Chapter 17
WOLF
Finally deciding I’m not going to fall back to sleep anytime soon, I get up and move around so as not to disturb Molly with my tossing and turning.
After padding down the stairs, I help myself to a glass of water and carry it with me as I wander around the house.
The oven light usually stays on, and it provides just enough light to examine my surroundings.
Near the fireplace, framed photos sit across the small fireplace mantle and the one on the far left, I’m immediately drawn to.
I’ve seen it before, and it’s easy to tell it’s Molly as a little kid.
But upon closer inspection, her high-wattage smile is clear as she and the man crouched behind her hold up a fish together.
The burly man I assume is her grandpa has his arms around her, his hands cradling hers as hers cradle the small bass.
His smile is tired but still radiant, and I recognize his Crushers ball cap as the exact one Molly wore the day I met her.
There’s so much joy and love captured in this photo that even my robot-ass can’t resist a small tug of a smile as I set it back down.
My eyes fall to another framed photo of who I now recognize as Molly’s grandmother, one other woman, and a girl who appears to be in her young teens, probably thirteen or so.
The two women lean in close, smiling brightly for the camera, while the girl on the other woman’s left side smiles cheerfully, her dark hair in a low side ponytail.
When I move to set the picture back down, the frame slips in my hand, almost falling to the floor, but after a few reactive grabs, I catch it, causing the back to slide off. That part hits the carpet with barely a noise, and when I put it back in place, I notice the actual photo is folded over.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I unfold it to find that there’s a fourth person in the photo—another teen girl on Molly’s grandmother’s other side.
It’s not Molly, like my brain’s first inclination would suggest, but it resembles the girl in the photo that sits in the foyer.
In this picture, she’s smiling blandly, not like she’s happy, but rather trying to act like it.
I feel my forehead crinkle as I speculate why she’s been hidden here.
After putting the curious photo back how I found it, I continue quietly venturing around the main floor, I head into the four seasons room that Molly clearly uses as her reading nook.
I’ve explored in here a little before, but I’m sure there’s still a few of her romance novels I haven’t picked up and looked at before.
Pulling at a random binding, I grab a book off a shelf and gather it’s some kind of love story involving a rock star.
I shake my head and put it back in its place before squatting to look at the lower shelves, just in case Molly collects any other kinds of books.
At the bottom shelf, I spy another framed photo I haven’t seen before.
This one definitely alerts me that I have a heart when I look at it.
Again, it’s Molly as a kid, but in this one she has a toy stethoscope, and she looks dead-ass serious as she uses it to listen to a stuffed dog’s heart.
Likely one of the first signs she was meant to be a veterinarian, which makes me think back to how she never got to finish her schooling because she came back to care for the people who gave her the best life possible.
She doesn’t need to tell me that for me to know how loved and well cared for she was.
The photos around this house share that story.
Hell, the one in the frame next to young vet Molly shows Molly and her grandmother on a picnic blanket in the throes of mutual laughter.
Molly is draped across her grandma’s legs with her head tipped all the way back, her eyes closed, and her mouth splitting wide.
Her grandmother leans in with a sneaky smile that boasts just as much joy as the child she’s playing with.
The tour of Molly’s childhood is filling me full of sensations—unfamiliar ones that I don’t let myself experience often—and it’s eerie how pleasant they feel as they settle over me.
The tour also reminds me that this is Molly’s house, and I haven’t added much of my own paraphernalia to it.
Of course, I don’t have a lot to begin with, but maybe I should put up one beloved photo I have of my father and me when I was young.
I brought it with me but haven’t gotten it out yet.
If I put it somewhere in the house, would it spark a barrage of questions from Molly, or would she let it be?
What would she think of my dad squatting to be level with me as we posed in front of the fort he helped me build completely from scratch?
We used a hammer and a few nails, but everything else came from what nature generously lent us.
We built most of it from broken branches of dead wood, a few rocks, and swags of pine trees that had fallen from a windstorm for the roof.
Dad has his arm around my waist as we each hold an arm up in presentation.
He never questioned my yearning for solitude.
Instead, he showed me it was okay for me to feel that way with gestures like this.
Kind of like what Molly did at the reception but on a different scale.
Though we got Mom to take the picture, Dad didn’t tell any of my brothers about the secret hideout he helped me build.
He just let it be my safe space. I remember returning to it a few times after they died, hoping to seek out some kind of solace; protection from the emotions that were so intense I thought my spirit would be expelled from my body.
But in the long run, it brought painful memories more than it offered comfort.
I let out a long and heavy huff of air as I rise from my squatting position, deciding that’s enough feeling for the night. Polishing off what’s left in my water glass, I place it in the sink and head back up to the loft to give sleep another try.
When I climb into bed, Molly is on her side, facing me.
Her closed eyelids show off her dark lashes, and she has a hand tucked under her chin.
She couldn’t look more secure and at ease in her sleep, and I decide lie a little closer to her than I usually do.
I don’t intend on touching her—we’re not yet in a place where we can freely do things like that.
I just want to see what it’s like to sleep closer to her, to see how it makes me feel, to see if it makes me want to get to that place.
It’s never sat right with me – subjecting her to a marriage devoid of the love people not like me long to feel. To me, love is one of those emotions that’s too much; too intense for me to deal with. But with Molly I feel myself wanting to explore – carefully, of course. On my own.
With her closeness brings the intoxicating but not overpowering scent of her pheromones, the sweet sound of her breath, and the soft warmth of her body.
I know almost immediately that yeah, I do want to work toward not just being her husband on paper but being her man.
I almost immediately feel a gentle security, lifting a certain pressure off my shoulders. Maybe I could do this.
We’re already married, I tell myself. We’ve got all the time in the world to fall in love.
Settling on my side facing her, I close my eyes and welcome the comfort of being next to her. It’s so damn comfortable and serene that when my eyes close, I feel like the blanket of sleep could come along swiftly if I just give it a little while to settle in and work its magic.
I don’t even have an inkling of how much time has passed when the unwelcome sound of something big and heavy scratching across compacted dirt jolts me out of that calm place between sleep and awake.
The sound has my eyes flying open and my body tearing itself in different directions to sit up before it even culminates in a loud, agonizing crash of metal.
I barely have room in my brain to register Molly shooting up beside me with a startled yelp as I haul myself from the bed.
Bolting for the stairs, I stop on the first landing to look out the window.
I’m just in time to see a pair of taillights of a large, black SUV tearing away, its end fishtailing slightly as it skids across the dirt road.
It disappears around the corner before I can take note of any other details.
“Wolf?” Molly’s voice behind me is elevated with distraught notes.
I tromp the rest of the way down the stairs and head to the garage, where I grab my gun from the safe.
There’s a sharp and salient feeling plunging deeply through my insides. It’s arcane, but one element of it is unmistakable: this is more than an innate reaction to defend myself or my fortress. This is an animal instinct to protect something more significant and sacred than my own life.
I storm back inside the house in time to see Molly scurrying down the stairs, her T-shirt skimming her bare legs.
“Wolf! What’s going on? What was that?” The questions rush out in a panic as she hurries over to me.
“Baby, go back upstairs and call the sheriff,” I instruct her, keeping alarm out of my voice.
“Is someone here?” Her amber eyes flare wide in the dim light of the kitchen.
“I’m going to go outside and check?—”
“No! Are you kidding me? You can’t go out there!” She protests loudly, like she thinks I’m crazy.
“Shh, I’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing, but I need you to go back upstairs, stay safe, and call the police.” I gently try to turn her body in the direction of the stairs, but she whips back around as I walk away and start charging for the front door.
“Wolf!”
“Just do it, Molly! Please!” This time, I think I get through to her as she books it up the stairs, yelling about how I’m stupid and going to get myself killed and other shit the whole way. It’s fine, so long as she’s listening.
My need to protect Molly is seismic and marrow deep. My mind desperately wants to fight and knife its way through the chaos of the moment; wanting answers like where this came from and why but fervor and impulse drive my body into overpowering it.
I continue hauling ass to the door, gun drawn.