Not after what he’d done for Ollie.
“Is it possible you might actually not hate Gavin?” Rachel had an expression of awe.
“No,” Molly said, entirely too quickly. She paused, then said more slowly, “Maybe I’m learning to tolerate him. He did just jump into a lake for my kid. I can’t exactly give him shit after that.”
A wry smile played across Rachel’s lips. “Uh-huh. Okay. We’ll see how long this lasts before you’re ready to kick him in the nuts again. I’m betting…four hours?”
“Don’t you even get started with me when I’m trying to be grateful.” Molly shoved her hands on her hips and started toward the cake table. Were they serving the stuff yet? If not, she was totally going to indulge in a glass of champagne.
“Molly…” Rachel moved to catch up with her. “You know Ollie’s okay, right?”
Molly nodded. Swallowed. “Thanks to Gavin, he is.”
Her perception of the man could change, but the leopard wasn’t totally changing his spots. He was still Gavin. She was still Molly.
They were morally required to continue to be oil and water. Maybe after today—after what he did—she didn’t have to continue to hate Gavin.
But she wasn’t ready to like him, either.
Chapter Five
“The majority of my diet is made up of foods that my kid didn’t finish.” —Carrie Underwood
Molly
Saying thank you was not a huge deal.
Molly had, in fact, thanked Gavin when he’d shown up at the reception with her dried-out son.
That’s it. Not a big deal at all. She’d said it.
But she should probably stop to get him a fruit bouquet to show her thanks and relieve the nagging itch in her brain telling her she needed to step it up in the gratitude department.
Her sedan made an odd crunching sound from behind the dashboard, but it made sounds all the time. This was nothing new. She’d decided not to buy a new car, instead socking money away so she could put a nice down payment on a house of her own. Nearly enough was saved up now that she would be able to start house hunting soon. Soon-ish. Soon being a relative term instead of concrete.
“Is it supposed to sound like that?” Brady asked from the backseat, where he sat with Kellan and Ollie.
“It’s normal,” she assured him. In fact, it probably wasn’t normal.
She smacked her steering wheel. Not so hard that she caused any damage, but enough to make the sound stop.
“Can we talk about ityet?” Ollie asked.
“Soon,” Molly said. Relative terms came in handy for motherhood as well as homebuying. Besides, once they dropped off the other kids, she had a little news for her son.
Rachel was on her two-week honeymoon. As part of her Gavin gratitude package, Molly had offered to take all the boys out for a fast-food hamburger dinner. Now she was returning them to their dad’s house while contemplating fruit bouquets and stuntman camp.
“Stunt camp is all he thinks about.” Kellan gave a heavy-duty eye roll and flopped back against the seat.
Ollie was definitely on a roll with nagging about the Hollywood Stuntman Summer Camp. She’d crunched the numbers and, actually, she could swing this. Especially if his dad paid his child support on time for the next three months.
“You always say soon,” Ollie retorted, watching the world pass by outside the window. “Soon,” he said, mimicking her tone.
“I always mean it, too,” Molly said with a quick glance in the rearview mirror.
Then she eyed the temperature gauge next to the speedometer. The car had been creeping into overheating lately, but as long as she managed the heat level and pulled over before it hit red, everything worked fine.
Fine being another broad, relative term and not so much a specific one.
