Can't Stop Loving You

by Janelle Taylor

  His arm was raised as he faced the traffic whizzing down Broadway. He was hailing a cab for her.

  He was going to let her leave.

  Back in the apartment, she had been sure that he was going to try to stop her again.

  And she had known that if he did, if he said the slightest thing to convince her, she would stay.

  Watching Amber walk out of their lives had been painful. But this…

  This was torture.

  Amber didn’t belong with them. She was a beautiful kid, and now that Mariel had found her, she would be as much a part of her life as the Steadmans—and Amber—desired.

  But she wasn’t really Mariel’s daughter. Not anymore. She never had been.

  A part of her ached for the loss, yet another part of her was strangely content.

  For, in those brief hours with the child she had borne and given up, she had discovered something about herself.

  She had discovered a well of maternal longing that she hadn’t known was there. At least, not in the sense that she now comprehended it.

  For years, missing her daughter, she had thought that the longing stemmed from guilt, and that it was connected only to the child she had lost.

  Now, she had realized that there was more to it. That she might actually have what it took to be a mother. That she wanted to have another baby, a baby she would keep and nurture and raise, just as her own mother had.

  Yes, she longed for another baby.

  For a family to call her own.

  She longed for Noah, and for his child. A child they would bring into the world together, consciously, lovingly.

  But it was too late for such dreams.

  She was leaving, and he was going to let her go.

  Unless…

  Unless she told him how she was feeling.

  But even then, he might not believe her.

  He might reject her.

  If only she knew that he wouldn’t.

  If only she knew that he loved her.

  But he had never said anything about love. All he had said was—

  “Taxi!” he shouted, waving his hand wildly as a cab careened in their direction.

  For a rash, hopeful moment she believed that it was going to go on by.

  She saw that the middle light on the dome that protruded from the cab’s roof was lit. She had learned enough about Manhattan cabs these past few days to understand what it meant: the cab was available, and the driver would stop for her.

  And even if by chance he didn’t, another cab would be along behind it. There was always another cab, in Manhattan. Always somebody willing to take you wherever you wanted to go…

  And wherever you didn’t.

  She was going to the airport, she reminded herself fiercely. She was going to fly back to Missouri. It was the right thing to do, because Noah hadn’t asked her to stay.

  And he hadn’t offered to go with her.

  Not for the right reasons.

  Sure enough, the cab driver stopped.

  Mariel watched, almost in a daze, as he popped the trunk.

  Noah picked up her luggage and put it inside.

  He opened the back door for her.

  The sequence was unfolding just as it had on Wednesday morning.

  She could let it happen…

  Or she could stop it.

  She looked up into Noah’s tired, shadowed eyes, hoping to see something there that would tell her what to do.

  She swallowed hard.

  “I don’t want to drag this out,” she said, her voice strained.

  He nodded. “There’s no need. Just go, Mariel. Go. You have to.”

  She did.

  She had to go.

  She turned and blindly got into the backseat.

  Noah slammed the door closed after her.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  She couldn’t speak.

  “Where to?”

  She wanted to tell him to forget it. That she wasn’t going anywhere.

  She opened her mouth. Found her voice.

  “La Guardia,” was all she said.

  Back in his apartment, Noah walked from room to room, his shoes sounding hollow on the bare floors, echoing through the emptiness.

  This was his home.

  This was his life.

  Incredulous, he stood again in the living room window, looking out at the street below, shocked that it had come to this.

  He was alone now, in this apartment, in this city, in this world.

  Even at this early hour on a summer Sunday, people and traffic rushed by. Everybody had someplace to go. Everybody had someplace they belonged.

  Somewhere uptown, Kelly was lying in her king-sized bed, maybe alone, maybe not.

  In Queens, Noah’s mother was probably getting ready for morning mass, and afterward, she would go for coffee with some of the neighborhood women.

  His friends were with their wives, some of them with their children, too—perhaps planning a lazy day in the park or at the beach.

  Somewhere on a highway leading out of the city, Amber rode with her parents, heading home.

  Just as Mariel was heading home.

  For a moment, as he had looked at her beside the open door of the cab, Noah had almost thought she was going to waver. If she had—if she had shown the slightest hesitation—he would have asked her to stay.

  Or he would have offered to go with her.

  Anything, just so that they could be together.

  But she hadn’t hesitated.

  She had gotten into the cab, and she had ridden out of his life, and she hadn’t looked back.

  He knew she hadn’t, because he had watched her, standing on the street until the cab whirled around a distant corner and was gone.

  Now he was alone.

  He could pick up the pieces and get on with his life…

  Or he could go after her, dammit.

  He froze at the thought, willing it away…

  And then allowing himself to embrace it.

  He could go after her.

  Yes.

  He knew enough about baseball—and about life—to know that two strikes didn’t mean that you were out.

  There was one last chance waiting for him, and he would be a fool not to take it.

  * * *

  Clutching a bouquet of red roses he had hurriedly bought on the street outside of his apartment, Noah strode through the terminal at La Guardia. He stopped walking only long enough to check what gate her flight was scheduled to depart from before heading to the security checkpoint.

  “Do you have a ticket, sir?” a female uniformed officer asked, stopping him before he could walk through the metal detector.

  “No, I’m just seeing someone off…” Or, with any luck, convincing her not to go.

  “I’m sorry, sir, only passengers holding tickets can proceed past this point.”

  He opened his mouth to argue. Then he realized it was useless. That was the rule. They weren’t going to let him break it no matter what he said. He would only be wasting time.

  He glanced at his watch.

  Her flight didn’t depart for another twenty minutes.

  If he hurried, he could make it.

  He turned around and rushed back to the ticket counter, where a long line snaked through the velvetrope concourse.

  Distressed, he took his place at the end of it.

  It moved faster than he had hoped.

  He repeatedly checked his watch for the next fifteen minutes. At last, it was his turn to speak to the ticket agent.

  “I need a seat on the seven thirty-five flight to St. Louis, please,” he said, plunking his Visa card on the counter. Never mind that it was almost maxed out. With any luck, there was enough remaining credit to charge a plane ticket.

  “That flight is leaving on time. It’s already boarded. You have only a few minutes to catch it.”

  “I know.”

  “Round-trip or one-way?” the agent asked, smiling slightly as she
noticed the bouquet of roses.

  “One-way,” he said decisively.

  He was going to convince her that they belonged together. He wasn’t going to give up until she believed it. Until she agreed to spend the rest of her life in his arms.

  The ticket agent efficiently pressed some keys on her computer terminal, and looked from the screen to him.

  “The round-trip fare is two hundred and thirty dollars cheaper.”

  “One-way,” he repeated, his jaw clenched.

  He wasn’t coming back here. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Who cared if he had to abandon his rent-controlled apartment and his half-written screenplays and his shabby furniture and a wardrobe that was meant for a job he no longer had?

  “I’d recommend that you buy the round-trip ticket,” the agent offered in a conspiratorial tone. “It’s much less expensive to do it that way. It doesn’t mean that you have to—”

  “I’m not coming back,” he said firmly. “One-way, please.”

  She shrugged and picked up his Visa.

  Moments later, he clutched a boarding pass in one hand and the roses in the other, dashing toward the gate.

  He arrived just as the final boarding call was announced.

  “I’m on this flight,” he said breathlessly, dashing to the attendant beside the open jetway.

  “You just made it,” the man said, and ripped the stub from his boarding pass. “Go ahead.”

  Noah raced down the jetway and onto the plane, barely acknowledging the three flight attendants who greeted him as they prepared the galley.

  His seat was in the last row. He stood in the front of the plane, his eyes scanning the rows of seats, searching for Mariel. He would beg whoever was seated beside her to switch with him, and if they resisted, he would pay them, for crying out loud. He couldn’t wait an entire three hours to tell Mariel all that was in his heart.

  “Sir, you’ll have to be seated,” a flight attendant said, coming up behind him. “We’re about to push back.”

  In numb horror, he realized that Mariel wasn’t on the flight.

  What the hell…?

  Had he gotten on the wrong plane?

  “Does this flight go to St. Louis?” he asked the attendant, his mind whirling in confusion.

  “Yes,” she said with a pleasant nod. “Sir, if you’ll just—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I’m on the wrong plane. I have to get off.”

  She gaped at him. “But, sir—”

  “I’m not going to St. Louis,” he called over his shoulder, fleeing the plane just as two airline workers below flicked a switch on the jetway.

  He dashed through it as it folded back toward the terminal, racing by the shocked-looking attendants at the gate.

  “Wrong flight,” he called over his shoulder.

  He hurried to a departures screen and scanned the list of outgoing flights.

  The one he had been on was the only one headed for St. Louis this morning. There was another to Kansas City—

  Where would she be going?

  His thoughts were muddled as he tried to sort things out, struggling to remember whether Rockton was closer to St. Louis or Kansas City. There was a flight to Kansas City leaving in two hours.

  He would wait by the gate, he decided.

  And when she showed up, he would stop her.

  Of course she would show up.

  Where else would she be?

  Then it hit him.

  She could have gone to Kennedy airport. Or to Newark.

  He hadn’t bothered to ask her what her travel plans were.

  For all he knew, she was sitting on a runway at JFK, waiting to take off.

  This had been an insane idea, he realized, deflating. He couldn’t go after her.

  He couldn’t.

  Because it wasn’t meant to be.

  He had been an impulsive fool to come here looking for her.

  You were wrong. Two strikes, and you’re out, he thought glumly, tossing the roses and boarding pass into a trash container as he walked toward ground transportation.

  Mariel sat on the stoop of Noah’s building, watching the traffic go by, her arms wrapped around her knees.

  She had been here more than an hour, and he had refused to buzz her up.

  Or maybe he wasn’t home.

  That was a possibility, she admitted to herself. Yet she couldn’t rid herself of the image of him standing in his apartment, listening to her ring the buzzer, sensing that it was her and refusing to reply.

  Why should he let her in?

  She had left him.

  But she had come back, dammit. She had gotten to the airport, and she had realized that she couldn’t do it.

  She was going to tell him that she wanted another chance. That she wanted to try to work things out. That even if there were no guarantees that they could make it together, she was willing to take the risk.

  Because she couldn’t live without him.

  She shifted her weight on the step, gazing out at the morning traffic stopped at a light on the next corner. Somewhere in the distance, far below the street, she could hear the screech of a subway rumbling by. Pedestrians passed, some solitary, others in couples and in groups—people living their lives against the backdrop of the exhilarating city that Mariel had once thought would be her home.

  Until she had realized that Rockton was her home…

  Or so she had believed, until she realized, in the airport, on the verge of boarding a flight to St. Louis, that home could be anywhere, as long as Noah was there with her.

  She didn’t care whether he moved with her to Rockton or she stayed with him in New York or they both picked up and lived in…in Strasburg, or Paris, or wherever he wanted to go.

  She was going to tell him that, just as soon as she was face-to-face with him again.

  Sooner or later, she told herself, watching the traffic begin to move down Broadway again as the light changed, he would have to come out. Or come home, if he really was out.

  Either way, she was going to wait here until he materialized. No matter how long it took. She had spent fifteen endless years without him. A few more hours wouldn’t make a difference in the long run…

  Not if he says yes.

  Idly staring at the street, she saw a yellow cab pull up on the opposite curb.

  She watched as a man got out.

  Then her heart began to pound as she realized who it was.

  So he hadn’t been upstairs, ignoring her.

  Noah walked briskly to the corner, glanced at the light, and waited for it to change. His head was down, his hands shoved into the pockets of his khaki pants.

  Mariel leaped off the steps and walked hurriedly along the sidewalk to the corner opposite the one where he stood.

  “Noah!” she bellowed, as an unyielding current of traffic rushed between them. She waved her arms frantically like someone who needed to be rescued. “Noah!”

  He didn’t hear her.

  She looked impatiently at the light, then at the DON’T WALK sign that still glowed on the opposite corner. She would be a fool to take a chance by stepping off the curb. She had to wait, even though every ounce of her being longed to rush to him, dodging cars and buses and cabs.

  “Noah!” she shouted again, just as the traffic slowed and the light changed.

  He looked up at it, and stepped off the curb.

  “Noah!”

  Then he saw her.

  His jaw dropped.

  She rushed toward him.

  He met her halfway across Broadway, swooping her into his arms.

  “Mariel!” he breathed, crushing her against him. “I thought you left.”

  “I couldn’t do it. Not without telling you something. Not without telling you that I love you, Noah.” The words spilled giddily from her tongue and seemed to dance in the dazzling June sunlight. She couldn’t stop saying them. “I love you. I love you and I want to be with you, wherever you are.”

  �
�I love you, too,” he said, and he bent his head to capture her lips in a sweet, clinging kiss that would have told her everything she needed to know even if he hadn’t just uttered the words.

  “My God,” she said when they broke apart, “I’ve been such a fool. I had convinced myself that you hated me. That you could never forgive me for choosing to give up Amber. For refusing to marry you.”

  “I never hated you,” he said raggedly. “And I’ve forgiven you. You made the right decision, Mariel. The most unselfish decision you could make. I was the one who wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t thinking about what was best for anybody but me. I wanted you so much. I wanted us to be a family.”

  “We can be a family now,” she told him on a sigh. “We can try. And it wasn’t just you, Noah. I needed to forgive myself. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t. You were right. I’ve been letting life pass me by. My life in Rockton is an escape. But I’m ready to stop hiding. I’m ready to leave it behind. It’s time to start living again.”

  “With me,” he murmured against her lips, kissing her again.

  A car honked.

  And then another.

  And then there was a chorus of honking, and a disgruntled cabbie yelled through his car window, “Hey, get a room. I haven’t got all day!”

  They burst apart and, looking up, saw that the light had changed.

  Laughing breathlessly, they dashed to the sidewalk.

  “We’re on the wrong side of the street,” Mariel realized, seeing Noah’s building across Broadway.

  “Oh, well,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “The light will change again. And I know just what we can do while we wait.”

  With that, he kissed her again.

  And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that at long last, she was exactly where she belonged.

  EPILOGUE

  As Leslie and Jed stepped from the white clapboard church into the brilliant July sunshine and a flurry of rose petals, Mariel, standing on the steps beside the door, breathed a sigh of relief.

  Her sister was married.

  The wedding had come off without a hitch, aside from the moment when Leslie, coming down the aisle on Daddy’s arm, had tripped over her train. She had steadied herself by grabbing one of the ribbonbedecked pews, and Mariel, watching from beside the altar, had given her momentarily flustered sister a reassuring smile.

  Leslie hadn’t seen her. Her gaze had gone right to Jed, waiting at the head of the aisle, and when he smiled and nodded encouragingly at her, the bride’s face had become serene.