Heartwood (7 page)

Molly’s dad, Chet, had been a true force of nature. He was one of those people that was always the center of attention. He lit up a room when he entered it. That man smiled all the time and had never met a stranger in his life. He’d charmed the pants off everybody who walked through the doors of his place. Along with his talent in the kitchen, Chet had passed his likability to Molly. Her gift with people was so automatic that she seemed completely unaware of it.

“No need to dress for cold weather.” I held my poker face. “You might want to dress up a few times, and don’t forget your bikini.”

“I’ll never wear a bikini again in my life.” Molly pulled her eyes away from the neglected building, her hand automatically settling just below her naval. I knew all too well that her C-section scar lurked there, just beneath the fabric’s surface. It was a constant reminder of her seizures and the frantic delivery of our twins. I knew the thin pink line made her insecure, but every time I saw it, I remembered just how lucky I was to have the three of them. Oddly, the scar that bothered her so much gave me comfort.

“Then you’d better get shoppin’ for a couple new suits, Little Girl.”

“Joe, you’re gonna have to give me a little more than that to go off of.” Her red lips formed a pretty pout. “Seriously.”

I turned carefully into the half full parking lot across the street from the shelter. “I’ll send you the dress code on email.”

Molly huffed out a laugh. “You really know how to sweet talk a girl.”

I put the truck in park and fixed my eyes on hers. “No. I don’t.”

We both turned to take in the scene at the homeless shelter. Molly’s newest Wrapgasmic truck blocked about half the parking lot from our view. Her manager, Stacy, scurried around, scribbling the menu on the sandwich board. Stacy’s hulking Mexican husband, Sanchez, was in the process of raising the awning. Seeing them together always made me think of a Barbie doll next to an action figure of The Hulk. Nearby, a gigantic, impossible-to-miss banner announced our event to random passersby.

“Joe.” Molly soft voice immediately grabbed my attention.

“Yeah, baby?” I murmured.

“This was a really great idea.” She undid her seatbelt and leaned over the center console to kiss me.

“Well, congratulate Francis. He’s the ideas man behind it all. I just organized some shit.” I replied, though I was more than willing to accept the reward of her sweet lips. My sales manager, Francis, had become quite the activist since he’d turned his life around. Formerly homeless, Francis now thrived in his position at Good Wood, making my work life infinitely easier to balance with home. Now that Francis no longer struggled with the basic needs of survival, he kept busy, splitting his free time between volunteer work and repairing his relationship with his daughter, Kelly. He’d even managed to talk Molly into donating all of her trucks’ leftovers to the shelter every day.

“Francis, huh?” Molly cocked an eyebrow. The disbelief on her face was as obvious as the silver hoop in her right nostril.

“Yep. Why?” I replied, trailing my thumb over her plump lower lip ready to taste it again.

“It’s just that Mac seems to remember things differently,” she replied. I pulled back and looked away. I’d asked the guys to keep my involvement in the fundraiser on the down low. A build off was a great way to showcase local talent and expose our new apprentices to what they could achieve if they kept working hard. Auctioning the creations off afterward for Francis’s favorite charity just made sense.

I felt Molly’s tiny hand grab my jaw and she turned my face back to hers. “You’re so kind, Joe.”

“Only to you.” I shot back. My tone was light, but her penetrating eyes trapped mine.

“Why are you so afraid to show the world that big heart of yours?” She asked.

I considered my response, but it didn’t take long for me to puzzle things out. As was often the case, the root cause of my discomfort came from my unusual childhood. “When I was growing up, dad’s job kept us all focused on appearances. That’s one aspect of my family I never missed after they kicked me out.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off.

“If I decide to do something for someone, I don’t need a banquet thrown in my honor. I’m
not
my
dad
.”

My last words came out harsher than I expected, and Molly blanched, shrinking back from me a couple of inches. Gutted by the wary way her eyes narrowed, I immediately went across the console after her and gently took her into my arms.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m an asshole.” I whispered, brushing her temple with my lips. “My family is still a pretty touchy subject, baby girl.”

I felt her nod against me. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” I sighed. Startled, she frowned as she searched my face. “I need to sort that shit out and move on.”

“Hey.” Molly sat up, straighter and her bold expression took me by surprise. “Let’s table this conversation for later. I want to focus on why we’re doing this event in the first place. This was a
great
idea, Joe. I’m proud of you, whether you like it or not. Your cleverness is about to raise a crap-ton of money for Francis’s project. They’ll feed and shelter a lot of people, thanks to you.”

We sat lost in each other’s eyes for a long moment, and I blinked uncomfortably under her scrutiny. Her unwavering belief in me was humbling, considering I’d been such a waste of space for years. Still, I wanted to be the man she believed I was. I pressed my forehead to hers as if to draw strength from her mental image of me. She closed her eyes and I watched as her features relaxed. The weight of my love for her crushed me, and I was very tempted to drive her directly to the courthouse, wedding deposits be damned. I gently brushed her hair off her cheek. “That’s my girl. Always with the silver lining to my black cloud.”

A horn blasted next to us and we both jumped in our seats. I looked over my shoulder and saw Mac grinning wickedly. He sat behind the steering wheel of his truck, mostly blocked from view by his girlfriend, Kelly, who waved from the passenger seat. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the twins were still asleep. I lowered my window.

“Aren’t you two a little old to be making out in parking lots?” Mac snickered at his own joke, leaning forward so he could see us past his tiny lady-friend.

“You’re only as old as you feel.” I quipped.

“Then I must be ready for the retirement home.” Kelly winced, opening her door. She wore a walking boot on her left leg. She tried to climb awkwardly out of the vehicle, but Mac raced around the truck and lifted her out like she was a child.

“Kelly!” Molly gasped. Mac carefully placed Kelly on the ground and pulled a pair of crutches out of the back seat. He handed them to her. “What the hell?”

“It’s my fault.” Mac grumbled, but Kelly shook her head with a delicate smile.

“Stop saying that. It’s not true.” Kelly’s soft voice matched her gentle demeanor perfectly. She’d always struck me as someone who could play a princess at Disney World. She had all the right qualities: sweet, lovely, and patient with kids. The last bit was pretty important, since she was a teacher at a local elementary school.

“Yeah, it is. We were hiking Mount Bonnell. We were just about to the top when I took off running...you should have seen her face. Little Miss Alpha can’t stand to get second place ever. So she tore off after me like a bat out of hell and passed me like I was standing still.”

“Yeah. Then I stepped in a big hole and sprained my ankle.” Kelly grimaced.

“Ouch!” Molly exclaimed, her eyes the size of saucers.

“She’s lucky she didn’t fall off the side of the cliff.” Mac added.

“How long do you have to wear that thing?” I asked.

“Two weeks. It’s a really bad sprain. When the doctor told me, I bawled my eyes out. I’ve been training so hard for the half marathon and now there’s no way I can do it. Mac had to carry me all the way back down to the car. I’m surprised he isn’t in a back brace.”

Mac huffed with a small head shake. “You weigh ninety pounds soaking wet.”

Wrapping his arm around Kelly, Mac pulled her to him so that she leaned on him for support. He kissed the top of her head, and her dark eyes shone with admiration as she stared up at him. Molly and I exchanged a quick, knowing glance. We’d both agreed that they made a sickeningly cute couple. Molly smirked, and I knew she was remembering our recent conversation about them. Molly had said that she felt bad that she initially written Kelly off as ‘too nice’ for Mac. Kelly
was
nice, but Molly told me that she now believed Kelly was just the strong, silent type that Mac needed in his life.

I couldn’t have agreed more. Mac had always been a rebel without a clue, but since Kelly’s arrival he’d made all kinds of positive changes. Hell, the amount of money he saved on cigarettes alone would easily pay Malcolm Junior’s college tuition when the time to do so came.

Mac had finally developed a social life that didn’t include a keg and tapper as a permanent fixture. I wasn’t one to throw stones from my glass whorehouse, but between golf league, dart league, softball league, bowling, and watching every game on ESPN, I’d assumed Mac would remain a bachelor forever. Based on the daytime talk show-worthy break up he’d had with Malcolm Junior’s mom, I couldn’t really blame him.

I’d warned him not to marry a bartender. Not that I had anything against bartending-it’s a noble profession. It’s just that Mac didn’t need any help getting drunk and frankly, his ex had ‘nasty skank’ written all over her.

“Princess Patrón” (as Molly lovingly referred to her ex sister-in-law) had made quite a first impression on me. First of all, she was the loudest human being I’d ever met. The night Mac first introduced us, Mason and I met them at some dive bar down on Dirty Sixth. Jess and I had just gotten engaged the weekend before, and I was in a fairly good mood. About twenty minutes after Mac introduced his “lady”, she cornered me outside the restrooms.

“You’re hot.” She slurred, groping my crotch. Then she tried to kiss me. Luckily, she was a clumsy drunk and I easily escaped her. Figuring she was just really smashed, I let it go without a word to Mac.

As time went on, it seemed that type of behavior wasn’t an isolated incident. Mac and “Patrón” fought constantly, and though we all told him he was insane, he took her down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and they came back hitched. Marriage didn’t do anything to tame their brawling. When she got knocked up a month after their wedding, Mac got serious in a hurry. He started working a lot so he could buy them a house, and she kept working at the bar. He caught her drinking more than once while she was carrying M.J., and it infuriated him. He threatened to take the baby from her when it was born. She responded by saying things like “who says it’s yours” or “maybe I should just get rid of it” and he’d back down. Though Mac had never said so, I think the idea that the baby was someone else’s haunted him long before she verbalized it.

About three months after their son was born, she failed to come home from work. It was long after closing time, but there’d been a recent crime spree, so Mac packed up the baby and went to the bar to check on her. I think the last thing he expected was to catch her blowing some guy on the pool table. That was the night he showed up on my doorstep with the baby. The defeated look on his face made my stomach sink, but he’s a tough son of a bitch and never shed a tear in front of me.

The two of them ended up staying for a couple of weeks before Mac made an offer on a house. It was the one he’d been saving for, and he promptly moved himself and the baby in. That’s when the real war began.

She
came slithering around, crying about how bad she screwed up, how much she loved him, how she wanted them to be a family, blah blah blah. Mac wasn’t stupid. He told her to hit the road. Then she went apeshit and hired a shady lawyer. She had the balls to ask the court for full custody, alimony, and child support. All Mac wanted was his son and her pickled ass out of his life for good.

The courts allowed them shared custody, though they’d been back in front of the judge a couple of times since. Their battles had died down a lot recently, since she was dating someone new and Mac had been giving her more money. Though Mac bounced back quickly after Patrón, he hadn’t dated steadily with anyone since. I was sure he’d die alone until the day Kelly strolled into the shop asking for her dad. Mac took one look at her and was a goner.

Physically, she was exactly the kind of girl he always went for: dark hair, deep tan, big brown eyes. The way she smiled back at him, I figured he’d nail her and then Francis would find out and shoot him. But it turned out that Kelly was far from the barfly party-girl type Mac was used to chasing after. She dressed and talked like a lady, had an education and a respectable job, was actually close to his age, and could do more push-ups than I could. Kelly was a totally different ballgame, and Mac had skipped spring training in favor of spring break.

After some trial and serious errors on Mac’s part, they had officially managed to become a couple. Kelly must have had something special, ‘cause Mac looked so damn chipper these days that it was ridiculous. Mason and I made fun of him constantly, calling him whipped and basically throwing all of the bullshit comments we’d endured from him back in his face. He took it all with a smile. Whatever it was he had with Kelly, it obviously worked.