Can't Stop Loving You

by Janelle Taylor

  His boss was silent for a moment.

  Noah half expected him to dig for more information, to ask for proof that the tale was true, or perhaps to chide him for lying about having food poisoning. Or maybe even for his boss to express his concern for the teenager who had vanished from a small-town street without a trace.

  David did none of the above.

  He merely asked, in a tone that was impossible to read over the telephone line, “When do you expect to be back in the office?”

  “It might be tomorrow,” Noah said. “Or Thursday. Or it might not be for a while. I can’t leave without knowing where she is, and that she’s all right.”

  “I would strongly advise you to make it tomorrow,” David said. “And Noah?”

  “Yes?”

  “We need those story boards. What the hell did you do with them?”

  Bastard.

  Noah tried to remember where he had put them and gave his boss a few possible places to look.

  He had screwed up, he thought grimly as he hung up the phone. He knew he had absolutely screwed up. First he had misplaced the damned story boards, and then he had admitted to lying about being sick. He would be lucky not to get fired over one or the other of those actions. Considering he had both strikes against him, he probably wouldn’t have a job when he got home.

  Funny…

  For some reason, that didn’t seem to matter.

  Even though the July rent was due in a week and he had no savings account and no wife’s salary to fall back on if he lost his job.

  Right now, all that mattered was finding his daughter.

  And being with Mariel.

  He had told her he would meet her downstairs in the lobby. By the time he left his room, descended the stairs and saw her standing there, David Grafton had all but vanished from his mind.

  “I have an idea,” he said spontaneously.

  “Uh-oh,” she said with a chuckle.

  He wanted to kiss her, but he restrained himself. He relished this new easy rapport between them, and he wanted it to last. With any luck, it would hold out for their remaining time together…which brought him back around to the idea that had popped into his head when he saw her.

  “Why don’t we both pack our stuff now and check out? We can drive back to New York from the Catskills …after all, we’ll already be halfway there. Then you can pick up your flight out of La Guardia on Wednesday, and I won’t be late to work—not that that has anything to do with my plan. Anyway, depending on what we can find out from Sherry today, and depending on whether Amber turns up again before then—which God knows would be a blessing—then I’ll meet you back in Strasburg for the weekend and we’ll keep looking for her.”

  “Where would I stay tonight?” she asked, hesitant.

  “Are you kidding? With me,” he said, picking up her hand and squeezing it. “You’d stay with me.”

  “Are you sure that would be a good idea, Noah?”

  “It’s one night, Mariel,” he said, his grip tightening on her fingers. “It’s only one night. What harm can it do?”

  His words hung in the air between them, and he wished he could take them back.

  They both knew what harm one night together could do. One night together was all it had taken to create a child they couldn’t keep and destroy their relationship in the process.

  One night.

  Just one more night.

  He didn’t care. He couldn’t pretend any longer. He wanted to hold on to this time with her and make it last a lifetime.

  Clearwater Corners consisted of a combination gas station, mini-mart perched across a shady, winding road from a weathered, arrow-shaped wooden sign that read CAMP DRAKE, I MILE. This was truly God’s country, Mariel thought as she glanced at the soaring, wooded mountaintops and majestic towering evergreens above them, and the lush undergrowth, dotted with purple wildflowers, that lined the road. Wisps of mist hung in the air, but not as heavily as it had earlier.

  They had passed several closed ski resorts, some houses and campgrounds, and a few bustling tourist lodges on the way here, but the trip had been largely through the wilderness.

  Last night’s storm had cooled things off, and the morning temperatures were in the seventies in Strasburg, with a forecast high of the low eighties with less humidity. Here in the mountains, it was even cooler. The sky was overcast again, but without the threat of rain that had permeated yesterday’s clouds.

  Mariel had spent most of the trip leaning back in the passenger’s seat, staring out the window, admiring the majestic mountain scenery. Noah had been quiet, too, listening to an old Rolling Stones tape that his friend had left in the car.

  This time, however, the silence between them wasn’t moody or uncomfortable. Every time she had glanced Noah’s way and seen him lost in thought, she had noticed a contented expression on his face. Was he thinking about her, and last night? She wanted to think so. Last night had been wonderful, and she had slept soundly in his arms for a full ten hours before he woke her.

  This morning, there had been no awkwardness, no scrambling to leave each other.

  Which ultimately left her wondering what this all meant. But she wasn’t dwelling on it now. This wasn’t the time to ponder their relationship or the fact that she was going to New York City with him. Now was the time to focus every effort on finding their daughter.

  Now, as they bumped over the dirt road leading to the camp, Mariel saw that Noah’s face had lost its peaceful expression and that he looked worried.

  “You’re thinking about Amber, aren’t you?” she asked.

  He nodded. “There are times when I can push the whole thing from my mind, if I try hard enough. But not now. We can’t give up on finding her. Just because you’re flying home tomorrow and I’m going back to work for a few days doesn’t mean we aren’t going to see this through.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she said fervently. “I’m going to take care of a few things at home and get back to Strasburg as soon as I can.”

  “And I’ll drive back up on Friday night after work.” Then, after a pause, he said, “If she hasn’t been found by then.”

  “Right,” Mariel agreed, feeling hollow inside. She wanted nothing more than her daughter’s safe return, yet she knew that if Amber showed up before she could fly back east, there would be no reason for her to meet Noah in Strasburg.

  She hated herself for the implication of that, and for wanting an excuse to see him again—and she knew that if she had to choose between seeing him again and their daughter’s safe, speedy return, she would opt for the latter. She couldn’t stand the thought of Amber in danger somewhere, whether she had run away on her own, or been abducted. And that was what this trip was about, she reminded herself firmly.

  It was about finding Amber.

  Not about rediscovering Noah.

  “Here we are,” Noah said, pulling up in front of a rustic, two-story log building beside a sign that read CAMP DRAKE LODGE.

  There were other, smaller buildings nestled on the downward-sloping incline beyond, and Mariel could see several children, all in red T-shirts and white shorts, standing on a pier jutting out into the gray waters of a lake. A teenaged boy was gesturing at several other children and another teenager who were pulling toward them in a canoe.

  A middle-aged man in a red T-shirt and white pants stood expectantly on the narrow porch of the big building, obviously having heard their car crunching on the gravel.

  Noah leaned out the window and called, “Hello. Can we park over here for a few minutes?”

  The man nodded and pointed at a spot under a nearby tree. Noah pulled the car over there and turned off the engine.

  “Do you want to do the talking, or should I?” he asked Mariel in a low voice.

  “You can,” she said, and they got out of the car.

  The man had walked down the three steps and was waiting for them. “I’m Dean Drake,” he said, shaking their hands. “I’m the camp director.”

 
; “I’m Noah Lyons and this is Mariel Rowan. We’re here to talk to one of your employees, if it’s possible to interrupt her for a few minutes.”

  “Which employee, and what is this regarding?” he asked warily.

  Noah explained the situation, telling the camp director that they were investigating the disappearance of a teenaged girl from Valley Falls without letting him know that they were Amber’s birth parents. Mariel half expected the man to ask if they were law enforcement officials and demand to see their badges, but he didn’t.

  “I’ll go see where Sherry is and send her over,” he said. “I heard from another counselor something about one of her friends being missing. I guess Sherry’s pretty upset about it. I know she’ll want to help you if she can.”

  He disappeared down the slope behind the lodge.

  Mariel paced nervously while Noah perched on the bench of a nearby picnic table.

  Then a teenaged girl appeared through the trees, heading up from the lake. She was a pretty girl, slightly pudgy, with short, sun-streaked blond hair and sunburned cheeks. She, too, wore what was obviously the camp uniform: a red T-shirt that bore the inscription CAMP DRAKE, and a pair of white shorts. On her feet were thick socks and low leather hiking boots.

  Noah hopped off the bench when he saw her, and Mariel stopped pacing.

  “Are you Sherry?” Noah asked.

  She nodded and glanced cagily from him to Mariel. She bit her lip and said, “Dean told me you guys are investigators. But I already talked to the cops back home. I told them I don’t know anything about where Amber is.”

  “We think you do, Sherry,” Noah said.

  The girl’s blue eyes widened. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because Amber told you everything, didn’t she?”

  “Almost everything,” Sherry said, dragging the toe of her hiking boot along the grass, studying the path it made.

  “So you knew that she was thinking about running away,” Mariel jumped in, instinctively sensing that the best way to go about this was to take a chance and make an assumption.

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she told me where she was going,” Sherry said.

  It was all Mariel could do not to sink to the bench behind her. Amber had run away. Sherrie had all but confirmed it. They weren’t out of the woods yet—not by a long shot—but at least they knew that she hadn’t been abducted by a stranger.

  Mariel didn’t dare look at Noah as he said, “We think she did tell you. And we’re not the only ones. A few of your teachers, as well as Amber’s parents, have told the police that they suspect you know where she was headed.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  But she was lying. Mariel could tell. “Listen, Sherry, we know Amber spent a lot of time on the Internet, in chat rooms and sending e-mail. We’re concerned that she might have been lured away from home by someone she met on-line—somebody who wanted to harm her.”

  “Well, she wasn’t,” Sherry said, then clamped her mouth shut.

  “What—or should I say who—did lure her away?” Noah asked.

  Sherry shrugged.

  “Look, we know she was upset about her parents splitting up,” Noah said.

  “Yeah. Who wouldn’t be?” Sherry glowered at them, her arms folded.

  “Where do you think Amber would have gone?” Mariel asked. “Did she have money saved up? Or was somebody meeting her? Somebody who was going to take care of her?”

  Something flashed in Sherry’s eyes. Something that told Mariel that her question had hit home. That Amber wasn’t on her own, wherever she was.

  But the girl only shrugged. “I told the police everything I know,” she said.

  “Well, if you think of anything else, you can contact me at this number,” Noah said, and handed her a slip of paper with his phone number scribbled on it.

  “Where is this?” Sherry asked, looking at it.

  “Manhattan,” he said. “Why?”

  “We’re not allowed to call long distance,” she mumbled, scuffing her toe in the grass again.

  “So call collect,” Noah said. “I mean it, Sherry.”

  “Whatever.” She looked over her shoulder. “I have to get back down to the lake. Dean’s watching my campers, and he doesn’t appreciate you two showing up here and dragging me away from my job.”

  “Really?” Noah asked. “I think Dean’s fine with it. I think you’re the one who doesn’t want us here, Sherry. What are you afraid we’re going to find out?”

  “Don’t you want to make sure your friend is safe?” Mariel asked, trying, and failing, to catch the girl’s eye.

  “She’s safe,” Sherry said, before spinning on her heel and walking away.

  Noah and Mariel looked at each other.

  “She ran away,” Mariel breathed, and she realized she was crying.

  Noah hugged her, pulling her against him and stroking her hair. “Are you crying because you’re relieved?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, sniffling. “I couldn’t stand the thought of her being kidnaped, but just because she left willingly doesn’t mean she’s safe, no matter what Sherry thinks. Dammit, Noah, where is she?”

  “We’ll find out. We’re not going to give up on this. Maybe we should scrap the New York idea and go back to Strasburg after all.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “We can’t do that. You have to get to work, and I have to fly home. We’ll come back this weekend and pick up where we left off.”

  He nodded, looking at her with a strange expression.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, and jangled the car keys. “Let’s head to New York.”

  What if Mariel didn’t come back?

  The question had been on his mind back at the camp, when she had said they would meet back in Strasburg this weekend, but he hadn’t felt comfortable voicing it aloud.

  She had said she would come back. He should believe her. Why wouldn’t he believe her? Her coming back to Strasburg had nothing to do with him. It was about finding Amber. That was the only reason she was coming back. That was the only reason he was coming back.

  Right?

  Wrong, he thought, staring grimly through the windshield at the heavy midafternoon traffic on Route 287 leading east through Rockland County toward the Tappan Zee Bridge just ahead. They couldn’t keep pretending that they could come together as passionately as they had these past few days and then casually go their separate ways. Before she got on that plane tomorrow, they had to talk about what it had meant.

  The trouble was, Noah didn’t know what it had meant. He couldn’t tell her how he felt because he had no idea how he felt. Maybe a few days away from her would give him the ability to think clearly—to see the situation for what it was, and not for what he wanted it to be.

  What did he want it to be?

  The impossible, he thought, vaguely noticing as the Bob Dylan tape that was playing came to an end.

  He wanted this to be the beginning of the rest of their lives. He wanted her to be the woman who would fill the aching need inside of him, the woman who would make him a home and bear his children and stay by his side until they were old and gray. He wanted her to give him now what she hadn’t been willing to give him fifteen years ago.

  Which was insane, he thought, barely registering a yellow flashing LANE ENDS, CONSTRUCTION AHEAD sign in the left lane.

  She might have changed in some ways, but she was still the same person. Yes, she was an adult now, where she had been a kid before—but she was still Mariel. She hadn’t morphed into some happy homemaker, willing to spend the rest of her life making meatloaf and changing diapers and growing old with the same man. If that was what she wanted, she could have had it long before now.

  Besides, if she really thought he could make her happy—if she really had changed that drastically—he would sense it. She wouldn’t be skittish and frightened and hot one minute, cold the next.

  Not that she had been cold to him since last nigh
t, when they had made love again, during the storm.

  Promise me that in the morning, you won’t run away.

  He hadn’t taken her words lightly, and he hadn’t run away.

  It meant a lot to him that she had been willing to ask him to be with her, just as it meant a lot that she hadn’t held back physically. But emotionally, she was reticent. She was fighting whatever she felt for him, and he knew why, because he was doing the same thing.

  She knew they weren’t meant to last, just as he knew it.

  But there were so many things he didn’t know, he thought, braking the car as an eighteen wheeler veered in front of him, having run out of left lane.

  He didn’t know what was going to happen when their daughter was found.

  Amber had gone looking for Mariel, so it was likely that the two of them would meet. Would the girl want to meet Noah, too? Would the three of them face each other together, as a family? Or would Amber meet them one at a time? What if she had changed her mind about everything and no longer wanted any part of her birth parents? What if she didn’t want Noah to be a part of her life?

  He couldn’t stand the thought of returning to his solitary life in New York after all this, without having made a connection to his lost daughter.

  His life couldn’t go on as usual now.

  It couldn’t, because now he had a name and a face to place with the child who had always lived in his mind.

  And now there was Mariel.

  For years, with her out of his life, he had kept his thoughts from dwelling on her as they had on his daughter. Yes, he had thought of her. Often, in fact. But it was with a sense of melancholy—and yes, of anger.

  That was gone now.

  If nothing else, they had healed the rift between them. He had forgiven her at last, he realized, as the vast bridge span appeared before him, three miles long, the far portion rising high above the Hudson River to meet the elevated bank on the Westchester side.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mariel said, startling him out of his thoughts.

  He glanced at her and saw that she was staring out the window at the smoke-colored sky and water, and the house-dotted shores on both sides. A single sailboat was on the water below, and there was an enormous barge slowly drifting downriver.