she was here, and he was falling in love with her. The rest that came with it was the blessing his life had been missing.
He’d thought of her the whole time he was looking over the old Bailey homestead, and as soon as the appraiser got back to Rhonda Bailey, she was supposed to call him. He wanted to show Cathy now. But the place wasn’t his yet, and it was still too soon. He and Cathy were on the verge of everything, and yet she was still running from a past that had both scared and hurt her. And because of that, giving her that heads-up was his way of giving her back the sovereignty of her own life that she’d lost.
* * *
Cathy didn’t know it, but by nightfall she had become a celebrity in Blessings. The heroine of the day. The pistol-packin’ mama who took down a monster. Most people hearing the story had no idea who she was before, but they did now.
She’d even received a huge bouquet of flowers from the parents of all the little girls, which had caused no small amount of turmoil for Myra Franklin at the flower shop. She was less than an hour away from closing when she got the call, and with insistence that it must be delivered today.
Myra hadn’t heard the story, but the order was a pricey one, and she wasn’t turning down money like that. And since her hubby expected his supper on the table at 6:00 p.m., she called and told him to go to Granny’s to get his food, and to bring some home for her, too. She had a big order to fill.
The order was for pink roses—one for each of the children and the women that she’d saved—and luckily Myra had them in stock. So she chose one of the nicer crystal vases and began arranging the roses one at a time, adding greenery as she went to fill it out. It was fifteen minutes past her close time when she finished, but she was satisfied. So she cleaned up the work station and loaded the vase in her car to deliver on her way home.
When she pulled up to the little blue house with the white trim, she knew it was one of Dan Amos’s rental properties. She saw the car in the drive and recognized it as a rental from the insurance agency, because every now and then she saw a resident driving it if their car was in the shop. So this Cathy Terry didn’t own a vehicle, but she owned a handgun. Interesting.
Myra pulled up in the drive and got out, then carried the arrangement to the door and knocked. Moments later, she heard footsteps, and when the door swung inward, she realized she’d seen Cathy before, running past her shop.
“Cathy Terry…I have a delivery for you,” Myra said, and then waited. She lived for the smiles her arrangements received, and she wasn’t disappointed.
“Oh! They’re beautiful! Thank you,” Cathy said, as Myra handed her the vase.
“By the way, my name is Myra Franklin. I own the flower shop on Main Street, and I see you running past my window quite often. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Cathy said.
Myra beamed and took herself home as Cathy closed the door and then carried the bouquet to a small table in the hall. As soon as she put it down, she pulled the card from the arrangement and read it.
Thank you from all of us for saving our babies today. Then there was a list of names beneath the message, including Alice’s. It was such an unexpected gift, and so thoughtful.
After a last glance at the roses, Cathy went back to the kitchen to finish peeling a potato. She’d had a hunger for plain fried potatoes just like her mama used to make. They were going to be the side dish she was adding to a hamburger steak she was cooking, along with coleslaw she’d bought from the deli at the Crown. It wasn’t one of the gourmet meals of Blaine’s liking, but it was the food of her people, and the smells were wonderful. She couldn’t wait to dig in.
She ate supper in the living room while watching television and, every now and then, glancing at her roses. She suspected there would be a lot of unsettled children going to bed tonight, but there was no easy way to get over a scare like that.