No Offense: A Novel (Little Bridge Island Book 2)

Molly couldn’t sleep at all that night.

Which was upsetting, because she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, either.

In fact, she realized as she stumbled down to the kitchen the next morning to help Joanne set up the breakfast buffet, she’d been sleeping pretty badly ever since she’d found that baby in her library’s restroom and met the blue-eyed sheriff who was now haunting her dreams—when she did manage to snatch a few minutes’ sleep, which wasn’t nearly often enough.

“So,” Joanne said, winking at Molly as she popped some of the Larsons’ famous blueberry muffins from their pan and onto a serving plate. “How did it go last night? I heard you had a visitor.”

Molly smiled wanly. “Great.” It was impossible to keep anything secret in a small hotel or on an island as tiny as Little Bridge. Soon everyone would know that she and the sheriff had slept together. It was only a matter of time.

Joanne beamed. “I knew it. I just knew you two were made for each other. You know why?”

“No. Why?”

“Because you both take your jobs so seriously. Not many people find their passions in life, but the two of you really have.”

“Hmmmm.” This was interesting. In fact, maybe they took their jobs a little too seriously. “Yes. Well.”

Why had she lashed out at him that way? She didn’t know. Well, she did know, but now that he was gone, it seemed so unreasonable. So he’d called Tabitha’s parents. So what? He’d obviously felt that he needed to. He was right that he’d spent more time with the girl than she had. He had to know what her mental state was, and what he was doing. Didn’t he?

Molly wasn’t sure. He was a man, and men were so . . . well, mysterious. No matter how many books she read, she didn’t think she’d ever understand them. Look at what had happened with her ex. Molly had thought she’d known him, and then he’d turned out to be someone completely different. Not that he’d cheated on her or turned out to be a gambling addict or a serial killer or anything like that. He’d simply assumed that after they were married and had kids, she was going to quit her career to homeschool them.

Not that this was such a terrible thing. In some situations, homeschooling was preferable and/or necessary. And some people—like Eric’s new fiancée, Ashley, at least according to her social media posts—would be thrilled to commit their lives to it.

But where had Eric gotten the idea that homeschooling a not-yet-existent child was something Molly wanted?

Maybe she had simply never really known him, and he had never really known her.

Well, she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

It was just unfortunate that she’d already slept with the sheriff—well, not exactly unfortunate, because sleeping with him had been really fun. Better than fun. One of the best sexual experiences she’d ever had, if she were honest—before getting to know him better.

Unless . . . well, unless he was right.

But how could he be right? Who would refer to a young woman who’d been through what Tabitha Brighton had as bananas? That was just so insensitive. Who would call her parents when she so clearly had chosen a life far from them? Who would—

“Oh, would you look at this?” Mrs. Filmore and her husband were the first people in the dining room for breakfast—as usual—and so were the first people to grab that morning’s Gazette and unfold it. “What a creepy photo!”

“What’s it of?” grunted Mr. Filmore. He was never very talkative, but he was even less so before his first cup of coffee.

“Look.” Mrs. Filmore held up the paper so everyone in the dining room could see it.

And there, directly above the fold, was a full-color print of the photo Elijah had taken of Katie in her Snappette uniform, blowing a kiss, with Dylan Dakota lurking in the background.

Beside the photo, in large black letters, screamed the headline:

Have You Seen This Man?

There was an article beneath it that was several paragraphs long, written by Meschelle Davies.

Molly nearly dropped the bowl of pathetic-looking fruit salad she’d made.

Katie’s image had not been cropped or blurred. Her face was clearly identifiable in the photo.

“Good Lord,” cried Joanne, who was serving Mr. Filmore scrambled eggs. “That’s—”

“Kathleen Hartwell,” Mrs. Filmore said, reading the caption below the photo. “‘Sixteen-year-old daughter of Sheriff John Hartwell, with image captured by Elijah Trujos of suspected High School Thief. Anyone with information on the identity of this man is urged to call the Sheriff’s Department.’ Oh my goodness, isn’t the sheriff the man who was visiting you here last night, Molly?”

Molly set down the fruit salad bowl with a thump. “Y-yes.” She swallowed. “I . . . I . . . I better go.”

“Molly?” Joanne called after her as Molly raced from the dining room. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine! I just have a meeting. I’ll see you later!”

Molly felt guilty for rushing off like that, leaving Joanne to deal with breakfast service alone (though Joanne’s husband, Carl, usually showed up to help later, after taking his sugar levels). But she simply couldn’t face the scrutiny of the Filmores, especially with Katie Hartwell’s photo staring up at her—the photo she’d insisted John give to The Gazette.

She understood why he’d done it. His desire to catch the High School Thief was almost pathological.

But what she couldn’t understand was why he hadn’t had Meschelle crop out Katie or blur her face. Though she had to admit, not doing so made the image much more startling. It was bound to get a good deal of attention. . . .

This suspicion was proved true when she arrived at the library (late, of course) and found the staff there poring over The Gazette.

“Oh my God,” Henry said when she walked in. “Did you see this photo on the front page of today’s paper? Isn’t this that girl who was in here the other day with her dad, the sheriff?”

“Yes,” she said, with a tight smile. “That’s Katie Hartwell.”

Molly regretted that she hadn’t called in sick for the day. She’d thought about saying that she had food poisoning or a migraine—anything not to have to face talking about John or anything, really, to do with what had happened over the weekend.

But now she really, really regretted it.

“This photo is so creepy!” Henry declared. Creepy appeared to be the word of choice to describe the picture that Elijah had snapped of Katie and the High School Thief. “I feel like I’ve seen this guy somewhere before, but I can’t think of where.”

“Well,” Molly said, as she went to put her purse away. “If you do, you should contact the Sheriff’s Department immediately.”

“Yeah,” Henry said. “But I feel like if I had seen someone that grotesque-looking, I would totally remember where.”

“I don’t think he’s actually grotesque,” Phyllis said in her calm voice. “I think he merely appears that way because of the ominousness with which he’s looming in the dark behind the girl. Perhaps, in another setting, he would appear more normal.”

Henry shook his head, still staring down at the photo. “No. No, I’ve definitely seen him before. But where?”

“Maybe around the new library. We know he’s been hanging out there.”

Molly picked up the phone at her desk and checked her voice mail while simultaneously scrolling through the emails on her desktop computer. She didn’t know what she was hoping to find—something from the sheriff, perhaps?

But he had her personal cell. If he’d wanted to get in touch with her, he’d have called or texted that number.

He hadn’t, of course. She’d already checked her phone a million times. Why would he bother to contact her when she’d made it so clear she wanted nothing more to do with him?

There was one unusual message on her office voice mail, however. Molly stopped scrolling through her many emails when she heard it. A female voice, hesitant and oddly weak, said, “Hello, Miss Montgomery? Hi, this is, um, Tabitha Brighton. I’m the, um, person you found in the library? Anyway, they tell me you’re the one who saved me and, um, my baby. I just wanted to call and say, um . . . thank you. Thank you very much for what you did.”

There was a long pause, during which it sounded like the girl was holding back a sob. And then Tabitha said, “That’s all. Just thank you.”

Molly was so surprised—and moved—that she held on to the receiver for a second or two longer than necessary after Tabitha hung up, staring at her cluttered desktop, her eyes too watery with tears to see anything.

“Are you all right?”

The voice startled her, even though it was gentle. Molly turned to see Phyllis Robinette beside her, holding a cup of tea.

“Oh, yes.” Molly hung up the phone and hastily wiped her eyes. “That was Tabitha Brighton, the mother of Baby Aphrodite, thanking me for helping her. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never cry . . . except of course at the end of books.”

“Well, you’ve had a rough few days.” Phyllis sank into the chair beside Molly’s desk. She was such a small woman that she easily fit into it. “I was going to say that you don’t look very well. Your color is off. Is something the matter?”

Everything is the matter, Molly wanted to say. But she didn’t want to burden her mentor and friend with her problems, especially since they weren’t at all work-related.

“I’m fine,” she lied, instead. “I just have a headache.” This part wasn’t a lie. She’d been feeling a headache coming on since asking the sheriff to leave last night. “And I didn’t sleep well.”

This wasn’t a lie, either.

“Why don’t you take the day off?” Phyllis leaned forward and patted Molly kindly on the knee, the only part of her she could reach from her low perch.

“I couldn’t possibly. We have so much to do. The staff meeting—the move—”

“All of that will be here when you get back. We did get along here before you came, you know.”

This was true.

She glanced at her desk phone, remembering what John had said to her the night before about Tabitha. You don’t know anything about her.

Maybe she needed to remedy that.

“Well . . . I could just take the morning off,” Molly said, reaching inside her desk drawer for her purse. “I could come back later this afternoon.”

“If you’re feeling better,” Phyllis said.

Molly had already leaped to her feet. “If I’m feeling better, of course. Thank you, Phyllis.”

“The Complete Poetry of Maya Angelou,” Phyllis called after her, as Molly was hurrying away.

This froze Molly in her tracks. Slowly, she turned around. “I’m sorry, Phyllis. What did you say?”

“The Complete Poetry of Maya Angelou,” Phyllis repeated. “That’s what I’d bring for the girl to read. She’s a new mother, so—assuming she’s keeping the baby—won’t have a lot of time to read. But she might be able to snatch a poem here and there. And Maya Angelou hits the spot for just about everyone.”

Molly, feeling a little ashamed for not having thought of this herself, nodded. “Of course. And I should bring something for her to read to the baby. It’s never too early to start reading to a child.” Then she smiled at the older woman. “How did you know I was heading to the hospital?”

“Oh, my dear.” Phyllis shook her head as she pushed herself from the tiny chair. “You are more Harry Potter than Proust—not precisely difficult to read.”

Molly wasn’t certain if she should feel insulted or flattered by this, but chose to feel flattered.

She had to take a ride-share service to the hospital because it was too far away to walk or bicycle to. She half expected to be turned away when she asked for Tabitha Brighton’s room—she wasn’t family, after all—but the kindly volunteer at the information desk looked up the room number and gave it to Molly after asking who she was and carefully checking her ID. Apparently Molly was on some kind of list of approved visitors—or rather, was neither Dylan Dakota nor a member of the press, so was allowed to roam the halls of the hospital freely.

She found Tabitha’s second-floor room with ease and was about to enter without knocking (since the door was wide open) when she saw that Tabitha was nursing. An RN stood beside her, looking down on Baby Aphrodite’s little dark head and murmuring, “There. There, see? You’ve got it. I told you that you’d get it.”

Molly paused on the threshold, pleased to see both mother and baby looking so well, especially considering the condition they’d been in the last time she saw them.

Now they each had a rosy flush to their cheeks, and Tabitha was smiling, her eyes bright. Molly couldn’t see the baby’s eyes because her head was turned away from her, but she supposed they’d be as shiny as her mother’s.

Feeling like an interloper, she raised her hand and knocked softly on the doorjamb. When both Tabitha and the nurse looked up in surprise, having been completely absorbed in their task, Molly said, softly, “Hello. Sorry to interrupt. It’s just me, Molly Montgomery, the children’s librarian? I hope you don’t mind, but I got your message and I thought I’d stop by to see how you were doing. I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

Tabitha’s face changed as Molly revealed who she was. Of course she hadn’t recognized her—how could she? She didn’t remember that dreadful time in the library—or hopefully didn’t—so she’d been regarding Molly distrustfully. But now she relaxed.

“Oh, hi,” Tabitha said. “I thought you were the social worker for a second. They’ve been threatening to send her up here all day.”

Molly was a little confused—what was so wrong with social workers? But then the nurse said, “Now, then, Tabitha, we only want to make sure you and your baby have bonded, and that you have somewhere safe to go when you get discharged.”

“Of course we’ve bonded,” Tabitha said in a gently scoffing tone. “Look at us!”

It was true that Baby Aphrodite was snuggled very close to her mother, and seemed to have a voracious appetite. Molly could hear the hungry little slurping sounds from where she was standing in the doorway.

“So,” she said, hesitating to come into the room since she hadn’t exactly been invited, “you’re keeping her?”

Tabitha looked shocked. “Of course I’m keeping her! Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

Molly felt like this response was invitation enough to enter the room. She did so, placing her purse and tote bag on the floor and taking a seat in the visitor’s chair, which was beside the girl’s hospital bed.

“Well, only because someone left her in my library,” Molly said. “Have you figured out yet who might have done that?”

Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Well, the cops keep saying it was my boyfriend. But I know he’d never do anything like that.”

“Hmmm,” Molly replied, noncommittally. “Well, the police can be wrong.”

“Right? I mean, why would my boyfriend do that to his own baby?”

“Because men can suck,” said the nurse, whose nametag read Cecile.

“Not my boyfriend.” Tabitha’s voice was firm. “He’s going to come pick us up, and we’re going to live on a boat and sail around the world and homeschool Cosette.”

“Is that what you’ve named her?” Molly asked, reaching up to touch one of the baby’s tiny pink toes. She couldn’t help it. The little foot was dangling out from beneath the baby’s blanket just a few inches away, looking so soft and sweet and innocent that Molly had to touch it. “Cosette?”

“Yes.” Tabitha had the dreamy look that all women got while nursing, Molly’s sister included. But Tabitha’s was especially pronounced, because she was a teenager thinking about the boy she loved. “From Les Misérables. That’s my favorite book. Cosette knows tremendous hardship, but she’s a survivor, not a victim. I want my daughter to be just like her.”

“Not including the hardship, I hope.”

“Of course not!” Tabitha looked at Molly like she was crazy.

“Well, she’s so young, I doubt she’ll remember the rough start she got in life. I’m sure you and your boyfriend will give your daughter a wonderful upbringing. Has he called you?” Molly couldn’t believe she was sitting there, gently interrogating the new mother while she was nursing. What was wrong with her? “I suppose you’re getting discharged soon.”

“Well, no.” Tabitha looked ever so slightly troubled. “But I mean, he’s busy.”

“Sure he is,” said Cecile in a flat voice.

“No, really, he is. He’s getting the boat. We talked about this. He said it would take a few days to get a good one.”

“You mean steal one,” said Cecile.

“It’s not stealing,” Tabitha insisted. “It’s wrong to own property or people.”

Molly exchanged a glance with the nurse, who was adjusting Tabitha’s IV. The nurse suppressed a smile and turned away. It was clear she’d heard Tabitha express similar sentiments.

Suddenly Molly understood why John had insisted that Tabitha was “bananas.”

But Molly had a different opinion. Tabitha wasn’t mentally ill. She was simply young . . . young, naive, and in love.

“Well, of course it’s wrong to own people,” Molly said carefully. “But you might feel differently if someone took something that belonged to you—if it was your boat, for instance.”

“Not if they really needed it,” Tabitha said, shaking her head. “I’d give anyone anything I had that they really needed. I’m happy to share all that I have with those who have less.”

“Yes, but what if what they took was Cosette?”

Tabitha’s arms tightened protectively around her daughter. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that someone took your baby away from you. You weren’t okay with that, were you?”

“Of course not! But I’m talking about material things, not babies.”

“You said it wasn’t okay to own people.”

“I don’t own Cosette. She’s my daughter. I’d never let anyone take her away.”

Molly nodded. “Okay. I was just checking. Here, I brought something for you.” She rose and reached into her tote bag and pulled out the books, then handed both to Tabitha.

Tabitha gave the book of poetry only a fleeting glance, but she gasped at the picture book. “The Snowy Day! Oh my God, I used to have this book when I was a kid. It was my favorite. How did you know?”

“Everyone had that book when they were a kid,” Molly said. “It’s everyone’s favorite. It’s our most checked out book in the library, even though it’s never snowed once in Little Bridge. I think that’s why the kids here like it so much. I thought you might like to start reading it to Cosette.”

“Oh, I will.” When she was smiling, as she was now, Tabitha was a very attractive girl. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Montgomery!”

It was on this scene—a rosy-cheeked Tabitha flipping through the pages of her favorite picture book as she nursed her newborn daughter, Molly and the nurse standing beside her bed—that a well-dressed man and woman walked in a few seconds later, wheeling suitcases behind them, bringing with them the unmistakable scent of air travel and money.

“Tabby?” the woman said, in disbelief, nearly dropping her suitcase.

Tabitha looked up from the book, and her jaw dropped in shock. “Mom? Dad?”