Daniel's Desire (2 page)

“A trucker bought me a couple of doughnuts this morning,” Kendra said as she dug into the dessert.

“Please tell me you were not hitching rides,” Molly said.

Once again, Kendra regarded her indignantly. “What? Do I look stupid? I know better than to get in a car or a truck with a stranger, especially some guy.”

“Well, thank heavens for that.”

“This was a lady trucker, and she was in this place where my bus stopped. She must have felt sorry for me or something, ’cause she offered to buy the doughnuts. I could have bought them for myself, but I figured I should hang on to all the money I could, since I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I could get a job.” She gave Molly a thoughtful look. “So, how much are you paying me?”

“We’ll work it out in the morning.”

“Meals are part of the deal, right?”

Molly bit back a grin. “Yes.”

“And I can sleep here, too?”

“Yes. Were you by any chance a negotiator in a previous life?”

Kendra shrugged. “Just looking out for myself. If I don’t, who will?”

Indeed, Molly thought. Wasn’t that a lesson she’d had to learn the hard way?

The saddest eyes Daniel Devaney had ever seen stared back at him from the latest missing-child poster to cross his desk. Kendra Grace Morrow had huge, dark, haunted eyes. Only thirteen, according to the information on the fax, she looked older and far too wise.

Believed to be somewhere in Maine, she had run away from her home in Portland two weeks earlier, no doubt leaving behind frantic parents and baffled police. Daniel’s heart broke for all of them, just as it did every single time he looked over one of these posters. At least this time there seemed to be no question that the girl had taken off on her own. She hadn’t been kidnapped. She’d left a note that hadn’t said much and packed a bag. There had been a few sightings reported
to the police, and in each the girl had been spotted alone.

Still, runaways never seemed to understand the dangers that awaited them, or else the situation they were leaving behind was so desperate, so awful, that anything seemed to be an improvement. He didn’t know the facts of this particular case, but they all had one thing in common—a kid who needed help. And each time he saw one, he wondered if there had ever been posters like this for his three older brothers, the ones he hadn’t remembered until he’d accidently found the old photos in the attic, the brothers his parents had abandoned years ago.

Sometimes when he thought of what had happened, of the choice that Connor and Kathleen Devaney had made to keep Daniel and his twin, Patrick, Daniel’s heart ached. What had Ryan, Sean and Michael thought when they’d discovered that they’d been left behind? How long had they cried? How long had it been before they’d stopped watching and waiting for their mom and dad to come back for them? Had foster care been kind to them? Or had the system failed them, just as their own parents had?

He’d met them all recently, but they’d danced around the tough issues. One of these days they were going to have to face the past together and deal with the mess their parents had made of all their lives. It wasn’t as if he and Patrick had emerged unscathed, not once they’d discovered the truth.

Patrick had taken it even harder than Daniel had. He’d left home and hadn’t spoken to their parents since. Nor had he been in touch with Daniel until recently, when he’d set up that first meeting with Ryan, Sean and Michael. He’d expected Daniel to have ex
planations by now for what had happened all those years ago, but Daniel was still as much in the dark as everyone else.

Oh, he’d tried his best to make sense of what had happened, but beyond revealing the existence of the three older boys, his parents had said precious little to try to justify what they had done. Even though Daniel had maintained contact with his parents, that didn’t mean he’d worked through his own anger and guilt over having been one of the two chosen to be kept.

He supposed he owed his folks in one respect. Had it not been for the discovery of their betrayal, he might not have found the kind of work that he was doing now—saving kids in trouble, fighting for their rights, mending fences between them and their parents or finding them loving homes. The caseloads were heavy, the hours long, but it was important, meaningful work. And it could break a man’s heart on a daily basis.

He coped by adhering strictly to the rules, by reducing messy emotions to black-and-white regulations. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Gazing into Kendra Morrow’s haunted eyes, he instinctively knew that this was one of those times it wouldn’t work. The girl was a heartbreaker. He hoped to heaven she was in someone else’s jurisdiction, where she’d be found safe.

He sighed when his phone rang, relieved by the intrusion into his dark thoughts about a world in which kids ran away when they were little more than babies, too young to understand the risks.

“Devaney,” he said when he’d picked up the phone.

“Daniel, it’s Joe Sutton at police headquarters. Have you seen that poster for Kendra Morrow?”

“It’s on my desk now.”

“I was just having lunch over in Widow’s Cove,” the detective told him.

The mere mention of Widow’s Cove was enough to make Daniel’s palms sweat. And there was only one place in town worth going to for lunch…Molly’s. “Oh?” he said as if his heart wasn’t thumping unsteadily.

“I think Kendra Morrow’s hanging out at Molly Creighton’s place on the waterfront,” Joe reported. “You know the one I mean? Best chowder on the coast?”

“Yeah, Jess’s. Are you sure it was Kendra?”

“If it wasn’t her, it was her double. I’d just seen the poster before I went over there.”

“Then why didn’t you pick her up?” Daniel asked, surprised by the lapse from a cop who was usually quick to nab runaways for their own protection. He and Joe had handled more than their share of these cases together, and he respected the older man’s instincts.

“Because I looked through the file earlier, and something’s not quite right. I thought you might want to have a chat with the girl, while I do some checking into why she ran away in the first place. You know as well as I do that sometimes these things aren’t as cut-and-dried as they seem at first glance. If I’d thought she was at risk, I’d have brought her in, but she’s not going anywhere. Molly will see to that. I didn’t see any point in uprooting her until I have all the facts.”

This time Daniel’s sigh was even heavier. He and Molly got along like a couple of tomcats fighting for turf. Their relationship had been passionate and volatile for years, even before he’d let her down so damn
badly. After what had happened the night she’d told him she was pregnant, the relationship had cooled to a degree that a glance between them could freeze meat. He regretted that, but he’d accepted it. He’d been a stubborn fool, and he didn’t deserve her forgiveness.

Out of respect for her feelings, it had been a few years now since he’d set foot in that bar she’d inherited from her grandfather. He stayed away in part because Patrick tended to hang out at Jess’s, but mostly because he couldn’t bear the look of justifiable contempt in Molly’s eyes.

“Can you take a run over there?” Joe pressed.

Daniel hesitated for just an instant, but when it came to work, he always did what he had to do, no matter how delicate the situation or how uncomfortable it made him.

“I’m on my way,” he promised, folding the fax into quarters and stuffing it into the pocket of his jacket. “I’ll check in with you later. You sure you don’t want me to bring her over, if it is Kendra? If she figures out we’re on to her, she could run again.”

“Just alert Molly, in case she doesn’t know anyone’s looking for the girl. She’ll keep her safe enough.”

“She has a thirteen-year-old working in a bar,” Daniel reminded him, an edge of sarcasm in his voice. It was just like Molly and her soft heart to take in a runaway kid and to hell with the consequences. Had she even once considered how desperate the parents might be or how many laws she might be breaking?

Joe chuckled at his comment on Molly’s lack of judgment. “Loosen up. The kid’s serving chowder, spilling more of it than she’s serving, to tell the truth
of it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Something tells me it’s the best place she could be right now while we figure out what drove her to run away. The note she left didn’t tell us a damned thing. I don’t want to turn her back over to her parents and then find out there was some kind of abuse going on.”

Daniel had his own opinion about this bending of the rules, but he bit his tongue. It was Joe’s call, at least until the court got involved. Then Daniel would have quite a lot to say about a woman who put a teenage runaway to work, no questions asked, without reporting her presence to the authorities.

“The man you were talking to before, he was a cop,” Kendra told Molly, her face pale and her eyes filled with panic. “I can spot a cop a mile away.”

“It was Joe Sutton and, yes, he is a detective, but he’s a good guy,” Molly reassured her. “He drives over every few weeks for my chowder. If he’d been here to look for you, he would have said something. Besides, he’s gone now, so obviously he didn’t recognize you.”

“Maybe he forgot his handcuffs and had to go back for them,” Kendra said.

“Sweetie, he wouldn’t handcuff you. You ran away. You’re not a criminal. You have nothing to fear from Joe.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when the door opened and Daniel Devaney came striding in as if he’d arrived to conquer the world. In her opinion, Kendra had a lot more to worry about with Daniel than she ever would with Joe Sutton. Daniel was a rigid, by-the-book kind of guy when it came to situations like this. How he and his twin brother, Patrick, had
come from the same gene pool was a total enigma to her.

“Go in the back,” Molly ordered the teenager, maneuvering in an attempt to keep Kendra out of Daniel’s view. “And stay alert in case you need to get out of here in a hurry.”

Kendra paled at the terse order. “What’s going on? Is that cop back?”

“No. Just do whatever you have to do to stay out of sight. Tell Retta what I said. Tell her Daniel’s here. She’ll understand and she’ll help you. I’ll explain later,” Molly promised, giving the girl’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Trust me. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Kendra followed the direction of her gaze and spotted Daniel. “He’s a cop, too, isn’t he?” she said at once.

“No, worse, in this instance. He’s with a social services agency.”

Understanding and alarm immediately flared in Kendra’s eyes. “Then he’s here for me?”

“More than likely.” She couldn’t imagine anything else that would have brought Daniel waltzing into her bar again, not after she’d made it clear that his presence here was unwelcome. “Just stay out of sight. I can handle Daniel Devaney.”

When she was satisfied that Kendra was safely out of the bar, Molly strolled over to Daniel’s table, order pad in hand, a neutral expression firmly plastered on her face. She ignored the once-familiar jolt to her senses. She would play this cool for Kendra’s sake. If there hadn’t been so much at stake, Daniel could have starved to death before she’d have given him a second glance.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she said. “I thought you preferred classier joints these days.”

Daniel frowned at her. “I never said that.”

“You never had to. Your disdain has always been evident.” And never more so than the night he’d declined to be a father to their child. Though he’d told her about his own father’s failings, she’d always believed that at least some of his reluctance had stemmed from an aversion to her choice to run her grandfather’s bar, rather than going off to some snooty college and pursuing some equally snooty career. Unlike his twin, Daniel was a snob in his fancy shirts with the monogrammed cuffs and his Italian leather loafers that were more suited to the streets of downtown Portland than the waterfront in Widow’s Cove. He was definitely no longer a small-town boy.

He didn’t even flinch as her barb struck him. “Save the judgments. I didn’t come here to fight with you. Just bring me a cup of chowder, please.”

Molly noted the order but didn’t budge. He was acting too blasted casual and innocent. Something besides chowder had brought Daniel into the bar. Given Joe Sutton’s recent departure, there was very little question in her mind that he was here because of Kendra.

“In town to see your folks?”

“No.”

“If you’re looking for Patrick, he won’t be in till later,” she said casually, in an attempt to get him to show his hand.

“I’m not looking for Patrick.”

“Oh?” She sat down opposite him, sliding onto the booth’s bench until her knees brushed his. The little spark of awareness that shot through her was an un
welcome surprise, but she tried not to show it. She couldn’t control the sparks, but she could refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing that his presence bothered her. Besides, there had been an answering spark of heat in his eyes. She could use that to her advantage, assuming she could manage to avoid choking on her own words. She had to try, though.

“Then it’s my company you’ve come for? You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear that one more time.” She dropped her voice provocatively and made herself add, “What can I do for you, Daniel? Have you decided you missed me after all this time? Want to pick things up where we left off?”

He shook his head, clearly not taking her seriously. “As attractive as you make that offer sound, I’m here on business,” he retorted dryly.

Molly stiffened, fighting the sting of hurt, even though the rejection was fully expected. “What business could you possibly have that involves me?”

His gaze swept over her, lingering just long enough to make her toes curl, dammit.

“That girl you’ve got hiding in the kitchen, for starters.”

D
aniel hadn’t expected his conversation with Molly to go smoothly. Given their past history, he was probably lucky she hadn’t hit him with a cast-iron skillet on sight. It was no more than he deserved after the way things had ended between them. Even so, he wasn’t expecting her to flat-out lie to his face and judging from her expression, that was clearly exactly what she was contemplating.

“Well?” he prodded. “Cat got your tongue?”

He had to give her credit. She didn’t even blink. In fact, she kept her eyes locked with his and managed a look of complete confusion. She never once glanced toward the kitchen.

“What girl?” she asked with all the innocence of someone whose heart was genuinely pure.

“You have a runaway working here,” he said flatly, vaguely disappointed in her for the lie. It would have
been more like the Molly of old to throw the truth in his face and dare him to make something of it.

Keeping his gaze on her face, he added, “Joe Sutton spotted her here earlier, and I saw her scurrying out through the kitchen when I came in. She’s thirteen, Molly. Shall I count the number of laws you’re violating by putting her to work in here?”

She visibly bristled, bright patches of color staining her cheeks. “
If
I had anyone that young working here, they wouldn’t be serving alcohol. Nor am I running a sweat shop with child labor, Daniel, and you very well know it, so get off your high horse.”

He reached in his pocket, pulled out the missing child poster and slapped it on the table, carefully smoothing out the wrinkles. “Then you haven’t seen this girl?” he demanded, his gaze locked on Molly’s eyes, which always gave away her emotions. They were stormy now, but she didn’t even blink at the challenge. In fact, she glanced at the poster without so much as a flicker of recognition.

Daniel bit back a sigh. She was good at lying. Damn good. She hadn’t been when they were together. Something always gave her away. Was she this good now because of what he’d done to her? Something inside him twisted at the possibility that he was responsible for the hard shell she wore so easily now.

Her gaze never wavered as she said flatly, “Never seen her. What’s she done?”

“She’s a runaway, Molly,” he explained patiently. “That’s plain from the poster, or didn’t you want to take a good long look at it? Were you afraid you might give yourself away if you had to read the fine print?”

“Go to hell, Daniel,” she said, sliding from the booth. “I don’t have to listen to this from you.”

He snagged her hand, felt her stiffen and tried to ignore the slam of regret that hit him. “Then let me see her.”

“You want to go poking around in my kitchen or even in my apartment upstairs, you do that,” she said loudly enough to be heard in the next county. “I won’t try to stop you, but I won’t forgive you.” Her gaze swept over him, cold as ice. “Oh, wait, that’s right. I haven’t forgiven you for a lot of things, have I? I can just add this to the list.”

Daniel wanted nothing more in that instant than to pull her into his arms and kiss her until the ice melted and she molded herself to him the way she once had. He wanted the heat and excitement and passion back, if not the complications.

“Molly, this isn’t personal,” he said quietly.

“Funny, it feels damn personal to me. You’re questioning my integrity.”

“Only because I know what a soft touch you are when it comes to kids,” he said. “You’d hide that girl if you thought it was the right thing to do, especially if you thought it would also tick me off. I’m telling you, it’s not the right choice. She has a family. Think about them for a minute. Put yourself in their shoes. Their daughter’s missing and they’re scared. They’re worried to death about all the things that could happen to an innocent kid out on the streets alone.”

A faint flicker of emotion in her eyes told him he’d hit his mark, but then her expression returned to that neutral, cool one that told him he’d lost his one chance at getting through to her. Maybe Joe would have had better luck with her. Her guard wouldn’t have been up with him. Her natural desire to defy Daniel wouldn’t have been a factor.

“Like I said, you want to search the place, search,” she said.

His gaze clashed with hers. “Do you think I won’t?”

“No. I think you’ll do exactly what you want to do,” she said. “You always have.”

He could have trusted her and let it go, could maybe have redeemed himself just a little in her eyes by walking out, but he turned and walked into the kitchen, because that was his job. Naturally, because of the commotion Molly had caused, the kitchen was empty except for the same cook who’d been working there for forty years. Though they’d once been friends, Retta could be as tight-lipped and taciturn as any female on earth with people she didn’t like. She gave Daniel a look that spoke volumes about what she thought of him, but gave nothing away about any kid who might be hiding in the pantry.

“Have you seen a teenager in here?” he asked, even though he knew he was wasting his breath.

Retta made an exaggerated show of looking around. “Room looks empty to me.”

“And earlier? Was she in here ten minutes ago?”

“I’m too busy cooking to keep track of people coming and going. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re packed out there. Molly’s doing a brisk business these days,” she said proudly.

Daniel almost started to enjoy himself. Retta had an honest streak, and he could see that his questions were testing her innate desire to tell the truth. “Let’s concentrate on the kitchen, Retta. Are you admitting that people have been coming and going in here today?”

“Did I say that?”

“Sounded like it to me. Where’d she go, Retta?”

She shrugged and stirred the chowder. “Like I said, I don’t pay attention to the comings and goings around here.” She frowned at him. “Come to think of it, I did take note of one person going.”

“Oh?”

“That was you, and you broke my baby’s heart.” The look she gave him was fierce. “Don’t go doing it again.”

Daniel sighed. “I never meant to hurt her.”

“But it happened just the same, didn’t it?” Retta said. “Now get on out of here. I have work to do and I can’t do it with the likes of you underfoot.”

Daniel left, grateful to be away from Retta’s accusatory looks and harsh words. He deserved all she’d said and more, but that didn’t make it any easier to take.

Molly was behind the bar, pretending to wipe off the already shiny surface, when he emerged from the kitchen.

“Find anyone?” she inquired.

“Just Retta, looking as pleasant as ever,” he admitted.

“She doesn’t like you.”

“She did once.”

“So did I,” Molly retorted. “Times change.”

Daniel kept his gaze steady. “Do you want to hash out our old news here and now, with everyone looking on?”

Molly glanced around and evidently took note of the fascinated gazes turned their way. She shrugged. “Not particularly.”

“Then give me your key.”

She blinked at that. “What the hell do you want with my key?”

“I’m going upstairs to look for the girl. Not ten minutes ago, you said you had no problem with that.”

“Well, I do now. You’ll go upstairs over my dead body,” she said, standing defiantly in his path.

His gaze never wavered. “Your choice.”

The standoff lasted for what seemed like an eternity, but Molly clearly knew him well enough to realize that he wasn’t going to leave until he’d completed his search. She reached in her pocket, then slapped the key in his palm.

“Have a ball,” she said sarcastically. “When you get to the bedroom, be sure to spend a few minutes reliving old times. Of course, things aren’t exactly the same. I’ve managed to rid the room of all traces of you.”

He turned and stalked off before she could see that her jibe had hit home.

Upstairs, he opened the door to her private quarters, then sucked in a deep breath as a million and one memories assailed him. He’d spent some of the happiest nights of his life in this apartment.

It still bore the faint scent of Jess’s pipe tobacco, the more recent scent of Molly’s perfume. The carpet was worn bare in spots, and the overstuffed furniture had seen better days, but Molly had added touches that made the place feel cozy rather than shabby. There were fresh flowers in a vase on the table in the tiny kitchen, another vase beside the bed. There was a gallery of framed snapshots on her dresser, but the space where his had been was gathering dust. She’d tossed a bright red chenille spread across the back of the sofa and added a pile of pillows. A stack of well-worn paperbacks, mostly Louis L’Amour westerns, still sat beside Jess’s favorite chair.

Being here again, absorbing the atmosphere, made Daniel’s heart ache. The pain was deeper because he was here not by invitation, but because he’d intruded. His lack of trust today was just one more thing to be added to the list of his sins he was certain Molly kept in some mental notebook. He doubted there was enough time left in either of their lives for him to make amends.

Worse, there was no sign of Kendra Morrow, so he’d alienated Molly yet again for no good reason. That didn’t mean he believed for one second that Kendra wasn’t around. He
had
caught a glimpse of her slipping into the kitchen when he’d first arrived—there wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that. If he’d brushed past Molly, he might have caught the girl, but he hadn’t. One of these days he’d try to figure out why. Maybe he’d hoped that, despite everything that had happened between them, Molly would be straight with him. Maybe he’d just wanted an excuse to keep coming around.

But she hadn’t been straight with him and it was plain that she intended to make this a whole lot more difficult for all of them than it needed to be.

“I’ll find her eventually,” he told Molly when he’d completed his fruitless search and joined her again in the bar. “Why not make it easier for everyone and cooperate? I’m not going to snatch her away from here. I just want to make sure she’s okay. She can stay with you until Joe and I check things out at her home.”

Molly evidently didn’t buy the promise. She looked him straight in the eye and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Have it your way then,” Daniel said with a sigh. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” She gave him a blatantly phony smile. “Does this mean you don’t want that chowder?”

Daniel knew that was what she wanted. To be honest, leaving was what he wanted, too. Being around Molly under the best of conditions made him edgy, made him want her in a way that was so ridiculous it didn’t even bear thinking about. But because he never took the easy way out, he met her gaze and said evenly, “Of course I want the chowder. Isn’t it the best in Maine?”

Her gaze narrowed. “We like to think so. I’ll get you a cup. Shall I fix it to go?”

“I’ll have a bowl. And I think I’ll stick around awhile and see who turns up.”

Molly frowned at him, but made no further comment as she headed into the kitchen, no doubt to warn Kendra to stay put wherever she was hiding out.

When Molly finally returned, Daniel regarded her with amusement. “What took so long? Did you have to start from scratch? Maybe go out and dig some fresh clams?”

“Nope,” she said cheerfully. “Had to find the arsenic.”

Before he could comment on that, an expression of genuine relief spread across her face.

“There’s your brother,” she said as if Patrick’s arrival were a good thing, rather than a complication. “I hope you two will play nice. It’s bad for business when there’s a brawl in here.”

Daniel followed the direction of her gaze to where his twin brother stood perfectly still near the bar. Pat
rick looked as if he’d like nothing better than to flee, but he sucked in a deep breath, then crossed the room and slid into the booth. That, at least, was progress, Daniel thought. A year ago, Patrick would have acted on his first impulse and left. Their one attempt at making peace appeared to be holding, as long as it wasn’t tested too often.

“I’ll get you a beer,” Molly said to Patrick, then gave his shoulder a squeeze.

They sat there in silence until she’d returned with the drink, then hurried away again, clearly relieved to have someone else dealing with Daniel.

“You look good,” Daniel said finally.

“Being in love does that for a man,” Patrick said. “Maybe it’s time you tried it.” He waited a beat, cast a pointed look toward Molly, then added, “Again.”

Daniel didn’t miss the significance of the comment or the look. He wasn’t going to get drawn into that particular discussion, not if he could help it. “Not likely,” he replied. “Too many bad examples all around me.”

Patrick gave him a wry look. “So, how are the folks?”

Daniel hadn’t expected him to be so direct. He answered in kind. “They miss you.”

“The same way they missed Ryan, Sean and Michael?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I think not a day has gone by in more than twenty years that they haven’t missed our brothers. I think we suffered for that. What do you think caused all that resentment we never understood?”

Patrick frowned. “I don’t think about it. Maybe you should get together again with Ryan, Sean and Mi
chael and ask them if they feel any sort of pity for our parents. Trust me, they don’t.”

“I don’t know. They seemed like reasonable men to me.”

“Reasonable, yes,” Patrick agreed. “Not gullible.”

“When are they coming back up here? Mom knows they were here for your wedding. I think it broke her heart that she didn’t get to catch at least a glimpse of them. I think she would have risked coming to the wedding uninvited, if it hadn’t been for Dad. She knew how it would upset him…and you. Maybe she should have, though. Maybe a confrontation then would have put an end to all this.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t encourage her to do it.”

“I might have, if you and I hadn’t just started to make peace. I didn’t want to risk that. I thought it was a first step. Only trouble is, we seem to be avoiding taking the next one.”

Patrick sighed. “You’re right. As soon as I start thinking about the folks, I get this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach again.”