Page 34 of Rufus

Molly’s mother.

The same woman who had now suddenly decided to appear back in London and visit her daughter after an absence of seventeen years.

Rufus desperately needed to know the reason why she had.

* * *

Molly watched Rufus intently as he listened to whatever his caller was saying to him.

Which was why she saw the expression of complete shock on his face, followed seconds later by all the color draining from his suddenly hollow cheeks.

He’d also staggered back a couple of steps before putting his hand on the back of the couch to maintain his balance as he continued listening.

Molly’s breath got stuck in her throat as she watched the increasing horror in Rufus’s expression.

She couldn’t know for certain, but she suspected, by the fact Rufus somehow already knew her mother was in London and that she had also visited Molly at the shelter earlier today, that whoever was talking to him now was telling him some, if not all, of what her mother had today admitted concerning the events of twenty-two years ago.

Information that would reveal how the behavior of Molly’s mother had impacted so personally on both Rufus and his wife and their daughter, Emily.

How it was still doing so all these years later.

It was everything Molly would have told Rufus and Mia in the letter she had intended to leave for them to read after she was gone.

She immediately tensed, like a deer caught in headlights, when Rufus suddenly glanced sharply across the room to where she stood.

She flinched when she saw his now-gray cheeks were wet with tears and his eyes were dark and bottomless pits of pain.

And accusation?

Yes, because it was exactly as she had feared it would be.

Even if Rufus didn’t blame her for her mother’s actions once he knew the whole truth of what had happened, he would most certainly never be able to look at Molly again without seeing her connection to the woman who had stolen his daughter from him twenty-two years ago. Along with all the pain and despair that had followed as a result of that abduction.

“Where is your mother now?” Rufus demanded the moment he ended the call. “Do not even attempt to say you don’t know,” he warned her harshly.

“But I don’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

There. This was what Molly had known would happen if Rufus were to learn even some of the events of the past. Which he now seemed to have done, judging by the suspicion and distrust she could clearly see in those haunted dark eyes.

Molly swallowed before speaking. “Who just called you?”

“My cousin, Linus.”

She nodded. “And told you what?”

“That your mother is the person responsible for stealing my daughter from me,” he bit out fiercely.

Molly drew in a gasping breath at the blunt delivery of that statement.

“That because of her actions,” Rufus continued in a hard voice, “she’s also responsible for my wife dying in a car crash, probably when Beth tried to follow her in an effort to retrieve Emily after your mother took her.”

Molly gave a low groan of pain at the stark truth of both these accusations.

Rufus’s eyes glittered without a hint of pity for her obvious distress. “And I sure as hell don’t believe it’s a coincidence that out of all the places you could have chosen to find work in London, you ended up seeking employment at the animal shelter owned by Mia. Who, it now seems, was one of your mother’s victims!”

No, of course it wasn’t a coincidence. But how to explain her actions without also seeming guilty was Molly’s problem.

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