She just wished she could be a little more confident about it.
Molly was to be dropped off by her friend’s mother at ten o’clock Saturday morning. Shane had been waiting impatiently for her arrival—so impatiently that it rather amused him. He’d discovered that he was definitely the overprotective type when it came to parenting. He worried constantly about Molly when she was out of his sight, especially since she was his responsibility for now. While he had enjoyed their time together, he would be rather relieved when his parents returned from their vacation and he could turn the reins back over to them.
He wondered if he would worry this much about his own kids. And then he wondered if he would ever have kids to worry about. Shane liked children and had always assumed he would have a family of his own. But kids generally meant a wife, and Shane had yet to meet anyone he’d even considered for that position. As his twenty-eighth birthday drew closer, he couldn’t help wondering when—or if—he would ever meet anyone who made him feel the way his father felt about Cassie.
When he heard a car door slam in his driveway, he knew Molly had returned. He waited at the door to greet her with open arms and a big smile. Molly ran through the door, threw her overnight bag on the floor and kept going, straight to the spare bedroom she had been using. Shane caught only a glimpse of her tear-streaked face before she slammed the door closed between them.
After a moment of stunned immobility, he moved quickly to the door. “Molly?”
“Go away,” she wailed from the other side. “Please.”
“Molly, sweetheart, let’s talk about this, okay?” He tried the doorknob, but she had locked it. “Molly?”
“Please, Shane. I just want to be alone, okay? Please just g-go away.” The words dissolved then into a torrent of noisy tears.
Shane stared at the blank wooden door in totally baffled dismay. What was he supposed to do now? Pick the lock? Would that really be helpful when she had just begged him to leave her alone?
Another heartrending sob made him rattle the doorknob again. “Molly, open the door. We need to talk.”
“No.” Misery had turned mutinous now. He had never heard defiance in her voice before.
“Molly, open the door!”
“No! Go away, Shane.”
Resisting the urge to kick the door in—which, he was sure, was the totally wrong thing to do in this sticky situation—he pushed a hand through his hair and swallowed a curse. He wished his father was here. Jared would have quietly and firmly requested that Molly open the door, and she would have done it. Cassie would have soothed and cajoled her distraught daughter until Molly would have come out to throw herself in her mother’s loving arms and spill out whatever it was that was bothering her.
Shane, on the other hand, was clueless about how to handle this. He could leave her alone, as she had requested, but the sound of her crying was ripping him apart. He couldn’t just walk away. What he needed, he decided abruptly, was a woman.
He spun on one booted heel and headed for the telephone. Who should he call? One of his aunts? Layla, the tenderhearted, motherly one? Michelle, quiet, gracious, a woman who radiated competence and kindness? Both had daughters of their own, and perhaps some experience with this sort of thing. Or should he call his cousin, Brynn, who had worked in daycare and as a nanny, and was now training to be a schoolteacher? She should know about adolescent traumas, and being closer to Molly’s age, she might communicate with her better.
But the number he automatically punched into the keypad belonged to someone else entirely. “Kelly?” he said when she answered on the first ring. “It’s Shane. I need help.”
It was just over an hour after Shane had called that Kelly parked her car in his driveway and jumped out. She’d arrived as soon as she could get there. She could still hear the echo of the desperation in Shane’s voice.
Whatever problems existed between her and Shane, there had been no question about whether she would come when he called to ask for her help. She adored Molly and was as distressed as Shane that something had happened to upset her. She knew it was possible that Shane had managed to deal with the problem while she was on her way, but she was anxious to find out for sure.
Shane had the front door open before she could ring the bell. “Thank you for coming,” he said, his tone heartfelt.
He looked, she thought, completely frazzled. His coffee-brown hair was standing straight up in places, as if he’d been dragging his hands through it, and his expression was one of seething frustration.
“Molly still hasn’t told you what happened?” Kelly asked.
“She still won’t open the door to tell me anything. She stopped crying, I think, but she won’t talk. I thought about picking the lock....”
“No, don’t do that. Let me try talking to her first. It would be better if it’s her decision to let us in.”
He waved a hand in the direction of the door. “You’re certainly welcome to try.”
Kelly took a couple of steps toward the door. Shane was right on her heels. She stopped. “You stay here,” she suggested. “I’ll call if I need you.”
Reluctantly he remained in the living room when she walked down the short hallway to the two bedrooms. The door to Shane’s room was standing open, revealing an unmade bed and a bit of masculine clutter. Turning her back on that cozy sight, she knocked on the other door. “Molly?”
The girl sounded startled, her voice still thick with tears. “Who is it?”
“It’s Kelly. May I come in?”
“I...” Molly’s voice broke, then steadied. “I’m not really in the mood for company right now.”