“You can right now honey.” She reached out for Natalie’s hand and held it between her two palms. “It’s the reason I asked you to come see me. Just the two of us girls together. I have a huge favor to ask you.”
Shane was probably right. She wants me to take over the running of the café. And I’m going to accept without hesitation.
“Sure anything,” said Natalie.
“I want you to tell Flynn the truth.”
Natalie felt bile rise in her throat, giving her mouth a sudden bitter taste. Was Marie referring to what she thought? And if so, how could she possibly know?
“And don’t go telling me you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’re Emily’s birth mother aren’t you?”
There was no running now. Natalie lower lips quivered. She nodded. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t at first but I’m a mother of four, and I know the look a mother gives her child. Every time you’re with Emily you have a look of love and pride that doesn’t, and can’t, come from a stranger.”
A tear slid down her face. “I never wanted to give her up.”
“Shhh honeybee. I know that. And judging by your age and knowing she’s thirteen, I’m guessing you were little more than a baby yourself when you gave birth.”
Natalie nodded, a tear falling from her face and bouncing onto her lap. “And I didn’t know she…
“Was so special. I know sweetie. But here’s my concern—I’ve also seen the way you look at my son and the way he looks at you. There’s a spark there, there’s love there, and if you’re not honest with him it’s not going to end well and that would be a shame.”
“I have this feeling he might hate me now. I mean for not telling him when we first met. I had every intention of doing that but it was the shock of seeing Emily and, well, by then it was too late.”
She shook her head “No, he won’t. And there’s something he has to tell you too…about how he came to be Emily’s daddy. I think as her birth mother you have a right to know.” She took a deep breath. “Yeah, both of you are alike in the secret department. Now off you go and talk to Flynn.”
Chapter Eleven
Flynn walked into the kitchen of the café to see Emily looking at photos he’d never seen before.
“What do you have there?”
He’d surprised her and as she turned they scattered all over the floor.
“I found them in Natalie’s purse and I didn’t put them back because I wanted to look at them.”
“Honey, I’ve told you, not to snoop in people’s private things.”
“Sorry Daddy, sorry.”
She ran out of the kitchen door. He knew she was sorry but sometimes she needed to get away to deal with things in her own way. Flynn got on his hands and knees and began to gather up the photos so he could give them back to Natalie and apologize.
He looked at one of them.
Wait, a minute, I’m dreaming.
He looked again at the woman standing next to Natalie. That’s why Natalie’s face had seemed somewhat familiar when they’d first met that night. She looked like her mother.
Her mother.
The bitch.
He’d never forget her for the rest of his life.
He sat on the floor, his back to the cupboard, cradling the photo in his hands. Natalie was Emily’s birth mother.
Shit, why hadn’t he seen it? That’s why she was so nice to her. It wasn’t that she was just this stranger who’d taken a liking to her. And to him. Were all the looks and the lovemaking one big act? Has she played him for a fool?
Was she here to try and take Emily away from him?
He bit his lip. He hadn’t gone through an adoption agency. Was Natalie in Timber Creek to challenge the validity of it? Emily was his and no one, not even her own mother, was going to tell him otherwise.
****
Natalie knew Flynn well enough by now to sense when something was wrong. She could tell by the large strides he was taking that he wasn’t in the best of moods. The rap on her door, both quick and hard, also told her that maybe she’d done something wrong.
She opened it. He had some photos in his hand. The ones of her and her mother and father. She could clearly see them. She hadn’t even realized she’d lost them.
“I think we need to talk,” he said pushing by her to get into the room.
Something was wrong. But what was the connection to the photos? They didn’t reveal her secret. She sat down on the bed and threw the photos on the space beside her.
“The photo of you and the woman,” he said, pushing his hat back on his head.
“My mother.”
He took off his hat and slapped it on the side of his leg. “Are you Emily’s birth mother?”
The room began to spin. How had he deduced that from the photo? She could go on lying, staying here and in their lives, but Marie was right. They had a thing going on and she had to come clean or she’d lose him.
“Yes, yes I am.”
“She’s the baby that you lost?”
“I…”
“Is that why you came here to Timber Creek? You’re not looking for some fucking vacation house are you?”
Tears welled up in her eyes. He was angry and he had every right to be.
“Flynn, please hear me out. I was asked to come and look for Emily. That’s what I was doing near your property when my car went into the ditch. I had every intention of telling you who I was but then I saw her…I saw you, and I couldn’t.”
“But you still kept up this charade. All this time me believing that you were just a sweetheart and an angel sent from heaven for both me and my daughter. And yes, she’s my daughter,” he said waving his finger at her.
Natalie swallowed. “Please Flynn, come and sit down,” she said patting the spot beside her.
He paced up and down. “I think I’d be a lot happier standing.”
“Emily’s birth father died recently and his final request was for me to find her.”
“So up till then you’ve never thought of your little girl out there in the world?”
Natalie shook her head. She didn’t want him to think that way about her. Not now, not ever. “I’ve thought about her constantly, but I got on with my life to forget about the pain of having to give her up.”
He paced up and down some more and then stopped right in front of her. “You knew that she had Down’s?”
She shook her head as tears flooded down her face. “After the ultrasound they did tell me something wasn’t right but I assumed that my mother had made them tell me that because she wanted me to have an abortion.”
“Oh yeah, I can believe that. That lady is quite something.”
Natalie looked up at him. He’d never meet her mother so how…“what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Forget I said that.”
Natalie stood. “No, I can’t. It sounds like you know my mother very well and…”
Flynn raised both his eyebrows. She could tell by the look on Flynn’s face that he knew something she didn’t. That’s what Marie was referring to. “I think you’ve been hiding something from me too,” she said.
“Maybe, but I think you’ve trumped me. What were you hoping to achieve here, Natalie?”
“I don’t know. I thought I’d just meet Emily and leave but as soon as I saw her, I felt a connection to her. For god’s sake, Flynn, she’s my flesh and blood.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but I’m the one who raised her. I’m the one you’ve been playing. Sleeping with me, making me think I’d found the woman of my dreams when all the time you had an agenda.”
“Playing…no, Flynn, no. What I feel for you is real.”
“Like hell it is. Guess I was stupid enough to let another woman fool me.”
“Flynn,” she said standing and touching his arm.
“Hey, you mind letting go of me?”
His words stung and hurt, but she guessed she had only herself to blame.
“How do you kn
ow my mother so well?”
“You really up to hearing the whole story, Natalie?”
“I have to.”
****
He sat in a chair, intentionally as far away from her as he could get. She’d put a knife through his heart with her lies and deception, and the fact that he loved her and wanted her made it all the worse for him. He put his hat on his knee and ran his fingers around its rim.
“Guess you should know the story from the beginning. My wife didn’t die. She was having an affair.” He took a deep breath. “I decided to get away from this place for a bit. I began driving and I somehow ended up in Rapid City, South Dakota.”
“I was in this little ma and pa café having breakfast one morning, and there was a couple in their late thirties, early forties sitting on a table nearby. They kept looking at their watch and finally in strolls your mother with a baby carrier.”
He stopped. He could still see the image as if it had happened just yesterday. Yeah, it had stuck in his mind and never left.
“She walked up to the couple and said here’s your baby and all the papers you need for your attorney.”
He wiped a tear from his cheek. “Shit, I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. The couple took one look at Emily and…”
He broke down sobbing. He couldn’t help it. He remembered the look like they’d seen the most horrible thing in the world.
Flynn looked over at Natalie. He was telling her this awful story about her flesh and blood, but she’d wanted to hear it. “They told your mother she’d failed to inform them about Emily being a retarded baby. They wanted a perfect child, and they stood about to leave.”
He glanced over at Natalie. Her lower lip was trembling. This was just as hard for him telling the story as it probably was for her sitting here listening to it. He remembered the baby beginning to cry at that point.
“Your mother said she couldn’t take the baby back with her. She didn’t want it either and… and, shit, they argued back and forth like Emily was something they’d bought in the wrong color or a sweater that had a hole in it.”
He put his hand to his mouth sure he was going to be sick like he almost was that day. He hadn’t believed that people could be so cruel to a helpless baby.
“Your mother told them either they took the baby or she’d have to leave it on the doorstep of the local social services and hoped someone would give it a home.”
“How could my mother have done something so awful?” Natalie was sobbing and he almost weakened into rushing over to her and holding her tight.
“I had to do something. I knew in the pit of my stomach I was that little baby’s only hope. I strolled over to them and was about to tell them I was going to call child protective services and have all of them arrested for being such a bunch of assholes. And that’s when I looked in the carrier and saw her. She looked at me and I swear she stopped crying. She smiled at me, and I knew I had to take her. I told your mother to give me the paperwork, and I’d adopt her as my little girl. I thought maybe the baby would bring my wife back to me, but when I got home, but she like the couple couldn’t…. well, she left that day, and I didn’t hear from her again until the divorce papers arrived a few weeks later.”
He’d done his best to block out that day and the weeks after. All he remembered now was his Emily and the joy she’d brought into his empty life.
Natalie stood, so did Flynn.
“Do you want me to tell Emily who I am or will you?” asked Natalie.
“I’ll tell her but only after you’ve left town.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“I think you are. I want you out of Timber Creek today. I don’t want to ever see you again.”
She took a step toward him. “Flynn, you can’t mean that. I love you.”
Natalie reached for him, but he dodged out of the way. If she touched him, shit, if she as much as touched him, he’d give in.
“I have Emily, and that’s all I ever really needed.”
Chapter Twelve
“Where’s Natalie?” asked Emily pushing the mashed potatoes around on her plate.
“She had to go back to Florida. Now eat your food and no more playing with it.” He tapped the table by her plate and glanced at Rory.
“Is she coming back?” asked Emily.
He didn’t want to hear anything else about Natalie, but his daughter wouldn’t let it go.
“No.”
Emily slammed her fist down on the table. “She has to because of my knitting.”
“That’s just the way it is, and maybe when your Gran feels better she can help you, okay? Now eat.”
Flynn didn’t see it coming, and the next thing he knew Emily had picked up a handful of mashed potatoes and thrown them at him.
He stood, the mixture dripping down his face and onto his jeans.
“Get into your room and stay there.”
She poked her tongue out at him and ran out of the kitchen. The door once again banged shut when she reached her bedroom.
“Shit, shit, shit,” said Flynn wiping the mess from his clothes. He looked at Rory who had his eyebrows raised and was tapping the table with his fingers.
“I’m sure you’ve got some words of advice and wisdom you’re just dying to tell me, aren’t you,” he said.
Rory shrugged his shoulders. “What do you expect when you banish someone Emily loves? And she does love her like she loves you. I might be the family’s old bachelor, but I know what love looks like.”
“She’s a liar and a…” He sat back down exhausted from fighting off his emotions he’d been toying with since his conversation with Natalie at the motel. It had been almost a month since he’d seen her, and he already missed her like crazy.
Rory leaned forward. “If you didn’t have feelings for Natalie you wouldn’t feel this strong about her not telling you that she’s Emily real mom.”
Flynn was about to give his brother a rebuttal but didn’t because he knew his big brother was right. Rory raised his eyebrows again and nodded.
“Okay, I love her is that what you want to hear?” asked Flynn.
“I already knew that and that’s why you’re stupid and stubborn to have sent her packing, banishing her from Timber Creek and your life… from her daughter’s life.”
“She wasn’t honest.”
“Okay, she probably should have owned up straight away, but she didn’t. Shit, Flynn didn’t you know that none of us are perfect?”
Rory was right. He always was, but Flynn never gave him credit for his wisdom.
“Well,” asked Rory.
“Well what?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
****
“Have you been listening to a word that’s been said?”
Natalie hadn’t realized that she’d been looking out of the conference room window until one of the senior partners spoke to her. She’d tried her best to get back to work, but her heart was no longer in law, or Orlando for that matter. She wanted to be working in Marie’s café, with her daughter and the Big Sky Country cowboy she’d fallen in love with.
“Is there something wrong?”
It wasn’t until he spoke again that Natalie realized she hadn’t answered his first question.
“I’m not sure.”
“You’ve seemed like you’re on a different planet since you got back from your vacation.”
She twisted around in the swivel chair. One that probably cost as much as every piece of furniture in Flynn’s living room. This was cold and unwelcoming. Her condo was cold and unwelcoming. Flynn’s house was home.
“I’m sorry, it’s just I think I might be coming down with something.”
“You want to go home and we can e-mail you the notes from the rest of the conference?”
“Sure, that would be great, and thanks for being so understanding.”
Natalie gathered up her papers and walked into the hallway and down a few doors to her office. What must the senior p
artners think of her? Not that she cared anymore. She checked her cellphone messages, hoping and praying that Flynn had realized what a big mistake he’d made and call her.
But nothing.
Only three missed messages from her mother, whom she couldn’t bring herself to visit since she’d been back and now knew what she’d done with her baby.
She needed some air, and she knew she wanted to drive. And also where she wanted to go.
Fifteen minutes later she found herself with a bunch of flowers in her hand and heading toward Jon’s grave. It looked so new, so fresh, and it was hard to believe that not so long ago he’d asked her to find their baby.
Natalie slumped down by the headstone and ran her fingers over his name.
“I did it. I found her, and she’s beautiful.”
It was true. The rest of the world might consider her imperfect, but to Natalie she was the most beautiful girl in the universe. That cute smile and the way she held her hand and squeezed it.
A tear ran down both cheeks.
“I fell in love with her father. Oh Jon, I can’t live without either of them now.”
She sobbed into her hands. “I had to live without you because my parents didn’t think you were right for me. I had to give up our baby because they thought she’d ruin my life. I don’t want other people making decisions for me anymore. Am I ever going to find true love?”
****
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
Flynn ran his hands through his hair. He’d called Shane because he didn’t know who else to contact when he’d gone into Emily’s bedroom to wake her up and found her bed hadn’t been slept in. A phone call to Rory to see if she’d gone to his place also yielded no daughter.
“She’s not in the house, on the ranch, or at Rory’s place.”
“Does this have anything to do with Natalie leaving?”
He knew it probably did, but he didn’t want to admit to it.
Rory chose that moment to walk in the back door. He’d gone out to make another search of the ranch just in case she was hiding in a barn or the hayloft, but his brother shook his head.
“So what do we do, Shane, get a search party together or what?”
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