Chapter 20
Molly
The buzz of the gate intercom comes at seven in the morning, the new iron gate Taz and Rudy hung across my drive the week after the diner, camera and all, the one I approved after we agreed on security, and I know before I even check the camera that it's going to be bad.
"Let me see," Taz says, reaching for the screen, but I'm already looking.
Kendall.
She looks nothing like the polished woman I remember from our LA kitchen, the sleek woman with her designer clothes and practiced smile. Her hair is tangled, mascara smeared under her eyes, and she's gripping the iron bars of the gate hard enough to rattle the hinges.
"TAZ!" Her scream comes through the speaker, distorted but unmistakable. "TAZIO WILLIAMS, YOU COME DOWN HERE AND FACE ME!"
Clem stirs in her bassinet. Maggie, who stayed over last night to help with the early feeds, appears in the kitchen doorway.
"Taz," I say quietly. "The lawyers called yesterday. They found the payment records."
His jaw tightens. We'd talked about this last night, after he got Clem down for bed: the documentation proving that Kendall had paid Boone, that this wasn't just speculation or paranoid accusation but actual evidence.
The fraud charges from Jensen's confession.
The drugging charges. The whole ugly truth, finally laid out in black and white.
"She's out on bail," I continue. "They said she might try—"
"I'M NOT LEAVING UNTIL YOU TALK TO ME!" Kendall shrieks through the intercom. "EVERYONE'S GOING TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF MAN YOU REALLY ARE! YOU ABANDONED HUDSON WHEN HE WAS SICK!"
Taz moves toward the door.
"Wait." I grab his arm. "This one is mine."
"Molly—" he starts.
"She came for me, Taz. From the very beginning, I was the one she wanted to destroy. And I've spent months being afraid of her, letting her turn my life upside down, letting her make me question everything." I meet his eyes. "I need to do this."
He stares at me, and I see the war playing out across his face: the instinct to protect, the fear of what might happen, the knowledge that I'm right.
"I'll be right behind you," he finally says. "Behind you, and never in front."
I nod.
The walk down to the gate feels like it takes forever. The morning is cool and bright, dew still clinging to the grass, and the air smells like sage and a metallic tang that might just be my own adrenaline. I can hear Kendall's continued screaming getting closer, individual words becoming clearer.
"Think you can just take everything from me?" Kendall is shrieking as I come down the drive. "You think you can steal my life and walk away? TAZ!"
I stop on my side of the gate. She stops screaming.
For a moment we just look at each other through the iron bars. She's shaking, with rage, with the collapse of everything she thought she'd built. I should feel pity, maybe, or fear.
I don't feel either.
"He's not coming out here," I say. "But I am. So say what you need to say to me."
"You." She laughs, high and brittle. "You think you matter? You're nothing. You're just the obstacle. The boring little beekeeper he settled for because I wasn't available."
"Is that what you told yourself? When you drugged him?" I keep my voice level. "When you waited until he couldn't stand up, put him to bed, and walked out to invent a whole night that never happened?"
"He SHOULD have wanted me!" Her knuckles go white on the bars. "He just didn't know it yet. He was confused, trapped in this pathetic life with you, and I was helping him see—"
"You drugged a man." I cut through her spiral, sharp and clean. "You put a drug in his drink so he couldn't think clearly, couldn't say no, couldn't remember. And then you lied to his face about what happened."
"It wasn't—I didn't—" She's scrambling, the narrative she's built starting to crack. "He was going to choose me! When he saw the baby, when he knew Hudson was his, he was going to leave you and—"
"Hudson wasn't his," I tell her.
"HE WAS!" Kendall slams her palms against the gate. "Jensen is lying. Everyone is lying except me. That baby was Taz's and he abandoned him. He left him in the hospital while he stayed here playing house with you."
"You used a sick baby as a leash." I feel the words landing, each one precise and deliberate.
"A sick child, and you weaponized him. You let Taz believe he was his son so he would give you money, attention, a piece of his life.
And when he started recovering, you kept going.
You paid Boone Keller to come after me."
"That's a lie," she spits.
"We have the records, Kendall. The payments from your account.
The messages." I take a step closer to the gate.
"You paid a man who hits women to harass me, to scare me, to make me feel unsafe in my own town.
Because you thought if I was frightened enough, broken enough, I would leave. And Taz would finally be yours."
"He IS mine!" she screams. "He was always mine, you just got in the way—"
"And now you're out on bail for fraud and drugging charges, and instead of staying quiet and hoping your lawyer can work a miracle, you drove out here to scream at a locked gate.
" A fierce heat rises in my chest, one that's been building for months.
"You lost, Kendall. You lost the moment you decided to hurt people to get what you wanted.
And you don't get to say my husband's name again. "
Her face contorts. "You sanctimonious bitch—"
She reaches through the bars and swings at me.
The motion is wild and sloppy, fueled by rage rather than skill. I catch her wrist before her hand connects with my face, and for one suspended moment, I could do anything. Her wrist is right there. One twist would hurt her, and she knows it.
I don't.
I hold her wrist, feel her pulse hammering against my fingers, and I let go.
"YOU CAN'T HIDE HIM BEHIND A GATE FOREVER!" she screams, but it's lost its power, just noise now, just the tantrum of someone who's finally run out of plays.
Taz steps up beside me. Beside, and not in front.
"Get off my wife's land," he says, quiet and final.
"You don't give me orders!" Kendall sneers at him. "What are you going to do, Taz? Hide behind her? You can't—"
He's already got his phone out. "Sheriff's department, please. I need to report a bail violation at Molly Edward's farm. Gate camera's recording. Yeah, I'll hold."
Kendall's face goes white.
Her voice climbs to a wail. "You can't do this. You can't—I have RIGHTS. I'm the victim here, I'm the one whose son was sick, you can't just—"
"Ma'am." Taz's voice is terrifyingly calm. "You're on private property. You violated the terms of your bail by coming here. The sheriff is on the way."
"You think you've won?" She's backing away from the gate now, stumbling. "You haven't won ANYTHING. Everyone's going to know. I'll make sure everyone knows what you did, what you BOTH did—"
She retreats to her car, mouth opening and closing.
The deputy arrives after Kendall has driven away. He photographs the gate and notes where each of us stood when she swung at me. He takes a copy of the security footage and our statements for the court's bail review.
We stand at the gate, watching the dust settle. I have to press my hands against my thighs to steady them. But underneath the adrenaline, underneath the fear, there's a feeling I almost forgot I owned.
Taz is staring at me.
"What?" I ask.
"You said 'my husband,'" he says.
I replay the conversation in my head. You don't get to say my husband's name. I did say that. Without thinking, without planning it, the words just came out.
"Don't start planning an anniversary party," I say. "I've barely finished threatening someone."
"Molly—" he says softly.
"Don't," I whisper. "Don't say anything yet. I'm not—I'm still—"
"Then don't say it yet." He holds out his hand. "Can I walk you back to the house?"
I put my trembling hand in his.
"I'll wait," he says.