Daniel's Desire - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,36

mother, then back again. “I’ll do the best I can,” he promised. “If I can convince them to stay over, I’ll call to set a time. If you don’t hear anything, it’s because they’re determined to go back to Boston.”

“Thank you for being willing to try,” their mother said, her relief evident. “And, Ryan, I probably have no right to say this, and it might not even matter to you, but not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of all of you and prayed for you. You deserved better.”

Ryan’s gaze never wavered. “Yes, we did.”

And then he was gone, and Daniel was left to deal with his mother’s tears.

Chapter Eight

It was nearly midnight and the bar was empty as Molly wiped down the tables and put the chairs back into place, then gave the floor a more thorough scrubbing than usual. There was something comforting about the routine of it in the midst of the turmoil her life had become.

Kendra had gone to bed two hours earlier, still disgruntled over their earlier argument. Despite Molly’s attempts to persuade the sulky adolescent, she’d continued to refuse to go out for pizza and had spent most of the evening in the kitchen with Retta, as uncommunicative with her as she had been with Molly.

Usually by now Molly would have gone upstairs herself, but she was feeling restless. She couldn’t seem to stop wondering what had happened to Daniel. What sort of emergency had there been that had caused him to cancel an important first meeting with Kendra, especially with Joe’s deadline looming over them? And why hadn’t she at least heard from him by now? Surely the crisis couldn’t have lasted this long…unless someone was seriously ill.

She made herself a glass of iced tea and sat at the bar, idly stirring in sugar, her thoughts a jumble. Maybe she should stop counting on Daniel to come up with a solution for Kendra and take matters into her own hands. There was still time before morning to bolt. They could be a few hours ahead of any search. Maybe that was all the edge they’d need.

“Don’t even think about it.”

The sound of Daniel’s voice right behind her startled her so badly, she knocked her tea all over the just-mopped floor. She whirled around and scowled at him.

“Look at what you made me do,” she snapped, going behind the bar to get a rag to mop up the mess and to put some distance between herself and Daniel.

He gave her a knowing, unapologetic look. “I wouldn’t have startled you if you hadn’t been trying to formulate a sneaky plan to take Kendra and make a break for it.”

“I was not,” she denied, though she could feel the heat of a blush climbing into her cheeks at the blatant lie.

“Oh, please. I might have been teasing, but your guilty conscience was written all over your face the second you heard my voice,” Daniel said. “You’ve never been good at lying, Molly. Don’t start trying it now.”

“You startled me,” she insisted, not giving up. “I thought I’d locked the door against unwelcome intruders.”

Daniel grinned. “Well, you hadn’t, which meant you were still expecting me, whether you care to admit it or not.” His expression suddenly faltered. He looked bone-deep weary. “May I stay?”

She regarded him with surprise. “You’re actually asking my permission?”

He shrugged. “For a change. Consider it a peace offering.”

She heard a rare note of uncertainty in his voice and saw the additional evidence of exhaustion and strain in his eyes. She put aside her damp cloth and gestured toward a stool. “Sit. What can I get you? You look as if you could use a drink.”

“Decaf coffee if you have it.”

Molly grinned at his idea of a pick-me-up. “It’ll just take a minute,” she said. “You’d probably sleep better if you had a beer.”

He shook his head as he slid onto a stool at the bar. “I don’t drink, not when I’m feeling like this. I don’t want to risk it becoming a habit.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him as she turned on the coffee maker and scooped in the decaf coffee grounds. “Is that it? Or are you really afraid of losing control, especially around me?”

He frowned at her observation. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because you’re the kind of guy who likes to weigh all the options, chart out a very precise course and then stick to it.” She patted his hand. “That’s okay. There are a lot of people