A Millionaire For Molly

much indeed. ‘But why you’d want to I don’t know.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘That’s not a nice way to greet a guest. Especially a guest who’s brought a gift.’

‘What gift?’

‘I told you. He’s brought us a froghouse,’ Sam explained, as if she was being deliberately obtuse. ‘It’s the hugest fishpond, but we’re not filling it all with water. It’s set up so there’s ponds and a waterfall and rocks for them to lie on. But we can’t get the legs together. Guy says the book of instructions reads like we’re building the Taj Mahal.’

‘Guy?’ What on earth was Angela’s fiance doing here?

‘Hi,’ Guy said over Jackson’s shoulder, and Molly’s jaw dropped somewhere round her waist.

‘Guy…’

‘That’s me.’ The man managed a smile, but only just.

‘Does Angela know you’re here?’ She was practically squeaking.

‘Yes, but she’s locked the bedroom door,’ he told her, and he sounded bewildered. ‘She was mad at me because I wouldn’t wear white shoes. White shoes, for heaven’s sake. Then, when I started talking about our wedding and said we needed to have my sisters as bridesmaids, and maybe it was time we found a nice house in the suburbs, she started burbling about elopements and purple warehouses and I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. She walked out on me. I’ve been looking for her all weekend and Sam says she’s here but she won’t talk to me. Molly, why is her engagement ring on the coffee table rather than on her finger?’

It was too much for Molly. ‘I don’t know. Go away. The lot of you.’ She was clutching her sheet and thinking her bathrobe was too far away to reach…

‘We had a big night, then, did we?’ Jackson asked. He was leaning against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest in a pose that was starting to seem dangerously familiar. He sounded full of commiseration, but his wide smile was filled with laughter.

‘You especially,’ she flashed at him. ‘Get out of my bedroom. Now!’

‘She doesn’t want us.’ Jackson’s big hand dropped to Sam’s shoulder in a gesture so familiar it had Molly’s heart doing backflips. ‘Sam, boy, we’re being rejected.’

‘At least she hasn’t taken your ring off,’ Guy told him, as lugubrious as a bloodhound on a bad day, and Jackson nodded.

‘There is that. I guess I should be grateful for small mercies. Molly, where do you want us to put your froghouse?’

‘I don’t want a froghouse!’ Molly practically yelled.

‘Molly!’ Sam said, shocked.

‘Of course you want a froghouse,’ Jackson told her. ‘You can’t keep using the bathroom floor. Someone’s going to step on one. Or…’ His eyes glinted with laughter. ‘They might hop down the toilet. Have you thought of that?’

Oh, for heaven’s sake!

‘It’d be an environmental nightmare if they reached the sewerage system.’

If only he’d stop laughing. She gritted her teeth. In fact she gritted every bone in her body and refused to respond to that gorgeous, wicked laughter. ‘Go away or I’ll scream.’

‘Why will you scream?’ Sam asked, interested, and Molly almost groaned. How on earth was she going to get out of this one?

But Jackson relented. Laughing, he took Sam’s hand-and there went Molly’s insides again in their familiar lurch-and drew him out of the room. He propelled Guy with him.

‘We men will be out in the living room when you’re up to receiving visitors,’ he told her, still laughing. ‘Meanwhile, Sam-unless you’d like to see your aunty Molly have an apoplexy, which I admit is a very interesting prospect but maybe risky for all concerned-we’d better vamoose.’

‘Vamoose?’

‘Leave your aunty Molly to recover.’

‘Angie?’

No answer.

‘Angela!’ Molly had hauled on a wrap and pulled a comb through her curls-she was now almost respectable-but she wanted support if she was to go into that living room. Supper last night had been Angela’s idea, so Angela could help her face the consequences.

‘Angie!’ The two bedrooms were off a central passage leading to the living room. As she tried Angela’s door Molly was acutely aware of the silence, and she just knew everyone was listening. She twiddled the doorknob and found it locked.

‘Come on out. I refuse to face this lot by myself.’

Nothing.

‘I’ll fix you.’ Angela was sleeping-sleeping-ha!-in Sam’s room, and the door had a child lock on it. That was, it could be locked, but in an emergency Molly could slip a nail file or a pair of scissors into the tiny slot and…

And the door opened first go.

But inside there was no Angela. There was only an empty bed and a wide open window with drapes blowing outward. With a sinking heart Molly peered out-in time to see her friend hiking off down the street as fast as her legs could carry her. She was wearing her mini-skirt of the night before, buttoning her blouse as she went and carrying her stilettos under one arm.

‘Don’t do this to me!’ she yelled to Angie’s retreating back, but just then a taxi pulled up and Angela clambered in with the speed of light. There was a wave of a frantic hand and the taxi headed out of sight.

Her friend had left her without a backward glance.

‘Oh, Angela, you fink…’

And then she turned and faced the living room door.

Help.

Sink or swim. There was no choice. She went to face the music. Alone.

It was far easier to concentrate on Guy than it was to even think about Jackson. Jackson and Sam were surrounded by construction plans, but Guy was standing by the coffee table, staring down at the ring as if it meant the end of the world as he knew it.

‘Hell.’ He lifted the ring and stared down at it, then peered down the passage. ‘Is Angie still there?’

Molly shook her head. ‘She’s gone.’

Guy sighed, his big shoulders slumping. He might be a very boring accountant, Molly thought, but right at this minute she felt sorry for him. He stood in his blue pinstripe suit with matching waistcoat, looking the very epitome of a successful accountant-and he looked as if he’d lost the world.

‘Maybe you should go after her,’ she suggested.

‘She won’t let me into her apartment. I was practically sure she was home, but she hasn’t been answering her door all weekend.’

Molly thought that through and nodded, but an idea was forming. ‘You know, Guy, you may well have an advantage.’ She motioned to the keys on the sideboard. ‘Those are Angie’s keys.’

Guy stared. ‘Her keys?’

‘They’re her car keys and her apartment keys. She left here with nothing.’ She managed a smile. ‘So she’s in trouble. Her handbag’s also still here, and she’s caught a taxi. She won’t have the money to pay and she won’t be able to get into her apartment. Guy, if you were intent on doing a spot of rescuing, now’s the time to do it.’

Guy thought this through, his accountant’s mind adding it all up. But it didn’t compute. Behind him Jackson had ceased reading plans and was watching. Waiting… ‘I don’t understand.’

She smiled at him. ‘Guy, do you need to understand to be a hero?’

Silence. Finally he lifted the engagement ring and squared his shoulders-then glanced to the construction site. ‘If you can do without me…?’

‘We’ll manage without you,’ Jackson said magnanimously. He cast Molly a curious look. ‘No keys and no money. Angie’s needs sound a lot more dire than ours.’