Molly's Mr. Wrong

It turned out that he wasn’t a guy who pushed her.

After dropping her off, he’d gone to a party where he’d scored with one of the high school’s socially elite. Molly knew because the girl had wondered aloud in the locker room if she was going to get pregnant because she and Finn had “forgotten” to use protection. And then in a nightmare moment, the girl seemed to remember (a) that Molly was standing at a locker a few feet away and (b) that she’d also been with Finn that night, though not in nearly such an intimate way.

Heat rose in Molly’s cheeks at the memory. Everyone in school had soon known that Finn had ditched her to spend the rest of the evening with someone more in his league. And they’d sure had a great time.

She realized then that even though she hadn’t thought about it in a long time, she hadn’t forgotten the searing humiliation of the homecoming episode—she’d buried it and stacked rocks on top. But the feelings were pushing their way to the surface, and Molly discovered that those feelings were still just a bit raw. She didn’t have to put up with guys like Finn or Blake anymore. Not for one lousy second.

“You know,” she finally said, hoping he didn’t notice her overly pink cheeks, but needing closure on this matter, “I can understand how being saddled with a date our mothers cooked up might not have been the greatest, but did you really have to nail Sheena that same night?”

“Shayna.”

“I stand corrected.”

Finn shifted his weight uncomfortably. Good. “I didn’t intend to humiliate you.”

“Well, you did.”

“Obviously you’re still angry about it.” He quickly held up a hand. “Not that you don’t have cause. You do.”

“I’m not angry.” Molly drew in a breath. “But you know, honestly? I’ll be more comfortable calling a professional for this job.” She’d made her point and now she wanted him gone.

Finn rubbed the back of his neck as if his muscles had gone tight, then met her gaze, and she was irritated to discover that she still thought he had pretty amazing eyes. “Let me look at the problem. I owe you.”

“You owe me?” She spoke on an incredulous note.

“I showed poor judgment.”

“You were monumentally insensitive.”

“I was a horny teenage boy.”

“Who didn’t make one move on me.” The words blurted out and Molly was surprised to find that she didn’t regret them. Not one bit.

A look of surprise crossed his face. “You were so...”

He stopped before he got himself into trouble, but Molly was not letting him off the hook. Her eyebrows lifted coolly. “Please. Finish your thought.”

“Mousy.”

Molly’s eyes went shut for a fraction of a second as her lips thinned. Yes, she’d been mousy. Which was worse than being invisible, which is what she’d thought she’d been. She opened her eyes again and fixed her gaze over his head at his Mustang as her economical self battled with her pride. On the one hand, the incident had occurred a long time ago. His grandfather was her neighbor. On the other, he’d taken her out on a date, dumped her and screwed another woman that same night.

“Tell your grandfather thanks for sending you.” She started to cross her arms over her chest, then stopped abruptly. No more drawing into herself. “I appreciate you taking the time to stop by. I’ll reimburse you for your gas.”

“Forget the gas,” he said. “And for what it’s worth, I apologize for what I did.”

“Accepted.” Molly meant what she said—even as she wondered if he did—because she was not going to let ancient history weigh on her. But she also wasn’t having the guy work on her drain. Wouldn’t be beholden to him in any way, shape or form. “Now, if you don’t mind...I have more unpacking to do.”

* * *

“YOU’RE BACK ALREADY?” Mike looked over his glasses at Finn.

“Your neighbor—” for the life of him he couldn’t remember her last name “—wants to hire a professional.”

“Are you sure it’s not a case of her feeling uncomfortable about taking up your time and getting help for free? I mean, she wasn’t just being nice, was she?”

“Trust me. She wasn’t being nice.” She was totally pissed over an incident that he’d long forgotten. He doubted very much that she’d walked around regularly stewing about the incident for the past dozen years, but there’d been no question that once she’d been reminded, she still harbored resentment.

“Meaning?”

“She didn’t want me to do it. Maybe she took one look at me and decided I was incompetent.” Or an asshole. Actually, there was no maybe about that. He was not on her A-list.

Mike studied Finn for a long moment, his gray eyebrows coming close together, making Finn feel very much as he had when he’d been guilty of some kid crime and Mike had wanted him to fess up on his own. Finn always had, but today he didn’t think that Mike needed to know all the details of what had gone down between him and Molly whose-last-name-escaped-him.

“Is something weighing on you?” Mike finally asked. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”

Finn gave a snort. “I’m good.”

“You seem unsettled.”

Finn almost said something about the military changing a man, but he didn’t want his grandfather to latch on to the notion that he was suffering from PTSD. He wasn’t. He forced a smile. “Maybe I grew up a little while I was overseas. I’m fine. Anything else?”

His grandfather took a few seconds before shaking his head in a way that told Finn that the matter was not yet considered finished. “Nope.” Mike focused back on the ledger in front of him and Finn left the office.

Until now, he’d thought he’d done a pretty good job of hiding the fact that he no longer wanted to spend his life selling grain and Western doodads. He wanted to do something that spoke to him, that meant something. It wasn’t sales and it wasn’t mechanics, which had been his specialty in the service.

Finn had always been woefully bad about choosing the right path, unlike his cousin Dylan, who’d managed the store while he was overseas. He and Dylan had grown up together, sons of brothers, but Dylan’s father had been terminally ill during their teen years, so his cousin had been all about school and academics and doing well so that his father would be proud. Finn had been all about good times. Academics had never interested him. He excelled at sports, so that was what he’d pursued. After graduating from high school, he slid into the family business, apprenticing under Mike before taking it over when Mike semiretired.

The business had done all right under his watch, but it hadn’t thrived as it had under Dylan’s—or rather his fiancée Jolie’s—and Finn knew that was because managing the store was not what he wanted to do. It was what had been easy to do. His real life had started after closing, but that life—hitting the bars, playing sports, watching games—no longer called to him, either.

During the service a crazy thing had happened—he’d discovered that he enjoyed teaching new recruits the ins and outs of mechanics and enjoyed working with people in a way that didn’t involve ringing up a sale or loading a bag of grain. Teaching made him feel...valuable...in a way he’d never felt before, and on the flight back to the States, he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to teach industrial arts, to show kids how to work with their hands. He had a feeling he’d be good at it, that it would give him satisfaction, but he didn’t know how his grandfather was going to take his abandoning the store.

Mike was getting older, had retired once, and there would come a time when he would retire again. Who would manage the place then? Because both he and Mike felt strongly about having a family member present in the family business.

Maybe Jolie when she and Dylan returned?

That would be a perfect solution.

One that he was going to discuss with his cousin as soon as he got a chance.

* * *

AS SOON AS the water had gone down, Molly took the top off the drain and shone a flashlight down the drainpipe, but she couldn’t see any obvious obstructions. She then pulled up a video on YouTube about snaking drains and watched it with Georgina looking on over her shoulder.

“Where are we going to get one of those things?” Georgina asked, pointing at the reel holding the industrial-size snake.

“I don’t think we are.” Not unless she could find a place that rented the equipment. She doubted that Finn had the equipment necessary to handle the problem either...unless of course he was a plumber. Which was totally possible, so she paid close attention to the last names of the plumbing experts she found online before choosing one to call. She wasn’t about to ask Mike Culver for his recommendation again, because she didn’t want to explain why she’d sent his grandson packing. She hoped to stay friendly with her neighbors.

Plumbers in the area were busier than she’d anticipated, working on the new houses going in around the lake. But the forecast was clear and sunny for the next seven days, so Molly didn’t panic when she couldn’t get an immediate appointment without paying an emergency fee. She took the first regular appointment, two weeks away, and told Georgina that they wouldn’t be storing anything that wasn’t waterproof in the garage for a while.