Molly's Mr. Wrong

“Does she have an older sister?”

“Three sisters.”

“I just met an Allie Brody at the college.”

“She’s the oldest. She’s teaching a night class at the school. Painting or something.”

Small world...but maybe not. It was a small town, so ending up with a class next to Finn’s cousin’s fiancée’s sister wasn’t that unexpected. And the connection to Finn was a bit distant. Still, she was going to watch what she said around Allie about certain people.

Molly frowned as a memory crept into her brain. “Wait a minute...didn’t Jolie used to...” Mike waited for her to finish and Molly, who wished she’d kept her mouth shut, searched for a tactful word. “Bother Dylan?” Torture would have been a better word, but she was being polite. The strained and somewhat adversarial relationship between wild-child Jolie and quiet Dylan had been legendary in Eagle Valley High School, now that she thought about it.

Mike laughed. “Yes, she did. She and Dylan worked things out.”

“I guess so.”

Georgina was following the conversation with interest and Mike glanced over at her and laughed again. “I’ll get you that mixture of bulbs and maybe we can put them in this weekend.”

“We?” Molly asked on a note of amusement.

“If you needed help, that is.”

“I think we’ll need a lot of help,” Molly said with a smile. If he wanted to help, she wasn’t going to stop him.

They talked for a few more minutes about colors, and then Mike’s phone rang from inside his house and he excused himself.

“I like him,” Georgina said as she and Molly walked to their back door. She shot Molly a look. “You’re going to fill in the gaps about this Dylan guy and his fiancée. Right?”

“I don’t know a lot,” Molly said as she opened the front door. “Dylan was really quiet and hardworking and Jolie was outgoing. Kind of a live-for-today girl.”

“Just like you?” Georgina asked with mock innocence.

“Exactly,” Molly replied. Because she was going to be more like that. Work in progress, et cetera. “All I remember is that they somehow drifted into nemesis territory due to being partnered up in some class and her not taking it seriously enough and him being worried about his GPA.”

“And now they’re getting married.”

“Yes.” Molly headed for the fridge. So very romantic. She wished them well, but hearts-and-flowers romance had been stomped out of her by the lights of reality being snapped on in her own relationship, brilliantly exposing the truth that lay before her and leaving her blinking.

She was still blinking a little. Blake had not only robbed her of most of her savings, he’d robbed her of her hard-won self-confidence. She’d fought to rebuild it little by little, but she hadn’t been able to let go of her resentment. It’d be a while before she could.

“I thought we’d microwave lasagna tonight.” The microwave was truly their best friend with their crammed schedules—which was why having a two-hour break to eat an actual dinner between her afternoon and evening classes was gold. “I made a salad.”

Molly drifted over to the counter and pulled a small tomato out of the mixture of greens and popped it into her mouth. She’d skipped lunch and was famished. “Sounds good.”

Georgina pulled the aluminum tray out of the freezer. “This Dylan is hot prom guy’s cousin, right?”

“Homecoming guy. He is.”

“But you liked him better.”

He didn’t screw me over, so yes. “He’s a nice guy. How were your classes today?”

The corners of her sister’s eyes crinkled as Molly firmly redirected the conversation away from “hot prom guy.” “Excellent. How was your day?”

“Excellent.” Molly used the hand-carved wooden tongs she and Blake had bought on a Mexican vacation to lift salad into a bowl. She’d gotten rid of most of her past, but some things stayed, for practical purposes. “They’re always excellent in the beginning. You know—when everyone has high expectations for themselves and not too much reality has set in.”

Except for in Finn’s case. She’d slammed that reality home there.

She’d address that tonight. She wasn’t exactly going to apologize, but she was going to explain what she thought might be going on. Not a conversation she was looking forward to, but one they needed to have. If he showed up to class.

* * *

FINN DID NOT show up for class.

Molly found her head coming up every time she heard the door to the main entrance, only a few yards down the hall from her classroom, open and close again. Finally she closed the door to her room so that she focused only on her class and not on the reasons Finn wasn’t there.

She knew why Finn wasn’t there. But she didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

What could she do?

Relax and enjoy teaching.

Not having Finn there made her feel as if she owned her classroom again—which was annoying. Of course she owned her classroom, but when Finn was there...she felt as if she were being judged. It made her thoughts trip over themselves, which wasn’t conducive to great lesson delivery.

Tonight her lecture flowed. She gave amusing sentence examples, had the class engaged for the entire fifty minutes. No stumbling about for explanations, no quick glances to a specific area of a classroom just to check whether or not one specific student was smirking a little.

After class ended, she explained a few finer points of the essay assignment with Debra and Mr. Reed, a sweet man in his late sixties, listened to Denny’s take on higher education, then turned off the lights and locked up the room, telling herself she should feel great. Class had gone very, very well.

But you’re tougher than this. You should be able to teach regardless of who’s sitting in the back row, history or no history.

Molly hated it when the nagging little voice in the back of her mind pointed out things she didn’t want to hear. She’d returned to the Eagle Valley because she’d wanted a nice, stable, unsurprising life in a nice, stable community. Getting the position at the community college had been a godsend. She’d been so very happy with how well things were working out, so determined to do the best job she could teaching her new students—right up until Finn had appeared in her life again and she’d indulged in her red pen revenge.

That wasn’t what a good teacher did, and beyond that, driving students away wouldn’t do her professional reputation any good. This job was important to her. She didn’t want to jeopardize it.

* * *

THE CLOCK SAID English class was halfway over and Finn felt nothing but relief at the fact that he wasn’t there.

Liar.

Okay, part of him felt relief that he wasn’t there and the other part thought he should have sucked it up and gone. He’d never quit anything in his life, and not going to class bordered on cowardly behavior. But what was the point, when he was going to drop the class anyway?

The point was that Molly was going to think she’d won.

Finn flipped through the channels a couple dozen more times, then got to his feet and grabbed his jacket so he could head to McElroy’s Bar. There probably wouldn’t be many people there on a weeknight, but Finn needed to do something other than sit in front of the TV and feel like he’d let himself down.

The lot was almost empty when Finn parked, but he figured he’d have one beer, talk to Jim McElroy and then head home again. He enjoyed getting out, being around people, but when he pulled open the heavy wooden bar door, the usual pleasant anticipation for the evening ahead was replaced with the feeling that he was avoiding the real issue in his life. Probably because he was. He didn’t really want to go to McElroy’s. He just didn’t want to be alone with his annoying thoughts.

Finn walked into the bar and paused just inside the door. The place was relatively empty, as he’d suspected. Wyatt Bauer was there leaning on the bar, staring at the sports news that played over Jim McElroy’s head. His eyes were glazed over and Finn wondered if the guy was even aware of what was happening on the screen, or if he was asleep with his eyes open.