Читать книгу The Prince's Holiday Baby - Brenda Harlen, Brenda Harlen - Страница 6

“You didn’t need to come over here, Grandma. I told you on the phone that I was fine.”

Theresa Shea plunked her purse on the bar and narrowed her gaze on her granddaughter behind the counter at Shea’s Bar & Grill. Yes, she certainly looked fine. But Molly had always been one to keep her chin up no matter how much her heart was breaking inside. And she’d had a lot of heartbreak to deal with over the past six months.

“Maybe I needed to see for myself.”

“And now you have.”

“And now that I’m here, maybe I’d like a cup of coffee.”

Molly poured her a cup of coffee, pushed it across the counter.

She’d been working there for so many years now, she didn’t even have to think about the tasks anymore. Everything was automatic, routine, and not at all what James Shea wanted for his daughter.

“What are you doing here?” Theresa asked softly.

“Right now? Trying to figure out the produce order for next week.”

“He wanted you to go to college, to do something more.”

Her granddaughter’s fingers tightened around the pencil in her hand, but there was no other outward sign of the emotions that were churning inside her. Molly didn’t talk about her father but Theresa knew he was in her thoughts almost constantly, especially here, at the restaurant that had been his livelihood and his life. And she knew that Molly was so determined to hold on to Shea’s because it was the only part of her father she had left.

“I’m happy here,” Molly finally said.

“Are you?”

Molly continued punching numbers into the calculator, frowned.

Theresa tried a different tack. “Do you ever write anymore?”

“I write checks to pay the bills.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s all I have time for right now.”

“You have to learn to take time for the things that are more enoyable than necessary.”

“I will,” Molly promised. “After all the necessary things are done.”

Theresa picked up her purse. She knew when she was banging her head against a wall and her granddaughter’s stubbornness was a brick wall.

“All right, I’ll go. But if you need anything—”

Molly leaned across the counter to kiss her grandmother’s cheek. “I won’t. I’ll be fine.”

Which was exactly why Theresa was worried.

The phone rang as she turned away, and Molly reached for it. Theresa didn’t hear the words she spoke, but the tone gave her pause. When Molly hung up, she said only one word, “Abbey.”

Molly’s sister, Theresa’s youngest granddaughter, had disappeared ** a few days earlier after leaving a note that said only “don’t worry—I’ll be home in a few days” and absolutely nothing about where she was going or who she was with.

“Where is she?”

“Las Vegas.” Molly swallowed. “With Jason.”

Theresa didn’t want to ask, was certain she already knew, and her granddaughter’s next words confirmed it.

“She just married my fiancé.”