Career Girl in the Country / The Doctor's Reason to Stay (21 page)

“What are they?” Molly questioned.

“The perfect accompaniment to hot tea,” Rafe answered.

Molly wrinkled her nose. “But we’re not having hot tea.”

“No, but Edie did earlier today, and the person serving her the tea neglected to get her the scones so he’s trying to do a make-good.”

“And succeeding very admirably,” Edie commented. She turned to Molly. “When I was a little girl, there was a tea room a few blocks from my house.”

“What’s a tea room?” Molly asked.

“It’s like a restaurant, only every afternoon they serve tea and little sandwiches or scones. You get all dressed up to go there because it’s a very special place, and once a month my mother and I would put on our best clothes, catch the bus, and go to the tea room.

She liked the little sandwiches with her tea … they had fillings of cream cheese and cucumber.” “Yuck,” Molly said.

Edie laughed. “My opinion, too. I loved the scones. Sometimes they were lemon, sometimes butter toffee. Always delicious. So, now, when I have tea, I like to have a scone with it.”

“Do you and your mother still get dressed up and go to the tea room?” Molly asked.

“No. My mother went … well, she went to the place Aunt Grace is now.”

“So you have to have your tea and scones all alone?” Molly’s face was deadly serious when she asked the question. “Because I’ll come with you, Edie, so you don’t have to go by yourself. But I don’t want those yucky sandwiches. I think I’ll have the scones, too.”

Rafe shut his eyes, shut out the emotion of the moment. Dear God, his aunt had done such a good job with Molly. It touched him, the way it had just touched Edie, who was brushing tears from her eyes. He knew what he had to do. The only thing was how was he going to do it? More than that, how was he going to do it and
not
get involved himself?

“Not good enough,” Rafe told Henry Danforth. “The Simpsons seemed too preoccupied with image, the Walcotts weren’t concerned enough with a proper education, and I don’t know how you slipped the Bensons on the list because the only reason they wanted a child was to have an indentured servant.”

“You’ve turned down seven perfectly good families, Rafe,” Henry said, his irritation clearly showing. “I pre-interviewed each and every one of them myself,
had my investigator do an exhaustive background check, and I can assure you these are all good families for Molly.”

“But not good enough!”

“So who is it you really want? Because I’m sensing an agenda.”

“My agenda is doing the best thing for Molly. And who I really want …?” He hadn’t said it aloud. Hadn’t even let himself think it in a couple of days because if he had, and Edie wasn’t agreeable, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. She was the perfect mother for Molly. In his mind, the only perfect mother. The thing was, she hadn’t said a word about wanting to adopt Molly. Sure, Edie’s agenda was to get him to keep her. Aunt Grace wouldn’t have manipulated it any other way. But Edie knew that wasn’t going to happen. He’d made himself perfectly clear. So, to be honest, he was a little disappointed that Edie wasn’t stepping up because from everything he’d seen between her and Molly, she should have been.

Of course, from his detached perch, maybe he wasn’t seeing this the right way. It was a distinct possibility, but one he didn’t want to admit. Not yet, anyway. “Who I really want is the person who wants Molly the most. But she … or he … has to also be the person Molly most wants.”

“Which wouldn’t be you,” Henry snapped.

Actually, that didn’t sound so good to him any more. It was still his reality, though. Maybe a more bitter one than he’d expected. “Which wouldn’t be me.”

“Fine. Let me go and break the hearts of all the people I’ve interviewed so far, then start over.”

“I’m not wrong here, Henry. None of these people have been right for Molly.”

“And if they’re not right for her, and you’re not right, who is?”

“Edie Parker,” Rafe finally confessed. “Edie?” That seemed to catch the old lawyer off guard. “Have you talked to her about it?”

“No, because she’s involved in this and she knows Molly is—”

“Up for grabs?” Henry interrupted.

“She’s not up for grabs!” Rafe huffed an impatient breath. “And you know that!”

“What I know is that you’re ignoring the obvious and if your aunt were here, God rest her soul, she’d be drumming, kicking or pounding some sense into you right this very minute.”

But good sense didn’t involve adopting a child who needed so much more than a man who didn’t have it in him to love that child the way she needed to be loved … the way he’d never been loved. When it got right down to the most cutting truth, he
was
his father’s son. He’d read to the end of the book. He knew how
that
story turned out. He wanted better for Molly. “If my aunt were here, she’d be the person Molly needs most. But since that’s not going to happen, we have to do our best to find the person who has all the qualities to replace my aunt. Those are some mighty big shoes to fill but, for Molly’s sake, we’ve got to fill them.” And Edie was the only one. But what would happen if he asked, and she turned him down?

“Then I’ll ask Edie.”

Rafe shook his head. “No. She needs to ask us. Edie needs to be the one who realizes she wants Molly
without us asking her.” For the sake of two people who really did belong together, he firmly believed that.

“In the meantime, should I line up more interviews?”

On one hand, if Edie did say no, then they’d be back at square one, which meant he’d have to prolong his stay in Lilly Lake to reopen the search. That part didn’t matter so much, but Molly’s emotions did, and that was what had him worried. She needed to start her new life … her real life … now. Without delay. Yet he couldn’t even think in terms of someone other than Edie raising her. “No more interviews for now,” he finally said.

“Then you’ve changed your mind, and you’re going to ask Edie?”

Rafe shook his head. “Edie’s going to ask me.” “You’re that sure of it?”

Truth was, he wasn’t sure at all. But he hoped, like he’d never hoped for anything else in his life. “I’m not sure of anything, Henry. Not one damned thing, except that Molly needs to be with Edie.”

Henry cocked a bushy eyebrow then exited the den, smiling. And whistling.

“I’m
not
going to be the one to keep Molly,” Rafe shouted after him. To which Henry did not reply.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Edie said, looking at Rafe in the mirror. “First, you divide her hair into three sections, then your job is to alternately cross each outer section, one at a time, over the center section. And make sure it’s consistent.” She was demonstrating braid technique on her own hair for him. “I mean, you’re a surgeon, you’ve got good hand technique, so how hard should this be?” He was cute, actually. All thumbs and frowns. She liked the vulnerability she
saw in Rafe when it came to Molly. He tried so hard to please her, which gave Edie hope that Rafe might be reconsidering his position.

“Let’s just say that by the time I got through with her, she was in tears. This party tonight is important to her, and she’s set on having her hair braided.”

“Then I’d say that if you’re not up to it, take her to one of the salons in town. While you’re at it, does Molly have a new dress to wear?”

“She has a closet full of clothes.”

“But a new dress for the party?” He was such a man! She didn’t mean that in a bad way, but Rafe was so … oblivious. Definitely oblivious to little girls, probably to women as well. “And shoes! She has to have new shoes to go with her new dress.” With a couple of twists, her hair turned into a perfect braid, and she spun around, smiling at him. “See, not that difficult.”

“Then maybe you could braid her hair tonight. And take her shopping for a new dress and shoes.”

“Or maybe you could,” Edie suggested. Sure, it would have been easy enough to do that for Molly, and having a girls’ afternoon out would have been fun. But that was something Rafe needed to be doing. He was the one who had to get closer to Molly, who had to see how much fun she would be in his life. He was also the one who had to discover, for himself, that Molly was the person he most needed to fill out his life. In other words, open himself up to her. She could see the signs, see Rafe’s willingness to do anything he thought was necessary for Molly, see how he tried hard to be responsive. But she also saw the way he kept himself distanced. It was like he was going through the motions yet not letting himself fully invest in them. An
hour in a beauty salon could help that. Watching Molly try on ten or twenty pairs of shoes definitely would.

“With a woman’s touch?” he asked. “Would you come with us? I’ll do what needs to be done, but if this party is so important to Molly, I think you being there to help in her decisions would be a good idea. Especially as this is the first time she’s really ventured out since …”

Well, Rafe had her on that one. Maybe Molly did need the extra emotional support. God knew, she’d needed it after her mother had died. Needed it in ways she hadn’t seen coming. In fact, she’d needed it so desperately she’d pretty much jumped straight into a bad marriage on her first time out, and while Molly certainly wasn’t at risk of that, Edie did understand the emotions involved in moving on. “I’ll go, as long as you’re not backing out of this.”

“Not backing out,” he said, on an obvious sigh of relief.

“Oh, and just so you’ll know, we should pick out the dress first so Molly can have co-ordinating hair ribbons. Things like that are very important to the total ensemble.” Was that panic creeping to his face? Actually, it looked adorable there, and she really wanted to laugh at his discomfort over such simple little-girl things, but she wouldn’t. Rafe was trying hard to do the right thing for Molly, even though he was that proverbial fish out of water. “It’s going to be fun. Just relax. Enjoy yourself.”

“Fun? Back home, I have a shopper. She’s a nice lady who has a thriving business going, shopping for people like me who find it easier to pick up a phone and tell her what I need rather than going out buying it
for myself. And I have a barber who makes house calls. These people do what they do for me, first, because they’re making a good living at it and, second, because for me, shopping and going to the barber shop
isn’t
fun. It doesn’t make me relax, and I never enjoy myself doing either!”

“Well, it
could
be fun, if you were doing those things with the right person.” Did he ever allow himself to relax? Even in something as simple as shopping, Rafe kept himself distanced. In a way, it was sad he limited himself the way he did. It almost seemed like he was afraid to let himself go even a little.

“Well,
you’re
the right person for Molly. I want to make this fun for
her.”

“But not for you?”

“What I want for me is to make sure Molly gets what she needs to make her happy. That’ll be sufficient for now.”

It wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted to hear from him, but somewhere in his words lurked a pure motive. It was better than nothing. “Then I say let’s go down to the stables, get Molly, and see what kind of power shopping we can get ourselves into.”

“Power shopping?” Rafe actually moaned aloud. “I thought this was about a dress, a pair of shoes and a perfect braid.”

Laughing, Edie whisked around him and headed to the door. “It’s never just about a dress, a pair of shoes and a perfect braid.”

Prophetic words, as it turned out. Because three hours later, with no less than five dresses, six pairs of shoes, and more accessories than Edie could count, and a pair of cowboy boots Molly just had to have, the
three of them stumbled into the beauty salon ready for the next part of the adventure. Or, as Rafe would put it, ordeal.

“She’d like …” Rafe started to tell the beautician, but Edie laid a hand on his arm to stop him.

“She can do that,” she whispered to him. “Part of this needs to be a teaching experience, too.”

“Maybe you should make me a list, telling me everything I should know, because I’d have never guessed that a hair appointment could also be turned into a teaching experience.”

He dropped the shopping bags on the floor then slid into one of the chairs lined up along the wall. It was pink, rather undersized for him. He looked awkward, but cute, she thought. In the past three hours, her estimation of Rafe had grown about a hundred times more. He was patient, considerate … not very adept at little-girl things but trying harder than anybody she’d ever seen. “With kids, everything can turn into a teaching experience. The thing is, they don’t have to know that’s what it is. Right now, Molly’s involved in a huge decision that’s going to affect the outcome of her evening. All those books the beautician is taking to her … they’re full of different hairstyles suitable for a child her age. Molly’s going to get to choose.”

“But I thought she wanted a braid. Isn’t that pretty simple?”

Edie laughed. “I’m afraid you’ve just wandered into a very complicated world, Rafe. There’s nothing simple about a braid. I’m mean, there are so many types … French braids are one of the classically most popular. It’s where hair is woven in small chunks on top of the main braid, which lies close to the scalp. The final
result is a tidy and very sophisticated look. Maybe a little too old for Molly, but who knows? Then there are herringbone braids, which are thin, layered braids that use a number of small intertwined pieces of hair. And lace braids, which are simple braids that crown the head of the wearer in a half-moon shape, like a tiara. Personally, I think that would be a lovely choice for Molly. But she might like cornrows or Dutch braids, or …”

Laughing, Rafe held out his hand to stop her. “OK, so when you said there was some teaching value here, I didn’t know I was the one being taught. So, a braid is not a braid is not a braid.”

“You’re catching on.”

“Just like a party dress is not a party dress is not a party dress.”

“Has it been that awful for you?”

“Not awful so much as … exhausting. She tried on that pink dress three times then bought the blue one instead.”