Last Seen.... Carla Cassidy

reached across the table and covered her friend’s hand with her own. “That’s in your past, and now it’s time for you to look forward to a great future filled with love and respect.”

      Rachel squeezed her hand. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

      Breanna pulled her hand back and laughed. “You seem to have it backward. I can’t imagine what I would do without you! And speaking of that, how was my little munchkin today?”

      Rachel smiled. “Wonderful, as usual. I swear, Breanna, Maggie is the brightest, sweetest child I’ve ever known.”

      Pride swelled up inside Breanna. “And you are obviously a woman of enormous judgement, which is why I hired you to take care of her in the first place.”

      “By the way, we have a new neighbor in the cottage. I watched him unloading this evening and he’s a definite hunk!”

      “I know. I met him.”

      Rachel frowned. “You did? When?”

      “Just a few minutes ago when I pulled my gun on him.” Breanna tried not to think about that swirl of heat that had swept over her as Adam Spencer had looked at her.

      “You pulled your gun on him?” Rachel asked in surprise.

      “He came out of the darkness at me without warning. I didn’t know who he was or what he wanted.”

      “And what did he want?”

      Breanna shrugged. “I guess just to introduce himself to me.”

      Rachel smiled wickedly. “I’d like to hold him at gunpoint and have my way with him.”

      Breanna laughed. “This from a woman who is too nervous to sleep because she has a date with a preacher tomorrow.”

      “You know what they say about the preacher’s kids…they’re the wildest ones in town.”

      Breanna smiled. “Not in this case. David Mandell is a nice guy.” She stood, suddenly exhausted and more than a little eager to kiss her sweet sleeping daughter on her cheek. “I’m off to bed and if you’re wise, you’ll do the same. You don’t want to scare David tomorrow with huge black bags under your eyes.”

      Rachel nodded. “I’ll be up in just a few minutes.”

      The two said their good-nights, then Breanna climbed the wide staircase. She peeked into her daughter’s bedroom just to assure herself that all was well, then went directly into her own bedroom and the private bath.

      She never kissed her daughter when she had the stink of the streets on her, when her skin crawled from all the men who had whispered dirty things to her, leered at her with hungry eyes.

      Minutes later she stepped out of the hot shower, dried off, then pulled on her comfortable cotton nightshirt. It took several minutes to brush and dry her long, thick dark hair, then she quietly crept into Maggie’s room.

      A cartoon character night-light illuminated the area around the twin bed, and Maggie’s little face peeked out from beneath the covers.

      Breanna sat in the chair at the edge of the bed and breathed in the scent of the room…the sweet mixture of peach bubble bath and childhood.

      She loved to watch her daughter as she slept, loved the way Maggie’s little cupid bow lips puffed out with each breath, the way her curly brown hair decorated the pillow.

      Kurt Randolf had been a bad choice for a boyfriend, a worse choice for a husband, but his genes and Breanna’s had combined to create the miracle Breanna had named Maggie.

      When she was awake, she was a bundle of energy and curiosity, a delight that made all the heartache of Kurt worthwhile.

      Breanna stood, leaned over and kissed Maggie’s sweet cheek, then left the bedroom and headed for her own room across the hall. She turned out her light and used the illumination of the moonlight streaking in through the window to guide her into bed.

      She had just pulled the sheet up and snuggled in when the phone rang. She quickly snatched up the receiver on her nightstand, dread coursing through her. Good news rarely came at this hour of the night.

      “Hello?”

      Silence.

      “Hello?” she repeated, then a soft click greeted her. The line filled with a woman’s voice singing the standard lullaby of “Rock-A-Bye Baby.”

      Breanna knew instantly it was some sort of a recording and so she remained silent, listening to the soft melodic voice.

      When the last note faded away she heard a second click. The line remained open and she knew somebody was there because she could hear breathing.

      “Who is this?” She sat up in bed. “What do you want? You must have a wrong number.”

      A noise answered her. She wasn’t sure but it sounded like a male sob, then the line went dead.

      She held the receiver for a long moment, fighting the sense of unease that crept through her. Just a wrong number, she told herself as she finally hung up the phone.

      Rather than settling back in her bed, she got up and padded across the hall. Standing in the doorway, she peered in to see Maggie still sleeping peacefully.

      There was absolutely no reason for Breanna to feel such a strong sense of disquiet, but she did. She returned to her bedroom and once again slid beneath the sheet. A wrong number…or somebody’s idea of a prank, she told herself again.

      Still, it was a very long time before she finally drifted off to sleep.

      Adam Spencer sat on the shabby sofa that was part of the furnishings in the small cottage right next to Breanna James’s residence. Finding this place for rent so close to his quarry had been a godsend. Although the ramshackle cottage wouldn’t have been his first choice of a temporary residence, it would do for now.

      “Damn you, Kurt,” he said aloud as he popped the top off a bottle of beer. He was tired…exhausted in fact. He’d driven from Kansas City, Missouri, to the town of Cherokee Corners, Oklahoma, that day and had spent most of the evening unloading the personal items he’d brought with him. He should be in bed, but he knew sleep would be elusive.

      He needed to process his initial impression of Breanna James. That she was strikingly beautiful didn’t surprise him. Kurt had always dated beautiful women.

      He frowned and took a sip of the cold beer as he thought of his cousin. Kurt had been an adventurer, both in his relationships and with the way he lived his life. As the only son of wealthy parents he’d enjoyed too much money and not enough goals.

      He’d been buried a week ago after a tragic motorcycle accident. He’d been riding too fast without a helmet on a rain-drenched highway. The accident had pretty well summed up Kurt’s life…flying too fast with too little sense.

      Kurt had clung to life for six long hours in the hospital…long enough to confess to Adam that six years before he’d briefly been married to a woman in Cherokee Corners named Breanna James.

      He’d further astonished Adam with the news that there had been a child…a daughter. With his dying breath he’d begged Adam to find them and make sure they were doing okay. Caught up in the emotional turmoil of losing the man who had been like a brother to him, Adam had agreed.

      So here he sat in a rental shack next to the woman who had briefly been Kurt’s wife. He had yet to see the child, didn’t even know her name. But she was the real reason he was here.

      Adam had seen his aunt and uncle’s utter grief over losing their only son. Kurt’s death had devastated them. A grandchild would be a gift, a legacy of the son they had lost.

      But Adam didn’t intend to tell them of the child’s existence until he’d assessed the whole situation. He loved his aunt and uncle, who had raised him since the age of eleven when his own parents had died in a freak small plane