said, hugging Bev first. “You look so pretty.” She smiled at her, looking right into her dark eyes. “Hello, Chris.”
“Hello, my dear.” He hugged her too, and it was very easy after that to get lost among the Hammonds. With Wes’s children, Colton and Annie, and Hunter’s grandparents, there were sixteen people all told, including Molly.
Dinner began with a prayer, as usual for the Hammond household. The buffet took up the whole island, and Molly moved through the line behind Bree. She stuck close to the older woman, grateful for her presence at her side. Elise put her bottle of lemonade at the spot next to Molly, who looked up at her with questions in her eyes.
“Hunter can sit with his uncles,” she said, her eagle eyes on the man in question. He was still in line with Wes in front of him and Colton behind, and Molly sensed an intervention coming.
She really didn’t want that. Coming here was a mistake, she thought, if only because she didn’t have great control of her emotions right now.
Nothing happened during dinner, and everyone exclaimed over the cookies once Elise put them out.
Finally, Hunter stood and reached for Molly. “We’re gonna head out,” he said. “I don’t get to see her very often, and you guys have taken my whole night.” He grinned around at everyone and a flurry of hugging and good-bying started.
Molly appreciated the quiet in a whole new way once she sat in Hunter’s truck. He didn’t say anything either, and it wasn’t until he pulled into her driveway that she realized she was out of time.
“That was fun,” she said.
He chuckled. “You’re a good sport.”
Molly smiled, but the gesture started to wobble on her face. “Hunter,” she said, and it had the right amount of emotion in it to get him to look at her with alarm. She shook her head as a fresh round of tears arrived.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice pinched and a tad squeaky. “I think you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met, but you’re on a path I can’t go down.”
“What are you talking about?”
He knew what she was talking about. They’d talked it to death already. “I’m not very happy with where we are right now,” she said. “I don’t see it changing for the better, and I’d like to be done.”
“Done,” he repeated.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Thank you for a fun night, and a…great summer.” She needed to get out of this truck. “Good-bye.”
She yanked at the door handle and practically leapt to the ground. She hurried up the sidewalk and through the front door, which she had miraculously not locked. If she had, she’d have stood on the porch with shaking hands, trying to get the key into the slim slot for the lock.
As it was, the door was closed behind her, and she fumbled to twist the lock before she’d even realized what she’d done.
Her mind may have been slow catching up to her heart, but only a moment later, they both knew what she’d done. She burst into tears at the same time her heart seemed to shatter, and she hurried away from the door so Hunter wouldn’t be able to hear her in the off chance that he’d followed her.
Gypsy yowled, and Molly fed her through blurry, watery vision. She bypassed anything from the fridge tonight, and instead, gathered her fluffy, soft Saltine into her arms and retreated to bed with the pup, where she cried until she fell asleep from pure exhaustion.
Chapter 23
You’re on a path I can’t go down. Hunter couldn’t get Molly’s words or her tear-stained face out of his mind. Saturday evening, he put on basketball shorts and running shoes and went downstairs to the gym in his building. He ran. And ran. And ran.
On his way back upstairs, he suddenly understood why his father liked running. All Hunter could focus on was breathing. The pain in his calves. The hitch behind his lungs. Or maybe that was because the most physical activity he normally performed was horseback riding.
Sunday, he laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling, his alarm singing beside him. He didn’t want to go to church, because then he’d see Molly. They’d been sitting together for months. What would people think when they didn’t? What would her mother say to him? What would Pastor Benson think of him? What would his father say?
Hunter had managed to avoid the Hammond clan yesterday, but Uncle Colton and Uncle