Tara Quinn - Sheltered in His Arms

ON THURSDAY NIGHT, Cassie was getting ready for bed with the eleven o’clock news playing in the background—from the console television in her bedroom, the little portable in her luxurious ensuite bathroom and the nineteen-inch set out in her kitchen—when the doorbell rang.

Assuming the caller was a patient with an emergency, she quickly spit out her toothpaste, wiped her mouth and pulled a pair of jeans on over her nightgown. Grabbing from the hamper the black, short-sleeved cotton shirt she’d worn to work that day, she drew it over her head while she made her way to the front of the house. It never occurred to her to be alarmed, to think anything dangerous might be waiting on her porch. This was Shelter Valley. A lot of people didn’t even lock their doors at night.

She opened the door, and when she saw who was standing there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, her heart started to pound so hard she actually felt sick.

“Why are you here?” she asked. It was too late to go back, to return to the lives they’d once lived. And for her and Sam, there was no going forward.

He shrugged, the dark strands of his hair almost touching the shoulders of his white shirt. His eyes glistened beneath the porch light. “I’m a little lost here, Cass,” he said, giving her a glimpse of the past—a glimpse of who they used to be. Two people who told each other everything.

She couldn’t do that anymore, could no longer be that person. Her hold on happiness was too fragile. Too tenuous.

“Perhaps you should go back where you came from, then,” she said, trying not to cry as she rejected the intimacy he was offering.

“I belong here.”

“Since when?”

He looked down at his tennis shoes and then back up at her. “Can I come in?” he asked softly.

“No!” There was nothing for them. No point. She’d built a life for herself inside this house—a house in which there was not one bit of evidence that Sam Montford had ever existed.

“Please, Cass,” he said, his eyes begging her. “You know if we keep standing out here, everyone’ll have us married again by morning.”

“Which is why you need to leave. Now.”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“I find myself needing a friend tonight, Cass. And you’re the best friend I ever had in this town.”

Why tonight in particular? Why did he need a friend now?

“Then why don’t you go back where you and Mariah came from? You obviously have friends there.” God, she hated what he was doing to her. How she was acting around him. But if she didn’t get defensive, she’d crumble into little pieces at his feet.

She’d needed him so badly for so many years. And had broken down when she’d lost him. She’d learned that breakdown was not an exaggerated or metaphorical description. It was exactly what had happened. And it had taken a lot of years to rebuild herself, to repair all the damage. She just couldn’t afford to allow Sam Montford to enter her life again.

“There’s nobody back there. I’m all Mariah’s got. Her family was killed six months ago,” he said, and then rushed on as though he knew his time with her was limited. “Mariah saw the whole thing, Cassie, and I’m losing her.”

Sagging against the big oak door, Cassie slowly pulled it back, gesturing Sam inside.

Not for him. Never again for him. But for that sweet child with the haunted eyes.

“Where is she now?” Cassie asked, leading Sam from the homey comfort of her living room in to the library she’d decorated with impeccable formality and never used. She took one of the leather chairs; Sam slouched down in the other.

“She’s asleep,” Sam said. “Thankfully, once I get her to give in and go to sleep, she usually stays that way. She used to have a lot of nightmares, but they’ve decreased in the past month or so. My mother’s sitting with her.”

Cassie sat forward, already preparing to kick him out. “Carol knows you’re here?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I told her I was going out for some air. She encouraged me to take an hour or two for myself.” That sounded like Carol Montford. Tending to her family made her happy. And she’d had so few opportunities in the past ten years. There’d only been her husband, James, who needed little—and Cassie.

Sam grinned suddenly, shocking her with the intensity of the effect that smile had on her. “She warned me not to drink and drive.”

In the grip of remembered companionship, Cassie said, “As if you ever would.” Sam had always been responsible about stuff like that.

About everything.

Except fidelity.

“Is Mariah deaf?” she blurted out, nervous, needing to get him out of her house.

Eyes clouded, Sam shook his head. “No.” And then, looking around, said, “You don’t have a dog?”

Cassie’s toes were cold. She pulled her feet up on the chair, covered them with her hands.

“I’ve been traveling more than I’ve been home during the past couple of years,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been fair to have a pet and then desert it so often, but I did recently acquire a collie puppy. I’m waiting for her to be weaned from her mother before I bring her home.”

Why did it matter that he know this? That he not think her lacking—cold and immune to the animals she’d dedicated her life to assisting?

“I can’t believe how fat Muffy is.”

“You need to convince your parents to put her on a diet, Sam. She almost died a few months ago.”

They shared a concerned look. Muffy was special to both of them. They’d picked her out together as a comfort to Sam’s mother, who’d been so sad after Sam moved out.

“Her food was cut in half as of yesterday.”

That reminded her of Sam, the old Sam. See a need, take charge, make it better.

Or at least try….

“Why doesn’t Mariah speak?” she asked, focusing somewhere just to the right of his chin. There could be no more meeting of the eyes. Sam’s looks touched her in ways she could no longer welcome. “Does she talk to you? Is it just strangers she’s so shy with?”

Frowning, Sam lifted his hands, then let them drop back to his knees. “She hasn’t said a word in six months. To me or anyone.”

“You said her family died. What happened? A car accident?” The tragedy sure explained some of the sadness she saw in Sam’s eyes. The sadness reached out to her in ways she wanted to resist.

“They didn’t just die—they were murdered by a band of terrorist thugs hijacking the airplane Moira and her husband, Brian, and Mariah were on.” He shook his head. “They were the only family Mariah had, and my closest friends.”

Cassie swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Mariah’s mother had a husband. “Where were they?”

“It was a small jumper plane leaving Afghanistan. The Glorys were the only Americans on board. The terrorists were part of an extremist group fighting for recognition.”

Cassie remembered with horror the reports she’d seen on the news. “Out of forty people on the plane, only ten survived,” she continued slowly, her heart heavy as she watched the despair on Sam’s face. “Six women, three men—and an American child…” Her voice trailed off. Mariah. “At least those terrorists were caught,” she said, the thought bringing little comfort.

Sam clenched his jaw, and his hands tightened into fists. “It was all over the news—another terrorist incident. Mom and Dad heard about it in Germany, but they had no idea, of course, that the tragedy had anything to do with me.”

“You weren’t with them?”

Sam shook his head, eyes dulled and faraway. Cassie had all but forgotten that she wasn’t going to look into his face anymore.

“I was in New Jersey. I’d been there a couple of years, working with a guy who’s restoring old houses. I came home from work one day to a call from an attorney in Delaware—which is where the Glorys lived when they weren’t on assignment somewhere in the Third World. Their will named me Mariah’s legal guardian.”

“You didn’t know that?” Cassie was confused. Apparently, he hadn’t been able to make a go of marriage with this Moira, either. It must have complicated things when she’d married his good friend—not that Cassie wanted to hear anything about that. But wouldn’t he, as Mariah’s natural father, expect to have custody of her in the event her mother could no longer care for the child?

Sam nodded. “I knew,” he said hoarsely. “I just didn’t think there’d ever be a need….”

His voice broke off, and he lowered his chin as though holding back deep emotion. He’d loved the woman so much?

Another stab of pain left Cassie feeling weak and tired.

“When I got to Afghanistan to collect Mariah, she was this silent huddle with big frightened eyes.” He paused. “Immediately after the funeral, I moved into the Glorys’ home and began adoption proceedings. I tried to make her life as normal as possible, surrounding her with familiar things, but she hasn’t responded very much. She’s been in counseling since the beginning, but there’s only so much medical science can do. She’s suffering emotional pain, not some kind of chemical imbalance they can medicate. There is no diagnosis of a disease. There are always medications, of course, but some things you have to come out of naturally, on your own. Mariah has to want to return to us.”

“So she hasn’t spoken at all?”

“Not a word.”

“Not even when she saw you?”

Sam shook his head.

“It’s obvious she adores you.”

“We’ve always been close,” Sam said softly, almost apologetically, as his eyes met Cassie’s. “Without you, she was my only shot at having a child in my life.”

Cassie ignored the first part of that statement. “You and her mother split before she was born?”

“Her mother and I were never together,” he said, his expression gentle. “At least, not in any child-making sense. Mariah’s not my biological daughter, Cass.”

The breath slowly left Cassie’s lungs. She felt dizzy, light-headed. But not relieved. Whether or not Sam had had sex with Mariah’s mother made no difference to her; he’d certainly had sex with other women.

At least one while he and Cassie were married.

Because she didn’t know what else to do, Cassie sat and listened while Sam told her about his best friends, the Glorys. All three of them—Brian, who was full-blooded Chippewa, Moira, a Peace Corps brat, and Sam—had met when they’d been leaving for a two-year stint overseas as Peace Corps volunteers.

Mariah’s name came from a song she’d always loved. It referred to the wind. Sam said Mariah blew into their lives unexpectedly, but that she was vital to the very air they breathed.

While Cassie had been mourning their lost child, fighting to recover her life, Sam had been overseas making friends and helping other people, instead of caring for the wife he’d promised to love, honor and cherish. He’d been taking part in raising another child.

She’d have to tell him about that someday. When she was ready. When she felt she could get through the telling without falling apart. Emily’s premature birth—and subsequent death a month later—wasn’t something she spoke about. Ever. Even after all this time, the wounds were too raw. And it wasn’t as though she owed Sam an explanation. He’d lost all rights to Emily when he’d deserted them.

Although she knew Sam wasn’t responsible for the death of their child, any more than she was, she couldn’t stop believing that if only he’d been there…

Yet, no matter how frozen her heart felt at this moment, Cassie was still glad to hear that he’d been doing something worthwhile during those years. Glad to know that, while he hadn’t been there for his own child, little Mariah had been able to count on him.