Caged (Mastered, #4)(41)
Her brown eyes softened. “That’d be a huge relief to me. And make sure your cousin knows I’ll pay him for his time.”
“No worries. Tag owes me. Just don’t sign anything until I talk to him, okay?”
“I won’t. You’re too good to be true. You know that, right?”
“Wrong. I’m a bad bet.” He stroked the edge of her jaw. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“So noted. But I still think you’re sweet. Showing up here, knowing what I need before I do—”
Deacon brushed his mouth over hers to stop the stream of praise he felt he hadn’t earned. “I’ll wait out here.”
He called Tag’s home phone and left a message. * move, not calling Tag’s office at JFW or his cell phone, but Deacon wanted legal advice, not family guilt.
It’d gotten stuffy inside the car, so he’d found a shady spot in front of a barbershop. While he waited, he checked sports scores and mined through MMA sites for news on his phone.
Less than an hour later, Molly exited the lawyer’s office.
“How’d it go?”
Molly shot a look over her shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about it here. I need some damn caffeine.”
He drove to the C-Mart.
After she’d taken a few sips from her jumbo cup of coffee, she blurted out, “That was bizarre. Everyone acted so civilized until Torch read the will. Then Jennifer and Brandi started yelling at me and Uncle Bob asked if the will could be contested.”
“What the f*ck happened?”
“Grams bequeathed some of her belongings to the church. We’re meeting Reverend Somers at the house in an hour—evidently she already had that stuff sorted. Once the place is empty, the house and the land will be put up for sale. The money is to be split equally between Uncle Bob and me. Anything left over in the house will be auctioned off. That’s Brandi and Jennifer’s inheritance.”
While that seemed fair, since Molly was the sole heir of her grandmother’s other child, Deacon knew her cousins wouldn’t see it that way. “Tag left me a message. He’s tracking down an estate lawyer. He’ll follow up with you soon.”
“Did he say something else? Because you seem distracted.”
No surprise she’d picked up on that. “Just wondering how long it’ll take to empty the house. I have to be back in the training room by the day after tomorrow.”
“Deacon, if you have to go, I’ll understand. Everything you’ve done for me has been above and beyond.”
“I’m not leaving you to deal with angry family members. Let’s help them get the stuff in the house sorted. But, babe, you’re only doin’ that as a courtesy since they own everything inside now. There shouldn’t be any reason we can’t leave tomorrow morning.”
“You’re right. I’m just used to doing everything.”
“Time to let that go.”
“Time to let a lot of things go,” she said softly.
He knew how that felt, but as usual, he said nothing.
? ? ?
BY the time they arrived at the house, the locks had been removed. Reverend Somers and two parishioners were carting out boxes of books and craft supplies.
Neither Molly’s uncle nor her cousins were there yet. He suspected Brandi and Jennifer planned to show up late—after Molly had done most of the work.
Before they started tearing up the house, Molly gave Deacon a tour. She held it together until they reached the living room.
As she ran her hand over her grandmother’s worn easy chair, she took a moment to firm her wobbling chin. “Growing up I wasn’t allowed to eat in the front room. Seeing this”—she gestured to the dishes on the plastic-coated TV tray—“makes me sad. I wonder when she broke that rule. After I left for college? Is that when she realized she’d be eating alone regardless if she sat in front of the TV or at the dining room table?”
Deacon moved in behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
“This is supposed to be the easy part, right? These . . . things are just things. Sellable and replaceable. I shouldn’t have any attachment to that chair. No matter how many years she sat in it. Because I know she’ll never sit in it again. I don’t need that around as a reminder.”
He kissed the top of her head, strangely moved by her unsentimental view.
She disentangled herself. “This stuff won’t sort itself.”
And there was his shove-the-emotional-stuff-aside Molly. They were strangely alike that way. “What’s the plan?”
“Personal things in one pile. Auction items in another. Throw away the stuff that doesn’t fit in either category.” Molly faced him. “If you bring in the four big trash cans from out back, I’ll get the garbage bags.”
“I’m yours to command, babe.” He’d do Molly’s bidding today, because once this task was done, he could get her naked beneath him again and he’d be the one calling the shots.
As he carried in the garbage cans, he thought about how things had changed between Molly and him. Being lovers was a big part of it, but she’d given herself over to his care in other ways. It’d been a long damn time since he’d felt needed, and it didn’t scare the f*ck out of him as much as he’d feared it would.