Chapter 13

John opened his eyes to find his son Red peering down at him with a big smile on his face.

Molly was peacefully sleeping at his side, her breathing light and even. At least nothing was showing.

“You have everyone fooled with your grumpy act, you dog!” Red whispered, trying to hold a laugh.

John glanced sharply up at his son. “You shouldn’t have come to my bedroom,” he growled making an effort to keep his voice down.

“Why? In the last few years, your bedroom has seen less action than a snowplow in July. Besides I come here every morning to help you with your morning routine, remember?” Red replied still smiling.

“Well, things have changed.”

“So I see,” Red smile got wider. “I’m happy for you, Dad. I like Molly. You two are going to be very happy, so long as you don’t muck this up.”

John turned his gaze to Molly as she murmured sleepily. The small sound made his heart ache for some reason and he merely stared at her for a moment, wondering how she’d slipped into his heart so easily and quickly.

He could lose himself in her. Having Molly here for the past several weeks had made him feel alive in ways he hadn’t since ... well, since he was a teen and they were together.

It wasn’t the sex, which he acknowledged had been a hundred times more powerful than the sex they’d shared in their youth. That had been ... well, mind-blowing frankly. It had certainly fried his circuits. But that wasn’t how Molly had slipped under his skin. It had happened before the sex.

Molly brought him out of himself. He became a different guy when he was with her, someone he’d never known he could be, someone he liked.

His life was brighter with Molly in it and fuller too. Being with her had taught him the value of a smile, a joke, a laugh. He had smiled more since she’d begun living with him than he had done in the last several years.

“Since you are here you can help me get dressed,” John said. “I still have trouble with buttons.”

Red nodded and helped his father to get out of bed.

“How are you handling ... with...” Red pointed at his father’s casts.

“I seem to knock things over more than I pick them up.”

“Well, that’s what Molly’s here for,” Red winked at his father. “She seems to be doing a fine job.”

John’s face went red.

“I’ll start the milking,” Red walked to the door once his father finished his morning routine.

“After you’re done with the milking why don’t we sit down and take a gander at that robotic milking machines?”

Red stopped, shook his head as if he hadn’t heard right, and turned.

“What?”

“The more I think about it, the more interesting it gets. I could use my free time to do other things.”

Red took a look at his father and said, “You sure could.”

Molly rolled onto his side in bed and reached for John, then opened her eyes with a frown when she didn’t immediately find him. She stared blankly at the empty space beside her, and then sat up, her eyes swinging around the room.

The dress she had worn the previous day was lying at her side of the bed, and there was no trace of John except for the lingering memory of the lovemaking they had shared the night before.

Pushing the blankets aside, Molly stood up and walked to the mirror. No one had ever made her feel as John did. All her life she had craved physical affection. Her father had not been the most nurturing person, work was all he knew.

Since her father forced her to break up his relationship with John, there was forever a hole in her heart that ached to be filled.

Beneath the half-moon, she’d finally found a way to make the ever-present, nagging emptiness go away. With John deep inside her, she no longer felt alone.