by B. J Daniels
“Got to go. Thanks, Frank.” He’d hung up.
“She’s going to be fine,” the doctor had said. “Fortunately the cuts were superficial. She might have a couple of light scars, nothing like the one on her forehead. She tell you how she got that one?”
Cash had shaken his head. “She doesn’t remember.”
“Nasty scar. Must have really bled. I’ve given her some pain medicine and prescribed some more if she needs it.” He’d handed Cash the prescription. “She said she was with you?”
Cash had nodded. “She’s with me.”
“I’m scared,” Molly said now as the plane made its descent into Miami.
He took her hand and squeezed it gently. She squeezed back. He knew it wasn’t the landing that had her frightened. It was meeting her mother. Molly had had no idea her mother was still alive. Or that her father had kidnapped her.
“It explains why we never stayed in one place for long,” she’d said when he’d told her the news. “Also why he didn’t want anyone to know he was my father.”
Rachel Valentine had been overjoyed to hear that her daughter had finally been found. And she’d put together the last piece of the puzzle.
“Max sent me Molly’s teddy bear,” Rachel said, tears in her voice. “I got it in the mail fifteen years ago with a note. All the note said was that he was sorry and that he would someday make it up to me.”
The FBI agent Cash sent to check the teddy bear found the stolen diamonds from the heist inside.
The plane touched down. Cash could feel how anxious Molly was—and how worried. Molly and her mother would be strangers. Mothers shouldn’t be strangers to their children, he thought, thinking of his own mother.
Except Rachel Valentine hadn’t chosen this. She’d spent years and thousands of dollars trying to find Molly. She’d only given up when she’d thought Molly was dead. Later, when Max had been killed, she’d tried again but to no avail. Molly had been running again.
Cash was just thankful that she’d run to him.
The limo that Rachel Valentine had sent for her daughter was waiting as they came out of the terminal. When the chauffeur jumped out and opened the door, a beautiful woman with blond hair and green eyes disembarked from the back. The resemblance between the two women left little doubt that Molly was her long-lost daughter.
Rachel froze at the sight of Molly, her hand going to her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes. Then she opened her arms and Molly stumbled into them.
Cash watched the two hug. They had almost thirty years of catching up to do. He’d promised to come this far with Molly, but now she would be fine on her own. Molly was a strong woman. She’d already survived so much.
He turned to disappear into the crowd. Molly didn’t need him anymore.
“Cash?”
He stopped at the sound of her voice, amazed by the effect it always had on him. He turned slowly to look at her. She couldn’t have been more beautiful standing there beside her mother.
She smiled at him as she walked to him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Molly, you don’t need me now. You and your mother have a lot of catching up to do. You’re finally safe, with family. Who knows, you might decide to stay in Miami.” He looked to the palm trees waving in the sea breeze. “It’s beautiful here.”
She touched his cheek, drawing his gaze back to hers. “This is just a visit. One of many I hope. For the first time in my life, I’ve found the place I want to stay, Cash. It’s a little town in Montana. Antelope Flats. Ever heard of it?”
“Molly, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I spent my whole life running from something I never understood.” She touched the scar on her forehead, a head wound from a childhood accident that had bled enough to make her mother stop looking for her.
“I don’t want to run anymore, especially from my feelings,” she said. “I’m in love with you, Cash McCall. We don’t know each other very well, but I was thinking that if I were to hang around Antelope Flats, maybe we could get to know each other.”
His heart swelled and for a moment he couldn’t say a word. He looked into her eyes, reminded of a spring day in Montana, and thought he caught a glimpse of the future. He pulled her into his arms, closing his eyes and just holding her.
“About that old house of yours,” she said when she finally drew back.
“I’ll put it on the market when I get back to Montana,” he said.
“You bought it because you like old houses, right?”
He nodded, looking embarrassed. “You hate old houses.”
She smiled. “I used to, but I have to tell you I’ve been thinking about your house. It would take a lot of work, but it has…possibilities. Just like you and me.”
“Are you sure?” Cash asked, his heart in his throat. “That house has to have some bad memories for you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve run my whole life from bad memories. That house also has some good memories and I’m hoping to make a lot more once I get back to Montana.” She smiled. “Which will be soon.” She kissed him then, a soft, sweet kiss filled with promise, then she turned and walked back to her mother and disappeared into the back of the limo.
Cash watched her go, turned and, whistling, headed for home. Home. The day he’d bought it, he’d dreamed of someday finding a woman to love and filling that old house with children.
What he’d never dreamed of was a woman like Molly. Some things were even beyond a man’s wildest dreams.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6175-8
AMBUSHED!
Copyright © 2005 by Barbara Heinlein
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*Cascades Concealed
*Cascades Concealed
*Cascades Concealed
†McCalls’ Montana
†McCalls’ Montana
†McCalls’ Montana
