by Beverly Bird
Bo hesitated, then nodded. “I think I better sleep now. I’m real sick.”
“That calf got you good, huh?” Adam’s mouth nearly smiled.
“Yeah.”
Adam got to his feet. His hand almost—almost—reached out to brush Bo’s hair off his forehead. It had fallen forward, just as it had done all his life. Jannel had once gotten it styled to try to prevent it, but it hadn’t worked.
He held back through sheer dint of will. He was at the door before his son, his child spoke again.
“So what was my name out there?” His small voice came muffled by the pillow.
“Bo,” Adam said hoarsely. “Your name was Bo.”
More silence. “That’s a stupid name. It’s not in the Bible.”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“What’s it short for?”
“Nothing. It’s Irish, I think. It just sort of stands on its own.” Adam’s heart twisted hard this time.
“I was Irish?”
No, sport, you are Irish. He swallowed back on the words. “Partly.”
“Matt and everybody are German.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“That’s why I don’t look like them.”
“Probably, yeah. I guess that has something to do with it.”
“Did I have a family?” Bo asked finally. “Like this one?” This time he couldn’t lie. There could be no half truths. Not for Bo, not for himself. This one was black-and-white.
“No,” he said quietly. “Nothing like this one at all.” Then, like the coward he was, he fled.
Mariah was in the kitchen, helping to peel potatoes. “We’ve got to go,” he said shortly, rudely, stepping into the door.
Both she and Sarah turned to look at him. It took him a moment longer to realize that Joe and Nathaniel were seated at the table. They all watched him, waiting. It was Mariah who finally spoke.
“It went badly,” she ventured.
“No. Yeah. I don’t know what it did.” He looked at Joe. Help me here. Then it struck him that in that moment, Sugar Joe Lapp probably needed his help more than he needed Joe’s. He was probably dying to know what had happened upstairs.
“He knows he wasn’t always here,” Adam went on, taking a deep breath. “Matt told him.”
Sarah gasped. “Matt did?”
“Children talk,” Mariah said quietly. “They have whole secret worlds we’re not privy to. And Matt and Bo—Noah—are so close.”
“Yes,” Sarah agreed faintly.
“He told Bo that he doesn’t remember him being here when he—Matt—was small. And Bo says he doesn’t want to go anywhere else,” Adam went on. Something flared in Sarah’s eyes, something like hope. He had to look away before he could continue. “So I’ll give him more time.”
“But then you’ll go,” the woman said flatly. “You’ll take him and go.”
“Yeah.”
Joe got up to put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Does he know you’re his father?”
“No,” Adam said shortly. “He didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell him. Yet. Listen...” He trailed off, clearing his throat. “Thanks for the offer of dinner, but I need to—I don’t know, be on my own to think about this.”
“Of course,” Sarah said softly.
Adam looked at Mariah again. “If you want to stay, I understand.”
“No. I want to come with you.”
And no matter that he knew it was wrong, that he knew it was dangerous to keep spending too much time with her, Adam was relieved. Because he needed her now, and, as always, she was there.
“I’ll be in the car,” he said roughly. He turned away from them and left the kitchen.
None of them noticed Matthew darting out the door, dashing into the backyard before anyone realized that he had been listening.
Adam drove. He just...drove. When he got back to Ronks Road, when he should have gone right to take her back to her village, he turned left. Mariah said nothing. She waited.
The expression on his face hurt her. It was so tortured, she thought, so grim.
“He asked me...” he began finally, then he had to clear his throat. “He asked me if he had a family like the Lapps. And what the hell was I supposed to tell him?”
“He’s got family.” she said softly. “You. An uncle.”
“His uncle is a lunatic.” Adam snarled. “His uncle is as likely to snap handcuffs on a junkie’s wrists as he is to brawl with one. His uncle goes through a woman a week.”
“He didn’t seem that bad,” Mariah said helplessly. Actually, he seemed a little...scary, she thought. Adam was driven. The brief glimpse she had gotten of Jacob Wallace had been of a man possessed with an almost manic energy, deliberately disguised behind a forced laziness.
Adam shot her a look. “You said all of two words to him. ‘Excuse me.’ Trust me on this one. He’s a lunatic.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Mariah. I’m going to take Bo away from Matt, away from Sugar Joe and Sarah and Gracie and Dinah and Nathaniel. And you know what I’m going to give him? Do you know?” She shook her head mutely. “A big, slamming house in Dallas with six bedrooms and a family room with toys that suited him four years ago.”
“I don’t understand what’s wrong with that. You can buy him new toys.”
“The house is empty.”
“It won’t be when you get there.”
“We’ll rattle around in it,” he went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “Just the two of us. I can’t take him back to the apartment. I can’t raise a kid in that neighborhood. And every once in a while his Uncle Jake will flash through his life like some kind of damned wayward meteor. There won’t be parents and there won’t be siblings and, Jesus, how can I take all that away from him and give him back nothing?”
“Oh, Adam,” she whispered. “The important thing is that he’s with you. Then you can make any kind of world for him you choose.”
The hell he could. All the roads were blocked or ugly.
“My mother’s dead. So’s my father—thank God for that,” he added without remorse, without the slightest twinge of shame. He’d always hated the bastard with all his heart. “And Kimmie—God knows where Kimmie is. The best I can hope for is that she made something better of her life than Jake and I have. My mother was an alcoholic, Mariah. She drank herself to death, hiding from my father. He was a bully who beat up on folks for the sheer pleasure of it. I guess it made him feel like a big man. He always went after whoever was weakest at the time. Toward the end, when Jake and I were big enough to defend ourselves, it was always Mom or Kimmie he went for. So Mom drank and Kimmie ran away from home at seventeen with a black eye and a broken arm.” He paused. “Now there’s no one left.”
“Adam, both you and Jake are good men,” she insisted. Then, at his expression, she added, “You’re a good man. And Jake must have a good streak, too, because he came here to help you.”
“He came to help me find Jannel.”
Her heart staggered a little. “I see.”
“I thought [ needed to close that door. I thought it was the last one. But it’s not. Man, there are opened doors all over the place and I don’t know what to do with any of them.”
“Come inside,” she suggested.
“Huh?” And only then did he realize that he had come full circle, all through the settlement, because somehow or other he found himself back on her street, parked in front of her house, though he’d known this wasn’t a good place to go.
“Come inside,” she repeated. “I won’t offer you coffee. I won’t offer myself.” At his angry look, she flushed and hurried on. “You said once that falling asleep in front of my stove wasn’t so bad. So come inside, Adam. Take a load off your feet and just...let things be for a little while.”
“I can’t,” he said ridiculously. “I can’t do that. Now I know that your stockings don’t go all the way up.”
Her skin flamed, but she held his eyes while her hand found the door
handle. “It’s your choice, Adam. Do what you like.”
He waited a long time, until she had unlocked her front door and had gone inside. She left it ever so slightly ajar.
He got out of the car and followed her up the walk, not sure if he was heading straight for his own damnation or to a place where the fear might go away.
Chapter 15
He found her in the kitchen. No matter what she had promised, she was making coffee.
“Mariah.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. She didn’t seem surprised that he’d come in, after all, he realized.
“For myself,” she explained quickly.
He waved off the little percolator she placed on top of the wood stove. “I don’t know how to give him a family. I don’t know how to be his family. I’m scared to death to try to be his father.” That was the crux of it, he thought, the single thing that panicked him more than any other. And she was the only one he could say it to.
He heard her little indrawn breath. She turned back to him quickly, her expression soft and understanding. She crossed to him quickly and framed his face in her hands. His thoughts swerved as they did every time she got too close. He smelled violets again, and if she didn’t stop touching him soon he wasn’t going to be able to work this out at all.
“Adam, that’s silly,” she said quietly. “You’ve been a father, the best kind of father, for weeks now. Don’t you even realize that?”
He stared at her disbelievingly. Then he shook his head. “I’ve had all of two conversations with him.”
“And is that the measure of a father?”
He made an ugly sound in his throat. “I don’t know. That’s my point.”
Her palms were warm, coaxing him to see. “Adam, for weeks now you’ve held back when you’ve longed to rush in, when rushing in is your style. Your every action, your every move, has been with Bo’s best interest in mind. Since I’ve known you, you’ve spent nearly every moment protecting him from undue hurt in a situation where he can’t protect himself.”
It sounded so easy, so simple, when she said it. And it lulled him. It quieted some of the somersaulting panic in his belly. “You’ve been like some kind of wise angel through all this,” he murmured.
Her eyes widened and she finally dropped her hands. “An angel? ” She laughed nervously. “I can name a few deacons who might disagree with you.”
“Then they’re fools.”
She looked up at him with a soft kind of yearning. “Thank you, Adam. I think, somewhere down the line, I’ll often remember you saying that.”
He thought of something else she’d wanted to remember, other memories she’d said she wanted to take with her when this was over. Something shifted inside him.
“I’m sorry,” he said for what felt like the thousandth time. “For hurting you. For being rough on you. You don’t deserve it.”
She shook her head. “I’m hardly fragile, Adam. It doesn’t matter.”
“I made you cry,” he went on doggedly. And that was something he thought he’d probably remember for an eternity.
She found his eyes. This time there was a certain plea there. “I’ve cried because I don’t understand.”
“What?” Tell me, let me explain it and make everything right. Whatever it is.
“Why you got so angry. Why you...shut me out after what happened the other night.”
He stiffened. “I didn’t shut you out. I took you with me today. I’m standing here in your kitchen, aren’t I?” And he knew he was lying.
His sweater began to feel too tight. Too itchy and hot around his throat. But Bo had taught him something today. Bo had taught him. Evasions and half truths were for cowards. He shrugged out of his jacket, no matter that he hadn’t intended to stay here that long. It was too hot. Her home had always seemed chilly before.
She let out a shaky breath. “What did I do wrong, Adam? Why were you so mad at me for what happened? I had no control over whether that policeman came or not.”
“I was mad because you were so damned ashamed,” he grated. Honesty. It had its own rewards. It felt like a weight lifting from his chest. “I was mad because you were ashamed for touching me. Maybe for wanting me. Whatever. I thought you were going to rattle right out of your skin.” Another breath. More honesty. “It hurt. That the opinion of your damned deacons or your—your settlement mattered more than whatever it was we might have shared.”
Her eyes widened. “I wanted what happened.”
“You didn’t act like it.” His voice went short.
“I was melting inside.”
And something hot and liquid sluiced through him. “You panicked.”
“Adam, what kind of women have you known?” she cried. “What would you have had me do?”
He realized that she was genuinely angry. Hectic color bloomed in her cheeks. “React with a little pride!” he snapped, because that feeling like shame was rolling around in his gut again.
Mariah flinched, but she held his eyes. “Pride,” she repeated slowly. “Please, Adam, please introduce me to the woman who could pull that off with her dress wrapped around her waist and a strange man peering in the window at her. I suppose I do have to apologize, because I’ve never been in that situation before in my life and I didn’t know how to react, but I can assure you that I’ll never be the kind of woman who could take that without embarrassment.”
He stared at her. The kind of woman he wanted, the kind of woman he needed, would certainly be dismayed at having been caught with her dress around her waist by a strange man. He wondered if maybe he hadn’t been angry with her for just that, for being everything he needed and so far out of reach.
The air went out of him.
“Can we try again?” she asked quietly. “Please? Here, where no one’s likely to interrupt and steal it away from me again.”
His knees turned to putty. “You don’t want that. You really don’t want that.”
“Yes, Adam, I do. And I’ve already told you why.”
“Because I’m leaving.” Suddenly that seemed like a really bad reason. It was a reason that made him feel like hell.
“And they’re going to take my school. And you’re right. I’ll let them.” She smiled thinly. “Pride, Adam. It is all a matter of pride. Isn’t it funny how many connotations that word can have? I wonder if my father, with his extra long hair, would have flinched at being caught like I was by a stranger?”
“Mariah—”
“You see, I don’t know much about family, either, Adam. The only one I’ve ever known turned their back on me ten years ago. They’re a family with pride. Do you know Katya Essler sneaks out to see me when I cross her fields in the morning? And Sara Lapp, the daughter of a deacon, made way for me at her table. But not my father. No, never my mother. Not my sisters or brothers. They are too good, too pure. And, God forbid, if they were caught glancing my way, meeting my eyes even once, people might talk about their lack of forbearance.”
“Mariah—” he tried again.
“So maybe that’s another reason why I want something for myself. Something precious and dear and...and, yes, a little wicked. Something I can hold in my heart when they all really turn their backs on me, as they surely will any time now. I’ll be able to turn away, too. Maybe I’ll even smile to myself a little, because I’ll have a secret. They might think they’re making my life unbearable, but I’ll know that for a few brief, shining moments, it was not.”
He was drowning.
“Do you still want me?” she asked almost fearfully. “Did you mean it?”
Half truths and lies. She had him backed into a corner. He had told her he wouldn’t stay here. He had told her why, and he’d thought she understood. What the hell was a man supposed to do now, he wondered, when his blood was racing, when his body was already reacting with a will of its own? How virtuous was he expected to be?
Adam turned away blindly.
She cried out, a stricken sound. He spoke without looki
ng back at her. “You’ve got thirty seconds,” he said quietly. “A minute. Maybe two. See if you feel the same way, then. Think about it. Be sure.”
She thought that if she waited a lifetime, her answer, her wanting, would be the same. Him, she thought frantically. It had to be him, this man, and if he didn’t come back, she would die. He went out the front door, slamming it behind him. She prayed hard, then laughed aloud, her skin feeling feverish, as she considered exactly what she was asking God for. But the God she believed in was one of love. And she loved the man who had just walked out that door.
The thought didn’t shock her. It came into her heart quietly, almost as though it had always been there.
He was gone for a long time, longer than two minutes. He wasn’t coming back. Her knees started feeling weak. When the door finally opened again, she almost cried out again. He had one arm behind his back.
“What?” she whispered. He stopped in front of her, and she felt herself getting lost in his blue-gray eyes.
His jaw worked. His eyes slid away, then came back, almost as though he was embarrassed. “If I can only give you this one thing, this one time, then I guess I want it to be pretty.”
She laughed nervously. “You’re pretty.”
He scowled. “You come up with the damnedest things. Men aren’t pretty.”
“You are, Adam. You have a beautiful soul.”
He made an odd sound and brought his hand from behind his back. He thrust a fistful of damp flowers at her. Snow-dampened flowers in full bloom. She stared at them uncomprehendingly, then touched a fingertip to one.
Plastic. Her eyes came back up to his face slowly, then she laughed, a sound that would haunt his dreams forever.
“They came from my neighbor’s porch?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t find any alternative.”
“That’s a Grossdawdy house, a grandfather’s house. It belongs to that poultry farm behind us.”
“So?” He wondered why she was telling him this now. And why she was still laughing.
“It’s Old Mr. Miller’s house,” she went on. “He’s a deacon.”
Adam grinned slowly. She realized, then, how very rarely he grinned. It made that small dimple, the vague dent in his chin, go even deeper.