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A satisfying ending provides a final moment of discord before all the loose ends are gathered in, reassurance that the hero and heroine get to live happily ever after!

— Mollie Blake’s Writing Workshop Notes

*** Mollie’s throat was tight with suppressed tears as, with a look of wonderment, Tom gently brushed his finger against Harry’s cheek. "I’m your daddy," he repeated, as if the words were brand new. As if he were the first man in history to say them.

"Really?" Tom nodded wordlessly, as Harry considered his response. "I didn’t know I had a daddy." Mollie’s hand flew to her mouth as Harry turned to her. "Can I show Daddy my car when we get home?"

"You’ve got a car?" Tom asked.

"It’s got a horn and lights and everything. I have to drive it in the garden though, not on the road."

"Will you give me a ride?"

Harry giggled. "You’re too big."

"It’s a pedal car," Mollie cut in, quickly. Speaking had been a mistake. It reminded Tom that she was there. And his eyes, as he looked up, lost the soft mistiness of emotional overload, warning her that she’d better have a good reason for keeping his son from him.

Well, he needn’t think that a belated attack of fatherly feelings would impress her. She’d had a good reason as he very well knew.

"I’ll go and fetch the car, shall I?"’ Angie suggested.

"Good idea," Tom said. "We’ll all go home together."

"But your car — " Mollie interjected. She was losing control. Correction, she’d lost control the moment Tom Garrick walked back into her life.

"I’m coming with you and Harry," he said. His voice remained quiet, but with a strand of steel that warned her she’d better not argue.

And for the first time in five years she felt a moment of doubt.

*** "How could you have done it? Kept him from me?"

They were home. Tom had admired Harry’s car and every possession he held dear with a patience that left her pulling her lips tightly back against her teeth. Finally, Angie had tempted Harry away for lunch and now they were alone.

"You really didn’t know?" Mollie asked.

"Do you think that if I’d known I had a son, anything would have stopped me from finding you both?"

The doubts intensified and she swallowed hard before she forced out the words. "Not even a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"

"Is that how much they said I took to walk away?" He shook his head, then bit out, "I don’t know which is worse. That you believed I’d take their money. Or that you’d value yourself so low."

"Then...what did you think I’d done, Tom?"

"Don’t ask." Don’t ask him to tell her about the painful images that he’d lived with. Tom couldn’t believe he’d been so gullible, so easily taken in. But the letter had been in her handwriting, signed by her.

"It was all a lie. A filthy, stinking, rotten lie and I believed it." He rubbed at his face as if to wipe away the guilt. "God help me, I believed it. I suppose I’ve got no more than I deserved for not trusting in you."

And the elusive thought that had been bothering him before they’d made love last night finally crystallized perfectly in his mind. "I mean, what was I thinking? Your parents couldn’t bully you into a divorce so why on earth did I believe that you would have surrendered on something so much bigger, so much more important?"

"Tell me, Tom," she insisted. "Tell me what they said."

"Said? They didn’t have to say anything." He’d carried the letter with him always. A warning never to love again, never to trust his heart. He reached into his jacket and from the back of his wallet he extracted the letter, turned and held it out to her.

Mollie took the wretched piece of paper. It had been ripped into pieces, then stuck back together. The creases were worn with handling and it was only the tape that was holding it together. It didn’t take long to read.

Tom — it’s all been a terrible mistake. I’ve had an abortion. I don’t want to see you ever again, Mollie.

She made a small, involuntary sound as she imagined his pain... Then she looked up. "I didn’t write this, Tom, my mother did." She folded it back up into the worn creases and offered it back to him. He shook his head. "She had such beautiful handwriting. I worked hard to copy it." Then, "If it’s any consolation, trying to persuade me into an abortion was the last straw. I left with Angie and we’ve never been back. They’ve never seen Harry."

"‘Don’t apologize. Don’t ever apologize for your family. I’m the one who should be groveling here."

"No — " She lifted her chin a little. "‘We both made mistakes. I should have been stronger — if I’d had the courage to tell them that I loved you instead of persuading you into a secret wedding, if we’d stood together they couldn’t have parted us. But penniless writer runs off with heiress... That put you in the wrong from the word go."

"Not penniless. Far from it."

She shrugged, hopelessly. "Who would have believed you wanted me just for my body?"

"It’s a great body, but I swear I love your mind, too..." He offered a tentative smile along with his hand.

She took it briefly, then turned to a small desk. "My mind isn’t that great. I doubted you too, when I should have believed." She opened a drawer, stared for a moment at the check for one hundred thousand pounds bearing a cashier’s stamp: Paid in full. She picked it up, turned and gave it to him.

"I’ve never seen this before." He looked up. "It’s made out to me but — "

"Lies," she said. "They did it to both of us. My father laughed when he gave it to me. He said you were cheap, that he’d have paid five times that amount to prove to me what kind of man you were."

"What kind of man do you believe I am, Mollie?" He laid his hand against her cheek, his eyes soft as melted toffee.

Then, her voice straining through a throat thick with tears, "This is where you get to kiss me," she prompted, sliding her hand into his hair, tangling it in her fingers to draw him closer to her. "And the orchestra plays the violins."

His smile was slow, but his eyes were heating her from the inside out. "To tell you the truth, Mollie, I wasn’t planning on an audience for this next bit." Then, with his mouth an inch from hers, he stopped. "No, wait."

"I’ve been waiting four years..."

"There’s one more thing I don’t understand. Who the devil’s Jerry? And what were you doing driving his Porsche?"

She groaned and leaned against his shoulder. "Thanks a lot, Tom. You’ve just ruined the perfect moment by reminding me that I’ve got to confess to my publisher that his car is a wreck."

"Your publisher? That is serious." Then he grinned. "Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll get it fixed, I’ll even tell him that it wasn’t your fault — "

"It wasn’t..." she began, but he pulled her close, stopped her protest with the most tender of kisses.

And then, once he had her undivided attention, he murmured, "Now cue the violins."

*** "Daddy?"

Tom jerked awake, thought for a moment he’d been dreaming. Then he saw Harry standing beside the bed peering anxiously at him pre-dawn light.

"What is it, Harry? Does your arm hurt?"

"No. I just wanted to make sure you were still here."

Not a dream. This small anxious little boy with his hair tousled from sleep, his arm in a sling, was his son, the child he thought forever lost.

"I’m home, son," he said. "I’m not going anywhere without you ever again." He lifted the cover and Harry needed no encouragement to scramble into bed beside him, his anxious frown immediately transformed into a wide grin.

"Do you know any stories?"

"A few," he said, trying to think of something a four year old would enjoy.

At his back Mollie moved closer to nuzzle his neck. "Once upon a time..." she prompted, propping herself up on her elbow, so that the three of them were all together, a real family. Tom doubted that this was what his publisher had in mind when he’d advised getting in touch with his feminine side. But it worked for him and his own grin must have set some kind of record.

"Okay, here goes," he said. "Once upon a time..."

The End



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