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“And you couldn’t just drop by Latte Dah one of the other ten hours of the day it’s open in order to do that?”

“First of all, Sam doesn’t like it when I do that. She feels like I’m checking up on her. Secondly, since Molly got sandbagged by this without any warning, I’m trying to be flexible.”

Helena glanced in the direction Molly had gone, making sure she was out of earshot before saying, “She’s nervous about it.”

“I know. I don’t know
why
, but I know she is.”

“No one wants to be the person who lets everyone down. I think she’s a little too stressed over it, though.”

“I think she’s settling into the idea. She seemed okay today.”

“That’s good. I just worry about her.”

That frown was about more than just Molly’s stress over the Children’s Fair. “Why?”

“Because she’s my friend, and I want her to be happy. And I know she’s got some issues, so . . .” She shrugged. “But who doesn’t, right? We’re not exactly the poster kids of good mental health ourselves.”

He wondered whether Helena knew about Molly’s self-help books. “Like bad issues?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You haven’t asked?”

“No, nosy-pants, I haven’t. I try not to interrogate my friends.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Well, you’re the exception,” she admitted with a grin. “But you’re the exception to everything. I’ve pieced together a few things, but she’ll tell me what she wants me to know when she wants me to know it.”

“Oh, if we all had friends like that.”

“Hush. All I know is that she came here to start over. Whether it was family stuff or a bad relationship she left behind . . . I don’t know. I don’t think it was anything immoral or criminal, though.”

“Why Magnolia Beach? Do you know?” he asked as casually as he could.

Helena nodded, chewing and swallowing another of his fries. “I did ask her that.”

“Of course you did.”

Helena ignored the snark. “She says she came down here on vacation once as a kid and loved it, so when the time came to pick a new town, this was the place.”

“The tourism board must love that story.”

“Probably. So why all the sudden interest in Molly?”

Funny how tone made all the difference. A different inflection or a different pitch and Tate would’ve balked at the question. But Helena sounded like Normal Helena, not Crazy Matchmaking Helena. “Working with her on the Children’s Fair made me realize how little I actually know about her. I’d never really given her much thought.”

“But now you are?”

As if he’d admit any such thing to her, previous normal tone or not. “Just curiosity. And she’s giving Sam self-help books to read.”

“Oh, that’s good. I wish I’d thought of it. I think Sam
will really benefit from them, especially if Molly’s loaning the books I think she is.”

“You read self-help books?” His jaw felt a little slack. Helena would probably be the
last
person on earth he’d expect to put any faith in self-help gobbledygook.

“Yeah. Why?” There was a challenge in her voice.

“You just seem . . .” There was that eyebrow of doom again. “I mean, you are . . .”

“I’m what?” Her tone was sweet, but he wasn’t stupid enough to miss the obvious warning underneath.

“You’re fine. In a not-crazy way.”

“I could say that it’s due to those books, you know. But I also spent a lot of time in therapy.”

He nearly choked on his drink. “You went to therapy?”

“You didn’t?” She seemed genuinely shocked.

“No. I’m not crazy.”

“Neither am I, thank you very much. But therapy’s a good thing for people like us.”

“Like us?”

“People with screwed-up childhoods and the like. People with issues. It doesn’t fix you, but it makes you less messed up, at least.”

“You’re saying I’m messed up?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Your dad was an abusive drunk, your mother enabled him instead of protecting y’all, you spent your adolescence running with kids who were walking cautionary tales, but at least they were more screwed up than you.” She met his eyes evenly. “I stand by my statement.”

“Wow.” He didn’t know how to respond to that.
Especially since he had to admit she wasn’t completely wrong, now that she’d spelled it out like that.

Knowing she’d made her point, Helena’s smile was both kind and mocking. “All things considered, you’re doing pretty well, but you could be better. I can recommend a couple of really good books.”

“That’s quite all right. I’ll leave that to you and Molly and Sam.”

She shrugged. “It’s your loss. But do me a favor and don’t ask Molly a bunch of questions. I know you mean well, but it’s annoying.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s one thing for you to do it to your sisters, or even to me, but not everyone will be as . . . accommodating.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Understanding is probably a better word.”

“Of what?”

“Your buttinsky let-me-fix-it-ness.”

Good Lord. “I don’t—”

“You do.”

“No, I—”

“
Yes
, you do,” she said firmly. “Admit it, own it, make it your truth, my friend. You’ve got a bad case of White Knight Syndrome going on—”

“I do not.”

Helena laughed at him. “Why do you think that all I had to do was toss Molly and the Children’s Fair in your general direction for you to swoop in and help?”

“Since when is helping people bad?”

“It’s not. Swooping in whether they like it or not due to a pathological need is the part therapy could have helped you with. You’ve always been like that, but it got worse while I was gone. Sam’s calling you a control freak, so obviously you’re riding her case a little hard. Don’t do the same thing to Molly.”

“Whatever,” he mumbled.

Once again, Helena seemed satisfied that she’d made her point. He was willing to let her believe it—if only to end this ridiculous conversation. She patted him on the hand. “Unless Molly offers up the information, don’t ask. Idle curiosity is no reason to butt into someone’s life.”

He felt a bit unfairly vilified, as if he were some busybody looking for fencerow gossip. And jeez, when had being a nice guy and wanting to help out become a bad thing, worthy of pejorative terms? “This is your fault, you know.”

“How?”

“I’ve known the woman since she moved to town and never gave her a second thought until
you
decided to mate us like pandas. If nothing else, I’m bound to be curious why you’d think we’d even suit each other.”

“I like you both. You both like me. Therefore, you must have something in common.” She said it as if nothing could have been more obvious.

“I’m glad to know you gave it so much thought.”

“Should I give it some more thought?” There was that hopeful, leading tone again.

“No.
No
,” he repeated when Helena looked mulish. “My curiosity doesn’t go that far—and neither should yours.”

Helena sighed. “Fine. I need to run anyway. I’m really on my way to pick up Grannie’s meds from the pharmacy.” She scooted off the bench and patted his shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”

Helena had very kindly left him three of his fries to eat while he processed this new information. Mainly, he needed to come up with a better answer for why he was so curious about Molly all of a sudden.

Sure, Helena had forced the issue the other night,
but it wasn’t any worse than New Year’s Eve, which had been pretty much forgotten. Maybe it was because Molly was everywhere now—employing his sister, running the Children’s Fair—and he no longer had the buffer of Helena, Nigel, or high-octane coffee purchases to distract his attention.

Maybe it had just been too long since he’d been out with a woman.

Even that, though, didn’t explain why
Molly
was now in focus. Or why he suddenly cared why she’d been so forthright about not wanting him to ask her out.
Yeah, that sting just isn’t going away.

He certainly liked Molly as a friend. Now he was trying to decide whether he liked her in other ways, too.

And while he really, honestly, truly did not want Helena thinking about his love life at all—much less entertain how much he and Molly might have in common—that didn’t mean
he
wasn’t going to.

Because now he was curious, that’s all.

Chapter 7

M
olly needed to get good and drunk. Unfortunately, she had to get up at five o’clock in the morning and function like a human being, so if she was going to wallow in the escapist bliss of box wine and not hate herself in the morning, she had to start drinking at what others would consider a far-too-early hour of the evening.

She was on her second glass and her attitude was improving already. Nigel helped, too, chasing the red dot of a laser pointer with such spastic determination that she had to giggle. It was both entertainment for her and exercise for him.

She’d turned off the ringer on her phone, but she heard it vibrate against the coffee table and leaned over just enough to see the screen.

Hannah.

Nope and hell no.

Hannah was the reason she needed to get knee-walking drunk in the first place, and another conversation with her today might just lead to alcohol poisoning. And there was nothing Hannah had to say that Molly wanted to hear anyway. She shouldn’t have answered the phone the first time Hannah called, but somehow
she just couldn’t get past the juvenile naïveté that made her hope it might be different
this
time.

Because it never was.

If Hannah liked Mark so damn much, maybe
she
should marry him. And if all this was causing the family such embarrassment, why wouldn’t they push back a little at some of the lies Mark was telling?

Because they believed Mark. Or at least they wanted to and pretended they did.

Even when she’d shown them the bruises.

And
that
was the part that drove her to fill her glass for the third time. Her family was so enamored with the Lane family, so desperate to be connected to them and reap the perks of that connection that they would happily force her back to Mark if they could only figure out how to do it without breaking multiple laws. She still had a few friends back in Fuller. She knew what was being said about her and the sympathy being lavished on both the Lane and Richards families because they had to put up with such an ungrateful, spiteful, and petty person like her. Her mother was a martyr and Mark was Prince Charming, and everyone was just praying Molly would repent and return home for the help she so desperately needed.

Yeah, right
. If she ever actually
did
decide to return to the fold, their little melodrama would fall apart. So they were all just stuck here, in the middle of Act Three, because all the main characters were reading different scripts with completely different endings.

And she was exhausted by it.

Hate was a powerful emotion, but eventually even the strongest hate couldn’t keep feeding the fight. She was simply worn down, worn out, and too tired of it all.

And there was not a damn thing she could do. She could cry from the frustration of it, but those tears had run out long ago. Any rage would be impotent and a
waste of time and energy. Life was simply too short to waste on things she couldn’t change, so she was trying to make the best of what she could.

Nigel, bored now with the laser pointer, jumped into her lap and swatted at her hand until she put the pointer down and scratched him under the chin instead. His loud purr rumbled against her thighs as he rolled to his back.

As she rubbed the soft hair on his belly, she gave herself one full minute to hate Mark David Lane with every fiber of her being, but she allowed only five seconds of self-recrimination for marrying him in the first place. She used the next couple of minutes as she always did any time she dealt with anyone in her family: breathing deeply and searching for calm acceptance and strength.

She never quite managed to find it, but at least she searched.

Her phone chimed to let her know that Hannah had left a voice mail that she had zero intention of listening to, ever. Her therapist had told her to limit contact with her family and to accept only on her terms, if she decided to accept at all. She’d been bad about setting that boundary in the past, but now . . . “I think the new terms should go into effect immediately. Right, Nigel?”

Nigel purred, so she took that as a yes.

Anything important she really needed to know—and she had yet to decide what that might actually be—would get to her through the few friends she had left.

Mark’s numbers were simply blocked from her phone and all his e-mail was sorted directly to trash and deleted unread by the miracle of modern technology.

Anything
he
needed to tell her could go through her lawyer.

“Maybe I am spiteful and petty,” she told Nigel. “But I’m happier this way.”

She had the music she liked playing, a decent buzz going, and a kitty in her lap. Overall, life didn’t suck.

So, of course, someone had to knock on her door.

Leaving her wineglass balanced on the arm of the couch, she scooped Nigel into her arms and took him with her to the door.

Tate Harris was the last person she expected to find on her porch, but there he was. She blinked, wondering whether she’d had more wine than she’d thought.

“Hi, Molly. Sorry to bother you, but—”

Nigel hissed and leapt from her arms, leaving a scratch on the back of her hand from his claws. The force of his leap caused her to sway in her slightly legless state, and she reached for the doorframe to steady herself.

Within seconds, she could hear ominous noises coming from under the couch. Molly was speechless. Granted, Nigel wasn’t the most friendly of cats to begin with, and he actively disliked trips to the vet’s office, but he wasn’t usually like
this
at home, even when people came by. She rubbed the scratch on her hand. He’d drawn blood. “I don’t know what’s gotten into that cat.”

Tate merely laughed. “Occupational hazard. Dude,” he said in the direction of the couch, “you can only be neutered once, you know.” He squatted then, and Molly saw the large box on the porch at his feet. “This was delivered to my house. It’s your banners and stuff from the printer.”