“The church near Dad’s office,” Jessie mumbled into her knees, but Hunter heard her anyway.
“Thank you.” He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Telling us everything was very brave.”
He glanced over at Molly, who watched him with big eyes. He slowly rose from his crouched position and winked at her, trying to convey without words that everything would be okay.
He only hoped he could follow through on his unspoken promise.
***
THEY TOLD FRANK and Sonya that they knew where Seth had gone, but Hunter insisted on going alone to speak to Seth and bring him home. Molly figured he wanted to approach Seth as both a friend and as an attorney who could help him, so he would no longer be living in a state of guilt and panic. Nobody mentioned Seth’s role in Paul’s murder yet. It was his story to tell.
Molly was antsy, but agreed to stay behind. After all, if Sonya could wait for her son to be brought home, Molly could do no less.
She was determined to be a good girl and stay with her family right up until the moment Hunter opened the front door, Molly’s car keys in hand. Her mother strode into the house uninvited, dressed like a soap opera diva in a red dress and red high-heeled shoes with diamond earrings dangling from beneath her big hair.
“Does anyone in this family have any manners?” Francie asked the group gathered in the family room. “I’ve called and left messages on the answering machine. I’ve even spoken to Frank’s mother, and asked her to have Molly call me back. And have I heard from any of you?” She waved her arm in the air and a stack of gold bracelets clicked together.
Frank walked around to where Francie stood. “I’d venture a guess that everyone here is preoccupied with more important things at the moment.”
“Molly, please tell me you never got my messages.” Francie turned her back on Molly’s father, ignoring his comment.
Molly was not ready to cope with her mother’s senseless emotional outbursts in light of the serious events happening within the family. “I got them. I just haven’t had time to deal with you.”
Francie stepped toward her, undeterred. “Well, it’s a good thing I decided to come here and talk to you or who knows when you’d have gotten back to me.”
From the corner of her gaze, Molly caught sight of Hunter inching through the front door. “Actually, now’s not a good time. I was just on my way out with Hunter.” She slipped behind her mother and came up beside him.
“Hey, how come she gets to go?” Jessie asked, obviously feeling left out since Seth was her best friend.
Molly shot her sister an apologetic glance and gestured behind her mother’s back as an explanation. Jessie might be furious with Molly at the moment, but even she had to understand that Molly couldn’t possibly deal with the pampered princess right now.
“You. Owe. Me.” Jessie spoke through clenched teeth.
Molly blew her half sister a kiss and darted out the door before Francie could come up with an excuse to keep Molly behind.
***
HUNTER DROVE to the church, following Molly’s directions. Though he wished she’d deal with her mother, he was actually glad she’d come along. The sudden revelation of Seth’s guilt caused all sorts of complicated emotions to rise to the surface and he could use a sounding board.
He wrapped an arm around the back of the passenger seat. “Mind if we talk?” he asked.
She shook her head. “As long as it’s not about how I avoided my mother, I’d appreciate the distraction.”
“It’s about me.”
“Then you have my undivided attention.”
Keeping his gaze on the road, he pulled his thoughts together. “When I agreed to take this case, I wasn’t emotionally involved. I mean, I was emotionally involved with you no matter how much I tried to deny it, but for the rest of the family, I was just the lawyer trying to free the general.”
Molly shifted in her seat. “Okay…” She was obviously confused.
“But the longer I stayed in your father’s house, the more I came to like and care about everyone. Including you.”
He cast a sidelong glance and caught Molly running her tongue over her glossy bottom lip. He couldn’t help but linger on her damp mouth before forcing his gaze back to the road.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m no longer the dispassionate lawyer representing a client. It’s not affecting my judgment or my ability to do my best, but it has become a disturbing fact.”
“Hunter, I’m glad you’re opening up to me, but I’m really lost,” Molly said softly. “I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make or what’s bothering you—and something obviously is.”
He smiled grimly. “Yeah, something’s bothering me.” And it wasn’t being in love with her, although that still hadn’t been dealt with at all. “Finding out that Seth killed his father was…is…a huge thing for me. The kid confronted his father on his mother’s behalf. He committed a crime, a sin, to protect his mom.”
Molly’s hand came to rest on Hunter’s thigh, and though she meant it to be comforting, his body grew aroused anyway.
“Go on,” she said, obviously unaware of his physical discomfort.
He was glad because his need to talk about his past was stronger than his desire—a huge realization for a man who never let himself even think about his days with his parents.
He gripped the wheel hard between both hands. “My childhood sucked. My father was always drunk and my mother enabled his drinking because she wasn’t much better. The house was filled with clutter—empty beer cans and bottles, half-eaten pizza in delivery boxes. Kind of like the scene you walked in on when you found me,” he admitted.
Before he could continue, Molly gestured to the large building in front of them and he pulled in to the church lot and turned off the engine. But he couldn’t turn off the memories inside him. Now that he’d begun to talk, he couldn’t seem to stop.
And he knew if he was going to help Seth, he had to finish this. Now.
“After you left that day, I looked around and saw the place through your eyes. I saw the squalor in which my parents lived and I was disgusted.” He exhaled long and hard. “Anyway, their money went on booze and cheap food, not on me. By the time child services found out they’d turned from alcohol to drugs and took me away for good, they’d beaten any sense of self-worth out of me.”