Chapter 29
Five minutes later, Molly’s ex-husband had finally accepted the obvious: She wasn’t going to sell him the house, no matter
what. At which point, Rob began a bitter litany of accusations, because apparently no one had ever flat-out refused the man
before when he really, really wanted something.
She was the reason their marriage had failed, he informed her.
She was hard and unforgiving.
She was irrational.
She was selfish.
With each charge laid against her, she simply blinked at him, unimpressed by his lack of creativity. Honestly, she still recalled
his I-want-a-divorce monologue just fine. If she’d wanted an encore, she could’ve simply consulted her own memories.
This delightful encounter wasn’t going to last much longer. She’d decided five minutes was more than enough time for him to
purge the vitriol from his system once and for all. After that, she’d put an end to their unexpected rendezvous—and tell him
any further contact would either happen through their lawyers or end in a restraining order.
Her hands were steady. Her cheeks had cooled.
She’d even transcribed a few key chunks of his soliloquy in her phone’s note-taking app, then discreetly posted brief updates to her social media accounts while he was still droning on and on about how terrible a wife she’d been, because when Rob got in the lecture zone, her participation was entirely unnecessary.
She was back in control.
His words stung. Of course they stung. But they didn’t wound her like they had before Karl showed up. They didn’t threaten her composure or make her doubt herself in the way Rob obviously
intended.
The man glued to her side was having a harder time maintaining his equanimity, however. And after Rob’s ridiculously hypocritical
accusation of selfishness, Karl gave up even the unconvincing pretense of putting food away. Propping his white-knuckled fists
on the catering table, wearing an expression generally reserved for bloodthirsty serial killers finally taking their knife-wielding
revenge upon their lifelong enemy, he leaned in dangerously close to her ex-husband and unleashed his tongue.
“If Molly’s hard sometimes?” A furious, rumbling sound rattled in his chest. “It’s because she’s had to be. Because motherfuckers like you
would’ve taken advantage otherwise. Part of her damn well knew she couldn’t trust you with anything soft.”
She took a sip from her water bottle. Smiled at him.
“If she’s unforgiving, it’s because you don’t deserve her goddamn forgiveness.” When his fists thumped against the table, it shuddered. “And it’s not irrational or selfish to say no to you. It’s her house, you shit stain of a man. She can do whatever she fucking wants with it.”
It was genuinely startling, the extent to which seeing—and hearing, obviously; everyone in Harlot’s Bay could probably transcribe his profanity-laden screed at this point, word for word—Karl’s anger eased hers.
Like he’d lifted its weight directly from her heart and heaved it onto his own broad shoulders, carrying it like he had so many other burdens during the course of his overworked life.
And he was only gaining momentum as he spoke. Maybe a bit too much momentum. Again: If Karl utterly lost his cool, she didn’t know whether the Harlot’s Bay jail took credit cards, and
she didn’t want to find out.
“—go fuck yourself, you prick,” he was ranting. “I’ll tear down every brick of that house with my bare hands and sledgehammer
the foundation into motherfucking atoms before I let you get your cruel—”
A single light tug on his jacket’s sleeve, and he cut himself off and looked over at her.
“You have extremely strong hands, but I doubt they’re strong enough to tear apart mortared bricks.” She covered one of those
hands with hers. Squeezed consolingly. “Even if they were, you should wear gloves to protect them. Also, a quick note: While
I have, on occasion, been referred to as a brick house—”
“She’s mighty-mighty,” Lise murmured from a few feet away.
“—my actual house is not, in fact, brick.” She raised her free forefinger. “And finally, I’m relatively certain a sledgehammer
can’t supply the force necessary to break elements down to their constituent atoms.”
His lips twitched, if only faintly. “Nitpicker.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Molly.” In the put-upon tone of a reasonable person ill-used by circumstance—oh, yes, her ex-husband had been an excellent
narrator before his decision to attend medical school—Rob addressed her directly. “Why are you letting this man speak for
you?”
“Because I’ve said what I needed to say, over and over again,” she answered plainly.
“You didn’t listen, and there’s no point wasting more of my time or energy.
Right now, I’m simply letting you run out of steam.
And for your information, I’ve already transcribed the most problematic things you told me tonight.
Just in case I need to file a restraining order. ”
While her ex-husband spluttered and postured and informed her she was overreacting—hysterical, even—Karl leaned over to plant a hard kiss on her head.
“Be right back.” He began edging around the table. “Getting us both some eel cake before it’s all gone.”
Apparently he considered the matter settled. And to be fair, the threat of legal intervention had seemingly taken most of
the wind out of Rob’s sails.
Most, but not all.
“We both know you’re not cut out for relationships, Molly.” Rob watched Karl walk over to the nearby cake display, then turned
back to Molly. “He might play the big man and beat his chest in front of your ex, but he’ll never love you.”
Over at the cake table, Karl’s shoulders bunched into hard knots of muscle, and he rumbled ominously. The word motherfucker was clearly audible, although he probably thought he was speaking under his breath.
She had to smile. “Oh, he definitely loves me. No doubt about that.”
Karl jerked and swung around to face her, a plate with an enormous, uncomfortably lifelike slab of eel cake clutched tight
in one large hand. His eyes were wide, his lips parted in shock at her announcement.
“That . . .” Rob snorted. “That apparently comes as surprise to him, Molly.”
She lifted a shoulder, unconcerned. “He hasn’t told me yet.”
Rob’s smirk spread. “I’m sure he hasn’t. Let’s find out for certain.” He turned his attention to Karl. “Do you love her? Be honest, man.”
Clearly, her ex-husband considered this a gotcha moment of the highest order. The perfect opportunity to soothe his own injured pride by watching hers get savaged.
It wasn’t going to work out the way he imagined. No matter what Karl did or didn’t say.
“Karl’s always honest,” Molly felt obligated to point out. “But he doesn’t have to share anything he doesn’t want to. If you’d
rather not respond to this jackass, Karl, feel free to ignore him.”
Karl was nearly hyperventilating. But he stepped closer anyway, plate shaking in his hand, and stopped right next to her ex-husband.
“Dearborn.” His throat bobbed with his audible gulp. “You really want me to tell you for the first time in front of this asshole?”
She huffed out an amused breath. “I might as well have one good memory associated with him. But again, it’s up to you.”
Karl closed his eyes for a moment, mouth working as he gathered the courage to bare his heart. And despite what she’d just
said, her ex-husband might as well have disappeared from the face of the Earth, along with everyone else in the gym.
All she could see was the man she loved, struggling with his fears, and she had no desire to make anything in his life harder
than it already was. Even this.
“It’s okay. Really.” She reached across the table to him. “You don’t have to—”
“Love you like oxygen, Molly,” he told her plainly, then met her stare directly. “Like fucking daylight. Good-sized part of me? Loved you for over twenty-two goddamn years now. Even when I thought I’d never fucking see you again.”
Raw honesty vibrated through each choked word, and his eyes were bright as the sun, shining with tears and gut-deep emotion.
With naked vulnerability, left unguarded and exposed.
“Oh,” she murmured through numb lips. “I . . .”
Somehow, even though she’d known, hearing the words . . . it overwhelmed her. Left her wet-eyed and thick-throated and dazed.
Gathering herself, she shook off the haze of shocked joy. “Oh, god, Karl, I l—”
“Been thinking about logistics.” He barreled right over her attempt at returning his declaration, his face taut with determination.
“We do a few renos, your recording studio can fit in my house.”
The way he looked at her—intense, searching, like she was the answer to every question he’d posed over an entire lifetime—stole
her breath again.
“But if you’d rather stay in California, fine. Pack up my shit and join you there,” he added, to her shock. “Wouldn’t be able
to sell the bakery and move until I got Charlotte and Bez trained up right, but—”
“You don’t need to uproot yourself or leave your business, Karl. I’m willing to sell my house”—she cast a derisive glance
at her ex, who appeared frozen in utter bewilderment—“to almost anyone but him.”
The offer, though—the way Karl hadn’t assumed she would be the one to move; his willingness to abandon his lifelong hometown
and the business he’d served for decades, if that was what she needed—meant the absolute world to her.
His lips curved slightly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiled back at him. “Although . . . your taking on an apprentice or two would be great, Karl. If I’m going to move across the country to be with you, I want to actually spend some time together.
Without you working ridiculous hours or giving up sleep to make that happen. And when was your last vacation?”
He considered the question. “Technically?”
“Technical correctness is the most satisfying correctness of all.”
Somewhere off to the side, her ex-husband groaned and muttered something derogatory. In response, a woman who sounded very