Just One Life: The Just Molly Series, #3

By Laura Leigh

He's a successful CEO. She's just Molly.

 

No man is an island. Neither, apparently, is Molly.

 

When she fled to Wisconsin in the wake of rejection, Molly left behind unfinished business. Now she has a second chance to rectify some of that. If she doesn't bumble the opportunity.

 

Successful CEO Aaron Werner is feeling increasingly fidgety. Trying to pin down Molly for a serious discussion about their relationship is like trying to nail a cranberry gelatin ring to a wall--she just keeps slipping away. And when he finally manages to corner her, their conversation is interrupted by consternation-inducing news which shunts them off onto a new trajectory.

 

A dark road lies before Molly, where she will have to face not only an enemy, but her own fear.

 

How much is one life worth? And when worse comes to worst, what is Molly willing to sacrifice to protect the people who are precious to her?

 

The Just Molly Series

Book 1 - Just One Day

Book 2 - Just One Girl

Book 3 - Just One Life

A Just Molly Series short story - Just An Unfortunate Misunderstanding

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Berrey
• Release date: Oct 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201134822

Laura Leigh

Laura Leigh is a missionary in Asia. She has traveled extensively and lived in countries all over the world. She’s held lion cubs in Africa, helped with impromptu snake surgery in Cambodia, and boated down an underground river in the Philippines. She writes clean, wholesome Christian fiction.

Book preview

Prologue

9 Years Earlier

The long gravel lane looked more like the valley of the shadow of death than a driveway.

This is the place? I asked dubiously.

The boy with me nodded, his pale face creased with concerns far too old for his years.

Do you have a key?

He shook his head. If I asked, my mama wouldn’t let me come.

I reached out to touch his shoulder, but retracted my hand quickly when he flinched.

I spoke gently. Sean, I can’t take you to vacation Bible school if your mother doesn’t give her permission.

If I have to wait for that, I won’t never get to go.

It was a catch-22, and I struggled to form a response. But while standing there, staring down into his young, serious face, I was jolted from my thoughts by the sharp crack of a distant gunshot. I jerked back and then pressed a hand flat over my heart to steady my pulse.

He tried to reassure me. It’s just hunters, back in the woods. There’s state game land back there and at night there’s lots of hunters.

Lots of hunters? I shivered.

I hoped they were hunters. This place gave me the heebie-jeebies. I looked around at the trees leering close to the deserted gravel lane. The barbed wire fence that wormed its way into the tangled undergrowth. The metal cattle gate that chopped off the end of the road.

He looked around too, following my gaze. Then he turned his soulful brown eyes back up at me.

I’m a superhero, he informed me confidently. "When I’m scared of the guns, I think about my invisibility superpower and then I’m not afraid because if they are really real bad guys, I can hide from them. If they can’t see me, they can’t catch me."

That was freaky scary. But as he continued, it got worse.

And if they do catch me and kill me, that’s okay too, because I have lots of lives.

Lots of lives? I asked, aghast.

He nodded soberly. About seven more. That’s my other superpower. So if I’m ever scared, I just remember that.

Sean, I said, sounding like I was being strangled. What makes you think you have seven more lives?

My mom told me. She said I had nine, but I used two of them already. And my dad, before he died, told my mom I was the invisible boy. That’s how I know about my superpowers.

I didn’t know where to start with any of that. You used two of your lives already?

He nodded. Nine minus two equals seven. So now I’m down to seven. But seven is a lot. It’s more than most people get, right? So when I’m scared, I remind myself of that.

Horrifying.

Good idea, I murmured, though it wasn’t. He didn’t need a superpower fantasy. He needed the supernatural reality of God’s power. But this wasn’t the time for that conversation. This was the time to send him into his house before it was completely dark, and get myself back to the road where our car...

"Would you like to be a superhero?"

I pulled my attention away from trying to make out  the outlines of burly men in camo in the thick, dark woods, hopefully with deer slung over their shoulders and not AK-47s, and fixed it back on Sean. Me? I’ve never really given it much...

You could be Wonder Woman!

I winced, thinking about the skimpy costume and skin-tight leggings. "Hmmm. No thanks. I’d rather be Wonderful Woman."

Who’s she?

I could run with this. I searched my mental inventory of superheroes and came up with nothing. Except, lamely: She’s kind of like Wonder Woman, only better dressed.

"What kind of superpowers would you have?"

How did I land in this surreal place where I’m standing outside of what looks like a prepper’s compound talking about superpowers with an eight-year-old boy who clearly had a loose grasp on reality?

Those gunshots? They were probably a prepper way of taking out trespassers. The gate? No doubt rigged with explosives. Behind the snarl of trees and undergrowth attempting to suck the life out of the lane was probably a set of concrete bunkers filled with ammo and camo and homemade bombs and crates of canned beans. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty sad existence for anyone, even a prepper.

If I ever became a prepper, I’d switch things up. I’d stockpile chocolate chip cookie dough, at least. And there was no way I’d ever be able to sleep under a camo duvet. Unless it was pink camo. Oh, wait, I’d seen that and didn’t care for that either. Alrighty then, I’d be the first prepper with a real quilt. And I’d wear...

Sean shifted beside me, drawing my attention back to the conversation.

I guess I would like to be able to... Urrgh! What were common female superpowers? My knowledge base about superheroes was smaller than my knowledge base about preppers, though I’d venture a guess that superheroes ate better. I guess what I’d like to do is to protect the good guys with a defensive shield. So that no bad guys would ever be able to hurt them.

I looked down at him as I spoke, hoping he wouldn’t guess that the person I wanted most to protect was him.

His mouth curved upward slightly in the closest thing to a smile he had offered in the three weeks since I had met him. That would be so awesome, he said. So what would you do to the bad guys?

He was stretching my limited superhero understanding. I fell back on real-life experience.

I guess I’d kick them?

Sick! The way he breathed the word with wide-eyed excitement made it sound like a compliment. Sort of like a ninja high five with your foot.

Exactly, I said briskly, hoping the interrogation was now over.

He looked up at me like I was, totally, a superhero. Okay, we needed to work on blurred lines of reality sometime soon. But right now...

In the distance a dog howled, giving instant credence to the handmade Be where of dog sign on the gate.

I shivered and wondered how many dogs a prepper would consider necessary to guard their bean and ammo storage bunkers.

It prompted him to move. I’d better get back, before they find out I was gone.

Sean?

He stopped, a skimpy foot away from the fence, to look back at me.

I swallowed, hard. He looked so small to be facing obstacles so big.

How will you get in without a key?

Watch.

He scrambled to the barbed wire fence, threw himself flat on the ground, and army-crawled under it. It was a practiced move; the barbs raked at his clothes, but he cleared them. Barely.

Good job, I whispered, the words forced around a huge knot in my throat.

He rose to his feet, dusting off his clothes. But you have to be really careful, he explained, and pointed. Because of this.

I stepped closer to see what he was pointing at: a thin wire stretched taut, a few inches inside the perimeter of the barbed wire fence.

What is it?

An electric fence.

I thought I might be sick.

Is it on?

Yes. And if you touch it, it hurts.

If you touch it, it hurts, I repeated in a whisper.

Yes. It makes your arm go all tingly and sort of paralyzed for about a minute.

He was living in a prepper’s compound with an electric fence. He knew what that fence felt like when he touched it.

I fought to keep from shaking visibly in front of him. Anger vied with nausea for supremacy, but I pushed them both back.

I won’t touch it, I promised him, meaning it.

You’ll pick me up tomorrow night? I’ll come out to the road.

You really don’t think your mother would give you permission to come?

No. But if you need a paper signed, I can sign it for her. I’m really good at it. His voice was sincere. Helpful. Nobody would ever know it was me.

Sean, it’s really important that we get that paper signed by your mom. Not by you. I’m going to pray that she signs it, and tomorrow night I’ll be here to pick you up. If you aren’t here, I’ll come back the next night. And the next. I’ll check every night, okay?

What if she doesn’t sign it?

I’ll pray she does.

But if she doesn’t?

I’ll ask, but we probably can’t take you. But Sean, I’m going to pray from now until then that she does. God answers prayer. I know He does. I can’t promise He’ll make your mom sign it, but I know He can.

He gave me a skeptical look and backed away from the fence.

See you tomorrow, Sean, I whispered.

Maybe, he said, and turned to leave.

I watched until he disappeared into the trees and dusk, before trekking back down the gravel lane to the road and our car. Occasionally I stumbled, the darkness nearly obscuring my vision.

Or maybe it was tears.

One

W e’re never going to make it to church alive, Nana warned.

We’ll be fine, I reassured her. How many cars are on this road? You should see me in rush hour Milwaukee traffic.

We were sitting at a stop light on the edge of East Carrington and I was keeping one eye on the light while applying a light coat of mascara on the other. By my calculations, I had just enough time to finish both eyes before the light turned...

My calculations were wrong.

I’d have to finish at church. You can attend the worship service with no mascara. You can’t attend with only one of your eyes done.

I used the palm of my hand to steer through a Pennsylvania straight intersection (meaning not straight at all) while threading the cap back on the tube.

She shuddered dramatically. I’m going to start praying that Cortez fires you and sends you back home for good.

That was a very real possibility, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I tossed the tube of mascara into the cup holder and said, No way. I’m his VIP girl. Without me, he has nobody to serve warm Molly cookies to his special guests.

As I said that, I thought immediately of Aaron, the most recent special guest at Cortez HQ, and the way I nearly got fired for serving Christmas cookies instead of Molly cookies.

"Molly cookies?" Nana asked.

I smiled at her and took a long chug of coffee from my travel mug before anchoring it again between my knees. "They are