Special Forces Savior Read Free Page B

“You’re too tiny as it is.”
    “Wh-what?” Since when was Derek aware of her eating habits?
    “And not the vending machine. A real, proper meal. Promise me you’ll go down to the cafeteria tonight and eat something if you’re working here a long time.”
    Molly nodded.
    “And not tomorrow morning. Tonight, okay? In the next couple of hours,” Derek asked again. “Promise?”
    “I promise.” Molly forced the words to come out with no stammer.
    Derek smiled, and for a second looked as if he was going to say something else, but then Liam and Jon began talking to each other as they repacked the other evidence to be placed on the in-processing shelf. Whatever Derek had been about to say in that moment was gone.
    He dropped his hands from Molly’s waist and took a step back. “Thanks for processing that communication device tonight. I’m hoping it may be a key piece in the Chicago case.”
    Without another word, Derek turned and walked out the lab doors. Jon and Liam said their goodbyes as they left, too. Molly finally began breathing normally again.
    But as the doors closed, she heard it, although they obviously didn’t mean for her to: quiet laughter and the words Mousy Molly.
    Molly stayed where she was against the evidence table as if glued there. It wasn’t Derek who called her mousy, it was never Derek. But it was everyone else. Molly didn’t think Jon and Liam meant any harm by the expression, but it was true. Molly was mousy in all its elements: nervous, shy, lacking in presence or charisma. Heck even her coloring was mousy: brown eyes, brown hair.
    Okay, yeah, it hurt a little bit. Molly didn’t want to be mousy. And really most of the time she wasn’t that bad. It was just when she was around Derek that she became unbearable to herself.
    Molly brought her hands down to her waist where Derek’s had been. Derek had actually touched her. That didn’t happen very often. Although they saw each other a few times a week, Derek was very careful not to touch her in even the most casual way.
    He really hadn’t touched her at all since the time he showed up at her condo three years ago— drunk— and they’d had sex.
    Molly still grimaced when she thought about it. He’d been inebriated, he’d needed a friend. She should’ve just made a pallet for him on her couch and let him sleep it off.
    Instead of taking him to her bed and having the most wonderful night of her life.
    Except Derek had been gone when she woke up the next morning. And he had never brought it up again, so she assumed he didn’t remember much about that night at all. But Molly did. She also remembered their embrace in the lab about a year ago... The only other time he’d touched her.
    Molly sighed and pushed herself off the table. There was no way she was going to start thinking about this again. She had entirely too much work to do. She would put in a call to David, the newest young tech, and see if he was willing to make some extra money by coming back in and helping her with this processing.
    There was a lot of important work to do and she planned to get it done. She might be Mousy Molly like the guys said, but there was one thing she knew how to do well: her job.

Chapter Three
    Derek cringed when he heard Jon and Liam’s Mousy Molly comments as they followed him out the lab doors. How he hated that nickname. He knew the guys didn’t really mean any harm by it, neither Jon nor Liam would ever purposely be unkind to someone like Molly, but Derek still hated it.
    “I think you probably could’ve pushed to get more of our evidence processed tonight,” Jon said with a little snicker as they walked down the hallway. “I don’t know why Liam and I even tried talking to her. We should’ve used you from the beginning.”
    “It’s not like that, Jon.” Derek kept walking, hoping they’d just drop it. They had a meeting with Omega’s Critical Response Division Director Steve Drackett in five minutes, teleconference with state