dropped into her seat, staring numbly at the seat in front of her.
“Mum? Are you still there? Mum?”
She needed to answer her daughter, needed to know what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Needed to know how Liam had reacted to the bombshell her—their—daughter had dropped at his feet today. But there wasn’t time. She would have to end this call soon and Casey still didn’t know Missy was making her way to Wyoming.
Pulling in a deep breath through her nose, she released it in a soft wisp past her lips. By the third one she was able to speak. “Honey, we need to talk.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Missy gasped. The same deep, gravelly, sexy voice she remembered from her youth filled her ear and stole her breath. A heated flush that made no sense at all started in the center of her chest and rushed to every part of her body.
How could he sound exactly the same after all this time?
“Liam.”
She heard a swift intake of breath, and then silence filled the distance—both in miles and years—that stretched between them.
Up until the last few weeks, she hadn’t spoken his name aloud in a long time. Not when she and her girlfriends would gather for drinks and a chat, not to her daughter when they talked about things like boys and dating and growing up, and never to her parents.
Sometimes it felt as if that year in her life had happened to someone else.
“Casey tells me you’ve been in Los Angeles for the last few weeks.” Liam’s voice was clipped and businesslike now. “If you let me know where you’re staying, I’ll make arrangements to get you to the airport and on a flight to Wyoming right away.”
Bristling at his authoritative tone, she said, “I’m on a flight to Cheyenne scheduled to depart in a few minutes, actually. I land at half past five, local time.”
There was more silence as he processed her news. Was he surprised she’d already been on her way? How much had her daughter told him about the night Missy—and she—had learned the truth?
“I’ll be there when your plane lands,” he finally said.
Of course he would. And since she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to figure out how she would travel to Destiny, she wouldn’t fight him. Getting to Casey was the most important thing at the moment. “May I speak to my daughter again?”
His voice dropped away, and then Casey’s voice came back on the line. “You’re flying here? Like right now?”
“Yes, sweetie, and I promise we’ll talk about everything when I see you.” Missy tried to keep her voice light. “Including you changing your transatlantic flight. Please don’t cause any trouble for...for Liam in the meanwhile.”
“You’re a tad late for that bit of advice, Mum.” Casey offered a staged sigh, an expression the teen had perfected in the last few years. “I’d say me showing up out of the blue is just the start of trouble.”
* * *
Missy popped a breath mint into her mouth and made stopping by the loo her first priority as soon as she landed in Cheyenne.
After using the facilities and washing her hands, she redid her hair, making neat the messy chignon style she favored. When she found herself leaning toward the mirror to reapply her lipstick, she froze.
Did she care what Liam Murphy thought of her after all this time?
Not wanting to answer that question, she hurried to the baggage claim area and found her case still circling the carousel. She retrieved it and then checked her phone. No calls or texts from her daughter or Liam. With a thirty-minute stopover in Denver, she’d only had time to ring her mother and have their first real conversation since Missy had left London.
Wise enough to keep her opinions of Casey’s actions to herself, her mother had insisted she had no idea what her granddaughter had been up to. But Elizabeth Ellington had been shocked to find out Missy was also on her way to Wyoming. Before she could say anything more, Missy had ended the call with a curt promise to get in touch as soon as she found a place for her and Casey to stay for the weekend.
“Ms. Dobbs?”
Missy spun around and found a gentleman dressed in a dark suit holding a placard with her name on it. She’d traveled enough over the years to recognize a car service when she saw one.
Liam wasn’t here. She should be grateful for more time before she saw him again, but it bothered her more than she cared to admit that he hadn’t kept his word. “Yes?”
“Mr. Murphy was unavoidably detained in Destiny due to business,” he said. “I’m to make sure you arrive safely. I have a car waiting outside.”
Resentment burned that not only had Liam stood her up, but he hadn’t sent Casey along to meet her either. Bollocks! What did he think she’d do? Grab her daughter and take the next flight out of here?
“Could you give me a moment, please?” she asked.
The gentleman nodded and stepped away. Missy found a quiet corner and called Casey’s mobile. It went straight to voice mail. She left a message that she’d landed and was on her way to Destiny. She then tried the number her daughter had used when she’d called earlier today, assuming it was for Liam’s cell phone, but it just rang and rang.
Seeing as she didn’t have any other choice, she followed the driver outside and moments later was seated in the back of a luxury town car. They soon were out of the city and on the motorway. Out the window the land was flat and wide and empty with a blue sky that seemed to go on forever.
So different from the hustle and bustle of London, where she’d lived all her life. She remembered feeling very lost and vulnerable when she’d first arrived in Wyoming all those years ago.
She’d almost cut her visit short after a trip home for Christmas, but had decided to return to Destiny.
Because of one boy. The one she’d been crushing on from the time she’d seen him in the school hallway the very first week.
Liam Murphy, a real cowboy who spent his weekends riding in rodeos, had finally asked her to dance during the last slow song at the winter semiformal, and she had promptly tripped over his boots—
No!
Missy gave her head a quick shake. There would be no trips down memory lane. It was bad enough she’d spent the last few weeks remembering how she and Liam had met, started dating and fallen in love.
Of course, steering clear of their shared history wasn’t going to be easy. Goodness knew what kind of questions Casey was going to have for her—for them—over the next few days.
Missy tried once more to reach her daughter, but again she got only voice mail. She grew more nervous as they arrived in Destiny, which she had to admit looked much the same as the last time she was here.
They drove down the charming main street with its many businesses, around the gazebo in the center of town, past the firehouse and the sheriff’s office and the Blue Creek
