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Chapter Three
Storm couldn’t forget the stunner who’d taken advantage of him. Plans fermented in his mind about following up on the weird happening. He’d intended on grabbing a few cold ones and ending the night in the fancy trailer he had set up on his mother’s property, not fantasizing about some crazy chick he didn’t even know.
Molly, his mom, owned a small petting zoo just outside of town and housed her remaining livestock in the barn close by. Back in the days when she’d been stronger and able to manage, she’d kept small ponies, goats, a few pigs, chickens, cats, rabbits, a white rat she carried around on her shoulder… and who knows what else she pulled in as strays and babied.
Nowadays she was down to the last small pony called Jupiter who thought himself a dog, two attack cats who also thought they were dogs, and a small poodle who feared his own shadow.
It was the craziest conglomeration of misfits, all of whom he adored. When he was able to get away from his latest undercover situation, he loved spending time at home surrounded by all these oddballs, his mother being the worst.
Molly had adopted him after his parents’ house burned down and left him as an eight-year-old orphan. In those days, she’d worked for them as a young nanny, the same as her own mother, who’d been retained by his father’s family back in the day when they were all still alive.
The horrific night of the fire, she’d risked her life to get him to safety. She’d even tried to go back into the inferno to help her employers, but it had been impossible. The neighbors, who lived on the next property, had seen the flames in the trees behind their home and had appeared in time to pull her away from the sudden wall of death, barring anyone from being able to re-enter.
Hauling her away and forcibly holding her against her will, they’d repeated over and over that no one could survive the hellish nightmare. Only their interference had stopped her. She still wore the scald marks on her arms, shoulders, and neck from the battle.
Once the firefighters put out the fire, they brought the two of them to the hospital where she’d refused to let him go. He remembered clinging desperately to her, terrified that they’d take him away. He’d never forget her words when horrified, he’d finally realized she’d sustained burns.
“Molly, your arms and shoulders are injured. You need to let them look at your wounds.”
“This pain ain’t nothing compared to my sorrow for your mama and daddy, Kurt. They were too young to die.” Arms entwined; they’d wept over their shared grief. And it was some time before he’d gotten his head cleared enough to insist that the doctors look at her burns and to get her the medical attention she needed.
His memory of those days had faded slightly over time. But what had stayed strong was her battle to keep them together. She’d rejected medical attention to burns that must have hurt like hell just so they wouldn’t be separated. It was only after they were taken to the hotel that he understood her agony, where they huddled in one bed and again wept together over their loss and scary future.
Thankfully, the papers his mother had kept in a safety deposit box at the local bank proved Molly had rights as his guardian and ended up saving the day. Documents his parents had drawn up because they both traveled a lot with their jobs and had enough foresight to be sure their son would be taken care of. And who better than the woman he’d loved all his life.
Strangely, the eventual possibility of either parent meeting the end while away from home hadn’t happened. Instead, the faulty wiring in their big old house had been the deadly instrument of their demise, igniting the big tree near the back door.
With the neighbors pitching in, hired employees, and their own efforts, they’d cleared his land of the burned wreckage, and a new house began to take shape.
The insurance money his father had religiously made payments to with Molly as the beneficiary, had saved them from having to leave the property. With the help of their family’s best friend, Burt Danvers, a lawyer who had fought for Molly to be able to keep Storm until he was of age, they’d eventually worked on the legal adoption they both wanted. With the trust set up in monthly payouts, they’d managed a decent lifestyle.
Burt had organized a small trailer to be set up on the property, and they’d lived there until the new house had been move-in ready. Since the fire hadn’t reached the stable, they’d kept two of the five horses. Molly had her garden, her pets, and life moved on.
Once he’d turned twenty-five, he’d inherited the rest of the fortune that Burt had built over the years through wise investments. Understanding that Molly needed her space and would be the best person to take care of the house, he used some of his inheritance to move a large mobile home onto the property where one time they’d had the smaller one. This way he could live on his own, yet still be able to keep an eye on the farm and his Molly-mom when he was around.
He knew he’d want to come back home on his work breaks and help her with the constant chores that popped up all the time. He loved the land and always understood that one day he’d settle down and run the stables again… kind of like his parents had done back in their day.
In the meantime, Molly worked her smaller zoo and made a living sharing her animals with the children who loved them almost as much as they loved her and her famous cookies.
As a young fellow, with Molly’s words of wisdom ringing in his ears, he’d known he couldn’t live an empty life of a rich man, so he’d donned the US uniform and had taken his country’s needs seriously.
Both in the Navy and eventually, at Quantico, he’d done his best, learning everything they taught him, having the instincts needed to excel. Over the following years, he’d become an undercover FBI agent always in demand.
In the meantime, Molly had managed to build up the farm and make a decent living. Not dependent on him, she earned her own way and they got along swell. Together and yet with enough space apart, it worked.
She’d often told him that things would change once a woman came into the picture. He’d be building a big house, tearing down her smaller one, and she’d be in the trailer. She had it all planned.
Just this morning she’d brought it up, her way of hinting that at thirty-five time was passing and he’d better get moving on it too. Her words made him grin until her finger appeared under his nose. “You need to find yourself a good woman and settle down. No more of those late-night floozies sneaking off the property come morning.”
Knowing when to speak and when his best option was to agree and placate, he’d wiped the grin from his face, nodded, and brought her in for a hug. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll start searching for your princess today.”
She pushed him away, her hands shoving his chest until she could look up into his twinkling eyes. “I’m not fooling, boy. You need to settle down, and I need some babies to rock. I’m not getting any younger you know.”
He examined the body of the trim woman in front of him with her short curls cut close to her head and her wonderful, white-toothed smile.
“You look pretty damn good to me.”
“You… watch your mouth and see that you get serious. Got it?”
