“Molly, please tell me you never got my messages.” Francie turned her back on Molly’s father, ignoring his comment.
Molly was not ready to cope with her mother’s senseless emotional outbursts in light of the serious events happening within the family. “I got them. I just haven’t had time to deal with you.”
Francie stepped toward her, undeterred. “Well, it’s a good thing I decided to come here and talk to you or who knows when you’d have gotten back to me.”
From the corner of her gaze, Molly caught sight of Hunter inching through the front door. “Actually, now’s not a good time. I was just on my way out with Hunter.” She slipped behind her mother and came up beside him.
“Hey, how come she gets to go?” Jessie asked, obviously feeling left out since Seth was her best friend.
Molly shot her sister an apologetic glance and gestured behind her mother’s back as an explanation. Jessie might be furious with Molly at the moment, but even she had to understand that Molly couldn’t possibly deal with the pampered princess right now.
“You. Owe. Me.” Jessie spoke through clenched teeth.
Molly blew her half sister a kiss and darted out the door before Francie could come up with an excuse to keep Molly behind.
HUNTER DROVE to the church, following Molly’s directions. Though he wished she’d deal with her mother, he was actually glad she’d come along. The sudden revelation of Seth’s guilt caused all sorts of complicated emotions to rise to the surface and he could use a sounding board.
He wrapped an arm around the back of the passenger seat. “Mind if we talk?” he asked.
She shook her head. “As long as it’s not about how I avoided my mother, I’d appreciate the distraction.”
“It’s about me.”
“Then you have my undivided attention.”
Keeping his gaze on the road, he pulled his thoughts together. “When I agreed to take this case, I wasn’t emotionally involved. I mean, I was emotionally involved with you no matter how much I tried to deny it, but for the rest of the family, I was just the lawyer trying to free the general.”
Molly shifted in her seat. “Okay…” She was obviously confused.
“But the longer I stayed in your father’s house, the more I came to like and care about everyone. Including you.”
He cast a sidelong glance and caught Molly running her tongue over her glossy bottom lip. He couldn’t help but linger on her damp mouth before forcing his gaze back to the road.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m no longer the dispassionate lawyer representing a client. It’s not affecting my judgment or my ability to do my best, but it has become a disturbing fact.”
“Hunter, I’m glad you’re opening up to me, but I’m really lost,” Molly said softly. “I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make or what’s bothering you-and something obviously is.”
He smiled grimly. “Yeah, something’s bothering me.” And it wasn’t being in love with her, although that still hadn’t been dealt with at all. “Finding out that Seth killed his father was…is…a huge thing for me. The kid confronted his father on his mother’s behalf. He committed a crime, a sin, to protect his mom.”
Molly’s hand came to rest on Hunter’s thigh, and though she meant it to be comforting, his body grew aroused anyway.
“Go on,” she said, obviously unaware of his physical discomfort.
He was glad because his need to talk about his past was stronger than his desire-a huge realization for a man who never let himself even think about his days with his parents.
He gripped the wheel hard between both hands. “My childhood sucked. My father was always drunk and my mother enabled his drinking because she wasn’t much better. The house was filled with clutter-empty beer cans and bottles, half-eaten pizza in delivery boxes. Kind of like the scene you walked in on when you found me,” he admitted.
Before he could continue, Molly gestured to the large building in front of them and he pulled in to the church lot and turned off the engine. But he couldn’t turn off the memories inside him. Now that he’d begun to talk, he couldn’t seem to stop.
And he knew if he was going to help Seth, he had to finish this. Now.
“After you left that day, I looked around and saw the place through your eyes. I saw the squalor in which my parents lived and I was disgusted.” He exhaled long and hard. “Anyway, their money went on booze and cheap food, not on me. By the time child services found out they’d turned from alcohol to drugs and took me away for good, they’d beaten any sense of self-worth out of me.”
“Hunter-”
“Let me finish,” he said gruffly. “Through the years, I made some really bad, really stupid choices. The one smart decision I made, helping Lacey, landed me in juvy thanks to her bastard uncle. But in a way, he did me a favor because I was forced into a scared-straight program with real-life convicts, and I caught a glimpse of where my future might lie if I didn’t get my act together immediately.” Hunter closed his eyes and recalled the clanging sound of the prison bars shutting behind him, something the program made sure the kids heard loud and clear.
He forced his eyelids open. “All this is a long way of me saying, if I had done something like what Seth did-and believe me, but for the grace of God, I didn’t-there wouldn’t have been anybody who cared enough to bail me out.”
“I am so sorry.” A tear fell from Molly’s eyes.
He pretended not to notice. He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him. Not at this point in his life. “It’s just that being so close to Seth and his family has made me realize, maybe for the first time, how lucky I am that the mistakes I made didn’t destroy me.”
“It wasn’t luck,” Molly said as she leaned closer, her knee wedged behind the gearshift in the center console. “It was you who kept yourself together, when someone with less strength would have fallen apart or taken the wrong path. Give yourself the credit you deserve.” She planted a kiss on his cheek.
He shook his head, warmed by her compassion and support and more afraid than ever that when this was over, he’d lose the only woman he’d ever loved. “I still say there was an element of luck involved. But Seth does have people on his side and we have to go get him and convince him we can fix this somehow.”
Molly moved back to her own side of the car. “You’re right about that. And he doesn’t just have family and friends who care, he has the best damn criminal attorney ever on his side.”
Hunter met her gaze and laughed at her fierce determination. “So let’s go bring him home.”
HOURS LATER, Seth was home safely, surrounded by his family, telling his painful tale. As for Hunter, he was still in shock about the turn of events. He’d never considered Seth as a suspect and his heart broke for the boy now. Although he was happy for Molly because Frank would finally be free, Hunter was determined to see Seth through the legal process. He’d do everything in his power to secure a deal and ensure a solid future for the teen.
With Molly by his side, Hunter had found Seth in the back of the church in a pew. Apparently he’d been to confession and the priest had heard and given absolution. After counseling the boy to return home, the priest had allowed him to sit and think. Hunter had settled into a seat beside Seth, put an arm around his shoulders and talked, echoing the father’s sentiments and urging him to return home.
But he’d also opened up to the boy in a way he’d never done before, except earlier, to Molly. Hunter had talked about his life, his mistakes, the turnaround he’d made and the things Seth had in his own life that Hunter had never had. Family could turn Seth’s life around if he let it, he’d promised.
What Hunter didn’t tell Seth was how bad things could be if Hunter didn’t get the teen off. Hunter had been through juvy but he’d already been toughened by the system. Seth, with his softer lifestyle, wouldn’t survive that kind of punishment. And considering the kind of abuser his father had been, Seth shouldn’t have to. Hunter would make it his mission to see justice done in Seth’s case.