Taking the Fall by W. Ferraro Read Free Book Online Page A

her.
    Molly had hopes that time would heal this wound, but it hadn’t. Bob still struggled with their friendship, but whether he knew it or not, Molly’s promise to herself was that she owed the man who gave her two beautiful children the respect and expectation of civility if not friendship.
    No one was happier than she was when Bob had met Tracey about four years ago. She had hoped that he was finally coming to terms that they were not right for each other. They dated for a short amount of time before eloping a few months later. He seemed happy, the kind of happy a man should be when he found his equal, his other half.
    However, her guilt over the pain she had caused him hadn’t ceased. It probably never would.
    Over the last couple of years, the sweet man she had met, married, and shared children with had somehow become an almost stranger. Yet, he showed his trump card at the most opportune times.
    As hard as it appeared for Bob to come to terms with what had occurred between him and Molly, she had hoped he wouldn’t take it out on their girls. But as more time goes by, Molly saw more and more causes of him playing less than the devoted dad. And it hurt.
    Molly, this is your time to relax. Getting worked up over Bob is not what you should be doing.
    Molly was on her third lap of the path and currently engrossed in the Maroon 5 song blasting in her ears when she turned the corner that led toward the parking lot and the breath left her lungs. There in the seclusion of the wooded path was Hunter spreading mulch around one of the many granite benches.
    Slowly, these memorial or dedication benches have been added throughout the park. It was a nice place to take a rest or at least to appreciate the sentiment behind the engravings.
    I was not lost on her that he tended to take his family’s mantra of the importance of community service as his deed to beautifying the town with a bit of landscaping.
    But even the beauty of humanity could not stop Molly’s mind from drifting to someplace dark and erotic.
    Just like earlier this morning, Molly’s eyes worked him over of their own accord. Every inch of him flexed and extended in physical labor. The way his shirt stretched over his broad shoulders, highlighting the strength beneath, made Molly’s hands itch to feel with her own hands.
    It amazed her how he looked as natural doing manual labor as he did working his chosen profession of an emergency room doctor at Falls General.
    Regardless of how much time had passed, and considering everything that had occurred all those years ago, she knew that she would always have a soft spot for him. Regret riddled with continual longing should have been enough for her to find the strength to at least tell him how she felt, but she hadn’t.
    She considered turning around and walking back the way she came, but that would only show how much of an idiot she was.
    In her moments of indecisiveness, her ears registered him coughing, which caused him to halt what he was doing, still unknowing that he had an audience. He reached over and grabbed for the bottle of water about a yard away.
    Molly watched in fascination as his throat bobbed, swallowing the cool liquid. The corded veins that ran up his arm, clearly visible with the short-sleeved shirt he wore, pulsated as the plastic of the bottle cracked and popped from the pressure his mouth demanded.
    Molly’s heart thumped in her ears and suddenly her mouth felt like the Sahara. The Alicia Keys’ tune faded away until all she could hear was her own body’s reaction to this man. The same reaction she’d had for the last twenty years to him.
    Turn around, be the coward you are. Just go the other way, he will never know.
    “Well, good morning Ms. Jenson. Beautiful morning for a walk, isn’t it?” His velvet-like voice rolled over her, making Molly feel the need to pant for just a moment.
    Just be polite like you’ve done almost every day since he moved back to town permanently three years