A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) (26 page)

She loved a lot of people and had the capacity to love more, whether they wanted her to or not.

Whether they loved her back or not.

When the party broke up and she’d said her good-byes, she went home to a quiet house. Jacob was helping himself to a snack while he did homework with books and papers spread across the island. “Everything okay?” she asked as she took a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

“Yeah.” He set his plate next to his books, then met her gaze. “Real quiet without the cookie monster around. How is it little girls can make so much noise?”

“Little boys aren’t known for their soft ways, either.”

“Huh.” He took a bite of sandwich and flipped open a book. His hair fell over his forehead, the same shade of brown as his dad’s, though she’d never seen Paul’s hair so shaggy. He’d been spit-and-polish when they met and never relaxed his standards, shaving on his days off and as squared-away in jeans and a T-shirt as he was in uniform.

Still, there was so much of him in Jacob. The eyes, the coloring, the gestures, the focus. He was his father’s son.

“What?”

Even his voice sounded like Paul’s. Realizing she’d been staring, she said, “Nothing,” then opened the fridge again, grabbed two small bunches of grapes, and headed toward the hall. She took the long way around, though, circling the island, passing behind him, and patting his arm on the way.

Not even so much as a single muscle twitched away from the contact. It was a marvel.

Before she could reconsider her actions, she climbed the stairs and stopped outside Abby’s room, drew a breath, then knocked. The response—a flat
What?
—was neither an invitation nor encouragement, but Therese opened the door anyway and went inside. “Everything go okay tonight?”

Sprawled on her bed with a textbook open and her cell phone beside her so she could respond instantly to her next text message, Abby looked surprised. Surely this wasn’t the first time Therese had asked about their evening. She hadn’t missed a Tuesday night at Three Amigos in more than a year. She distinctly remembered, in the beginning, questioning the kids when she got home.

But she couldn’t remember doing it in a long time since then.
My failure
.

“Fine,” Abby said at last. “We ate dinner, watched TV, and now we’re finishing our homework. Why?”

“Just curious.” Therese offered her a handful of grapes. When Abby sat up, cross-legged, Therese sat at the foot of her bed. “Jacob said it was awfully quiet around here without Mariah.”

An unexpected smile lighted Abby’s face. She looked a lot like her dad, too, but what was entirely masculine on him and Jacob was delicately beautiful on her. Perfect bone structure, silky hair, huge eyes.

“She’s so sweet, but she’s awful needy. ‘Abby, I sit with you. Abby, read to me. Abby, play with me. Abby, I go potty.’”

“Well, she is only two. Besides, you’ve heard her scream. The needy adoration is a big improvement, isn’t it?”

“I guess.” She popped a grape into her mouth, concentrated on chewing it, then lowered her gaze to her cell as if willing it to ring or vibrate and demand her attention. When that didn’t happen, she fingered the grapes uneasily, finally plucking one, then turning it over and over instead of eating it. “Why do you think her mom just left her like that? Did she think Mariah was that much trouble? Didn’t she love her? Moms are supposed to love their kids.”

The grape Therese had just swallowed swelled to the size of a golf ball on its way down, leaving an ache from her throat all the way to the pit of her stomach. She’d suspected from the start that, Mariah’s cuddliness and obvious affection aside, Abby related to the girl on a more basic level: they’d both been abandoned by their mothers. But Therese hadn’t thought to use that as a conversation starter.
Failure.

“Your mom loves you and Jacob,” she said gently, and the girl’s response was immediate.

“I know that.” Her tone was sharp, snotty. “Mom had reasons for sending us here. She needed time for herself. The divorce changed things for her, and she had to figure out who she was once she was no longer Daddy’s wife.”

She parroted the words as if she wanted very much to believe them. The truth was simpler, and she and Jacob both knew it. It was Catherine’s problem, her flaw, and it had nothing to do with either of them. But all the reasons in the world couldn’t lessen the impact that their mother had no longer wanted the everyday bother of being their mother.

“I assume Mariah’s mother had reasons for what she did, too. Maybe Sabrina did the best she could but knew it wasn’t enough. Maybe leaving her with Keegan was best for Mariah. Maybe she knew he and his mother would give Mariah the kind of family she deserved.”

Shoving her book aside, Abby drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. “But she’s just a little girl, and her mom took her to the babysitter like every other day and never came back. She never said good-bye. How could she walk away from her own kid like that?”

There was such bewilderment in her voice, on her face, that Therese’s heart hurt with the desire to hold her and soothe it away. She even reached out, but caught herself before the movement was noticeable. Keegan was right. She’d been rejected so many times that it was hard to offer comfort. Baby steps. Even having this conversation was a big step. Physical contact could come later.

“The sad truth, Abby, is that some people aren’t cut out to be parents.”

“Yeah, well, the time to learn that is before you have kids,” Abby retorted, tossing her head in that oh-so-familiar defiance. The momentary flare faded, though, and she grudgingly added, “You said so. I heard you.”

Therese’s smile was tiny and tremulous. “I didn’t know you ever listened to anything I said.”

“Yeah. Well. I do. Sometimes. Especially if you’re talking to Carly and I’m not supposed to hear.” She rubbed her nose with one hand, then clasped her fingers together again. “If Mariah’s mom doesn’t come back, when she’s grown, she won’t even remember her. She’ll be a total stranger.”

That was sad, Therese acknowledged, but Mariah would be so well-loved that she wouldn’t miss a stranger she couldn’t remember. Giving birth didn’t make a woman a good mother, just as a good mother didn’t have to give birth to love a child.

Therese had always wanted to be a good mother, and she did feel something for Abby and Jacob, something far beyond obligation, beyond the fact that Paul’s blood ran through their veins. Something that had very nearly gotten lost in the anxiety, hostility, and resentment they’d lived with so long.

“But when you think about it, not remembering the woman who dumped you probably isn’t a bad thing,” Abby commented. Balancing her feet on her heels, she wiggled her toes, then studied the pedicure she’d gotten while with Catherine. Faux gems studded two toes on each foot, with a spot of glue showing where another had fallen off.

Staring as if the pedicure were the most fascinating thing in the world, she finally spoke, her voice little more than a mumble. “She never called me back.”

Therese swallowed hard. No need to ask who she was referring to. Only the lack of calls from one person could make her so glum.

“We’ve been back a week and a half, and I called her eleven times and texted her twenty-three times. I told her we got back okay. I asked her to send my clothes to me if she still had them. I told her all the girls at school were jealous of my hair and my tan.” Her voice lowered even more. “I told her I wanted to come back and live with her. And she never answered. Not even to say no.”

“I’m sorry, Abby. I wish…” Tears clogged Therese’s throat and dimmed her vision. She didn’t need to see, though, to reach out and squeeze both of her stepdaughter’s feet.

Abby went very still, barely breathing, and so did Therese. She steeled herself for yet another rejection, for a sharp voice, a snide order not to touch her, but it didn’t come. In fact, after a moment, Abby sighed heavily. “A foot rub. After five days of wearing those heels, I still need one. I’m never wearing high heels again.”

The fervent words startled a laugh from Therese, then she began a real massage of Abby’s slender feet. “Trust me, you’ll wear them again. You’ll be praying for the moment when you can take them off, but you’ll wear them because they make your legs look so—”

“Freaking sexy. That’s what Mom said.”

Therese shuddered at the notion that Catherine had wanted her barely teenaged daughter to look sexy. “I wouldn’t have said ‘freaking.’”

“You wouldn’t have said ‘sexy,’ either. Not to me. Not for at least ten more years.”

“You’re right.” She gave Abby’s feet one last squeeze, then stood. “Get back to your homework, then get ready for bed. I’ll be doing the same.”

She was walking through the doorway when Abby softly spoke. “Good night, Therese.”

“Good night.” Therese pulled the door shut, then leaned against it. That was the first time Abby had ever told her good night. In the beginning, Paul had done the bed-checks, tucked the blankets, and gotten the kisses. After he’d deployed, both kids had made it clear they didn’t need good nights from anyone else.

How could two little words mean so much?

E
rcella didn’t believe in sitting idle, and Keegan was his mother’s son. He had nearly two months’ leave on the books because he’d taken only enough over the years to keep from losing accumulated days. A few days to take his mom to Nashville for her birthday, a few days in Shreveport at Christmas with his sisters’ families, long weekend trips to New Orleans or the nearest beach with Sabrina—those were the extent of his times off. This was the longest stretch he’d gone without working in his life, and he missed it.

And yet he’d called his first sergeant and asked to extend his leave by another week. If his request wasn’t approved…well, the drive from Leesville to Tallgrass wasn’t so bad, and flights between Alexandria and Tulsa weren’t too expensive. He’d already checked. And he had only seven months left on this enlistment. He could tolerate anything for seven months.

It was Wednesday afternoon, and they were at Tallgrass’s biggest nursery. Therese liked flowers but hadn’t persuaded herself to plant any yet, and he needed some activity that resembled work, so he’d decided to help out. He was buying just enough flowers to fill a couple of large pots on the patio. If she was okay with that, he’d move on to the beds. If she wasn’t…well, what woman didn’t welcome men bearing flowers?

Forced out of the shopping cart by the flats of flowers he’d picked, Mariah toddled to a wooden stand filled with four-inch pots, picked one up in her pudgy hands, and held it for inspection. “For Celly.”

He crouched beside her. “Celly would like that.” He wasn’t sure of the variety, but the pale purplish shade was his mother’s favorite. It was a sharp contrast to the bold colors he’d selected—hot orange, red, deep pink, and purple. Therese wasn’t a pale person. “Let’s put it in the cart.” And hope they could keep it alive long enough to get it back to Louisiana.

“Celly loves labender.” Mariah watched him place it on the flat shelf of the cart, then stopped still, cocking her head, listening intently for a moment before rocketing off along the aisles. Because he was in no hurry—Therese wouldn’t be home from school for an hour—Keegan followed her past displays of succulents and shade plants to a small area shielded by trellises covered with flowering vines. The centerpiece was a rock fountain, easily seven feet high, water splashing over large stones into a pool below.

While she knelt on the ground to trail her hand in the water, Keegan sat on one of the three benches that flanked the area. The place smelled sweet, even for a nursery, and the repetitive splashing was calming. No wonder Therese’s friend wanted a fountain in her yard.

Mariah fished a leaf from the water and brought it to him. “Hey, Celly’s boy, look what I found.”

Though no one was around to hear, Keegan winced. It was so wrong that she had nothing else to call him—and past time to take care of that. “It’s a maple leaf,” he said. “It came from that tree over there.” He pointed, and she looked and nodded, though odds were low she’d recognized it in the small forest of trees. “Come up here, Mariah. We need to talk.”

He started to lift her, but she shrugged away. “I climb my own self.” She crawled onto the bench, then sat beside him, legs dangling. Her toenails were polished purple, courtesy of Abby Monday night, and a good match to the clear purple sandals she wore.

How to start? Simply.

“You know what a daddy is, Mariah?”

She bobbed her head. A week ago he would have taken her at her word, but he’d learned a little since then. “Can you tell me?”

After thinking it over, she swiped a strand of curls from her face. “I don’t know.”

“Daddy is another name for father. Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head.

He could hear his mother’s voice in his head.
You’re making it too complicated. She’s not even three yet.
“You want a name to call me instead of Celly’s boy?” As she nodded, he took a deep breath, part of him not at all sure this was a good idea, but the rest of him knew it was too late. If Sabrina returned, if he lost Mariah, what she called him wouldn’t make a difference in the way he felt. “Call me Daddy.”

She swung her feet as if pondering the words, then with a shrug, said, “Okay. Can I go to the water again?”

Disappointment welled in him. “You want to try it? Daddy?”

After lolling her head to one side for a moment, she shook it, bouncing her curls. “I wanna find another leaf.”

“Okay, go on.” As she went to lean on the rock ledge that supported the pool, he ruefully shook his head. It wasn’t a big moment for her. Daddy was just a name to her, like Fluffy, Muffy, and Tuffy in one of the books Ercella had sent with her. The concept behind it, the significance, was way outside her grasp.

But not his. And she would learn in time.

Mariah had rescued seven leaves from the water by the time he called her away. She insisted on helping him push the cart to the checkout, more of a hindrance as he had to watch that he didn’t run into her, then he buckled her into the booster seat before loading the car.

“Now we’re gonna see Abby,” she announced when he started the engine.

“We are. You like Abby and Jacob and Therese?” In the rearview mirror he saw her head bob.

A few blocks had passed in silence when she unexpectedly asked, “You like Abby and Jacob and Trace?”

He grinned. “I do.”

“I do, too. And Celly. And basketti and meatballs. I
love
basketti and meatballs. Can we have it?”

“We’ll have to see.” He wasn’t sure he could bear another night at Luca’s unless they managed a way to ditch the kids afterward. Pasta, wine, and chocolate were going to be major turn-ons for him for a long time. Did that make him weird or what?

Therese’s minivan was parked in the driveway, and Jacob was walking across the yard from the school bus stopped one house down. When Keegan pulled into the driveway, the kid tugged out his earbuds, letting them dangle around his neck, and lifted one hand in a wave. Dropping his backpack at the steps, he came to the car and opened the rear passenger door to unbuckle Mariah. “Hey, Keegan. Hey, cookie monster.”

“We got flowers!”

“Cool. Therese likes flowers. You want to ride or help carry?”

“Ride.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, then, when he straightened, wiggled around until she was on his back. She made the transfer as if she’d done it a dozen times before. Considering the amount of time she’d spent with him and Abby, maybe she had.

“Hold on.” He bent, grabbed a large bag of potting soil from the floorboard with one hand, then headed for the gate that led to the backyard.

Keegan watched a moment, wishing he’d been taking pictures the past week. It was an important thing, getting to know her brother and sister, even if none of them ever knew their relationship. The best he could do was get some shots later with his cell phone, something simple enough, common enough, that neither the subjects nor Therese would wonder why he was photographing them.

As he carried three large pots with a flat of flowers balanced on top onto the patio, the back door opened and Therese stepped out. She always greeted him with a smile, but this time it grew a little brighter when she saw what he had. “I adore a man who brings flowers.”

“Hey, Trace!” Letting go of Jacob’s neck, Mariah leaned far to the side to swing into Therese’s arms, giving her a kiss once she was settled. “I brung flowers, too.”

“Hi, sweetie. I adore little girls with flowers, too. And big guys with potting soil.”

She smoothed Jacob’s hair where Mariah had messed it up, the movement not quite natural. Going still, Keegan watched the boy for a reaction, but he didn’t give one. If he welcomed the touch, didn’t want it, or even noticed, it didn’t show on his face. He just shrugged his shoulders as if relaxing them and asked, “Is there more?”

“A couple of flats, more soil, and a bag of mulch in the trunk.”

“You get the flowers,” Jacob said as they headed back to the car. “I only do heavy lifting.”

“The only jobs I’ve ever had have required occasionally carrying people who weigh twice what you do. I’m happy to take the flowers.”

The boy gave him an appraising glance. “You’re a medic, right? What else?”

“I was a firefighter before I joined the Army.”

“Huh. A medic’s kind of like a doctor, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes better than.”

“Medics and doctors couldn’t save my dad.”

Though his tone was matter-of-fact, Keegan’s gut knotted. Jacob rarely brought up his father’s death with Therese. Maybe he thought it would be too hard for her to discuss; maybe he felt, as the man in the family, he didn’t have the right to burden anyone else or there just wasn’t anyone to listen. In his years as a paramedic, then a medic, Keegan had learned there were times when all he could do was listen.

“Yeah, I know,” he said quietly. “But they did their best, Jacob. It’s just sometimes your best isn’t good enough.”

They stopped at the back of the car, Jacob staring hard across the street, his cheeks pink, his eyes narrowed. “My dad always said your best was all anyone could ask. If it’s not good enough, why bother?”

“Because that’s what we do. We try. We try really hard. And usually it
is
enough. I’m sorry it wasn’t for your dad.”

After staring a moment longer, Jacob turned and met his gaze head-on. “Did anyone you took care of ever die? Even though you tried really hard?”

Keegan swallowed. “Yeah. I will always remember every one of them and wish it could have been different. But I also remember the ones I did help, the lives we did save, the ones who survived to come home to their families because of us.”

“I wish my dad had been one of them.” Jacob’s whisper was almost lost in the rumble of another school bus stopping in the middle of the street.

“So do I, buddy.” And he meant it. But what a difference it would have made in his life. Therese would still have been happily married, grateful to have her husband back from war whole and healthy. Jacob and Abby would have been happier, too, better adjusted, feeling less abandoned. They would have been a perfect little family, Therese would have dealt with Paul’s infidelity, and they would have welcomed Mariah into their lives.

And Keegan never would have known what he’d missed.

Abby climbed off the bus, the skirt of her school uniform already rolled a time or two at the waist to shorten it, her head cocked to the side while she listened to the tall, slender girl with her. They talked a moment, then the other girl headed down the street while Abby turned her attention to Jacob and Keegan. Her gaze slid to the open trunk, the soil her brother was hefting onto his shoulder, and the flowers, and she shook her head. “I hope you’re not expecting me to help with that because I’m telling you now, I don’t do manual labor.”

“No one’s expecting you to do anything, Princess Whine,” Jacob retorted, then snorted at his own words, sounding very much like a pig. “Princess Swine. Get it?”

Abby drew herself up to every inch of her not-so-impressive height and gave her brother a steely gaze. “You are such a child.”

“Jerk-face.”

“Moron.” Nose in air, she passed the car and headed for the steps, where she gave Jacob’s backpack a not-so-delicate nudge off the sidewalk.

Keegan set the flowers on the ground, lifted the mulch from the trunk, then closed it. The lock beeped automatically. “She’s not so bad for a big sister, is she?”

“Nah. Kinda like a heart attack’s not so bad if the alternative is cancer.”

They delivered the bags to the patio, then returned for the flowers. When they got back, Therese was kneeling beside the pots, using a screwdriver to enlarge the drainage holes. Abby had already changed into shorts and a T-shirt, gotten grapes and a can of pop from the refrigerator, and was sharing one of the lawn chairs dragged into the late-afternoon sun with Mariah. Both their heads were tilted back, eyes closed, arms and legs stretched out to gain maximum exposure.

Jacob gave another coarse pig snort, which Abby pretended not to hear, then grinned. “I’m gonna change, then get something to eat. Want something?”

“Nah,” Keegan said. “I’ll wait until dinner.”

“He’d be in heaven on a cruise,” Therese commented as the door closed. “He’d be present for every seating of every meal, then would hang out by the buffet tables the rest of the day.”

“He’s a human garbage disposal,” Abby said archly. “And if he calls me Princess Swine again, I’m going to unleash my minions in his room. You my minion, Riah?”

“Uh-huh. What’s a meanion?”

Tuning out Abby’s answer, Keegan hunkered down beside Therese, pulled out a pocketknife, and slit open the first bag of soil, then the mulch. “So…the colors work for you?”

“They’re gorgeous. Exactly what I would have chosen.” Her smile was sweet and a little sly. “My father told me to beware of men bearing gifts.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be Trojans?”

“It’s supposed to be Greeks. The Trojans were the ones taken in by the gift.” Her forehead wrinkled for a moment in thought, then she said, a little softer so the girls couldn’t hear, “I’m positive he would tell me to beware of men bearing Trojans.”

Her reference to condoms surprised a laugh from him. “These days you have to be more wary of men who don’t have them. All kinds of things can go wrong.”

“Or maybe right.” She sighed as her gaze flitted to Mariah. Having a little kid around had reawakened her maternal instincts. Having
her
around had awakened his version of the same.

“I told Mariah to call me Daddy,” he admitted as she spread a layer of mulch in the bottoms of the pots. “She was, like, yeah, whatever, can I go play in the fountain?”

“Disappointed?”

He shrugged.

“She’ll do it. And you won’t regret it.”

“Promise? Because I see a lot of years before us of butting heads, slamming doors, temper tantrums, and her saying
no no no, I do my own self.
”

“Now it’s dressing and feeding herself. In two years it’ll be school, and in ten years it’ll be boys.”

“Oh, no. Not before she’s twenty.”