No Offense - Meg Cabot Page 0,71

on the porch was coming from the open doorway behind her, the one leading into her room.

“A pie?” she asked, in what sounded to him like a skeptical tone.

“A pie.” He had known this was going to be hard, but he hadn’t thought it would be this hard. “Key lime, from the Mermaid Café. Freshly made this morning by Ed. If you haven’t tried one yet, you really should, they’re delicious. I just saw it and thought of you because . . . well, I thought you might like it, and also because . . . well, you were right.”

Her head popped up at that. He wasn’t certain because her face was still slightly shadowed in darkness, but he thought he saw her eyebrows raise. “I was what?”

“You were right. About the photos. I talked to Katie about them, and then I took them over to Meschelle at the Gazette. She’s going to make sure that they run one on the front page tomorrow morning—”

Molly took a step backward, and at first he thought it was because she was going to ask him to leave.

But the movement brought her face into the light, and he could see that she was smiling.

“Why don’t you come in,” she said, gesturing toward the open door to her room, “and have a piece of this pie with me?”

John glanced at the warm, inviting glow coming from inside the room, and swallowed. He could hear Pete’s voice in his head, urging him to accept her invitation.

But a stronger voice was telling him that if he did, he wouldn’t come out until morning. There were things he wanted to do with Molly Montgomery that would take all night, maybe days, and he had responsibilities, to his daughter, to his community. He couldn’t throw all of those away just because he wanted to—

“Okay,” John said, and, smiling, stepped through Molly’s door. “Thanks.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Molly

Molly couldn’t believe it when she opened her door and saw the sheriff standing down there in the courtyard holding what appeared to be an insulated bag of fried chicken.

Then she’d been even more disbelieving when she learned it was not fried chicken but pie—key lime pie, her favorite.

But the absolute kicker was when he’d climbed the stairs to her room and stood in front of her and said the three words she most loved hearing in all the world—the three words she was pretty certain every librarian, or at least lover of knowledge, adored more than any other in the human language:

You were right.

They were words she’d never, ever heard her ex utter. Even on trivia nights when Eric had given an answer that was incorrect, he would argue that he was not wrong, that instead there’d been some flaw in the way the question was worded.

This should have been her first sign that the two of them were not suited for each other, because a reasonable person should always be willing to admit when they’ve made a mistake.

But she’d been blinded by Eric’s good looks and—she might as well admit it—wealth. He’d not only had a truly incredible two-bedroom loft in LoDo, but a ski condo in Breckenridge, and time shares in both Tulum and Kauai.

It was a mistake she’d sworn she’d never make again.

So when the sheriff admitted he was wrong and she was right, what could Molly do but invite him inside?

“So I know it’s not much,” Molly said, rushing in ahead of him to switch off the TV so that he wouldn’t see what she’d been watching—a marathon of Forensic Files. “But it suits me perfectly fine for now.”

John took two steps inside, said, “Oh, I’m sure it’s—” then froze, looking around the hotel room with the same horrified expression Molly imagined he might have worn while viewing a particularly gruesome crime scene for the first time.

Confused, Molly swept her gaze over the room, trying to see what was so upsetting him. True, the room was small. But it was a hotel room! It wasn’t supposed to be huge.

And true, she had been forced to cram over thirty years’ worth of possessions and belongings into the tiny space, excluding the things she’d left at home with her mother and in storage until she could find a more permanent living situation, like all her furniture and most of her cooking utensils and of course all of her winter clothes.

In fact, the only things she’d brought with her to Little Bridge, besides her summer clothes, were—

“Books,” John said in a slightly stunned

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