by Beverly Bird
Something hurt inside her. A sweet ache. Each time his mouth left hers, each time he took a breath so that he could keep doing this for eternity, she felt cold without him.
And she wanted more. She could feel his fingers, his hard fingers on her scalp, digging into her hair where it was tightly bound. And that was good, but she needed his warmth, too, the heat of his body, because there had been so very much cold and here was fire. She moved her hands suddenly to wrap her arms around his neck, tilting her own head to catch his mouth when he came back this time. And it was ridiculous, but her eyes began burning with tears again, this time from the sheer joy of it all.
When she held him like that, she had to arch her back, had to lean into him, and that brought her breasts flush with his chest. Adam heard himself groan into her mouth, knowing he had to pull away, had set her back away from him, but he was unable to find the will. Her breasts were small, nestling against him, and he found himself tightening his own arms around her to keep the contact. He thought again that her skin would be like satin, somewhere underneath that woolen jacket and all those clothes.
“Please, Adam,” she whispered.
Dear God, what was she asking?
He couldn’t have her skin. It was just like everything else in his life—there, so close, but so out of reach. But her hair, he thought. He could touch her hair. Maybe even her breasts.
He felt like a teenager on the brink of discovery, fumbling through his first encounter, afraid to dare and helpless against hope. His fingers tugged at the pins that held her bonnet on. His hands literally trembled. So with the same simplicity and generosity with which she did everything, Mariah hurried to help him.
She tugged out more of the pins until her hair tumbled down. He filled his hands with it even as he kissed her again, and it was thick and rich and cool in the frigid night air.
It tangled in his fingers and he let his mouth roam beneath it, finding her neck. That was when she cried out.
She felt him go still. She was afraid for a moment that he would stop, that her stupid, silly voice would change his mind, and she would have done anything, anything to have been able to swallow it back. When he swore, she was sure of it. But then she felt a tremor go through him as well.
He leaned back against the door and pulled her with him fast and hard, the movement unrestrained now. “I’m sorry.” He dragged her body up over his until their legs tangled. Then his hands clenched in her hair again and his kiss deepened, and something started pounding inside her.
“So sorry. Didn’t mean to do this,” he said again, and then his hands were everywhere.
One slid to the side of her breast. Mariah held her breath until it came around to cup her completely, then she groaned. His other hand was at her thigh, moving, stroking, hard and demanding. And each time his hand slid up, her skirt moved with it. Her heart began to pound, with daring and waiting and not a little bit of fear. With wicked exhilaration. She craved his touch against her bare skin, and if he would only move his hands higher, if he would only please move his hand just a little bit higher, soon she would have that to remember, too.
He meant to apologize again, because he’d never meant to let himself go this far. He’d never meant to take what she could find no peace in giving. But then his roving palm found skin.
It stunned him, then it inflamed him. Her stockings didn’t go all the way up. He swore to a God he no longer believed in and knew he was damned. Because the soft cotton only went halfway up her thighs, and he’d never anticipated that, couldn’t not touch, first the gentle grip of the elastic, then the satin of her flesh right above and beneath it. His finger slid inside and traced around to her inner thigh and she cried out again, softly, in wonder, moving her legs apart, giving him access.
Then the night shattered.
He never heard it, not at first. It was only a gentle knock on the glass over his head. But Mariah tensed and he felt her muscles go hard beneath his hands. She let out something that might have been a sob, maybe of frustration, probably of shame. She began beating at his chest, frantically and ineffectually at first, then with more force until she had managed to scramble upright, away from him.
“Oh, no,” she whispered aloud. “No, no, no!”
“What the—” And then he heard it himself this time, the rapping on his window. He jerked into a sitting position, as well.
“Open the door Adam please hurry you’ve got to open the door for him.” Her words ran together over little gasps of panic.
“Who?” And he knew then that whatever she had just done with him would not come without its price. No matter what she had whispered she wanted, there was a very big part of her that was cringing in shame. But hadn’t he known that all along?
He swore a stream of invectives this time, knowing it would surely make her hate him. He hit the door hard, making it swing open. “What?” he demanded of the man standing outside. “What the hell do you want?”
It was a cop. A cop? He’d only seen a face through the window, in the snow, and the upper part of it had been obscured by a hat. He’d thought it was an Amishman, with one of those ever-present broad-brimmed things they always wore on their heads. He’d even thought, a little crazily and irrationally, that it was one of her all-knowing deacons.
But it was a cop.
The officer leaned down to look into the buggy. That was when Adam realized that there were lights flashing behind them. A squad car.
What the hell?
“Miss Fisher, you okay in there?” the cop asked.
“Fine,” she squeaked.
“Well, there’s a man on your porch. He wants to know what’s happened to you.”
“A man,” she whispered and finally looked at the officer. “A man?”
The cop looked down at a small notebook he carried, as though wanting to make sure he got every detail right. “Officer Langston noticed a Caucasian male, mid to late thirties, loitering on your porch.”
In that moment, Adam knew. He didn’t need the man to continue. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill Jake or kiss him.
“When Officer Langston approached to investigate, this Caucasian male identified himself as one Jacob Wallace,” the cop went on. “He explained that he was looking for an Adam Wallace—would that be you, by any chance?” He glanced at Adam. “He said he had reason to believe that Miss Fisher would know your whereabouts and he was, uh, I quote, ‘Cold as a bugger and freezing his butt off, and would someone please turn on the...uh, expletive heat around here.’ Unquote. Officer Langston checked with Abe Miller to find out when and where you might have gone, if you’d rented a buggy. Mr. Miller said you had borrowed a horse and vehicle earlier and were going to the Lappses’, whereupon the Lappses said you’d left the better part of an hour ago. So we...uh, thought there might have been trouble,” he finished lamely. He gave a surreptitious glance at Adam again.
“No trouble,” Mariah gasped.
Adam’s pulse was still pounding. “You can tell Mr. Miller that we’re on our way in with this contraption.”
“Your—brother, is it?—is still at Miss Fisher’s,” the cop offered.
“Fine. I’ll pick him up there.”
The officer went back to his car. Mariah sat without moving, except to tremble.
“Welcome to Smalltown, U.S.A.” she whispered finally, feebly. “I’m sorry, Adam. I’m so sorry. It’s just that we’re so rural here. I...” She trailed off.
“Drive, Mariah.”
“But—”
“Drive the damned buggy.”
She jumped and stared at him, her eyes stricken. “Yes. Okay. Of course.”
She didn’t say anything more, and Adam couldn’t think of a thing to say, but he was panicked by how often “amen” came to mind.
Chapter 13
Jake was still on Mariah’s small porch when they got there. He moved down the sidewalk as soon as Adam stopped the car. His stride managed to imply both laziness and anger. Adam read his irritation in h
is eyes—one more problem would send him over the edge into real temper.
He jerked open the door. “You said you were having dinner, not going for your damned doctorate—” He broke off. His jaw fell. Mariah inched out of the passenger seat and slipped past him.
She felt as if she had suddenly awakened from a bad dream to find herself made of glass. “Excuse me,” she managed, then she scurried past him up the walk.
“Mariah!” Adam heard himself shout. It finally made her stop. She turned slowly. He got out of the car to look over the roof at her, then he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “I’ll, uh, see you on Sunday, then. To go back to the Lappses’. Right?”
What was he asking? Why was he asking? Did he think they could pretend that nothing had just happened between them on that dark, deserted side road?
She nodded once, jerkily, and rushed away again.
She was dying inside, she realized, slowly and painfully, and her heart was going to go first. Mariah shut her door behind her and leaned back against it weakly. She was fiercely glad that she didn’t have a telephone. She knew that if Adam could easily have gotten out of taking her with him on Sunday, if he could call and do it without actually having to face her, then he would do just that.
Maybe that would have been better.
Instead, he would probably take her with him, but he would never touch her again. Something had happened, something she didn’t understand, and he had pulled back from her almost... almost angrily when that policeman had shown up, after giving her one of the most beautiful nights of her life.
For a heartbeat in time, she hated. She hated that police officer. She hated Jacob Wallace—what in heaven’s name was he doing in the settlement, anyway? They had taken from her a chance for something wonderful and good, and she knew that she would never again have such an opportunity in her life.
She was thirty years old. A spinster. Her throat closed hard. It had taken thirty years for someone to make her feel as Adam had tonight. But he wouldn’t do it again, and soon, very soon now, he would go. No one else would come along, no one else would make her heart sing and everything heat so sweetly inside her. No one else would make her laugh...and cry.
It was something she simply knew.
She slid her back down the door slowly until she was sitting, her knees drawn up. Then she lowered her forehead to them and cried for lost chances.
“Well,” Jake said as Adam began to drive. “I take it that was the pretty Mariah. Seems you forgot to mention that your handy little contact here is a knockout.”
“Shut up. Shut the hell up.” He was ridiculously miffed that the first time Jake had seen her, her hair had been spilling. Jake, he thought, the most notorious and successful lady-killer in all of Dallas.
“I thought you said she wasn’t Amish.”
“She’s not. Well, she is. What I said is that she doesn’t actually belong to the church.” He wasn’t up to explaining the Meidung to him now, either.
“So then why was she wearing that stupid dress?”
Adam rounded on him, snarling. “It’s not stupid.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You’re worrying me, bro.”
“It’s just that they all need to look like each other,” he finished lamely, putting his eyes back on the road.
“Well, maybe you missed this, but she wouldn’t blend in with the crowd if you dropped her down in the middle of the Miss America pageant. And I’m not talking sore thumbs sticking out here. More like a hothouse rose in a garden of weeds.”
Adam grunted.
“I guess I interrupted something.” Jake was fishing, and he did it unabashedly.
“No,” Adam said shortly, then he added. “Nothing that didn’t need to be interrupted.”
Jake shot a brow up at that. “So how did dinner go?”
“It went.”
“What am I missing here? Didn’t you just have dinner with your son for the first time in four years?”
“He asked me a lot of questions.” Adam quoted Mariah’s impression without meaning to.
“Good.” Jake nodded cautiously. “Well, I’m still having a hard time believing that you didn’t remember I was flying in tonight.”
“I remember. I just thought you’d be later.” Adam pulled into the motel parking lot. He’d remembered and then he’d forgotten, in a blaze of need and the discovery of skin.
“I rented a car at the airport, dropped it off in the city of Lancaster. I took a cab back here and waited an hour or so. That pit bull of a desk clerk—the big guy—wouldn’t let me into your room. So I had him dig up the address of one Mariah Fisher. I walked over there. That was one long, cold stroll.” Jake watched for a reaction, any reaction. “Couldn’t see why we’d need two cars, though, keeping your budget in mind, and all.”
“We don’t.” Adam got out and slammed the door. Jake watched him go, then got out as well to holler after him.
“Your disposition has deteriorated drastically since I put you on that plane. This concerns me.”
Jake had told him that day that he needed a woman. Well, he had found one, Adam thought. And he’d known from the start that she was all wrong for him. She couldn’t even kiss him without having a nervous breakdown.
“I gave Gary Kanter your phone number here.” Jake grabbed his duffel bag to give chase to the motel-room door.
Adam stopped, looking back. “Who the hell is Gary Kanter?”
Whoa, Jake thought. The man was losing it. “The LAPD cop,” he answered slowly. “The guy who’s flying to Phoenix tomorrow on your say-so. Amber Calabrese?”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“If it pans out, are you gonna go down there?” Adam had always personally handled the ChildSearch reunions himself.
“We’ll see how it goes,” he said vaguely, thrusting his key into the door.
Jake finally nodded as though coming to a decision. “All right, bro. I think I’ve got just the thing for what ails you.”
Adam gave him a jaundiced look. “Peace and quiet? You’re going to shut up now?”
Jake grinned and dropped the duffel bag onto one of the beds, unzipping it. He held up a bottle of bourbon.
Adam’s eyes went to slits. Yeah, he thought. Yeah. If he got drunk enough, he’d sleep tonight. If he got drunk enough, this gnawing pain in the pit of his stomach might go away. He might forget how she had scrambled away from him, beating on his chest in utter panic.
It had been a wake-up call, he told himself, just in the nick of time. Unfortunately, the dream had been a lot better, farfetched and brief as it had been.
“Give me that,” he snapped, grabbing the bottle out of Jake’s hand.
“Hey, wait a minute! That’s my bourbon!”
Adam stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door hard. Jake stared after him, then he scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“I take it we’re not going to get started on this project tonight?” he called.
“They all go to bed early,” came Adam’s muffled reply.
Jake heard the shower turn on. He picked up the car keys Adam had thrown on the desk.
“Guess I’ll just have to get myself another bottle.” Then again, sitting in a motel room alone while his brother sulked in the bathroom wasn’t his idea of a resoundingly good time. He went outside, got back into the car and headed into Lancaster again.
Adam woke on Thursday morning with a splitting headache. It was a sharp yet throbbing feeling at the base of his skull, behind his ears. He sat up and glared at the bottle of bourbon sitting across the room on the desk. He was disgusted to realize that only a quarter, maybe a scant third of it was gone. So was Jake, but that was far less troubling.
He couldn’t even drink with all his heart, Adam thought. He wondered if something was lacking within himself, because everything he started, everything he attempted, only got half done or fell apart. Even his stab at fatherhood had been aborted.
The door banged open and Jake cruised inside. He depos
ited two paper cups of coffee on the desk.
“Rise and shine,” Jake greeted him.
Adam closed one eye to see him more clearly. “Where’ve you been?”
He began humming an old Beach Boys’ tune. Something about northern girls keeping their boyfriends warm at night. Adam felt his heart kick his ribs. He was out of bed, standing, before he knew he did it.
“You went back to Mariah’s.” Every irrational male hormone he possessed reared up inside him. She had been ready enough, hungry enough, tired of her quiet, chaste world, and maybe after the panic of the cop had passed, she had erupted again.
“Get a grip, for God’s sake,” Jake muttered. He shot him an incredulous look and popped the lid off one of the coffees.
“I need one of those,” Adam said weakly. He grabbed the other coffee.
“First of all, we’ve never shared women.”
“There’s nothing to share. I have no claim on her.”
Jake gave a grunt of disgust. “And even more important, long, plain dresses and aprons just ain’t my style.”
You’d be surprised at what’s underneath those dresses. Adam didn’t answer.
“Little possessive, aren’t you?” Jake prodded. “For someone without a claim.”
Adam ignored that, too. “You’re just getting back?”
Jake shrugged. Not that he was discreet. It was just that it went without saying. “I went back into the city. So give me some idea as to where I should start today.”