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

“Oh, Tabby.”

The two people standing in the doorway to Tabitha’s hospital room could only be her parents. Her mother even looked like her a little—but with a more stylish haircut, highlights, and decidedly inappropriate clothing for Little Bridge: a wool sweater set with twill trousers and designer boots.

“Mom?” Tabitha seemed less happy and more stunned to see them.

Molly wasn’t certain what to do. On the one hand, it didn’t seem right for her to intrude on this family reunion.

But on the other, if this wasn’t what Tabitha wanted—and last night Molly had kicked John out because she’d been sure it wasn’t—then maybe she should stay. Someone needed to look out for the girl, no matter how misguided she seemed.

“Tabby, darling.” Mrs. Brighton hurried forward to give her daughter a hug and kiss.

Tabitha didn’t respond. She seemed frozen in shock. The baby, meanwhile, had fallen asleep at her breast.

“Oh, what a little sweetheart,” Mrs. Brighton said, and swept a gentle finger over Cosette’s forehead while at the same time tugging at Tabitha’s hospital gown so that her chest was covered.

“Mom,” Tabitha said, finally seeming to find her voice. “Dad. What are you doing here? How did—how did you find me?”

“Well, the sheriff called us, sweetheart,” Mrs. Brighton said. She moved to sit down in the chair Molly had vacated. “He was very concerned for you. And the baby, of course.”

Tabitha looked stonily from her mother to her father.

“I don’t understand why. We’re fine.”

Cecile the nurse lifted her iPad—clipboards seemed to be a thing of the past—and said, “Why don’t I take the baby back to the nursery?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Tabitha’s voice was cold. “These people are leaving.”

“Now, Tabby.” Mr. Brighton had the patient voice of a man used to dealing with irrational customers and hormonal women. Molly wondered what he did for a living. “Let’s be rational. It’s not just you anymore. You’ve got the baby to think of.”

“I am thinking of her.” Tabitha wrapped her arms more tightly around Cosette. “The last people in the world I want around her are you.”

“And on that note—” Cecile reached for the baby. “Why don’t I take little Cosette down the hall so you all can talk and she can sleep undisturbed?”

Tabitha gave the nurse her daughter—but not without saying, cuttingly, “All right. But just remember, I’m the only one allowed to take her from this hospital. Don’t let them do it.”

“Tabitha!” Mr. and Mrs. Brighton looked shocked. Even the nurse looked mildly offended.

“Around here we only allow babies to go home with their parents,” she said to Tabitha. She shot the Brightons a stern look as she wheeled Cosette, in her bassinette, from the room. “Their legal parents, the ones on their birth certificate.”

“Now, see here,” Mr. Brighton began, but Mrs. Brighton put a hand on his arm and shook her head. Not now, dear.

This reunion was going exactly the way Molly had feared it would, which was why she’d warned John against it in the first place. She felt obligated to jump in. “Maybe I could be of some help here.”

“And who are you?” Mr. Brighton demanded, his patience beginning to wear thin.

“I’m Molly Montgomery, the island’s children’s media specialist—”

“She’s the lady who found me,” Tabitha interrupted. “She found Cosette, too. If it weren’t for her, neither of us would even be alive.”

“Oh.” Mr. and Mrs. Brighton looked at Molly with renewed interest. Molly ducked her head modestly.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said.

“No, it’s true.” Tabitha was doing up her hospital gown now that Cosette was gone. “She’s been really nice to me. Everyone here has, even though I don’t necessarily deserve it.”

“Oh, well—” Molly had been about to assure Tabitha that of course she deserved it when she remembered what she and her fellow Sunshine Kids had done to the media room in the new library. She pressed her lips together and said nothing.

“Can we just talk sensibly here for a minute?” Mr. Brighton said. “Of course we’re very grateful to you, Ms. Montgomery, for helping our daughter and granddaughter. But what exactly is your plan, Tabby? You have a child of your own now. How do you intend to support her? Where do you plan to live? Don’t you think it’s time you gave up on all this ‘living off the land’ foolishness and came home?”

“Yes, darling, do.” Mrs. Brighton reached out to squeeze her daughter’s hand. “Daddy and I would love to have you and—Cosette, is it?”

“Thank you for the invitation,” Tabitha said stiffly. “Really, thank you. But I already have a place to live, and that is with the father of my child.”

Tabitha then launched into her speech about how she and Dylan and baby Cosette were going to sail around the world together, just as soon as Dylan could get a boat.

“Dylan says our first stop on the boat is going to be Tahiti. I’ve never been there, but he says you can just walk up to a tree—any tree—and if it has fruit growing on it, you can pick the fruit and eat it, and nobody hassles you for stealing their fruit. Not like here in this country.”

Both the Brightons seemed somewhat stunned upon hearing this, so Molly asked, more out of politeness than anything else, “Did that happen to you here, Tabitha? People got angry because you were eating their fruit?”

“Did they ever! We walked by this key lime tree here over by the courthouse, it was bursting all over with fruit—I don’t know if you’ve ever had key limes, but they’re delicious—and Dylan climbed it and started shaking the fruit down to me, and I was catching it in my skirt, and this mean old lady came out of her house and started yelling at us to quit it because we were stealing her fruit.”

“Well,” Molly said slowly, “it was her tree. Maybe she was going to make a key lime pie later.”

“Whatever,” Tabitha said, dismissively. “There was more than enough to share!”

It was a very romantic plan, and Molly wanted to believe in it as much as Tabitha did.

There were just two problems with it. The first was that Molly knew for a fact that Dylan had left Tabitha as well as her baby for dead, which didn’t exactly make him the world’s most desirable partner.

And two, as Tabitha was talking, Molly’s cell phone buzzed. When she glanced at it discreetly, hoping it was John—and also knowing how silly she was being for hoping it was John—she saw that she’d received a text from Dorothy Tifton:

You’ll never believe it! I helped solve a crime! Yes, ME! I caught the High School Thief! I got him to confess and followed him to the gym and called the sheriff!!! They found my iPad and camera in his locker! Your sheriff is interrogating him now! Come to my place tonight to celebrate, 6 P.M.! Champagne and caviar!

This was accompanied by an actual photo, apparently taken by Mrs. Tifton, of Dylan Dakota, aka Larry Beckwith III, being led from what looked like the 24 Hour Fitness on Washington Street in handcuffs by a muscular young sheriff’s deputy.

Molly felt the ground shake beneath her. As Little Bridge Island did not sit upon a fault line, it was unlikely there’d been an actual earthquake, so what she’d felt was only in her own mind.

How was she going to break the news to Tabitha that the father of her child had just been arrested? The two of them were going nowhere together, let alone Tahiti, if the sheriff had his way—nowhere except jail.

When she tuned back in to the conversation, she heard Mrs. Brighton saying, “I’m sorry, Tabitha. But raising a child—a newborn—on a boat is unrealistic. Where are you going to get diapers?”

“I’ll be using cloth diapers, of course, Mother, and I’ll wash them in the sea.”

“Oh, for the love of all that is holy.” Mr. Brighton paced the small room, ending up at the window. “Is that a dump I’m looking at, for Christ’s sake? Who in the name of God builds a hospital next to a dump?”

“Um, Tabitha,” Molly said, reluctantly clicking on the photo Mrs. Tifton had sent her. She didn’t want to upset the young mother. What if the shock caused her milk to dry up? This happened frequently in novels, at least in the mysteries Molly so enjoyed. But it seemed necessary to tell her. “I just received something I think you should see.”

Tabitha looked unconcerned. “What is it?”

Her look of unconcern turned to deep, deep unhappiness the moment she saw the photo. “What?” she cried. “What is that? When did that happen? Why? Why would they arrest my Dylan?”

“Well,” Molly said, “for one thing, because of what all of you did to the library. And for another, because he left you instead of getting you help while you were giving birth to Cosette. You could have died. And for another, because he abandoned your baby on a toilet, and then broke into my friend’s house and stole her camera and iPad.”

“He d-didn’t,” Tabitha insisted.

“Tabitha, he did. You know he did. You can lie to the police all you want, but you can’t lie to me.”

Tabitha responded by bursting into loud, hiccupping sobs. This startled everyone in the room, but none more than her mother, who moved quickly to embrace the girl, sitting beside her in the hospital bed and caressing her hair, murmuring, “Oh, sweetheart. Oh, my baby. It’s going to be all right. Everything is going to be okay.”

Except it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t.

Tabitha’s heart was broken. She’d finally realized the truth—a truth she’d probably known all along, just never allowed herself to think—and now her plans for herself and her baby lay in shatters around her. Molly looked at the weeping girl and couldn’t help feeling very sorry for her. She knew now why John had called her parents. He’d had to. Of course he’d had to.

Because she had no one else. Except for her baby, she was all alone.

“They c-can’t p-prove any of that!” Tabitha cried, desperately grasping at one last straw of hope. “They can’t prove it, can they?”

“Actually,” Molly said, her heart aching for the girl, “they can.”

“What is going on in here?” Dr. Nguyen stood in the doorway with Nurse Cecile and another woman. The other woman was dressed in normal clothes, not nurse’s scrubs or a white physician’s coat, and was holding a clipboard. Molly would have bet her life that she was a social worker. “What have you been saying to my patient to get her so upset?”

“I’m sorry,” Molly said, slipping her cell phone back into her purse. “That was my fault.”

“Are you family?” the social worker asked.

“No,” Molly said meekly.

“Then please leave. I need a word with this patient and her family in private.”

“Of course,” Molly said, and started to leave, but Tabitha’s strident voice stopped her.

“No!” Tabitha cried. “If she goes, I want my parents to go!”

“But, Tabby—” Her mother drew away from her, looking stricken.

“Everyone goes!” Tabitha was practically screaming.

Dr. Nguyen’s voice was crisp. “I don’t want my patient upset. Everyone, please go.”

Molly shuffled out into the hall with Tabitha’s parents. As soon as the door was closed behind them, Mr. Brighton turned to Molly and asked, “What on earth did you show her that got her so upset?”

Molly lifted her cell phone and showed them. “That’s her boyfriend. I think their trip around the world is going to be delayed for a while.”