A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel)

by Marilyn Pappano

  Abby’s response was underwhelming. “What can I say?”

  “Obviously, I don’t know Ryan. Apparently, you don’t, either. But I’m guessing, with both her parents deployed, leaving her friends, and moving here, she’s had some tough times. I’d hope that, having been through what you have, you would have some empathy for her. Life is full of heartaches, Abby. The only good thing about that is we can learn from them. We can be kinder. More understanding. More accepting. Or what’s the point?”

  Before Abby could counter her argument, Therese stood and walked to the door, then turned back. “I hope you’ll reconsider the way you feel about Ryan. If she and your brother are going to be friends, she’ll be spending time here. It would be easier without your hostility. But I expect you to change the way you talk about her. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. No more insults. Understood?”

  For a long time, she thought the only response she would get was the angry glower, but after a moment, Abby curtly nodded.

  Therese closed the door quietly behind her and listened for a response. No shrieking, no slamming, no throwing. Nothing but stillness. She doubted a single word she’d said had penetrated, but at least she’d said them.

  It was up to Abby to hear them.

  Chapter 8

  It was the end of another stiff, uncomfortable dinner—grudging hand-holding for the blessing, grudging responses to Therese’s attempts at conversation—when shrieking sounded down the hall at the front door, startling her. It sounded remarkably like Abby, though of course it wasn’t. She and Jacob were both staring in that direction, and they both got to their feet as Therese did. Before she’d taken more than a few steps from the table, the doorbell rang.

  Hurrying down the hall, she opened the door and blinked. Keegan stood on the porch, a very unhappy bundle of pink held forcibly in his arms. Her hair was blond and stood on end, her face was screwed up and red, and her volume was somewhere around ear-shattering.

  Without waiting for an invitation, he stepped inside and shoved the girl into Therese’s arms. “She’s been doing this for five hours, less the seven minutes she fell asleep in the car coming back from Tulsa. My ears haven’t stopped ringing, and I’m afraid my neighbors at the motel are going to call the police. Do something, please.”

  The little girl’s hair and skin were damp, but few tears fell from her eyes. She was angry, Therese recognized, not heartbroken as her sobs indicated. She held herself stiff even after Keegan backed away—in fact, even managed to go a little stiffer when Therese spoke. “Well, hello, Mariah. Don’t you make a sweet first impression?”

  Mariah paused in the middle of a breath and narrowed her gaze on Therese. She must look like an angel when her skin wasn’t all splotchy and her hair corkscrewing like drunken snakes. She had a lovely peaches-and-cream complexion, a rosebud mouth, and wore an adorable girly-girl dress with lace and ribbons and pink-and-white sandals.

  The girl took another breath to shriek, but when Therese laid her finger gently against her lips and said, “No,” she cut it off, still staring but with less of a frown. Then movement down the hall caught her attention, and she studied Abby and Jacob as they approached. For a two-year-old, she looked for all the world as if she were plotting something sinister.

  “What is that awful noise—” Abby’s voice faded away as she reached them and scowled. She recognized Keegan—her attitude confirmed that—but her gaze locked in on Mariah. She eyed the girl as warily as Mariah eyed the rest of them. When she got even with Therese, Mariah gave a kick and extended her arms, very nearly escaping Therese’s grip before Abby had hold of her.

  Keegan closed the door and leaned against it, drawing Therese’s attention back to him. If he’d had much hair, it would have been standing on end. As it was, he wore a variety of stains on his shirt and a panicked look in his eyes, only slightly offset by the amazement that Mariah was currently silent. A big, strong man—a fireman, a paramedic, an Army combat medic, for heaven’s sake—and it appeared he might not survive an evening with his daughter with his sanity intact.

  For the first time all evening, Therese felt the urge to smile. “I didn’t know Mariah would be joining you on the trip.”

  “I didn’t, either, until today. My brother had an accident, and Mom had to fly out to Arizona to be with him. My sisters couldn’t take her, and my other brother isn’t exactly responsible, so Mom stopped in Tulsa and brought her to me.”

  “I hope your brother’s all right.”

  “They’ll know after his surgery tomorrow. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “Apparently you came to the right place.” Therese gazed at Mariah, contentedly settled into Abby’s arms. “Have you really been screaming for five hours, sweetie?”

  With the pink fading from her cheeks, Mariah smiled, revealing a few unevenly spaced teeth. She shared the smile with Therese, Abby, and Jacob, then frowned at Keegan.

  “She really doesn’t like you,” Abby said flatly. “Are you mean to her?”

  Keegan straightened defensively. “Of course not. We just don’t really know each other.”

  “And she doesn’t like you.” Stepping around Jacob, Abby headed back toward the kitchen. “Mariah, huh. I’m Abby. You need some milk, don’t you? It takes a lot of energy to be a long-term screamer. We’ve got some food, too, and maybe…” Her voice trailed away.

  Therese was surprised. Abby had never shown interest in any kid younger than her besides Jacob, and that was always temporary. Even when Nicole had started babysitting, Abby wasn’t the least bit tempted. Change diapers, wipe butts, and stuff food in a moving target for slave wages? No. Way.

  The novelty faded quickly for Jacob. “Can I have some cake?”

  “Sure. I’ll be in in a minute.” Therese waited for his footsteps to fade, then folded her arms over her middle. “Does this poor child know you at all?”

  “Yes. I see her practically every day,” Keegan said, then reluctantly added, “she just doesn’t like me very much.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be caring for her until your mother gets back, you’d better make her like you. Are you hungry? I recognize ketchup and mustard on your shirt. And—” She sniffed. “Juice? I don’t recall you being such a sloppy eater.”

  He snorted. “I tried taking her to McDonald’s. It’s supposed to be her favorite place, but she started throwing her Happy Meal before I could even sit down. People were looking at us funny, so…Yeah, I’m hungry, but you don’t have to feed me. Just give me a few minutes of peace.”

  Therese laughed. “Come on back to the kitchen. If Abby’s replenishing Mariah’s strength, you need to replenish your own.”

  As she walked down the hall, warmth seeped through her. It was the welcome distraction from the usual strained evening in the Matheson household, she told herself. The surprise of meeting Mariah. But honesty forced her to admit, it was mostly the sheer pleasure of seeing Keegan again.

  Despite Jacob’s request for cake, all he’d done was remove it from the bakery box and set it on the island, along with a stack of plates and forks. He was rooting inside the refrigerator, a jug of milk in one hand, a bowl of grapes, and a carton of strawberry yogurt in the other. “What else do you want?”

  “Some carrot sticks,” Abby replied. “That should be enough.” She sat at the breakfast table, Mariah in her lap. Other than the red-rimmed eyes, there was little of the temper tantrum still visible on her little round face. Abby had combed her hair with her fingers and cleaned her face with a damp cloth—the Princess of Tantrums knew how to clean up after—and was bouncing the girl on her knee.

  She was paying such careful attention to Mariah that Therese felt guilty for the princess comment, even if it was only in her head. Abby had calmed a child who’d spent the better part of the day in hysterics. It was a good sign.

  Some days good signs were all a person could hope for.

  * * *

  “I used to
have a baby doll who looked just like you,” the sullen teenager Keegan had met Sunday afternoon crooned to the smiling child who had just about broken him today. He had a headache, his neck muscles were in spasm, his ears really were ringing, and his patience was shot.

  You used to be a baby doll who looked just like her. He wondered when Therese would see the resemblance. No doubt her husband or his ex-wife would have noticed right away, but they’d had the advantage of knowing Abby when she was tiny. Therese hadn’t.

  Jacob carried the food he’d gathered to the table, still bearing the dishes from their dinner. The smart kid included a sports bottle with a lid for the milk. His sister might like being the one to bring calm to Mariah, but Keegan bet she’d like it a lot less if she was wearing a glass full of milk.

  “How about a sandwich? I have turkey and ham.”

  Keegan slowly pulled his gaze from Mariah and Abby to find Therese now rummaging through the refrigerator, taking out the makings for sandwiches. He should say no, thanks, a few minutes of quiet were all he wanted, but he hadn’t eaten dinner, either, since his quarter-pounder and fries had been the next things to fly once Mariah had emptied her Happy Meal on the floor.

  He walked over to the island. “You don’t have to fix…”

  Jacob snorted as he laid a loaf of bread and two plates on the countertop. “She’s not fixing. She’s Smurfing.” After a glance at him, he explained, “Gathering. Smurfs are gatherers. You have to make your own sandwich.” Which he then proceeded to do for himself.

  “You just ate dinner, Jacob,” Therese said, but there was no scolding in it.

  “I’m growing.”

  “You won’t have room for cake.”

  The kid snorted again. It was a good-natured sound, though. No derision intended.

  Keegan fixed himself a ham sandwich, then followed Jacob to the table while Therese hastily cleared the dishes. He started to sit in the chair at a right angle to Abby’s, then moved to the opposite side. Mariah’s long-distance aim might need some work, but up close she was deadly accurate.

  After a moment, Therese and Jacob joined them. She brought a glass of iced tea for Keegan and a cup of coffee for herself. Keegan felt bad for coming over unexpectedly, but he was glad she’d invited him in. It was the first time since his mother’s phone call this morning that he’d felt containable. One more hour of Mariah’s screaming, and he might have just come apart at the seams. Securing her in her car seat, then watching from a distance had seemed the best bet, even if it was illegal.

  “How well did you know my dad?” Abby asked.

  He froze for a moment, then slowly chewed the food filling his mouth. Her gaze never left him while she waited, though she continued to spoon yogurt into Mariah’s mouth like a mama bird feeding her baby. After swallowing hard, he glanced at Therese, whose expression was impassive, then back at Abby. “Not very well.”

  “Figures,” she muttered with a pointed look at Mariah. “Why did you come here to see him if you didn’t know him well?”

  “Abby—”

  Keegan stopped Therese with a shake of his head. “I wanted to talk to him about some things that happened.”

  “Good things? Bad things?”

  “Some things can be both good and bad.”

  “Is this one of them?”

  He thought of Mariah, having no family without him, and Therese, attracting him a hell of a lot more than any woman in years, and smiled ruefully. “That remains to be seen.”

  Abby studied him a moment, so exactly the way Mariah did, then lowered her gaze. “Mariah, do you need to go potty?”

  Mariah’s curls bounced with her nod, and Abby immediately turned sideways in her chair. “Here, Therese, you take her.”

  Therese’s brows arched with surprise. Remembering the way the girl had screeched Tuh-reese Sunday, he figured it must be rare for her to pronounce her stepmother’s name properly.

  From across the table, Jacob laughed. “You brought it up, you get to take her.”

  “I brought it up because she just sucked down a glass of milk and I don’t want her peeing on me. I don’t have a lot of clothes to start with.” The last was said defiantly in Therese’s direction. “Besides, I’ve never taken a little kid to the bathroom. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

  Jacob laughed again. “Crap, even I know that.”

  Abby gave him a threatening smile. “Then you take her.”

  Keegan understood how she felt. Some things just weren’t dignified. Still, he stuck the last bit of sandwich into his mouth and started to slide his chair back.

  “I’ll do it,” Therese said. “I got an A in Potty-time one-oh-one in college. Come on, Mariah.”

  An instant after the bathroom door clicked shut down the hall, Abby sat back, crossed her legs, and folded her arms. “Where’s her mother?”

  Interrogation by a thirteen-year-old. Fun. But a thirteen-year-old who’d gotten Mariah to be quiet. “I don’t know.”

  “You mean, you just took your daughter and left?”

  “No. I mean she just left her daughter and left. She dropped her off at day care on her way to work and drove away. Never showed up for work. Never came back.”

  That earned him attention from both of the kids. “At least our mom left us with our dad,” Jacob said.

  “Mariah’s with her dad,” Abby pointed out, and Keegan winced inside.

  “Yeah, but Mom planned it. She told us. She told Dad. She didn’t just drop us off somewhere and hope he found us.” Though Jacob spoke matter-of-factly, his words sparked a flash of hurt in his sister’s eyes.

  The sandwich that had tasted so good turned leaden in Keegan’s stomach. What was it with parents abandoning their kids? Wasn’t there supposed to be some built-in parental instinct that made caring for their babies as necessary as eating and breathing? How could Sabrina have walked away from Mariah? How could Catherine Matheson have decided unilaterally that life was better without her kids in it? How the hell could neither of them have not cared about the impact on those kids?

  The hurt gone, Abby locked gazes with him again. “Well, you’re gonna have to do better than you did today. She can’t cry herself silly every day.”

  She had a talent for stating the obvious. Probably from experience, Keegan knew, which didn’t change the fact that she was giving him fathering instructions. “I know. I guess we haven’t done as much of playing and reading together and stuff as we should have.”

  She raised one brow in a gesture that reminded him of Therese. If Abby realized she’d mimicked her stepmother, she would probably shave the brow off. “Well, since you’re the grown-up, that’s your failure, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, my failure.” He hadn’t wanted to get involved, and barring that, he damn well hadn’t wanted to get attached. What if he grew to care about Mariah and Sabrina came back? It would be like losing his own kid. Hell.

  Granted, he’d made that decision when the social worker had brought Mariah to him. More than a month, with no word from Sabrina. She was likely gone for good. So was Matheson. Mariah deserved a good home. If he got attached…if he lost her…

  He was the grown-up, as Abby had pointed out. He would cope.

  Mariah’s shoes slapped the floor as she raced into the room. A grin split her face ear to ear, and her eyes brightened as she made a beeline for Abby. “I went potty. I want cake.”

  A few feet behind her, Therese detoured to the island. “Is she allowed to have sweets this close to bedtime?”

  Damned if he knew. He might have lived the past month with her, but her care had been entirely Ercella’s domain. “Sure, why not?”

  Therese’s look was dry. “Small children plus high levels of sugar sometimes equal a tad bit of hyperactivity. Though maybe not tonight. She’s had a big day.”

  Yeah, if big meant traumatic. Her first plane ride, yanked from one place to another for the second time in five days, watching the only security in her life walk away from her in the airport, being s
tuck with Keegan, who obviously didn’t count as stable…

  If it was true that adversity made a person stronger, Mariah was well on her way to superhuman strength.

  Fate and Sabrina had made it his responsibility to ensure, one way or another, that she didn’t need to be that strong.

  He just wished the choices were better.

  * * *

  By the time the dessert plates were empty, Mariah was drowsing in Abby’s arms. Therese was truly surprised. Who ever would have guessed that Abby could nurture and cuddle as well as she threw tantrums? She wanted to freeze this moment in her mind: Abby’s tenderness with Mariah, Jacob shaking off the sullenness she knew so well to talk with Keegan, Keegan treating both her children with respect, albeit tinged with wariness in regard to Abby, Therese herself feeling relaxed. Contented.

  For this moment, it was almost like being a family. Whole. Normal.

  She swallowed hard as the clock chimed. “Abby, Jacob, you should get ready for bed.”

  Jacob scraped his chair back, picked up his dishes, then gathered everyone else’s, too, and carried them to the sink. When he came back, he paused. “We didn’t clean up from dinner.”

  That had been one of Therese’s rules from the day the kids moved in: they set and cleared the table, put away leftovers, and loaded the dishwasher. They’d never had chores at home, and even after nearly four years, they still fussed about them. She’d heard enough versions of Our mother never made us…to last a lifetime.

  But tonight had been a departure from their usual evening at home, and there were no leftovers to put away, just dishes to rinse and stack. “I’ll get it later.”

  Both kids looked surprised. Abby had often accused her of only knowing how to dirty dishes, not clean them. But both were too smart to question the suspension of a rule, even one time. Jacob grunted and left the room. Abby carefully got to her feet, shushing Mariah when she stirred, and circled to Keegan. “You need to hold her.”