Only the fine lines around his eyes betrayed his tension.
Walking around town, talking to people, wasn't going to be easy for him either. But he'd offered because he cared.
She swallowed her fear. Tried to. "Yeah. Maybe we should grab lunch."
14
Cord stood at his bedroom window watching Molly toss a tennis ball to Hound Dog in the midmorning sunlight. The cold snap had stuck around, and the bitter cold was almost suffocating. The forecasters were calling for a big storm over the weekend.
Hound Dog was a wimp in the cold and would want to come in soon.
Molly'd been edgy and quiet when they'd returned from town yesterday.
She'd been a trooper, kept her chin up through a fruitless lunch at the diner and a quick stop at the bank and gas station. No one had seen a newcomer in town who fit Toby's description. No one had noticed a red Mustang that didn't belong.
She'd hidden her terror from everyone except him.
Back on the ranch, she'd bundled up with two sweatshirts beneath her jean jacket and gone out into the field to work on the tractors. He hated that jacket and had even asked her why she didn't get a better coat. She'd shrugged and put him off.
In retrospect, he realized she couldn't afford to buy something new. She'd said her father had cut her off, and she'd left her waitressing job behind. How much money could she have? He wasn't even paying her for her work, just giving her room and board.
He'd checked on her twice during the afternoon. She'd been working almost manically, intense and focused. He'd felt as if he was distracting her and had quickly gone on with his own chores.
Being in town had taken a toll on them both.
He'd probably been more uncomfortable than she had when they'd sat at the diner counter to order lunch.
Martha Myers had been a waitress there when he was a kid. Seemed now she owned the place. The diner was a known source of gossip, and he knew everyone in Sutter's Hollow had been talking since Mackie's death.
He'd half-expected to get a bowl of the world-famous chili dumped on his head. Instead, Martha had been courteous and friendly. At the table next to them, an old-timer whose name Cord couldn't remember had asked how repairs on the ranch were going and promised to spread the word that it was for sale.
It had been the most normal afternoon in town he'd had since he was a kid. And it had made him wonder if it was possible to earn a spot back in the good graces of Sutter's Hollow after all.
Which had caused him to lose sleep last night. Sutter's Hollow was his past. He'd already decided to return to Houston and take Molly with him. His future was there.
So why was he questioning whether he could belong here after all these years? Why did he care?
When he heard Molly coming in through the mudroom, he headed down the stairs. He could hear her cooing to the dog, though her words were obscured by the closed mudroom door.
He detoured to the living room as she entered the kitchen.
"What're we making for lunch?" he called.
He couldn't help himself. He wanted her close, and it wasn't to protect her. He was attracted to her. Badly.
He wanted for himself the joy she exuded in those moments when she forgot about her stalker. He wanted to know her.
Wanted to kiss her.
"I've got some soup on," she returned.
"Rick called earlier. He was headed this way to see his aunt or something. He's going to drop off the last of your parts."
She hummed acknowledgement.
He walked to the front window and picked up the wrapped Christmas gift.
Molly was facing her demons. He could at least put Mackie to rest. Molly'd gotten rid of the horrid tree. Scrubbed the living room clean.
He needed to do his part. He turned the package in his hands, weighed it. It was a framed photo, a larger one. Eight by ten.
What would Mackie have put inside? Nothing good, of that he was certain.
He played with the corner of the wrapping paper for a moment. It seemed more worn than it should have been. How long had this gift been hiding under Mackie's tree? Was it ten years old, from that first Christmas he hadn't come home for the holiday? He hadn’t even bothered to call.
He'd stalled long enough. He inched one finger beneath the tape and ripped the paper away from the frame.
Took a deep breath. Turned over the frame.
It was full of pictures. Him and West on their stomachs hanging off the side of a fishing dock. Him and West mugging over two flashlights at a camp-out with Noah. Older photos. Faded ones of the two brothers with Mom's arms around them.
His chest tightened. Where had Mackie even found the photos? He'd left everything behind when he'd run away. He'd stored that old shoebox in the top of the closet, but he was sure Mackie would've thrown away the photos, not kept them.
She was the opposite of sentimental.
Was it possible she'd saved the photos to hurt him somehow?
He turned over the frame in his hands, searching for some answer that would make sense.
The corner of the cardboard tucked into the frame wasn't flat, as if whoever had put in the photos had been in a hurry.
It was a cheap frame. Small metal slivers held the back on. It only took a moment to bend them up and take off the back.
The photos that looked like a collage out of the front of the frame were covering a newspaper clipping, one big enough to fill the frame.
Where his heart had been beating with joy moments ago, now dread cinched his chest tight.
He carefully set the photos aside and turned over the newsprint.
HOMETOWN BOY BLINDED
The headline was a fist to his solar plexus. He didn't have to scan the article to know what it said. It was about Noah and the accident, and no doubt detailed Cord's part in it.
This was what Mackie had framed and wrapped for him. He knew it in his bones.
Except, Mackie wasn't the kind of person to hide pain behind photos. It didn’t make sense.
He stared at the words on the page. Shame rose up to choke him.
Molly was humming in the kitchen. Minutes ago, he'd wanted to join her, find the camaraderie they'd had last night.
He'd opened this stupid frame to prove to himself Mackie couldn't hurt him anymore.
But there was still a scared thirteen-year-old hiding inside him. One who still believed what she'd said.
That he didn't deserve good things.
He would never amount to anything.
He was a failure.
But was she right?
Or wrong?
He fingered the edge of the oldest photo, the one with Mom. Oh, he missed her. There was still a lingering ache that had never faded.
He'd lost the memory of her scent soon after he and West had come to live with Mackie. Then the sound of her voice had faded.
He'd give anything for one whisper.
You can do anything you set your mind to.
She'd told him that once. He'd been about ten, stinging from a bad grade on a math test at school. He'd really been too big for snuggles, but she'd let him curl against her on the couch anyway, had rifled his hair, then let her hand rest on the back of his neck.
She'd told him that one mess-up wasn't the end of the world. That he could try again. That she'd help him with the work that he struggled with.
And she had.
He'd forgotten all of that until now.
Mackie had never believed in him. But Mom had.
The memories with West were just as poignant. They'd been tighter than tight throughout their childhoods.
He'd messed that up. But did things have to stay the same? Could his relationship with his brother be repaired?
He crumpled the newspaper clipping in his fist.
He was done living with Mackie's voice in his head. He was done with the No Name. He was getting out as soon as he could.
Could he start something with Molly?
He fingered the wrapping p
aper he'd discarded on the sofa.
How had the photos gotten into the frame? Mackie wouldn't have covered over her vindictive article.
It had to be Molly.
He picked up the wrapping paper and brought it up to look more closely at it. The corners where the frame had been were worn. There were two places where the paper was faded, where the tape had been ripped away.
Two places, as if the paper had been opened more than once.
Because Molly.
Molly had wanted to spare him pain.
Molly had wanted him to remember the good parts.
His chest expanded, emotion too much for him to contain spilling up and—
He couldn't contain it anymore.
She'd gotten close, gotten inside of him when he hadn't been looking.
She passed in front of the kitchen door and then out of sight again. He only caught a glimpse of her before he was on his feet, moving toward her.
She looked up from where she stood at the counter, pounding a fist into a ball of dough. "What—?"
He strode toward her. She turned to him, and he slipped his arm around her waist. His other hand cupped her jaw, the tips of his fingers just brushing the smoothness of the hair behind her ear.
He should have waited, should have given her some chance to acquiesce.
It was too late now.
He lowered his head and took her mouth the way he'd been dreaming of for days.
She tasted faintly of honey and something tart.
He drew back a millimeter, remembering too late that he didn't want to frighten her. His nose brushed her cheek, and her breath was a tiny catch against his lips.
He couldn't help himself.
He kissed her again.
She rested her hands at his waist.
He tensed. If she pushed him away, he'd back off immediately.
But her fingers curled into his T-shirt.
He let his hand slide into the fall of hair behind her head.
He nipped her upper lip, and when she opened to him, he plundered her mouth, tasting her sweetness, the very essence of Molly.
She moved closer, or maybe he did, and he wrapped her even tighter in his arms.
He couldn't get her close enough.
And it sure seemed like she felt the same, because one of her hands snaked behind his lower back, her fingers pressing into his muscles as she clutched him close.
She hummed into his mouth, tilting her head to give him deeper access.
He took it greedily, feasting on her.
She was... everything.
He was falling in love with her.
The realization was like a physical blow, stealing his breath.
He broke the kiss, reeling, falling.
Her lashes fluttered, and she looked up at him with such adoration and trust that it was a second hit.
"Molly—"
"Don't look so scared," she said softly. She lifted one hand and brushed her thumb across his lips. Just that touch sent electric pulses through him and made him want to pull her close and forget everything else.
A flush climbed in her cheeks, already pink from the passion they'd shared.
And the last thing he wanted her to feel was embarrassed.
"I'm not scared." He was terrified of the emotions rising up in him.
Affection.
Protectiveness.
Love.
* * *
Molly watched the walls go up as Cord let her go. He lifted one hand and ran it through his hair, then gripped the back of his neck.
She experienced a visceral memory of his hand at her nape, his skin hot against her.
I'm not scared. He was lying. She was sure of it.
The way he'd kissed her...
The passion that had sparked between them scared her a little, too.
He'd been so insistent about not rushing things. What had happened just now that had pushed him to kiss her?
He shifted to one side, and she caught sight of the wrapping paper strewn across the sofa cushions. Oh. The photos.
Somehow, he'd figured it out.
She let a soft smile play across her lips as she went back to the bread dough. The dough—
She looked back to him and couldn't help a smirk at the flour handprints staining the front of his T-shirt.
He surprised her by not running away, not fading off into the living room. He moved up beside her.
"I've never watched anyone do this before."
He'd drawn his walls back up, but maybe not all the way.
"Wanna try? Here." She dipped her fingers into the small mound of flour she'd made on the clean countertop and grabbed his closer hand. She rubbed flour over his fingers, focusing on each knuckle, getting distracted by the strength in his wrist.
When he stilled, she looked up at him, saw the hesitation in his gaze.
She let her thumb rub across one knuckle. Saw the flare of heat in his eyes before he dampened it.
She didn't know where this thing between them would go, just that it felt right.
"It's called kneading," she said, moving aside so he could have at the lump of dough. "You're trying to release all the air bubbles in the dough so that the yeast can do its job.”
He pressed the dough gently as if he were petting one of the kittens.
“Harder than that.”
He smashed his fist into the dough.
“Not that hard!" She giggled at his mock-glare.
Out the window, a plume of gravel dust let them know someone was coming up the road.
"That's probably Rick," she said, nodding to the window.
Cord looked from the window down to his flour-dusted hands.
She stuffed the nerves rising in her stomach. She had to get over her fears. "Keep working. By the time I answer the door, you'll be finished."
She gave her fingers a quick rinse and was still drying them on a dish towel as she crossed through the living room.
Cord wanted to leave Sutter's Hollow behind. She'd started to feel safe again here, but the land was his.
He wanted her to go with him to Houston, but could she go back to living in the big city? In Sutter's Hollow, there was enough room for her to see to the horizon.
But after that kiss...
She opened the door and stood on the threshold, still distracted by thoughts of Cord's mouth on hers.
Weird. The plume of gravel dust had dissipated, but no car was parked near the house or even coming up the drive.
She squinted. Someone had stopped right at the turn in beneath the rusted-out sign. It didn't make sense. Rick would come up to the house, wouldn't he?
As the dirt settled, she got a glimpse of the car. Red. Her heart banged against her ribcage.
It was hard to see past the tangle of wild plum bushes that had overtaken the space behind the fence that spanned the property. What was clear was that the car was low to the ground.
Like a sports car.
"Cord." Her voice emerged a whisper as strength drained from her legs, leaching out of her body with every heartbeat.
Cord was still pounding the bread dough in the kitchen. She heard him say something to the dog.
Someone got out of the car.
She couldn't breathe.
That shock of dark hair. The skinny form, the slight hunch of his shoulders.
Toby.
Toby was here.
15
Molly reach for the door to shut him out, but her muscles wouldn't obey. She was frozen in fear.
It was like a bad dream, one where she couldn't move.
Except she was awake. Terrifyingly so.
Blood pumped through her sluggish body. Each beat of her heart was like an earthquake in her head.
Toby stared at her. Even from so far away, his stare pierced.
He'd found her.
"Is he coming in?"
From close behind her, Cord's voice startled her out of the debilitating state.
She shrieked.
He caught her, his arms coming around her back as he stepped into her.
Which put him right in the doorway, right in Toby's view.
Heart beating in her throat, she couldn't push the words out to warn him.
She was shaking so badly she couldn't stand upright.
She felt Cord's body go from at ease to tense and ready to strike.
"Who is that?" Cord asked.
He didn't wait for her to answer. He kept a strong hold on her as he whirled out of the doorway and shoved the door closed.
He locked it for good measure.
But a deadbolt wasn't going to keep Toby out.
"Was that him?" Cord demanded.
She managed a shaky nod, tears burning hot behind her eyes.
What was she going to do? Run, her brain cried.
Cord kept one arm around her, leaning his shoulder into the wall. She felt him reach into his hip pocket, and then he raised his cell phone to his ear.
"This is Coulter, out at Mackie's place. Molly's stalker just showed up."
Oh, the sheriff's office. Help! Send help!
Cord shifted them nearer the big front window. "His car's sitting out on the road, just past the cattle guard. He was standing there a minute ago. I think he got back inside the car."
There was noise through the cell phone.
Cord's chin pressed against her cheek. "Did you see a weapon? Was he holding anything?"
She squeezed her eyes closed, the image of Toby standing there, staring at her, burning behind her eyes. "I-I don't know." Her whisper burned her throat, and two hot tears slipped down her cheeks. "I don't think so."
"She didn't see a weapon," Cord said into the phone.
More noise came through the phone.
"Yeah, I understand."
Cord ended the call, shoved the cell back in his pocket.
"Honey, can you walk?" When she didn't respond, he shook her. “Molly.”
Her eyes flew open, and he must've seen the terror gripping her. His hands softened, pressed against her back.
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
She took one sniffling, shuddering breath. Cord wanted her to walk. Where to?
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