Finally a Bride (6 page)

“This is Corporal Underwood,” Eric introduced the old soldier, his voice respectful. “Corporal, this is Molly…McClintock.” With his hesitation, realization flared in his gray eyes.

She had almost become someone else. If she’d married, she wouldn’t have been Molly McClintock anymore. She would have been Mrs. Towers. She would have changed her identity, which was probably why she’d accepted Josh’s proposal in the first place. She’d wanted to be someone else.

“Pleased to meet you, miss,” the old soldier greeted her with polished manners.

“The pleasure is mine, Corporal Underwood,” Molly assured him.

The soldier shook Eric’s arm. “Charm and beauty. She’s a keeper.”

“She’s a friend,” Eric quickly corrected the corporal.

Too quickly? But he was right. She was a friend. Just a friend—no matter what Abby, Brenna and Colleen claimed.

“So how are you feeling?” Eric asked, dropping to his haunches so he was eye to eye with the man in the wheelchair.

“Fine, Sarge,” Corporal Underwood claimed, even though it was obvious he was not entirely fine. A tank on the back of his chair pumped oxygen through plastic tubing into his nose, but still each breath he drew rattled in his frail chest. Even so, as weak as he must have been, he’d probably have been too proud to use the chair if not for his missing leg.

“Now stop wasting your time with me, boy, and get in to see the major,” the old man admonished him. “He’s in his room.”

Eric’s jaw grew taut, and the skin around his scar puckered. “So he’s not doing too well…”

The corporal shook his head. “I’ve seen a lot of soldiers come and go in this place. It probably won’t be long now.”

Molly’s heart clenched in commiseration for Eric’s pain and with a resurgence of her own pain. She still missed her dad. She didn’t want Eric to experience that sense of loss but, then, he already had—when he was just a child. No wonder he understood her so well. Sometimes she thought he was the only one who understood; that was why she’d come to him.

As they walked down the hall, Eric’s fingers closed around her hand and squeezed. “If this is hard for you…”

“It shouldn’t be.” But it was.

“This place is hard for a lot of people,” he murmured, his deep voice pitched low. “That’s why they don’t get many visitors.”

“It’s not that,” she insisted. But she hadn’t ever done well around sick people. That feeling of helplessness always overwhelmed her, paralyzing her. She had thought knowledge would have changed that, would have made her stronger, but it hadn’t. Just volunteering at the hospital had been difficult for her, and yet her younger sister Colleen had been doing it regularly for years. Maybe Mom was right; Colleen was the stronger sister.

“Then you’re thinking about your dad,” he guessed. “I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m thinking about you.” About how he could have wound up here, and how he still might. When his uncle passed away he would have no family left. No one to take care of him when he got old…unless he got married and started a family of his own. Why did the thought bring her sadness rather than relief?

“I’m okay,” he said. “I knew what to expect when Uncle Harold was diagnosed.”

“Knowing and living through it are two different things,” Molly said.

Immediately after they’d had that family meeting when her parents had told her and her siblings about her dad’s cancer, she’d researched every aspect of the disease. She had hounded her father for every detail—which stage, how many milligrams of each medication, an explanation of every procedure. That was when Ronald McClintock had decided that she would become a doctor.

“Molly…”

She forced a bright smile. “You shouldn’t have to do that alone, you know.”

He squeezed her hand again. “I’m not alone.”

“Not now. But I’m not staying.”

The words slammed into Eric’s gut. “Of course not.” Why would she? Since graduation she had spent more time away at college than she had in Cloverville. She probably no longer considered it home.

“You need to find someone,” she said, her eyes bright with the matchmaking gleam she’d inherited from her mother. “You’re a great guy. You shouldn’t be alone.”

He stopped outside Uncle Harold’s door. “I prefer to be single.”

“No one
prefers
to be alone.”

He couldn’t argue with her now. Not here. Drawing a deep breath, he pushed open the door. A glass crashed, shattering against the jamb next to his head.

“Get out!” the major shrieked.

Ignoring the stinging he felt on his face, Eric rushed to his uncle’s side. While the elderly man was often confused, he’d never been violent before. “Uncle Harold, it’s me—Eric.”

The old man’s shoulders shook as he collapsed onto his bed, sobbing. “I’m sorry. I thought it was him—that nurse. He’s trying to kill me.”

“No, he’s not,” Eric assured his uncle. The paranoia and mood swings were worse than the confusion. “He’s trying to help you.”

If only someone could…

The old man blinked his gray eyes, and his gaze focused beyond Eric’s shoulder. “It’s that girl—the pretty little one you always followed around.”

Eric turned his head to where Molly stood in the doorway, next to the broken glass. “Molly?”

“You’re bleeding,” she murmured as all color drained from her face. Then her legs folded, and like a rag doll she dropped to the floor.

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Eric’s hand trembled against her face. “Molly? Molly?”

Her lashes fluttered then opened. “What happened?”

“You fainted.”

She lifted her hand to his face. Then she pulled back, her fingers streaked red. “You’re bleeding…”

Her brown eyes rolled back, and her lids closed again while her body went limp in his arms.

“You’re bleeding, too,” he whispered, wiping a drop of blood from her cheek. She’d fallen in the broken glass on the floor. His heart hammered against his ribs. He saw blood all the time, so much blood. But when it was hers it was different.

Was that why she had fainted? Because it was his blood? He half closed his eyes as he remembered a story Abby had told, of Molly passing out in the delivery room when Abby had given birth to her daughter, Lara. Maybe the sight of
anyone’s
blood caused Molly to faint.

A smile tugged at his lips. Poor Molly. She was far too sensitive to be a doctor. The smile slipped away. Poor Molly. She couldn’t do what she’d vowed to do when her dad died. She couldn’t carry out her promise to her father. Eric stroked her cheek and a shard of glass bit into his fingertip.

He had to get her cleaned up. “Molly? Come on, wake up…”

“Eric,” she murmured his name, her lashes fluttering again.

Torn between concern for Molly and concern for his uncle, he turned toward the major. But the man appeared to be fine now, his paranoia and rage forgotten. “Uncle Harold?”

“Take care of the girl, boy.” A grin brightened the major’s face. “You’ve been taking care of her since you first came to live with me.”

His uncle could remember twenty years ago and farther back, but minutes after Eric left he wouldn’t remember his nephew’s visit. Eric lifted Molly’s limp body into his arms, forcing a smile for his great-uncle. “I’ll be back soon.”

“To take me home?”

Eric swallowed a sigh. “We’ll see what the doctor says.” About his uncle throwing things.

“That quack…”

Maybe the old man hadn’t calmed down yet. Eric listened to his uncle rant as he carried Molly into the bathroom and propped her on the sink against the mirror. He gently washed the blood from her face, and she came around. Before she could faint again, he scrubbed the blood from his shallow scratches. “You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “What about your uncle?”

“He doesn’t usually throw things. I shouldn’t have brought you here….” He closed his eyes and could see again the color draining from her face. “I’ll take you back to Cloverville now.”

“No. I want to stay.”

He opened his eyes to meet her determined gaze. “Molly, you just passed out.”

She wriggled down from the sink, brushing her body against his before she walked back into his uncle’s room. In moments she had Uncle Harold laughing and smiling and acting like his old self. She not only entertained his uncle but all the other veterans who found an excuse to stop by the major’s room to see what the ruckus was about.

Molly.

With her warmth and kindness, she drew people to her like flowers were drawn to sunshine. An hour later, as they walked back to his truck, clouds hung low in the afternoon sky. Eric opened the passenger door and helped her inside the cab.

“You’ve been quiet,” she said as he slid behind the wheel.

“Uncle Harold would rather listen to you.” The old man had truly enjoyed her visit; Eric hadn’t seen him that happy in a long while.

Color tinged her delicate cheekbones. “I shouldn’t have intruded.”

Eric started the truck. “You better not apologize.”

A giggle bubbled out of her. “Okay.”

“Promise?” He steered his Ford out of the lot and pulled back onto the highway.

“You don’t want my promise.” Her breath shuddered out in a heavy sigh. “I tend to break my promises.”

“Molly—”

“You can’t argue with me, Eric. I broke my promise to you.”

“What promise?” he asked.

“I promised to marry you,” she reminded him.

He laughed. “We were in second grade. I can hardly expect you to keep
that
promise.”

“My dad loved telling that story,” she said, her voice soft with affection as she reminisced about her father, “about how when he came to pick me up from elementary school this little towheaded squirt walked up to him. And like an old-fashioned gentleman, you asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage.”

Eric laughed again. “That’s not quite the way I remember it.”

With a mist of tears in her eyes, she nodded. “Dad always admitted the truth, eventually, and confessed that you told him instead of asking him. You said, ‘Molly’s dad, I’m going to marry Molly.’”

“I was seven,” he said.

“So you didn’t know what you really wanted?”

He was afraid he knew more then than he did now. “I was seven,” he repeated.

Disappointment tugged at Molly. “I’ll be twenty-seven this fall, and I still don’t know what I want,” she admitted. How could she expect him to have known at seven?

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said, “taking time to figure that out before you face anyone.”

“I’m not worried about facing anyone,” she said. She knew her family and friends would forgive her and accept whatever decisions she made. She had to be able to accept herself—once she figured out who she really was.

“Not even your fiancé?”

“I talked to him the night before the wedding,” she said, glancing down at the diamond on her hand. She should have given back Josh’s ring then. Now, since she didn’t have the jeweler’s case, she felt as though she had to wear the ring to keep it safe until she could return it. And wearing the ring reminded her she’d made one mistake—she had to be careful not to make another.

Eric uttered an exaggerated gasp, as if scandalized by her admission. “I hope your mom doesn’t know you broke tradition.”

Molly shrugged. “Maybe she had reason to be superstitious.”

“Obviously,” he remarked, his mouth lifting in a faint grin.

Since he was driving, Molly resisted the urge to smack his arm. “Superstition wasn’t why I didn’t marry Josh.”

“Cold feet?”

“Absolutely. And Josh knew that. He promised he would understand if I backed out. So I’m not worried about facing him.” She had bigger problems.

“Understanding guy,” Eric commented in a dry tone.

“I think he was having doubts himself, that he’d realized the same thing you and Abby and probably everyone else already had—that we’d rushed into it.”

“Pretty irresponsible of the guy to rush into a relationship when he has two kids depending on him,” Eric observed, his words full of disapproval.

“I think the boys might have been the reason he proposed so quickly.”

“He wants a mother for his kids? What happened to theirs?”

“She was the irresponsible one. She abandoned them when the twins were babies.” Guilt tugged at Molly. “And now I’ve abandoned them, too.”

“Were they attached to you?”

“No.” Molly sighed. “In fact I don’t think they liked me very much.”

Eric laughed. “I can’t imagine
anyone
not liking you.”

With Josh’s busy schedule and hers, she hadn’t spent much time with the boys. And the time she’d spent had been awkward, her efforts to charm them met with chilly silence. “I think they felt I was intruding. They were used to it being just guys.”

“And you don’t get much girlier than you.”

This time she did smack his arm, heedless of his driving. “They need a woman in their lives.” Eric should understand that. He’d needed one first after his parents had died, and then when his guardians had given him up to his great-uncle. “But maybe
I’m
not that woman.”

The twins were another reason she’d gone out the window. If marrying Josh had turned out to be a mistake, another divorce would have been harder on the boys than a canceled wedding.

“Why did you accept his proposal?” Eric asked, his deep voice oddly gruff. “You two hadn’t dated very long.”

“From the first moment we met, we had a connection.” Friendship that probably could have grown to love, although not a love as deep—and vulnerable—as the love her mother had felt for her father. Molly had thought, as Josh had, that a marriage based on friendship, rather than passion, would be stronger and safer. “Even though we hadn’t known each other long, we thought we could make it work.”

“Maybe you could have.”

“It’s too late now.”

“I bet he’d take you back, if you explained that you just got cold feet.”

Molly shook her head. Even if she wanted Josh back, she suspected—she
hoped
—he was busy falling for someone else. Brenna. She would make a much better wife, a much better mother for his sons. “It was more than cold feet,” she insisted. “I’d realized I was making a mistake.”

Josh deserved more. Her gaze slid to Eric’s face, to his unmarred profile, as he concentrated on the highway. Maybe she deserved more, too.

“I don’t know Towers personally, but I’ve heard all the gossip around the hospital,” he admitted. “He’s considered a great catch. Are you sure the mistake wasn’t backing out of the wedding?”

She sighed. “Maybe it was.” Maybe she would never find another guy as nice as Josh. But Eric drew her attention again. She had already found a guy as nice as Josh…when they were both seven.

“I’m going to pull into this gas station,” Eric said.

Molly glanced toward the gauge. The tank was nearly full. “Okay.”

Eric didn’t park next to the pumps. He walked into the station instead. And took his time. When he finally rejoined her, with a pop bottle in each hand, Molly had slipped behind the wheel.

“You want to drive?” he asked.

“You took me where you go every Sunday. Now let me take you where I go.” She held out her hand, palm up, for the keys.

Eric passed her a pop bottle instead. “Are you sure you can drive? You passed out cold a couple of times,” he reminded her.

She nodded. “I’m fine.” Now that all traces of blood were gone from his face. But she could imagine how he must have looked when he was hurt in the Middle East, when he’d nearly been killed. Maybe that was what she imagined every time she saw blood, because the sight of it hadn’t bothered her much before he’d joined the Marines.

He hesitated another moment before pulling the keys from his pocket and dropping them into her hand. Then he walked around to the passenger side of the truck.

Molly waited until he buckled his seat belt before backing out and pulling onto the highway again. Silence settled between them as she drove back to Cloverville, the sound of the tires against the asphalt the only noise in the pickup cab.

When she pulled through the gates of Cloverville Cemetery, Eric broke his silence with a gasp of shock and concern. “You come here every Sunday?”

Her face flooded with color. “Only for the past few weeks. I hadn’t been here for years before that. Guess that makes me a horrible daughter.”

“Then I’m a horrible son. I haven’t been to the cemetery in Chicago where my parents are buried…” He sighed. “In years. Uncle Harold used to take me on Memorial Day.” They’d take the train down and make a weekend of it. He missed those times with his uncle more than he missed his parents, they’d been gone so long. Her dad had been gone a long time, too. “So why are coming now?” he asked.

“Because I need him now.”

She’d been engaged, but she’d needed her father more than her fiancé?

“You probably think I’m crazy, huh?” she continued. “I know he’s not really here. But…”

Eric opened the truck door. “But you feel close to him here.”

Her breath shuddered out. “I never should have doubted that you would understand.”

He crossed around the front of the truck, before she could open her door, and helped her out. She wore a dress today, but this was a short one with a flouncy hem that fluttered around her knees and rode up her slim thighs when she’d been sitting in the truck. When he’d been behind the wheel, he had needed all his concentration not to drive into the ditch. After clearing his throat, he said, “You know your dad would understand, too.”

“What? My coming here?” She shook her head. “Actually, he would probably be mad.”

Thinking of her father brought a bittersweet grin to Eric’s lips. Mr. McClintock had been such a great guy. “Yeah, he probably would.”

Molly smiled, too, and her eyes brightened. “Can’t you just hear him telling me that I have better things to do than spend my time here?”

He had always told Eric and the rest of Molly’s friends that they had better things to do whenever they visited him when he’d been sick. He had been sick for so long. Eric closed his hand around Molly’s as they walked toward her father’s grave. “He’d probably be mad about more than your visits.”

Molly nodded. “He was always so big on honor—and integrity. He would be mad that I ran out on my wedding, that I backed out on a commitment I made.”

Eric shook his head. “No, he wouldn’t. He would understand.”

“I hope so…”

“And not just about your wedding. He’d understand about your dropping out of med school.”

She stared at the granite stone that designated Ronald James McClintock, beloved husband and father. Her voice cracked with emotion as she admitted, “I broke my promise to him, Eric.”

“He wouldn’t care,” Eric insisted, his heart hurting with the pain darkening her brown eyes. “In fact he’d be mad that you were forcing yourself to do something you didn’t enjoy. Your father only wanted one thing for you.”

“For me to become a doctor.”

Shaking his head, he insisted, “Happiness. That’s all he wanted.”

She expelled a wistful sigh. “I wish…”

“C’mon, Molly, you know I’m right.” He squeezed her hand.

But she pulled away. “No. He wanted more for me than just happiness.”

“
Just
happiness?” Did she have any idea how difficult happiness was to find? So difficult that Eric had decided a while ago to just give up.

“He wanted me to help people,” she explained, “because no one had been able to help him.”

“That’s what
you
wanted, Molly.”

“He was my dad, Eric. I know what he wanted,” she insisted, bristling with stubborn pride. “And I let him down. I disappointed him.”