Finally a Bride. Lisa Childs

her dad had died and Eric had left for the Marines, she’d only allowed herself to focus on one thing—medical school—in order to ignore her loss and pain. “That’s why I just need to be left alone.”

      “That’s fine, honey, I’ll make sure no one bothers you,” her mother agreed, “but only because you’re not alone. You have Eric.”

      But she didn’t have Eric. He still hadn’t returned with her suitcase. “Thanks, Mom.”

      “Sure, honey.” Her mother hung up without another word, without giving Molly a chance to ask any more questions. Everyone was at the reception. Even Josh?

      Memories flashed through her mind. Not of her and her fiancé but of Joshua and the maid of honor, Brenna Kelly. The looks they’d exchanged at the rehearsal in the church and afterward at the dinner at the Kelly house had charged the air with the electricity of undeniable attraction. Josh and his twin sons had stayed with the Kellys after the rehearsal dinner, and Brenna had skipped the slumber party in order to play hostess to the groom and his boys. If Josh had gone to the reception, it might have been for the sake of Brenna. Molly hoped so. Then maybe some of her guilt over jilting not just Josh but his adorable sons might begin to ease.

      His gaze drawn to Molly, Eric shouldered open the back door and dropped her suitcase on the floor. The thud of the heavy luggage against the hardwood startled her so that she whirled toward him, the cordless phone still in her hand. But the smile he’d witnessed when he’d stepped through the door quickly slid away from her beautiful face.

      “You scared me,” she accused him.

      She wasn’t the only one who was afraid. Eric had stayed in the barn as long as he could, steeling himself for two weeks with Molly as his houseguest—in a very small cabin. Fortunately, he had to work. That morning he’d left his supervisor a voice mail canceling the week off he’d previously arranged because he’d thought he’d be too distracted—by thoughts of Molly married to someone else—to work. Then, after backing out of the wedding party, he’d realized he would need the distraction of work.

      “Did I scare you?” he asked. “Or was it whoever you just talked to?”

      “No, it was you,” she said. “You’ve often scared me, Eric.”

      “Then I guess that makes us even.”

      She narrowed her eyes as if confused. But she never had really understood him—not in the way he understood her.

      “So who was on the phone?” he asked, gesturing toward the cordless as she replaced it on the charger.

      “My mom.”

      He couldn’t help but smile. He loved Mrs. Mick, as Abby Hamilton had dubbed her years and years ago. Everyone loved Mary McClintock, although not like her husband had loved her. Eric knew all her kids—whether they admitted or not—wanted the deeply loving relationship their parents had had.

      “Is she mad?” he asked.

      Molly shook her head, tumbling those chocolate-colored curls around her shoulders. “No. You know my mom. She understands.”

      “Yeah, she’s pretty great.”

      “You’re pretty great, too,” she said, “for letting me stay here.”

      “It’s no problem,” he lied. He reached for the suitcase again, his muscles straining as he hefted the weighty tweed bag. “You might change your mind when you see my spare room, though.” But he didn’t lead her there. Instead he stopped in the doorway to his own room.

      Molly’s heart bumped against her ribs as she collided with Eric’s back. “I thought you were putting me up in the spare room.”

      He dropped her suitcase then shrugged, his shoulders rippling beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt. “I can’t put you in Uncle Harold’s old room.”

      “Why not? Is he coming home?”

      His shoulders lifted as he drew in a deep breath. “No.” He expelled a heavy guilt-ridden sigh. “But every time I visit him at the VA hospital, I let him think that he will.”

      She reached out to brush her fingertips along his forearm. “He’s not the only one who wants to think he’s coming home.”

      “No, he isn’t,” Eric admitted. “I want him here, so I’ve left all his stuff where it was.”

      “I won’t touch anything, I promise.”

      “No, it’s not that. Hell, he hardly has anything to touch. Career soldiers travel light,” he explained.

      Thank God Eric hadn’t followed completely in his uncle’s footsteps. He hadn’t made a career of the military. Her gaze skimmed over his scar. Had that been his choice, though?

      “Guys in the service that long don’t accumulate a lot of stuff,” he continued. “But then, Uncle Harold didn’t need much.”

      “No, he didn’t,” she agreed. “He had you.”

      “He didn’t need me, either,” Eric dismissed himself.

      She hated when he did that. Realizing that she still held his arm, she squeezed it gently and his muscles tightened beneath her grasp. “He was lucky to have you in his life.”

      “I was lucky he took me in,” Eric said, his voice betraying the emotions he struggled to suppress. “My parents barely knew him.”

      Harold South was actually Eric’s father’s uncle, his great-uncle. With few other relatives alive, his parents had named friends, another married couple, as their son’s guardians in the event of their deaths. They had probably never considered the possibility that Eric might actually have to live with his guardians, and they couldn’t have envisioned the car accident that took their lives when their son was only four. He’d lived with the guardians for a few years, but then their marriage disintegrated and neither had wanted the responsibility of a seven-year-old boy. Fortunately, since his parents’ funeral, Uncle Harold had been keeping track of Eric. And he’d taken Eric in when no one else had wanted him. Molly knew that was the way Eric had interpreted the situation—that no one had wanted him.

      “He loved having you live with him.” She reminded her friend of the joy he’d brought to his uncle’s life. “He wanted you sooner, but he didn’t feel it was his place to fight your parents’ wishes.”

      So how could she fight her parent’s wishes? How could she disrespect her father, the man who’d meant more to her than any other man—except Eric? She winced as her head pounded, the ache probably generated from stress and too little sleep the night before her wedding day.

      “You’re exhausted,” Eric said, as always changing the subject from himself. “Take my bed.”

      Heat rushed to her face. “I can’t!”

      Not without remembering the last time she’d been in it—when she’d thrown herself at him, begging him not to leave her for the Marines.

      He turned toward her, his eyes widening at her sharp tone. “Molly…”

      “I can’t take your bed.” Not unless he lay in it with her as he had that night, the last night before he’d left her. “That’s asking too much of you.” And of her. But then it wouldn’t be the first time someone had asked too much of her.

      Eric shook his head. “I can’t put you up in there. I haven’t even opened the door in over a year. It’s a dusty mess.”

      “So I’ll clean it. It’s fine,” she insisted as she backed away from the doorway.

      Molly hadn’t even stepped inside his room with him, but Eric’s heart pounded hard. Before picking up the suitcase again, he glanced once toward the bed. Memories quickened his pulse, but he pushed away the traitorous thoughts. He’d accepted long ago that he’d never get Molly McClintock back in his bed. If only she had come to him that night because she’d