Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar, #2)(61)

“What the hell did I do?” I whispered.

Molly had tried so hard. She’d kept reaching out to pull me back to her. But I’d kept turning away, toward work. She’d pulled. I’d pushed.

Far too hard.

What had I pushed Molly to do?

“You have to fix it, Finn.”

“I know.”

“How?” Poppy asked. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, first, I need to get Alcott sorted. Then I—”

“Finn.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s it going to take for you to realize that Alcott isn’t your answer here? It’s been your demise.”

I gaped at her. “What? What do you mean?”

“You want a life with Molly?”

“Yes.” Admitting it out loud sent a jolt of electricity through my veins. I wanted a life with Molly and my kids. I wanted my family back.

“Then Alcott has to go.”

Never. “I’m not giving up my business.” It was my livelihood. It was the security that my family would be safe. It was also my passion. “There has to be a way to have both.”

Poppy thought about it for a moment. “You know what I never understood? How you and Molly could work together. When you guys started Alcott, I couldn’t believe you could work with each other all day and then go home together at night.”

“Well, we didn’t work together all day. She did the mowing at first then covered the office. I was doing the landscape jobs, so we weren’t together all day.”

“Yeah, but it was everything, to both of you.”

“Okay,” I drawled, wondering where she was going with this. But she didn’t give me anything more. “So?”

“It’s just an observation.” She shrugged. “How’s the accident investigation?”

“Fine. It’ll be fine.”

“Please, don’t do that. Don’t sugarcoat it like you do everything else. Tell me.”

“I don’t sugarcoat stuff.”

She laughed. “Oh, my dear brother. You are the king of downplaying your own stresses because you think you’re shielding the rest of us. When in reality, you just shut us out.”

No, I didn’t. Did I? I opened my mouth to argue, but Poppy shot me a look. Okay, maybe I did shut people out. “I don’t mean to.”

“I know. So let’s try this again. How is the investigation going?”

I frowned. “I just got off the phone with my lawyer before you got here. It’s going to be a goddamn mess.”

“It’ll get sorted.”

“Yeah, but it might take years. I’m just glad it was me. The thought of one of my employees getting thrown makes me sick.”

“It shouldn’t have happened to anyone. That seat belt shouldn’t have malfunctioned.”

“You’re right. But it was a fluke deal.”

According to my lawyer, the manufacturing company of that skid steer was dedicated to making it right. They’d arranged for me to have the new wheelchair-accessible van until I was walking again. They’d paid for a motorized wheelchair when my insurance would only cover a manual one. And they were covering a large portion of my medical expenses that my insurance wouldn’t pay. They were doing everything in their power so I wouldn’t sue.

Even if they hadn’t offered to help, I had no intention of suing. Accidents happened. Life was unfair. I knew that. Sometimes people were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like Jamie. And the last thing I wanted was to drag my family through a long and expensive legal battle.

One thing was for certain: I’d never gripe about paying my insurance premiums again. It was damn expensive for small businesses to provide insurance for their employees. I’d taken it for granted because in all the years I’d been in business, I’d never had a major claim. One guy got his hand gashed by a utility knife when he was opening a bag of mulch. Another broke his toe when a pallet of sod landed on his boot. Besides those minor injuries, we’d been extremely lucky.

Until now.

“Well, I’d better get back to work.” Poppy stood and kissed my cheek. I’d finally decided to shave my beard this morning and her kiss felt cold. “Call me if you need anything, okay? Or if you want to talk?”

“Thank you. And thanks for lunch.”

“You’re going to eat cereal as soon as I leave, aren’t you?”

“Yep. I’m tossing out this salad as soon as I hear the door close.”

Poppy laughed. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.”

She turned and walked toward the kitchen to leave, but before she disappeared down the hall, she paused and turned back. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Do me a favor. You said you ruined your life?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Ruin it again.”

Ruin my life. The one where I spent most nights alone. The one where I didn’t get to see my kids every single day. The life where work was great but being at home was sad and lonely.

It was definitely time to ruin that life.





“What exactly are you doing?” I asked, rolling up behind Molly.

She dropped the binoculars from her eyes and smiled over her shoulder. “Mailbox stakeout.”