Bad to the Bone

  The statement, so simple and honest, eased everything. The pain, the self-doubt, the sense that she wasn’t all that her siblings were…that all disappeared with four words. “Thanks.”

  “I like your hair all wavy like that,” he said. “Brings out the red.”

  She laughed again, less nervous this time. “You are trying hard tonight, Trace.”

  He slowed and turned her to face him, the only light from the moon now. But it was enough to show his chiseled features and intent gaze. “You’re still out of my league, though.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Where the hell is Trace Bancroft?” The man’s voice boomed from the street, punctuated by the thwack of a car door slamming. “Where is that son of a bitch?”

  Trace swore under his breath and backed deeper into the darkness, horror suddenly etched on the features Molly had been admiring.

  “What?” she asked, turning toward the street and the loud footsteps coming up the drive. “Who is that? What does he want?”

  “Probably to kill me for something I didn’t do.” He closed his eyes. “I knew I’d have to pay a price.”

  “For what?” she demanded.

  “Hey!” the man bellowed. “Somebody better give me that prick Bancroft so I can bash his head into the sidewalk!”

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “Bart McQueen. My boss.”

  His boss wanted to kill him?

  “I’m gonna get you, Bancroft!” he yelled, a drunken, violent sound that sent chills up Molly’s spine.

  Trace backed up some more, looking one way, then the other, then at Molly. “I didn’t do anything,” he insisted in a hushed whisper. “I swear to God, Molly, I didn’t do anything. And that’s what got me in trouble!” He spat the last words.

  Some kids came out of the house, adding to the noise and confusion, but the man looking for Trace still had the loudest voice. “Bancroft! You’re gonna die for what you did to my wife!”

  Trace’s face melted at the words, as close to tears as Molly could imagine this tough kid ever being. “I didn’t do anything!” Trace repeated. “I turned her down. And God knows what she said about me.” He swiped his hand through his hair, panic flashing in his eyes. “I gotta get out of here.”

  “I’ll help you,” she said, the words out before she could really stop herself.

  “He’ll see me if I go in the driveway,” he said, the genuine fear in his voice twisting at her chest.

  “I know another way.” She grabbed his arm and headed to the side of Kaylie’s yard, to a path she remembered that ran along a separate garage building.

  Bart McQueen’s earsplitting threats grew distant as they ran in the opposite direction, holding hands, zipping around the garage, then to the street where Molly had parked.

  “Over here!” She fished her keys out of her bag, unlocking the passenger door with shaking fingers. “One word about the minivan and I’ll send you back to him.”

  Trace managed a laugh. “Right now, I’d get into a shopping cart with you to escape that lunatic.”

  She stole a look at him as he climbed into the passenger seat, her heart flip-flopping as she caught his sweet and sexy smile.

  “You better be innocent,” she whispered.

  “I am.” It was sincere, and for reasons she’d never understand, she believed him. She pushed his door shut, darted around to the other side, and as she climbed in behind the wheel, he leaned close to her.

  “Irish.” He took her face in both hands, easing her to him. “How can I thank you?”

  She looked at him for a long moment, vaguely aware she held her breath while her heart hammered at her ribs and every double X chromosome in her body hummed with kinetic energy. Without giving it too much thought, she closed the space between them and pressed her mouth against his.

  He froze momentarily, then intensified the kiss. “That’ll work,” he murmured against her lips.

  “More,” she whispered.

  “Thought you’d never ask.” The contact seared her lips as he clasped her face a little tighter until their lips parted and tongues touched. Light-headed and lost for a moment, Molly kissed him back, giving in to the sparks of pleasure and twists of raw desire that ricocheted through her body.

  “Where should we go?” she murmured into his mouth.

  “Someplace where I can kiss the holy hell out of you all night long.”

  “It’s cold outside.”

  He threw a look into the back. “It’s a van, sweetheart. Let’s rock it.”

  “There’s a dog crate back there.”

  “We can make it work.” He lifted her chin and planted his mouth on her neck, and somewhere, in the back of her mind, she thought she better not get a hickey, because if one of her brothers saw it, she’d be dead.

  She shoved the thought away, not caring, because right now, with this boy in this van on this crazy night, she suddenly felt unutterably beautiful and desirable and ready for whatever Trace Bancroft had to offer.

  Chapter Two

  “Shhh. Molly, baby, stop crying.”

  “I c-c-can’t.” She shuddered, turning her face to wipe tears on Mom’s jeans, not caring that she’d soaked them as she wept. Molly’s head felt like it would explode from crying, her chest ached from the weeks of pressure she’d finally unleashed, and her stomach was, as it had been since Christmas, on the brink of a full toss.

  But the truth was out now. Mom knew. That hurdle, one of the hardest in her life, had been crossed. But there were so many more ahead.

  “You have to.” Mom lifted her by the shoulders and handed her another tissue. “Crying isn’t going to stop what’s happening.”

  She nearly collapsed again. “Don’t you see what I’ve done? I’ve messed up my entire life! My whole future. My dreams of becoming a vet like Dad. My scholarship, my hopes, my life. All for one stupid night of…oh God. Mom! What was I thinking?”

  “You weren’t.” Her mother’s narrow shoulders straightened, her hazel eyes, so much like the ones Molly faced in the mirror every day, took on a greenish hue as she narrowed her gaze. It was the first real sternness since Molly had found the nerve to make her confession.

  Mom had been shocked, of course. Speechless after Molly had slipped into her mother’s bedroom on a quiet Sunday afternoon while Dad was out back doing an exam on a new foster dog. Silent after Molly whispered two horrible, life-changing words.

  I’m pregnant.

  After a few seconds, Mom’s stone-faced disbelief had morphed into a flash of disappointment, gone so fast anyone else might have missed it. But not Molly. She knew this woman inside and out. Knew every expression in her pretty, loving eyes, every emotion that tugged at sweet, soft lips. She saw that split second when she’d broken her mother’s heart, and that’s when Molly started to bawl.

  It took a good fifteen minutes of slobbering and sobbing to tell enough of the story so that Mom got the idea of how it happened, and with whom.

  “You need to calm down and listen to me,” Mom finally said.

  Molly sniffed, staring at her, grateful her mother wasn’t crying or screaming, not that either one was in her repertoire. No, she was being Annie Kilcannon, calm in a crisis, steady as a rock. Everything Molly never could be.

  “It’s not about you anymore,” Mom said. “You better get used to that.”

  For the millionth time since Molly first realized her predicament, a now-familiar punch of terror and regret slammed into her gut. Right where her “predicament” had been growing for twelve weeks.

  “Mommy, I’m scared,” Molly whispered.

  Her mother nodded, caressing Molly’s cheek. “I know. God, I know exactly how you feel.”

  “Is that why you’re being so…so…nice?” Because Molly had put this conversation off for as long as she could, but by mid-February, the lady at the clinic assured her nothing was going to change. A baby would be born on or about August twenty-third, scant weeks before Molly was supposed to start her se
cond year of college. “Why don’t you yell at me and tell me I was stupid?”

  “Because you already know you were stupid.”

  She flinched. “He had a…you know.”

  “Oh, I know. Ever count the months between our wedding anniversary and Liam’s birthday? We also had an ‘I know’ on hand another night about six months after Shane was born, and now we call him Garrett.”

  “Mom.”

  “Sorry, you come from fertile stock, Molly. Next time, you’ll be more careful.”

  “Next time?” Molly almost choked on the words. “There isn’t going to be a next time! My life is over. I’m going to have a kid at twenty and…oh!” She slapped her hand on the settee cushion, sending a sharp pop of noise through Mom and Dad’s bedroom.

  “When did you find out, Molly? Were you alone? Scared?”

  Of course Mom would worry how Molly felt at that moment. It was so like her to not want one of her children to be unhappy.

  “I was up in my room on New Year’s Day, that celebration of new beginnings.” She let sarcasm and bitterness darken her voice. “Peeing on so many sticks I could barely wrap them up and hide them in the trash.”

  Mom’s eyes widened. “Molly! Why didn’t you tell me then? I’m your mother. The one you’ve always gone to when you needed something.”

  “I couldn’t bear to hurt you, Mom. And what was I supposed to do? Waltz into the family room, wave my stick at the football-watching Kilcannon clan, and announce, ‘Guess what, team? I’m officially the dumbest moron in the family.’”

  “Don’t ever say that again,” she whispered. “This child is a gift.”

  “This child is a mistake,” Molly shot back. “And the father is a bad-to-the-bone, scum-of-the-earth, no-good loser whose mother is a freak from the wrong side of town. I’m sure that announcement would have gone over great with the uncles who can’t stand that guy.”

  “Have you made any effort to contact Trace Bancroft?” Mom asked when the tirade ended.

  Molly cringed at the sound of his name on her mother’s beautiful lips. “He’s gone. Disappeared without a trace.” She emphasized the last word with hatred. “My guess is he split the next day because Bart McQueen was going to kill him. He’s fallen off the face of the earth, and that is fine with me.”

  “He has to know,” Mom said. “He has to take responsibility for this.”

  “Mom, he didn’t assault me. I mean, things got out of hand fast, but I was a hundred percent on board. It was mutual. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize for being a normal young woman, Molly. Or even for your choice of partners. But a man does have a right to know, and an obligation to help you.”

  “Pretty sure he’d rather not know and is in no position to help.” She eyed her mother again, still not able to believe this response. “You’re really not mad at me?”

  “I’m worried about you, concerned for your health and the baby’s, and wondering if I’m up to raising another one.”

  “You?”

  “Together, with you.”

  Molly frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You think I’m going to send you out in the world to fend for yourself and my grandchild? There’s plenty of room at Waterford Farm, and I’ll help you exactly the way Gramma Finnie helped me.”

  “You were married to her son.”

  “Not when Liam was conceived.” She tipped her head and added a smile. “Plus, I have six times the experience you do in the child-rearing department.”

  Molly’s eyes filled again. “How can you be so…so fine with it?”

  “First of all, I’m not fine with it, but it can’t be changed. Second, I know what you’re going through, because I went through the same thing at the same age, which tells you it can all work out well.”

  “Sure, if you’re pregnant by the most awesome man on earth who thinks the sun rises and sets on you.”

  “That helped,” Mom conceded. “But third, and this is the most important reason, so listen to me: I’m your mother, Molly.” She put both arms around her and pulled her in for a warm embrace, so tender it only made Molly sob again. “My mother essentially wrote me off when this happened to me. I won’t do that. And when you’re a mother, you will learn what I mean when I say you’re only as happy as your least-happy child. Until you are happy again, I won’t be, either.”

  Comfort poured over her heart with every word of her mother’s heartfelt speech, soothing in a way Molly hadn’t thought possible. For the first time since New Year’s Day, she felt a tiny ray of hope. “I was so scared I’d have to do this alone.”

  “Alone?” Mom leaned back. “We are family.”

  “But Dad…” She bit her lip. “He’s going to be so disappointed.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “And the boys are going to kill me. And…him.”

  She inhaled slowly, thinking. “I’m going to do what I can to find Trace Bancroft, but until we do, Molly, you have every right to keep his identity private until he knows. I’ll make it clear that it is our secret and we are handling it. After a while, they’ll forget.”

  She very much doubted that, but if Mom wanted to take on the problem of Trace Bancroft, then it was one less thing Molly needed to worry about. Mom could make Dad accept anything, and that fourth foster dog he was with outside was proof of it.

  “But what about Darcy? She’s only fifteen, and I’m her idol. And Aidan is a junior in high school. He’ll get teased.”

  “You’ll show them both how you handle it when life throws you a curve ball. We all will. That’s what Kilcannons do.”

  Overwhelmed again, Molly dropped her head on the strongest shoulder she knew and let out a sigh. “Will that be my baby’s last name? Kilcannon? I don’t have to use…Bancroft?”

  “Of course not. This child…” She put her hand on Molly’s stomach. “Is a Kilcannon.”

  “This child is a mistake.” How could it ever be anything but?

  “Please don’t say that ever again, Molly. Promise me.”

  Molly just stared at her, not willing to make a promise she might not keep.

  “What you did was a mistake, Molly, but the result is a precious child we will love with all our hearts and souls.”

  Could she love this baby? Her mother made it sound so easy. Made everything—including motherhood—seem easy. “I don’t know, Mom.”

  “I know,” her mother replied with the utmost confidence. “Molly, you are not the sum total of one mistake you made in your life.” She added gentle, loving pressure to Molly’s stomach. “You never want this child to think he or she was a mistake that defined your life. You make mistakes, but no one is one.”

  “My mistake was a hot guy who melted me and used a faulty condom. The next day, I thought my only mistake was losing my virginity in the back of the minivan.”

  Mom inched back, a tiny bit horrified. “The dog van? What did you do, move the crate?”

  Molly managed an embarrassed smile. “Kind of.”

  “Lord. The Plymouth Voyager. That you better not let your brothers know. You’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Was she really able to find humor in this situation? God, Molly needed to be more like her mother. In every possible way. The need was never stronger than right now. “I’ll never hear the end of it anyway.”

  “Yes, you will. When you have an adorable son or daughter toddling around here, all wrapped around Grandpa Daniel’s baby finger, and playing with the dogs, and riding piggyback with Uncle Shane, and running wild with Aunt Darcy? The only thing they’ll say is thank you.”

  Molly studied her mother’s face, drinking in the beauty on the outside and the peace that shone forth from the inside. “Sometimes it makes me crazy that you’re so perfect, Mom.”

  One pretty brow lifted.

  “And sometimes I want to fall on my knees and thank God you’re the mother I got.”

  This time, Mom’s eyes filled with tears. “I am always, alwa
ys here for you. And my grandchild.”

  “Grannie Annie,” Molly whispered.

  Mom gave a soft hoot. “Grannie Annie. I love that.”

  “I love you,” Molly said. “I’m sorry I went from Superkid to stupid, worthless teenager in one night.”

  Mom shook her head. “You are still Superkid.” She brought one of Molly’s hands to her lips and placed a kiss on the knuckles. “And you’ll be a super mom. I know it.”

  Molly wished she knew it. “But I won’t be a super vet like Dad.”

  “Why not?”

  She snorted as if the question was simply too wrong to answer. “That’s the saddest part to me. I wanted to graduate from UNC and go to vet school and be Dad’s partner. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “You will, but your path will be different. It’ll be longer and filled with more…diapers.”

  Molly closed her eyes like she’d been shot. “What will I do?”

  Mom didn’t hesitate, brushing back a silky lock of her auburn hair as if she’d already thought all this through. “You’ll finish this year, have a baby in August, start up at Vestal Valley in the spring semester, and take it one step at a time until you are a vet and Dad’s partner. I know you can do it. You’re much stronger than you realize, Molly.”

  “But that wasn’t what I wanted to do.” She knew her whining sounded childish, but letting go of her dreams was hard.

  “You make your plans, and God laughs at you,” Mom said.

  Molly looked skyward. “Now you sound like Gramma Finnie and her Irish proverbs.”

  “I can hear her now when we tell her,” Mom agreed. “‘Prudence has a man prepared for the unexpected,’” she said with Gramma Finnie’s Irish brogue.

  “Prudence,” Molly whispered. “I wish I had exercised some.”

  “You will, when you have your own child. Nothing matures you faster, believe me.”

  “Still…” The word rolled around in her head. “Prudence Kilcannon. That’s kind of pretty and old school and Irish, don’t you think?”

  “Yes!” Mom’s face lit up. “We can call her Pru.”

  “I like that.” That tendril of hope tightened around her chest, and the strangest, most unfamiliar sensation rolled through Molly. Happiness. Just a glimmer, just a sliver, but there it was. She’d forgotten what happiness felt like. “Pru Kilcannon.”