This Heart Of Mine

Chapter 26

Daphne was in a very bad mood. It followed her around while she baked her favorite oatmeal-strawberry cookies, and it stuck to her side when she talked to Murphy Mouse, who'd moved into the woods a few weeks before. Even the big pile of shiny new coins jingling in her pink backpack didn't make her feel better. She wanted to run to Melissa's house for cheering up, but Melissa was planning a trip to Paris with her new friend, Leo the Bullfrog. Most of all Daphne was in a very bad mood because she missed Benny. He made her angry sometimes, but he was still her best friend. Except she wasn't his best friend anymore. Daphne loved Benny, but Benny didn't love her. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the strap from her electric guitar. His new school started today, and he'd be having so much fun that he wouldn't even think about her. He'd be thinking about touchdowns instead, and all the girl rabbits who'd be hanging out by the fence wearing tube tops and trying to entice him with foreign phrases and puffy lips and bouncy breasts. Girls who didn't understand him like she did, who were impressed with his fame and money and green eyes, and didn't know that he loved cats and needed entertaining sometimes and didn't hate poodles nearly as much as he thought, and that he liked to sleep cuddled around her with his hand-

Molly ripped the paper from her yellow pad. This was supposed to be Daphne's Bad Mood, not Daphne Does Dallas. She gazed out across Bobolink Meadow and wondered how some parts of her life could be so happy and some parts so sad.

The sweatshirt she'd spread in the grass had bunched under her bare legs. It was Kevin's. As she straightened it, she tried to concentrate on the happy parts of her life.

Thanks to her new contract, she was financially secure for the first time since she'd given away her money, and she was bursting with ideas for new books. The campground and B &B were filled to capacity, and the more responsibility she gave Amy and Troy, the more they were able to handle.

Their feelings toward the place had become as proprietary as her own, and they'd asked her to consider converting the attic into an apartment where they could live year-round. They wanted to keep the B &B open all winter for cross-country skiing and snowmobile enthusiasts, as well as city people who simply felt like enjoying winter in the country. Molly had decided to let them do it. When Kevin had been searching for someone to run the campground full-time, he'd overlooked the obvious.

She hated how much she missed him. He probably didn't even think about her. She knew now that was his loss. She'd offered him her most precious possession, and instead of holding on tight, he'd thrown it away.

She snatched up her writing pad. If she couldn't work on Daphne's Bad Mood, she could at least make a list of groceries for Troy to pick up in town. Amy was baking her new specialty for tea-dirt cupcakes, which were chocolate cup-cakes topped with green coconut frosting and Gummi Worms. Molly was going to miss Lilly's help with the guests, although not nearly as much as she'd miss her companionship. Her mood lifted a little as she thought about how happy Lilly and Leo the Bullfrog were.

She heard a movement behind her and set aside the notepad. One of the guests had found her hiding place. So far that morning she'd made restaurant reservations, drawn maps to antique stores and golf courses, unstopped a toilet, taped up a broken window, and helped the older kids organize a scavenger hunt.

Giving in to the inevitable, she turned-and saw Kevin coming around the fence at the bottom of the meadow.

She forgot to breathe. The frames of his silver Revos glinted, and the breeze tousled his hair. He wore a pair of khaki slacks with a light blue T-shirt. Only as he came closer did she see a picture of Daphne printed on the front.

Kevin stopped where he was and stood there simply gazing at her. Molly sat crossed-legged in the meadow with the sun shining on her bare shoulders and a pair of yellow butterflies fluttering like hair bows around her head. She was all the dreams he'd lost at dawn-dreams of everything he hadn't understood he needed until now. She was his playmate, his confidante, the lover who made his blood rush. She was the mother of his children and the companion of his old age. She was the joy of his heart.

And she was gazing at him as if a skunk had just wandered out of the woods.

'What do you want?'

What had happened to Kiss me, you fool? Riiiight… He pulled off his sunglasses and tried a little of the old playboy smile. 'So how's it going?'

Had he really said that? Had he really said 'how's it going?' He deserved everything she was going to throw at him.

'Couldn't be better. Nice T-shirt. Now get off my property.'

So much for the woman who'd wished him all the best the last time they'd been together. 'I, uh… heard you might be selling the place.'

'When I get around to it.'

'Maybe I'll buy it back.'

'Maybe you won't.' She stood up, and a few blades of grass stuck to the side of one of those legs he loved to touch. 'Why aren't you at training camp?'

'Training camp?' He slipped his sunglasses into his shirt pocket.

'Veterans are supposed to report this morning.'

'Damn. I guess I'm in trouble then.'

'Did Phoebe send you here?'

'Not exactly.'

'Then what's going on?'

'I wanted to talk to you, that's all. Tell you some things.'

'You're supposed to be at training camp.'

'I think you already mentioned that.'

'One phone call and I can find out why you're not there.'

He hadn't wanted to do this yet, and his hands found their way into his pockets. 'First, maybe you'd better hear what I have to say.'

'Give me your cell phone.'

'It's in the car.'

She grabbed a sweatshirt he seemed to remember belonged to him and marched toward the fence at the bottom of the meadow. 'I'll call from the house.'

'I'm AWOL, okay? I'm being traded!'

She spun around. 'Traded? They can't do that.'

'They're crazy, and they can do just about anything they want.'

'Not without throwing away the season.' She twisted the arms of his sweatshirt into a knot at her waist and charged toward him. 'Tell me exactly what happened. Every word.'

'I don't want to.' His throat felt tight and his tongue clumsy. 'I want to tell you how pretty you are.'

She regarded him suspiciously. 'I look just like I did the last time you saw me, except my nose is sunburned.'

'You're beautiful.' He moved closer. 'And I want to marry you. For real. Forever.'

She blinked. 'Why?'

This wasn't going the way he'd planned it. He wanted to touch her, but the frown marks between her eyebrows made him think twice. 'Because I love you. I really do. More than I ever could have imagined.'

Perfect silence.

'Molly, listen to me. I'm sorry about what happened, sorry it's taken me so long to figure out what I want, but when I was with you, I was having too good a time to think. After you left, though, things weren't so good, and I realized that everything you said about me is right. I was afraid. I let football become my whole life. It was the only thing I was sure of, and that's why I got so reckless this year. There was something missing inside me I was trying to fill up, but I went about doing it the wrong way. But there sure isn't anything missing inside me now, because you're there.'

Molly's heart was pounding so loudly she was afraid he could hear. Did he mean it? He looked as if he meant it-worried, upset, more serious than she'd ever seen him. What if he really meant it?

As a child who'd been emotionally abused, she had a strong survivor's instinct, and it kicked in. 'Tell me about