With Strings Attached by Vanessa Grant

Author:Vanessa Grant [Grant, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Romance
ISBN: 9780263772630
Publisher: Harlequin Books
Published: 1991-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Amazing how easy it was to avoid Patrick when she set her mind to it. He knew. Every so often she would catch his eyes on her, as if he were biding his time.

Molly could feel the ominous pressure building up as the days crawled past. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, she thought wildly. So much like the days of ramshackle wandering with Saul. At the age of eleven she had known how to act as a buffer between the looming creditors and her father, how to negotiate two more weeks in rooms with rent in arrears.

Never again, she had vowed when Aunt Carla rescued her from all that. Molly would stay out of trouble, play every game by the rules. Keeping out of trouble meant, of necessity, keeping out of her father's tangled life. That might have been difficult, because Molly loved her father deeply, but Saul's own wandering life-style had protected her once she went to live with her aunt and uncle.

Their contacts over the last fourteen years had consisted of Saul's unexpected visits, occasional off-hand gifts, and Molly's reading about her father's successes in art magazines. Once, she had attended an exhibition of his paintings in Toronto, had seen him across the room in a tangle of people. A year later he had telephoned her from Bolivia. She had no idea where he had been in between.

Aunt Carla had warned her. Any gift from Saul was going to have strings attached. Molly shivered, staring at the dinosaur taking shape on the canvas in front of her. Why had she let Saul hand her another dream with a catch? After all these years. As if she were still a gullible kid.

Patrick. He was waiting, watching. Patient, but he would not let her avoid him forever. She hated the thought of the end, official men in official cars, asking questions and the news flying everywhere. She was living in Saul's last known address, and they would come. Then everyone would know. Molly was a newcomer, but she had overheard the easy gossip that flew. Natural, in such a small community.

Molly Natham? You know, that artist's kid. The one who's up for tax evasion. Yes, off somewhere in Europe, and I saw the sheriff up on McNaughton Road yesterday, and the daughter was...

Patrick was an honourable man, honest, and tax evasion was no joke. Molly supposed it would be easier if she packed her van and drove away. Perhaps she would, when Sarah was back home; although running from awkward situations was Saul's game, another pattern she had vowed not to repeat. Meanwhile, she blessed Sarah's hospital stay, because otherwise there would be no Hollison children to keep Molly busy.

Sarah's husband Edward turned up Sunday morning, looking tired and faintly worried. Molly sent him off to bed to get some rest. She could look after the children.

Monday morning, Jeremy and Sally went off to catch their school bus with lunches Molly had packed. Patrick called to say he was off to Nanaimo, but would see her that evening.

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