Part 32 (1/2)
To us. My niece would have died if Molly...” He took a breath and blinked at the stab in his side. ”I must let her go. There must be something. Some way?”
”Are you sure that's what she wants?”
”No.” He raised his head, very sure. ”She will wish to continue this marriage, because she thinks it is the best thing for us. But she will lose her brother. Her community.
The price is too high.”
Troubled, Annie frowned. ”Do you want me to see what I can find out?”
”Please. And please do not tell Molly that her brother lied to her. There is enough trouble between them. She does not need to know.”
Molly stopped by the grocery store and found the place crowded as all the other locals stocked up in case of a nasty snowfall. Often they came at this time of year, huge snowfalls that stopped everything in the high valley while it came down, stilling the world with a fuzzy whiteout.
She got the groceries, including one full bag for Lynette, who hated driving in the snow. At her brother's house, she saw the cruiser was parked in front, and she carried the bag of groceries to the door, feeling a strange sense of awkwardness.Unbelonging .
A feeling that was not improved when Josh himself opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, putting on his hat in preparation for returning to work. He looked a little startled when he saw her, then remembered to frown. ”We have plenty of groceries, Molly. We're not some charity.”
”You can pay me for them if you think you need to. I wasn't doing it to help you, but your wife.”
”She doesn't need you.”
”And neither do you, right?” Molly said. She'd meant the words to be angry, bitter, but
to her horror, they came attached with the edge of tears in her throat
He bowed his head, and Molly found her eyes on the tender nape of his neck, below the close bristles of blond hair. It was a vulnerable place, one that showed his youth and stubbornness. ”Josh, I hate this so much! You're the only family I have, and I can't stand for us to be in a fight.”
For a long minute, he kept his head down,then looked at her, his defenses firmly in place. ”We're not in a fight, Moll. We're just on different sides of an issue.”
”So it's going to ruin our relations.h.i.+p if I hold an opinion that differs from yours?
Is that what's happening here?”
Lynette pulled open the door, scowling. ”You two come in here right now,” she said in a tone of voice that had been ordering around children for years. ”You're not gonna stand on my front porch and air your dirty laundry.” When both Josh and Molly hesitated, she put a hand on her hip. ”Inside. Now.”
They obeyed. Lynette pushed them to the kitchen, thanked Molly for the groceries and put them on the counter, before she bustled toward the door. At the threshold, she paused. ”Thrash it out pretty quick. Thekids'll be home in a half hour, and I won't have them see you two fighting.”
Molly leaned on the counter. ”The sheriff stopped by the hospital a little while ago.”
Josh sat and took off his hat. A lock of hair stuck up, and Molly ached to smooth it down as she always had. She put her hands in her pockets and waited for him to speak.
”I figured,” he said.
”Why did you have to do it like that, Josh?”
”I had to, Molly. You're breaking the law. I know that wedding isn't real.”
She opened her mouth to lie,then closed it. Maybe the time for lying was over. She thought of Alejandro's hands on her body this morning, thought of his mouth, kissing hers and said instead, ”My feelings are very complicated right now, but it doesn't matter anyway. A wedding isn't enough to keep him here.” Tears suddenly filled her eyes and she collapsed in the opposite chair. ”And it didn't have to come to that. You didn't have to tell them.”
An odd expression crossed his face guilty and confused. ”I don't know what you're talking about.”
She raised her head, das.h.i.+ng tears away. ”All I know is what the sheriff told me he'll let Alejandro stay until Josefina is out of the hospital, but then he has to go back toMexicoand pet.i.tion to come back as my husband.”