This Heart Of Mine

Chapter 24

Only the presence of the kids made the trip back to Chicago bearable. It had always been difficult for Molly to hide her feelings from her sister, but this time she had to. She couldn't taint Phoebe and Dan's relationship with Kevin any further.

Her condo was musty from having been closed up for nearly three weeks and even dustier than when she'd left. Her hands itched to start scrubbing and polishing, but cleaning chores would have to wait until tomorrow. With Roo scampering ahead, she carried her suitcases to the sleeping loft, then forced herself back down the steps to her desk and the black plastic crate that held her files.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she pulled out her last contract with Birdcage and flipped through the pages.

Just as she'd thought.

She gazed up at the windows that stretched all the way to the ceiling, studied the mellowed brick walls and cozy kitchen, watched the play of light on the hardwood floors. Home.

Two miserable weeks later Molly stepped from the elevator onto the ninth floor of the Michigan Avenue office building that held the offices of Birdcage Press. She retied the cardigan around the waist of her red-and-white checked gingham sheath and made her way down the corridor to Helen Kennedy Schott's office. Molly had long ago passed the point where she could turn back, and she only hoped the concealer she'd dabbed under her eyes hid the shadows.

Helen rose to greet her from behind a desk cluttered with manuscripts, galleys, and book covers. Even though the weather was muggy, she was dressed in her customary editorial black. Her short gray hair lay neatly against her head, and although she wore no makeup, her nails shone with slick crimson polish. "Molly, it's wonderful to see you again. I'm so glad you finally called. I'd nearly given up trying to get hold of you."

"It's good to see you," Molly replied politely, because no matter what Kevin said about her, she was, by nature, a polite person.

A strip of the Chicago River was visible through the office window, but the colorful display of children's books on the shelves drew Molly's attention. As Helen chatted about the new marketing manager, Molly spotted the bright slender spines of the first five Daphne books. Knowing that Daphne Takes a Tumble would never join them should have felt like a stab in the heart, but that part of her was too numb right now to feel anything more.

"I'm so glad we're finally having this meeting," Helen said. "We have lots to talk about."

"Not so much." Molly couldn't prolong this. She opened her purse, drew out a white business envelope, and set it on the desk. "This is a check reimbursing Birdcage for the first half of the advance you paid for Daphne Takes a Tumble."

Helen looked stunned. "We don't want the advance back. We want to publish the book."

"I'm afraid you won't be able to. I'm not making the revisions."

"Molly, I know you haven't been happy with us, and it's time to sort this out. From the beginning we've only wanted what was best for your career."

"I only want what's best for my readers."

"We do, too. Please try to understand. Authors tend to look at a project only from their perspective, but a publisher has to look at the larger picture, including our relationship with the press and the community. We felt we had no choice."

"Everybody has a choice, and an hour ago I exercised mine."

"What do you mean?"

"I published Daphne Takes a Tumble myself. The original version."

"You published it?" Helen's eyebrows shot up. "What are you talking about?"

"I published it on the Internet."

Helen erupted from her chair. "You can't do that! We have a contract!"

"If you check the fine print, you'll see that I retain the electronic rights to all my books."

Helen looked stunned. The larger publishing houses had plugged this hole in their contracts, but some of the smaller presses like Birdcage hadn't gotten around to it. "I can't believe you did this."

"Now any child who wants to read Daphne Takes a Tumble and see the original illustrations will be able to do it." Molly had planned a big speech, complete with references to book burning and the First Amendment, but she no longer had the energy. Pushing the check forward, she rose from her chair and walked out.

"Molly, wait!"

She'd done what she needed to, and she didn't stop. As she headed for her car, she tried to feel triumphant, but she mainly felt drained. A college friend had helped her set up the Web site. In addition to the text and drawings for Daphne Takes a Tumble, Molly had included a page that listed some of the books various organizations had tried to keep out of children's hands over the years because of their content or illustrations. The list included Little Red Riding Hood, all the Harry Potter books, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Harriet the Spy, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, as well as the books of Judy Blume, Maurice Sendak, the Brothers Grimm, and Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. At the end of the list, Molly had added Daphne Takes a Tumble. She wasn't Anne Frank, but she felt better being in such wonderful company. She only wished she could call Kevin and tell him that she'd finally fought for her bunny.

She made a few stops to pick up supplies, then swung onto Lake Shore Drive and headed north to Evanston. The traffic was light, and it didn't take her nearly long enough to get to the moldy old brownstone where she now lived. She hated her second-floor apartment with its view of the Dumpster behind a Thai restaurant, but it was the only place she could afford that would take a dog.

She tried not to think about her little condo, where strangers had already moved in. Evanston didn't have many loft conversions available, and the building had a waiting list of people anxious to buy, so she'd known it would sell quickly. Even so, she hadn't been prepared for it to go in less than twenty-four hours. The new owners had paid her a premium to sublease while they waited for the final paperwork, so she'd had to scramble to find a rental, and here she was in this dismal building. But she had the money to repay her advance and settle her bills.

She parked on the street two blocks away because her Slytherin landlord charged seventy dollars a month for a parking spot in the lot attached to the building. As she climbed the worn steps to her apartment, the El tracks shrieked just outside the windows. Roo greeted her at the door, then scampered across the worn linoleum and began to bark at the sink.

"Not again."

The apartment was so small that she had no place for her books, and she crawled over the packing boxes on her way to the kitchen sink. She gingerly opened the door, peered inside, and shuddered. Another mouse quivered in her Hav-A-Heart trap. The third one she'd caught, and she'd lived here for only a few days.

Maybe she could get another Chik article out of this-"Why Guys Who Hate Small Animals Aren't Always Bad News." Her cooking piece had just gone into the mail. At first she'd called it "Breakfasts That Won't Make Him Puke: Scramble His Brains with Your Eggs." Just before she'd slipped it into the envelope, she'd come to her senses and substituted "Early-Morning Turn-ons."

She was writing every day. As devastated as she was about everything, she hadn't given up and gone to bed the way she'd done after her miscarriage. Instead, she was facing her pain and doing her best to live through it. But her heart had never felt emptier.

She missed Kevin so much. Each night she lay in bed staring at the ceiling and remembering how his arms had felt around her. But it had been so much more than sex. He'd understood her better than she'd understood herself, and he'd been her soul mate in every way but the one that counted. He didn't love her.

With a sigh that came from the bottom of her being, she set aside her purse, slipped on the gardening gloves she'd bought along with the trap, and warily reached under the sink for the handle on the small cage. At least her bunny was hopping free and happy in cyberspace. Which was more than she could say about the rodent.

She let out a squeak as the frightened mouse started scampering around the cage. "Please don't do that. Just be quiet, and I promise I'll have you in the park before you know it." Where was a man when you needed one?

Her heart contracted in another achy spasm. The couple Kevin had hired to take over at the campground would be in place by now, so he was probably back in town partying with the international set. Please, God, don't let him be sleeping with any of them. Not yet.

Lilly had left several messages on her answering machine wanting to know if Molly was all right, but she still hadn't returned them. What could she say? That she'd had to sell her condo? That she'd lost her publisher? That her heart had suffered a permanent break? At least she could afford an attorney now, so she had a shot at being able to get out of her contract and sell her next Daphne book to another publisher.

She held the cage as far away as she could and retrieved her keys. She was on her way to the door when the buzzer sounded. The mouse had given her the heebie-jeebies, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Just a minute."

Still holding the cage at arm's length, she stepped around another book box and opened the door.

Helen charged inside. "Molly, you ran out before we could talk. Oh, God!"

"Helen, meet Mickey."

Helen pressed her hand to her heart, the color bleaching from her face. "A pet?"

"Not exactly." Molly set the cage on a packing box, but Roo didn't like that. "Quiet, pest! I'm afraid this isn't the best time for a visit, Helen. I have to go to the park."

"You're taking it on an outing?"

"Releasing it."

"I'll-I'll come with you."

Molly should have enjoyed seeing her sophisticated former editor so discomposed, but the mouse had discomposed her, too. With the cage held far from her body, she led the way outside and began winding through the back alleys of downtown Evanston toward the park by the lake. Helen, in her black suit and heels, wasn't dressed for either the heat or stumbling around potholes, but Molly hadn't invited her to come along, so she refused to take pity.

"I didn't know you'd moved," Helen called from behind. "Luckily, I ran into one of your neighbors, and he gave me your new address. C-couldn't you release it somewhere closer?"

"I don't want him to find his way back."

"Or use a more permanent trap?"

"Absolutely not."

Although it was a weekday, the park was filled with bicyclists, college students on Rollerblades, and children. Molly found a grassy area and set the cage down, then hesitantly reached for the latch. As soon as she sprang it, Mickey made his leap for freedom.

Straight toward Helen.

Her editor gave a strangled cry and leaped up on a picnic bench. Mickey disappeared into the shrubbery.

"Beastly things." Helen sagged down on the tabletop.

Molly was feeling a little wobbly-kneed, too, so she sat on the bench. Beyond the edge of the park, Lake Michigan stretched to the horizon. She gazed out and thought of a smaller lake with a cliff for diving.

Helen pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her forehead. "There's just something about a mouse."

There were no mice in Nightingale Woods. Molly'd have to add one if she ever found a new publisher.

She gazed at her old editor. "If you've come here to threaten me with a lawsuit, you're not going to get much."

"Why would we want to sue our favorite author?" Helen pulled out the envelope that held Molly's check and set it on the bench. "I'm giving this back. And when you look inside, you'll see a second check for the remainder of your advance. Really, Molly, you should have told me how strongly you felt about the revisions. I'd never have asked you to make them."

Molly didn't even try to respond to that piece of Slytherin crapola. Nor did she pick up the envelope.

Helen's tone grew more effusive. "We're going to publish Daphne Takes a Tumble in its original version. I'm putting it on the winter schedule so we have time to line up promotion. We're planning an extensive marketing campaign, with full-page ads in all the big parenting magazines, and we're sending you on a book tour."

Molly wondered if the sun had gotten to her. "Daphne Takes a Tumble is already available on the Internet."

"We'd like you to remove it, but we'll leave the final decision up to you. Even if you decide to keep the Web site, we believe most parents will still want to buy the actual book to add to their children's collections."

Molly couldn't imagine how she'd been so magically transformed from a minor author to a major one. "I'm afraid you'll need to do better than this, Helen."

"We're prepared to renegotiate your contract. I'm sure you'll be pleased with the terms."

Molly had been asking for an explanation, not for more money, but she somehow got in touch with her inner tycoon. "You'll have to deal with my new agent about that."

"Of course."

Molly had no agent, new or old. Her career had been so small that she hadn't needed one, but something had definitely changed. "Tell me what's happened, Helen."

"It was the publicity. The new sales figures just came out two days ago. Between the press coverage of your marriage and the SKIFSA stories, your sales have soared."

"But I was married in February, and SKIFSA went after me in April. You're just noticing?"

"We spotted the first rise in March and another in April. But the numbers weren't all that significant until we got our end-of-the-month report for May. And the preliminary June figures are even better."

Molly decided it was a good thing she was sitting down, because her legs would never have held her. "But the publicity had died down. Why are the numbers shooting up now?"

"That's what we wanted to find out, so we've spent some time on the phones taking with booksellers. They're telling us that adults originally bought a Daphne book out of curiosity-either they'd heard about your marriage or they wanted to see what SKIFSA was so upset about. But once they took the book home, their kids fell in love with the characters, and now they're coming back to the stores and buying the whole series."

Molly was stunned. "I can't believe this."

"The kids are showing the books to their friends. We're hearing that even parents who've supported SKIFSA's other boycotts are buying the Daphne books."

"I'm having a hard time taking this in."

"I understand." Helen crossed her legs and smiled. "After all these years you're finally an overnight success. Congratulations, Molly."

Janice and Paul Hubert were the perfect couple to run a bed-and-breakfast. Mrs. Hubert's eggs were never cold, and none of her cookies burned on the bottom. Mr. Hubert actually enjoyed unstopping toilets and could talk to the guests for hours without getting bored. Kevin fired them after a week and a half.

"Need some help?"

He pulled his head out of the refrigerator and saw Lilly standing just inside the kitchen door. It was eleven at night, two weeks and one day since Molly had left. It was also four days since he'd fired the Huberts, and everything had turned to crap.

Training camp started in a couple of weeks, and he wasn't ready. He knew he should tell Lilly that he was glad she'd stayed to help out, but he hadn't gotten around to it, and it made him feel guilty. There'd been something sad about her ever since Liam Jenner had stopped showing up for breakfast. Once he'd even tried to mention it, but he'd been clumsy, and she'd pretended not to understand.

"I'm looking for rapid-rise yeast. Amy left a note that she might need some. What the hell is rapid-rise yeast?"

"I have no idea," she replied. "My baking is pretty much limited to box mixes."

"Yeah. Screw it." He shut the door.

"Missing the Huberts?"

"No. Only the way she cooked and the way he took care of everything."

"Ah." She gazed at him, amusement temporarily overriding her unhappiness.

"I didn't like how she treated the kids," he muttered. "And he was making Troy nuts. Who cares if the grass gets mowed clockwise or counterclockwise?"

"She didn't exactly ignore the kids. She just didn't pass out cookies to every scamp who showed up at the kitchen door like Molly did."

"That old witch shooed them off like they were cockroaches. And forget about taking a few minutes to tell the kids a story. Is that too much to ask? If a kid wants to hear a story, don't you think she could put down her damn Lysol bottle long enough to tell 'em a story?"

"I never heard any of the kids actually ask Mrs. Hubert to tell them a story."

"They sure as hell asked Molly!"

"True."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

Kevin opened the lid on the cookie jar, but closed it again when he remembered the ones inside were store bought. He reached into the refrigerator for a beer instead. "Her husband was even worse."

"When I heard him tell the kids not to play soccer on the Common because they were ruining the grass, I figured he might be doomed."

"Slytherin."

"The B &B guests did love the Huberts, though," she pointed out.

"That's because they don't have kids here like the cottage people do."

He offered her a beer, but she shook her head and got a water tumbler from the cupboard instead. "I'm glad the O'Brians are staying for another week," she said, "but I miss Cody and the Kramer girls. Still, the new kids are cute. I saw you bought more bikes."

"I forgot about the rug rats. We needed some Big Wheels."

"The older kids all seem to be enjoying the basketball hoop, and you did the right thing hiring a lifeguard."

"Some of the parents are a little too casual." He carried his beer over to the kitchen table, took a seat, then hesitated. But he'd already put this off long enough. "I really appreciate the way you've been helping out."

"I don't mind, but I do miss Molly. Everything's more fun when she's around."

He felt himself growing defensive. "I don't think so. We've had lots of fun without her."

"No, we haven't. The O'Brian boys keep complaining, the old folks miss her, and you've been grouchy and unreasonable." She leaned against the sink. "Kevin, it's been two weeks. Don't you think it's time to go after her? Amy and Troy and I can take care of the place for a few days."

Didn't she realize he'd already thought about this from a hundred different angles? There was nothing he wanted more, but he couldn't go after her, not unless he wanted to settle down forever as a married man, and that was something he couldn't do. "It wouldn't be fair."

"Fair to whom?"

He poked at the label on the bottle with his thumbnail. "She told me… She has feelings."

"I see. And you don't?"

He had more feelings than he knew what to do with, but none of them were going to make him lose sight of what was most important. "Maybe in five or six years things will be different, but I don't have time right now for anything but my career. And let's be realistic-can you see Molly and me together long-term?"

"Without any trouble."

"Come on!" He shot up from his chair. "I'm a jock! I love being active, and she hates sports."

"For someone who hates sports, she's an excellent athlete."

"She's okay, I guess."

"She swims beautifully and dives like a champ."

"That's just from summer camp."

"She plays an excellent game of Softball."

"Summer camp."

"She knows everything about football."

"That's only because-"

"She plays soccer."

"Just with Tess."

"She's studied martial arts."

He'd forgotten about that kung fu move she'd put on him last winter.

"And she told me she'd played on her high school tennis team."

"There you go. I hate tennis."

"Probably because you're no good at it."

How did Lilly know that?

Lilly's smile looked dangerously sympathetic. "I'd say you're going to have a hard time finding a woman who's as athletic and adventurous as Molly Somerville."

"I'll bet she wouldn't go skydiving."

"I'll bet she would."

Even to his own ears he sounded sulky. And Lilly was right about the skydiving. He could almost hear the sound of Molly's screams when he pushed her out of the plane. But he knew she'd love it as soon as her chute popped.

He still felt queasy about her falling in love with him. And angry, too. This had been temporary right from the beginning, so it wasn't as if he'd led her on. And he sure hadn't made any promises. Hell, half the time he'd barely been civil.

It was the sex. Everything had been fine up until then. If he'd kept his pants zipped and his hands to himself, she'd have been fine, but he hadn't been able to do that, not when they were together day after day. And who could blame him?

He thought of the way she laughed. What man wouldn't want to feel that laughter under his lips? And those blue-gray eyes with their wicked tilt were a deliberate sexual challenge. How could he have thought about anything except making love when they were turned his way?

But Molly knew the rules, and great sex wasn't a promise, not in this day and age. All that crap she'd handed out about his not making emotional connections couldn't have been more wrong. He had connections, all right. Important ones. He had Cal and Jane Bonner.

Whom he hadn't talked to in weeks.

He gazed at Lilly. Maybe because it was late and his defenses were down, he found himself telling her more than he intended. "Molly has some opinions about me I don't share."

"What kinds of opinions?"

"She thinks…" He set down his beer bottle. "She says I'm emotionally shallow."

"You are not!" Lilly's eyes flashed. "What a terrible thing to say!"

"Yeah, but the thing is-"

"You're a very complicated man. My God, if you were shallow, you'd have gotten rid of me right away."

"I tried-"

"You'd have given me a few pats on the shoulder and promised to send me a Christmas card. I'd have been satisfied and driven off into the sunset. But you're too emotionally honest to do that, which is why my being here has been so painful for you."

"That's nice of you to say, but-"

"Oh, Kevin… you mustn't ever think of yourself as shallow. I love Molly, but if I ever hear her say anything like that about you, she and I are going to have words."

Kevin wanted to laugh, but his eyes were starting to sting, and his feet were moving, and the next thing he knew, his arms just opened up. Leave it to a man's mother to come to his defense when the chips were down, even if he didn't deserve it.

He gave her a fierce, possessive hug. She made a sound that reminded him of the mew of a newborn kitten.

He hugged her closer. "There are some things I've been wanting to ask you."

A shaky sob against his chest.

He cleared his throat. "Did you ever have to take music lessons and stink at the piano?"

"Oh, Kevin… I still don't know one note from another."

"And do you ever get a rash around your mouth when you eat tomatoes?"

Her grip on him tightened. "If I have too many."

"And what about sweet potatoes?" He heard a hiccuped sob. "Everybody likes them but me, so I wondered…" He stopped because it was getting hard for him to speak. At the same time, pieces inside him that had never quite fit began to come together.

For a while they simply held each other. Finally they began to talk, trying to catch up on three decades in one night, stumbling over their words as they filled in the blanks. By unspoken consent they avoided only two topics: Molly and Liam Jenner.

At three in the morning, when they finally parted at the top of the steps, Lilly stroked his cheek. "Good night, sweetheart."

"Good night-" Good night, Mother. That's what he wanted to say, but it felt like a betrayal of Maida Tucker, and he couldn't do that. Maida might not have been the mother of his dreams, but she'd loved him with all her heart, and he'd loved her right back. He smiled. "Good night, Lilly Mom."

The waterworks really opened up then. "Oh, Kevin… Kevin, my sweet little boy."

He drifted off to sleep with a smile on his lips.

When the alarm forced him out of bed a few hours later to start breakfast, he thought about the night before and the fact that Lilly would be a permanent part of his life now. It felt good. Exactly right.

But nothing else did.

As he made his way down to the gray, empty kitchen, he told himself there was no reason to feel guilty about Molly, but that didn't seem to matter to his conscience. Until he figured out some way to make amends, he'd never be able to stop thinking about her.

Then it came to him. The perfect solution.

Molly stared at Kevin's attorney. "He's giving me the campground?"

The attorney shifted his weight closer to the center of the packing box that held Molly's computer. "He called me first thing yesterday morning. I'm finalizing the paperwork now."

"I don't want it! I'm not taking anything from him."

"He must have known you'd react that way, because he said to tell you if you refused, he'd let Eddie Dillard bulldoze the place. I don't think he was kidding."

She wanted to scream, but it wasn't the attorney's fault that Kevin was high-handed and manipulative, so she controlled her temper. "Is there anything to prevent me from giving the campground away?"

"No."

"All right, I'll accept. And then I'm giving it away."

"I don't think he'll be too happy about that."

"Hand him a box of tissues."

The attorney was young, and he gave her a halfway-flirtatious smile, then gathered up his briefcase and made his way through the furniture to the door. In deference to the July heat, he wasn't wearing a suit coat, but her apartment didn't have air-conditioning, and there was a damp spot on his back. "You might want to get up there fairly soon. Kevin's left, and there's no one in charge."

"I'm sure there is. He hired someone to take over."

"They didn't seem to work out."

Molly wasn't a swearing person, but she could barely hold back a big one. She'd had only forty-eight hours to get used to being a successful children's book author, and now this.

As soon as the attorney left, she crawled over the couch to retrieve her phone and call her new agent, the best contract negotiator in town. "Phoeb, it's me."

"Hey, big-time author! Talks are going well, but I'm still not satisfied with the up-front money they're offering."

She heard the relish in her sister's voice. "Just don't bankrupt them."

"It's so tempting."

They chatted about the negotiations for a few minutes before Molly got to the point, doing her best to say it without choking. "Kevin's just done the sweetest thing."

"Walked blindfolded in front of speeding traffic?"

"Don't be like that, Phoebe." She was definitely going to strangle on this. "He's a great guy. As a matter of fact, he's given me the campground as a surprise."

"You're kidding."

Molly gripped the receiver tighter. "He knows how much I love it there."

"I understand that, but…"

"I'm going to drive up tomorrow. I'm not sure how long I'll stay."

"At least this will get you out of that fleabag apartment until we finish negotiating your contract. I suppose I should be grateful."

It had been humiliating telling Phoebe that she'd been forced to sell her condo. To her sister's credit, she hadn't offered to bail Molly out, but that didn't mean she'd kept quiet.

Molly got off the phone as soon as she could and glanced over at Roo, who was trying to keep cool under the kitchen table. "Go ahead and say it. My timing sucks. If I'd waited two weeks, we'd still be in our old place basking in air-conditioning."

It might have been her imagination but Roo looked censorious. The traitor missed Kevin.

"Let's get our chores done, pal. First thing tomorrow we're taking off for the North Woods."

Roo perked up.

"Don't get too excited, because we're not staying. I meant it, Roo, I'm giving the place away!"

Except she wouldn't. She kicked a dish box aside, wishing it were Kevin's head. He'd done this out of guilt. This was his way of trying to make it up to her because she'd fallen in love with him and he didn't love her back.

A great big pity present.