to pick which of those, she’d put him back on his family farm with the horses, goats, and chickens.
“Can you stop?” she asked. “Just for a second. Please.”
Hunter set down his armful of books and turned toward her. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want you to choose based on what would make you happy, Hunter. Not what would make someone else happy.” She’d done that far too often, and she did not want to watch him do the same. It never led anywhere good, in her experience.
His jaw jumped as he pressed his teeth together. “It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is.”
“For you,” he said, his voice not loud or punchy, but just as forceful. “You don’t have the Hammond name hanging around your neck. You have no idea what it’s been like for me to carry that my whole life.” His chest heaved. “I spent years choosing my mother when I didn’t want to, just to make her happy. So don’t stand there and lecture me about choosing something to make me happy.”
Molly glared at him as his words sunk into her ears. She wanted to hurl back the thought that she hadn’t been lecturing him. They were having a conversation, and if they couldn’t do that, it didn’t matter how he made her feel when he kissed her.
Been there, done that, she thought.
The fight left her body, and she moved over to a tiny second-grade-sized chair and sat down. “I did not mean to lecture you,” she said.
The tension lessened, and Hunter came to crouch in front of her. “Where is this coming from?” He put his hands on her knees, and Molly studied his long fingers.
“Tell me about your mother,” she said. “And I’ll tell you about my marriage.”
Chapter 17
Hunter’s throat felt so dry, but he swallowed and looked Molly straight in the eye when he said, “My mother abandoned me when I was six years old. Dropped me off at school; didn’t pick me up.”
Molly traced her fingers down the side of his face. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and she let her hand drift across the beginning of his beard. “I knew she wasn’t around. I thought your mom and dad were just divorced.”
“They were,” Hunter said. “My mom wanted me to come down to Florida all the time, but never for me. Never to show me a good time, take me to the beach, or so we could go to Disneyworld together. It was so she could impress her boyfriends with her stellar mothering skills. She’s used me my whole life. I let her, too, because I wanted her to be happy.”
Molly’s eyes dropped to her lap, and Hunter hated that he’d lost his temper with her. He hadn’t raised his voice, but he’d hated the contention between them. They’d only argued once or twice when they’d dated as teens, and it was over whether or not they should break-up.
“I know exactly what it’s like to choose what someone else wants me to do just to make them happy,” Hunter said. “Sometimes it has to be done.”
Molly shook her head, a single tear sliding down her face. “Not for this. Family is different.”
“How so?”
“This is your job,” she said. “It’s not who you are. It’s not—”
“It is who I am,” Hunter said. “I was born a Hammond. It’s exactly who I am.”
Resignation filled her expression, and she swiped at her cheek to get rid of the tears. “I married a man named Tyrone Hensen, simply to make someone else happy.”
“Who? Your mother?”
“Him,” she said. “I did it for him. I did it for appearances. We’d been dating for a year, and I did love him.” She turned her hands over and laced all ten of her fingers through each of his. “I did it to make his mother happy, and so I wouldn’t have to tell my mother and father that I was unhappy. I tried to make it work, but there are some things that a person can’t bend for.”
She met his eye, and Hunter wanted her to speak in plain language. “You think you can bend and bend and bend, but Hunter, you can’t. You’ll break eventually.”
“Is that what happened to you? You broke?”
“What happened to me was I made bad decision after bad decision. I made excuses when my husband hit me. I made excuses when he cheated on me. I made excuses when he racked up debt on our credit cards.”