Can't Stop Loving You

by Janelle Taylor

  She found herself gazing around the house with blatant curiosity as she and Noah stepped over the threshold and followed the Steadmans to a living room adjacent to the entry hall. Her attention was drawn to the collection of framed photos on the wall alongside the staircase, and she realized that they were all of Amber.

  Amber as a pudgy baby; Amber as an impish toddler; Amber as a gap-toothed elementary school student with pigtails.

  The photos took Mariel’s breath away, and it was all she could do not to stop in her tracks and gape at them.

  She stole a glance at Noah as they were ushered into the living room and saw that he, too, was transfixed by the pictures of their daughter, turning his head to catch another glance over his shoulder, and then scanning the similar row of framed photos on the mantel above the white brick fireplace.

  Mariel scrutinized the room as she accepted a seat on the couch at Carl Steadman’s invitation, searching for, and finding, more evidence of the teenaged girl who had grown up in this house. There was sheet music open on the upright piano in one corner, and she pictured Amber sitting there, playing. The Harry Potter series and a row of young adult paperbacks mingled with the best-sellers and reference books lining the built-in bookshelves alongside the fireplace. And there were pictures everywhere—framed photographs on every surface. It was all Mariel could do not to rise and go to them, not to pick them up and examine them as thoroughly as she longed to do.

  She sat as if frozen on the couch, poised for whatever was to come next, her mind whirling with foreign emotion. She didn’t know how to react to this place, or these people. She hadn’t allowed herself to envision this situation even when she had made the decision to come here. And even if she had tried to imagine what it would be like, she couldn’t possibly have anticipated the intense mingling of pain and pleasure at this glimpse into the home her daughter had known.

  This was an orderly room, yet comfortable—much in the way that Mariel’s childhood home had been. Her mother had been an avid housekeeper and tended to their well-worn furniture as lovingly as she would tend to priceless antiques. As Mariel took in the outdated plaid fabric couch, the scarred coffee table, and the slightly faded wall-to-wall carpeting, she wanted to see it as alien and uninviting, but she couldn’t This was a small-town, middle-class home, just like small-town, middle-class homes everywhere. Just like the one in which she had been raised, and in which she still lived. She couldn’t have done any better for Amber herself—not in providing material things.

  But did the Steadmans love her? Had they treated her well?

  “I don’t know what to ask,” Joanne Steadman said abruptly, now that the four of them were seated in the living room. She sat in a wing chair facing the couch, and her husband perched on the edge of a rocking chair.

  Noah and Mariel sat side by side, not touching, though she was incredibly aware of his weight on the cushion beside her. She longed to lean on him, knowing that he was experiencing the same barrage of emotions that were sweeping over her—knowing that he alone understood what she felt. But she kept her distance. She had to. She couldn’t give in to the illusion that they were anything more than strangers bound by a long-ago experience. Perhaps a long-ago mistake.

  “My name is Noah Lyons,” Noah said, and cleared his throat. “And this is Mariel Rowan.”

  “We know,” Carl said awkwardly. “The names were on the adoption papers.”

  Silence. Again.

  Mariel thought about the adoption. She hadn’t met the Steadmans fifteen years ago—rather, had selected theirs from a sheaf of applications that had been handed to her by one of the nuns at the home as her pregnancy progressed and she insisted that her mind was made up. They had looked good on paper, Carl and Joanne Steadman.

  He was an insurance salesman whose hobby was woodworking. She had imagined him building a dollhouse for the child she knew, without being told, was a daughter. She had shoved from her mind the unwelcome images of Noah filling that role—of Noah being father to the child she carried, of Noah making doll furniture or cradling a small pink bundle in his arms.

  Just as she had forbidden herself to imagine someday being Mommy to her unborn baby. She had convinced herself that this stranger, Joanne Steadman, was far better suited for that. A former nurse, Joanne had been born and raised in Valley Falls, and her parents had still lived in town, along with both of her sisters. Mariel’s child would have grandparents and aunts nearby, a family that would love her and care for her. Or so she had wanted desperately to believe.

  “How did you hear about Amber?” Joanne’s voice cut into Mariel’s memories, and she didn’t miss the chill in her words.

  “I read about it in the local newspapers,” Mariel said when Noah didn’t answer right away.

  “And you’re here because you’re—”

  “Concerned,” Noah interrupted the woman. “We’re both very concerned about—your daughter.”

  Not our daughter. Not really. Not as far as these people were concerned.

  “We thought we might be able to help,” Mariel said, needing to ease the tension in the room.

  “Help…in what way?” Carl asked. “You were asking us for information just a few minutes ago, not offering it.”

  “That’s true,” Noah told him. “As I said, we’re concerned.”

  “Why?”

  Mariel turned her own startled gaze on Joanne, whose one-word question had unexpectedly flared dangerous emotions in Mariel’s gut. How dare this woman ask why she and Noah were concerned?

  “You should know,” Noah said with a dangerous gleam in his eye, “that Amber contacted Mariel recently, asking her if she was her birth mother.”

  For the first time, the Steadmans looked at each other.

  Mariel saw that they were both startled and distressed, and she felt a twisted sense of satisfaction. Suddenly, she wanted to hurt these people who had ostensibly been hurt already by their daughter’s disappearance. She wanted to rob them of their sense of parental rights—to let them know that Amber was aware that she had had, for however brief a time, another mother. And another father.

  Mariel glanced at Noah.

  He was watching the Steadmans, waiting for their response.

  “When did Amber call you?” Carl Steadman asked Mariel.

  “She didn’t call me. She e-mailed.”

  Again, a look passed between the other couple, but this time, Mariel couldn’t read it.

  “What did she want?”

  “To know if I was her mother,” Mariel said simply, and saw Joanne flinch at the last word. She could have distinguished—could have said birth mother. But she had chosen not to.

  “And how did you respond?” Joanne asked.

  “I didn’t respond,” Mariel said. “I thought it would be better to deal with it in person. So I flew here to see her.”

  “You flew here? You no longer live in the area?” Relief was plain on Carl’s face.

  “I live in Missouri,” Mariel told them.

  “And you’re married to each other now?” Joanne asked.

  Though she had realized earlier that it might be their assumption, Mariel was caught off guard by her words. These people thought she and Noah were married. They were strangers who had no idea of the turmoil that had passed between them, or the wreckage of their relationship in the wake of the baby’s birth and adoption.

  These people thought that Mariel and Noah had simply picked themselves up and moved on…together.

  “We’re not married,” Mariel said, and found herself voicing the words in unison with Noah, who had also quickly spoken up.

  “I live in New York City now,” he said. “When Mariel told me what had happened, I came right up here.”

  “And you found out accidentally, from the papers?” Carl asked, turning a probing gaze on Mariel.

  She shifted uncomfortably, willing herself to act and sound casual as she said, “Yes.”

  And it was the truth, of course. She had no reason to squirm i
n her seat or avoid making eye contact with him. Yet she couldn’t help it. She felt guilty.

  Why?

  It wasn’t simply guilt over how she had responded to—or rather, failed to respond to—Amber’s e-mail. It was deep-seated, age-old guilt stemming from a decision she had made fifteen years ago, and she still hadn’t worked through it, no matter what she wanted Noah—and the Steadmans, for that matter—to believe.

  Suddenly she felt entirely alone once again. Noah’s presence was no longer a comfort, but an affliction. Having him here meant that she must defend herself and her actions not to two people, but to three.

  “It seems coincidental that you showed up in town right on the heels of our daughter’s disappearance,” Joanne Steadman commented.

  And in that instant, Mariel hated her. Not just for what she said or the way she was looking at Mariel, but for the precious gift she had been given—and the precious gift that Mariel had willingly, perhaps foolishly, lost.

  “If you’re trying to tell me you’re suspicious of me, you’re wasting your time,” Mariel said, her voice tight. “I had nothing to do with Amber’s disappearance.”

  The woman just shrugged.

  Noah stood. “I don’t think this is as helpful or enlightening as Mariel and I had hoped it would be,” he announced. “We’ll be at the Sweet Briar Inn over in Strasburg if you want to contact us. We would appreciate it if you could fill us in if the police come up with any leads, or let us know when Amber comes home.”

  Yeah, right, Mariel thought, following his lead and getting to her feet. Her legs felt like liquid. There was no way these people were going to make them a part of the investigation or even tell Amber that they had been here.

  The four of them stiffly made their way back to the entrance hall with its looming photo gallery of Amber. At the door, Mariel turned to the Steadmans, needing to ask one last question. “Do you believe what the police say—that Amber is a runaway?”

  “Absolutely not,” Carl replied instantly, and his wife nodded vehemently.

  “Our daughter would never willingly leave home,” she chimed in. “She loves us. She loves it here. She’s well-adjusted and happy.” Her voice became choked, yet she continued, “Somebody took Amber away from us. And Carl and I are determined to find out who. And why. And we’re determined to find her alive.”

  Mariel swallowed hard over the lump that rose in her throat at those chilling words. In that instant she truly believed that this was a mother who refused to prepare herself to confront her worst fears. Joanne Steadman clearly thought Amber was in danger.

  And the reality was, she might very well be right.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Now what?” Noah asked Mariel as they headed back along the highway toward Strasburg.

  Neither of them had spoken for the first few minutes of the drive, and he assumed she had been as lost in her thoughts as he was in his own. He felt numb, having come face to face with the reality he had avoided all these years.

  His daughter belonged to somebody else.

  Amber’s presence in that household was as palpable as if she had suddenly come bounding in the door. The Steadmans appeared for all the world to be doting parents. Noah hadn’t missed the framed snapshots, the bronzed baby shoes on an end table, the glimpse of framed crayon artwork on the wall of the adjoining den.

  He realized that he would rather believe that the Steadmans were inept parents and that they had done something to cause their daughter to run away than the alternative, which was that Amber had met with foul play.

  It was far easier on his aching heart to imagine her homeless on the streets of Syracuse or Albany or even New York than to speculate about what might have happened to a pretty teenaged girl who had set out for school one sunny June morning and never been heard from again.

  “I still think she’s a runaway,” Mariel said, her voice hollow.

  Startled, he glanced at her. “You really believe that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I just want to believe it,” she said bleakly, and he knew that her thoughts were following the same grim path his own had taken.

  “Well, no matter what we think, we aren’t just going to give up and go home now and leave this to the Steadmans and the police,” Noah said, his stomach churning. “At least, I’m not.”

  “I’m not either.”

  His heart fluttered as he heard the conviction in her voice.

  Well, what the hell had he been thinking? That she didn’t care? Of course she cared. She had flown all the way here from Missouri, had summoned him here, and had already repeatedly voiced the worries that were now plainly written on her face. He knew that she cared about Amber Steadman.

  He wanted to believe that she cared about him—that she was staying here, in part, because of him.

  He knew that it wasn’t true, yet he couldn’t help yearning for the impossible.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, casting a glance at her. Her face was turned toward the car window. “We’ll track her down, Mariel. We’ll start looking on our own.”

  “Where do we even start?”

  “We’ll talk to her teachers, and her friends. We’ll talk to anyone who might have some idea what could have happened to her.”

  “But the police are probably doing just that,” she pointed out. “What are we going to learn that they won’t?”

  He bristled. “The police are treating this as a runaway case. They might not be following up on every possible scenario.”

  “So you don’t think she ran away. You think somebody took her. Like one of those serial killers or pedophiles who prey on little girls…I feel sick, Noah,” she said, and her voice had an edge of hysteria.

  “I don’t know what to think, Mariel, but I’m not ruling anything out. For all we know, Carl and Joanne Steadman are a couple of miserable people, and she couldn’t stand living with them, so she took off. It isn’t that hard to imagine, is it?”

  She hesitated, then said, “I guess not.”

  He thought about the couple and the house they had just left. It was hard to judge the family dynamics under the circumstances. The Steadmans had been tense when they answered the door, and even more tense as the conversation wore on and they discovered their visitors’ identity. By all appearances, they doted on their daughter. Yet appearances didn’t count for much, he reminded himself, remembering that the Steadmans had assumed that he and Mariel were married.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked Mariel, looking over at her as they stopped at an intersection surrounded by fast-food and chain restaurants.

  “No,” she said, stifling a yawn. “But I could use some coffee. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  The telltale way in which she flinched as soon as the words left her mouth told him that he was the reason she hadn’t slept last night, and again, he felt his heart jump-start.

  She had no doubt lain awake thinking about that kiss, just as he had. Not that he believed that was all that was on her mind. Of course she was worried about Amber, and so was he. But even that—even their mutual worry—was a reminder of all they had once shared. And being back here, together, was bound to arouse feelings that had never been fully resolved when their relationship ended so abruptly.

  Or had it?

  Over the years, whenever he thought back on what had happened between them, Noah had mainly remembered the shattering day—July Fourth—when their daughter had been born, and the papers had been signed, and he had walked out of the hospital in a daze.

  When he had returned the next morning, Mariel was gone.

  He had known she would be.

  Because their breakup hadn’t been defined in that one last dramatic day; it had been a gradual process that began back in her dorm room the moment she turned down his proposal. The months that had followed had been one long, drawn-out good-bye, he had realized when they were over.

  “So do you want to stop for coffee?” she was asking, dragging him back, once again, from the past.

&
nbsp; “Coffee? Yes,” he said, his mind scrambling to catch up. “Food, too.”

  “You’re hungry?”

  “Starved,” he admitted.

  “You were always so hungry,” she recalled, almost fondly, as though she had momentarily forgotten who—and where—they were now. “All you ever wanted to do was eat. Before class, and after class, and…”

  “Always,” he said, watching her as he automatically pressed the accelerator when the light changed.

  And he knew by the way she had trailed off, her hands clenching in her lap, that she was remembering what he was remembering. The first night they had made love, the night he had brought her to the Sweet Briar Inn and seduced her in a four-poster antique bed in one of the third-floor guest rooms.

  When they lay naked and spent in each other’s arms, drowsily stroking each other in the light of the flickering votive candles he had brought, he had asked if she was hungry. Then he had brought out the basket he had so carefully put together that afternoon—splurging all of his meal tickets for the day in the dining hall for the strawberries and grapes, the crackers and cheese and chocolate. She had teased him about his voracious appetite as they feasted on the makeshift picnic, and then he had indulged his appetite for her once again, making love to her until the gray morning light filtered through the shade and she drifted off to sleep in his arms.

  A car horn honked, jarring him out of his reverie, and he swerved just in time to avoid an SUV making a left-hand turn in front of him.

  “I guess I need coffee, too,” he said, his nerves shot. Better to vocally blame his distraction on exhaustion, rather than on his haunting thoughts of her—of them, together. He spotted the Cracker Barrel restaurant up ahead and pointed. “Let’s stop there.”

  “Cracker Barrel?” She shrugged. “Fine with me. They have great sundaes. Maybe I’ll go for some sugar along with the caffeine.”

  “You’ve already been there?” he asked, surprised. She had said she only got into town yesterday.