact that it was crazy, in spite of the fact that nothing was funny. But deep inside, all he could think was that after twenty-five hours, she’d know him well enough to maybe not have the truth wreck her. Maybe.
“If your mom says it’s okay.”
They both looked at Molly, who was a little pale, but she nodded.
“Oh, thank you, Mommy!” She threw her arms around Molly and looked up at Trace. “And thank you. It’s just twenty-five hours, I promise.”
When she pulled away, he shared a look with Molly, and they both said the same thing at the same time. “Twenty-five hours.”
That’s how much time he had to make his kid like him. Until then, he was her personal community service project. Great.
Actually, it kind of was.
Chapter Ten
The twenty-five hours wouldn’t kick in until Pru’s project got approved by her teacher, but in the days that followed, it was all she talked about. She shopped for supplies, came up with a work plan, and enlisted friends to help. Molly spent even more time at Waterford than usual because Meatball’s convalescence was steady, but slow.
Through it all, there was Trace.
Sometimes, it seemed he was everywhere. In Meatball’s recovery room every morning when she arrived, in the office on his breaks to take him out and visit. Of course Molly, as the vet, accompanied him on quick strolls close to the vet office, monitoring Meatball’s strength and celebrating each milestone, like moving him off IVs to solid foods and taking him out of intensive care into a more laid-back recovery room.
It seemed like Trace was constantly on the edge of Molly’s awareness, hovering close enough to make Molly tense and in a constant state of anticipation as to when she’d see him next.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Molly was locking up the office, already hungry for the family dinner, when she took a glance over her shoulder to the kennels and saw Trace walking out. He moved with a touch more confidence than when he’d arrived, wearing a Waterford Farm fleece vest like Shane did, to make sure his arms were free for training but he was warm enough. It accentuated his shoulders, the thermal shirt underneath pushed up to show the tattoos, hair, and muscles of his forearms, making him look strong, sexy, and like he belonged there.
And all of those things made Molly’s stomach do an unexpected flip. In fact, having him around had her constantly humming with a low-key sense of anticipation. Followed by that weird sensation of something warm every time she saw him. Too weird. Too warm.
As much as she tried to get used to it, she couldn’t.
“Did Meatball have his dinner?” he asked, coming closer.
“I’m trying to stretch out the meals, so I thought I’d come back over in a few hours and feed him.”
“I can take care of that,” he said.
“It’s okay. I’ll be here for Wednesday night dinner.”
His brows rose. “You’re the third person I’ve heard mention that today. It’s a thing?”
She laughed. “It’s a Kilcannon thing. If you’re in town on Wednesdays, you eat here. Crystal cooks, and we catch up on life and business. We do it on Sundays after church, too, and that’s way more fun because there are Bloody Marys and Jameson’s. You should join us tonight.”
The invitation was out before she really thought about it, because including guests was so normal for the family. And suddenly, she realized how much she wanted him there.
But he stepped from one foot to the other. “Well, it’s been a long day of training.”
A little twinge of disappointment pricked her chest. “Yeah, when the weather’s good like this, Shane pushes the dogs and the trainers.” She took a breath and dove a little deeper. “You sure? You’d be welcome.”
“That’s okay. I actually promised the trainers I’d help cook a group dinner.” He glanced at the office. “But I haven’t seen much of Meatball. Not since this morning.”
“Oh, of course. Let’s go see him.” She stuck the key back in the lock.
“Do you have time?” he asked, always sensitive to her schedule.
“I do. My sister-in-law Andi is picking up Pru at home, which is only about ten minutes from here, and bringing her for me. I was on my way over to the house to hang out with Gramma Finnie.”
He grinned. “That lady is a trip.”
“And a half,” Molly agreed as she opened the door.
“She brought me a pillow for my room.?
??
Molly sighed with a burst of love for her thoughtful grandmother. “Don’t tell me. It was embroidered with an old Irish saying.”
“It’s in the shape of a shamrock and says something like, ‘A good laugh and a long sleep cure all.’”
“That would be Gramma Finnie.” She gave him a playful look. “You know she only gives pillows to people she likes.”
He waved off the compliment. “I think it’s the puppies I’m training she likes. We ran into her on a walk, and she was pretty taken with both of them. Told me about how she and her husband came here with a dog who barked at the name of the town and they knew it was home.”
“It’s her favorite of many stories. Did it take very long to tell it?”
He considered that. “A few minutes, maybe more.”
“Because she only tells the long version if she really likes you. See, there’s Corky, the setter who barked his way to a new home.” She pointed to the beloved sepia-toned photo on the wall. “There’s been a family setter ever since, and they’re all up there, from Corky to Rusty.”
He shook his head, scanning the wall of Kilcannon Irish setters over the generations. “You’ve got a great family, Molly.”
“Don’t think I don’t know it. That’s my mom.” She walked closer and touched the picture of Mom with Buddy, the setter Molly grew up with before Rusty. “Annie Kilcannon.”
“You look just like her,” he said, inching closer. “She’s beautiful.”
Another sigh, this one a little sad, of course. “She was that, inside and out. Best mother in the world.”
“Second best.” He gave her a sly grin. “Don’t think I don’t see how fantastic you are with Pru.”
Warmth curled through her. “It’s my greatest goal to be half the mother she was.”
“I think you’re twice the mother of anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“Trace.” His name caught in her throat, thick with emotion, as she remembered her mother making that same prediction long, long ago. “Thank you for saying that.”
“It’s true.”
The compliment settled on her heart as she led him into the hallway. Halfway to the room where Meatball was, Trace paused, listening to the quiet. “Is that other dog that was staying overnight in the room gone now?”