A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) (29 page)

But Therese had seen inside Keegan’s wallet when he’d paid for various meals. The card slots held his driver’s license, his military ID, a credit card, and nothing else.

Besides, the paper was too old, the dress too frilly for current styles.

Slowly she put everything else back in the box, closed it, and set it aside, then she turned the picture over. In Catherine’s graceful hand on back was written:
Abby, age three.

Therese’s gut knotted, and fluttering started in her chest, like a trapped butterfly frantic to beat its way free. Her hands trembled so badly that she wrinkled one corner of the paper from gripping it so tightly. Otherwise, it would have fluttered, too.

Why did Abby, age three, look so much like Mariah, nearly age three? Coincidence? It must be. What else would explain it? Little girls, blond hair, brown eyes, all chubby cheeks and cute and cuddly—of course they looked alike. Their faces hadn’t yet developed the distinctive features that would separate them as adults. They had too much in common not to resemble each other.

But this was more than a resemblance. This was…It was…

You knew Paul through the Army?
she’d asked the first time she and Keegan met.

I was in Iraq and Afghanistan
, he’d replied. Not
Yes, I did.
Not
We served together in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cold that had enveloped her from the moment she’d recognized Catherine in her kitchen last night threatened to turn her blood to ice. Why hadn’t she noticed that he’d avoided giving an answer?

Because she’d just had to tell a stranger that her husband was dead and she’d been more than a little shaken by it.

Keegan had gone on to say,
I’m at Fort Polk now,
and she’d commented that Paul had gone there several times for training. The last had been shortly before his final deployment. That had been…She did the math easily in her head, but it was hard, so damn hard, to give the answer: about three and a half years ago.

About the time Mariah was conceived.

No. No no no. Sure, when the battalions went away, some of the men did play, but not Paul. He knew what it was like to be cheated on. He kept his word, honored his marriage vows. He never would have inflicted that kind of hurt—that kind of insult—on her.

But if he had, if he’d been tempted, if he’d fallen, he would have taken the secret to Afghanistan—to the grave—with him. One infidelity in the years they’d been married, one weak moment? Not enough to risk their marriage, he would have thought, especially if she never knew. And she never would have known if the woman—Sabrina—Keegan’s girlfriend—hadn’t gotten pregnant. If she hadn’t abandoned her daughter with the next best thing to a father. If he hadn’t come looking for Mariah’s real father.

While her head found the scenario entirely plausible, her heart rebelled. Paul had loved her. She’d trusted him. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—believe he’d been unfaithful to her. Dear God, surely she was wrong.

But there was one way to find out.

Not trusting her voice to hold steady, she texted Keegan, asking him to come to the house. He replied with an affirmative answer in less than a minute. Rising from the chair, still clutching the photo of Abby, she paced through the house, front to back, through every room, remembering Paul in every place she looked. How blessed she’d been to have a loving, faithful husband. He’d understood the sanctity of love and trust and marriage, same as she had.

But while he and Therese had waited for the right time to expand their family, he’d had a daughter with another woman. She didn’t want to believe it, but it was hard to deny when the truth was staring her in the face.

When the doorbell rang, she was in the kitchen. She walked down the hall with measured steps, delaying the moment when she would have no choice but to ask Keegan, when he would have no choice but to answer, when her heart would break all over again. Finally she opened the door.

Mariah was sitting on his shoulders, his hands securely holding her thighs, her own hands clutching his forehead. He ducked and she bent forward to clear the door frame, then she leaned down as far as she could to smooch Therese. “Hey, Trace. Where’s Abby?”

Therese stared at her. How had she missed it? Granted, she hadn’t known Abby when she was this age; by the time they’d met, Abby’s curls had given way to sleek, fine hair, and her happy smile had disappeared, too. But now that she knew to look, she saw Paul in every one of Mariah’s features, just like she did with her own kids.

After a moment, she stirred. “Abby and Jacob are at school, sweetie.”

Keegan lifted Mariah to the floor, then wrapped his arms around Therese. For just an instant, she let herself relax as much as she could in his embrace. Then she remembered—Paul, Mariah, Sabrina, and Keegan, who’d known—and she stepped back. Looking away quickly from the concern in his eyes, she turned. “Let’s go out back. Mariah can play, and we can talk.”

We can talk
was always a bad sign, Keegan thought as he followed Therese and Mariah down the hall. Therese stopped at the refrigerator to grab a juice box and two bottles of water, then opened the door for Mariah, who skipped onto the patio and went straight to the first pot of flowers, circling around it while sniffing each bloom.

“Have you made a decision?” Keegan finally asked, unable to stand the quiet any longer. He accepted the water from her and settled in a chair while she stripped plastic from a straw and stabbed it into the juice box.

“Not yet.” Before she sat down, she slipped something from her pocket, then handed it to him.

It was a photograph, the paper yellowed on the edges, the colors slightly faded. Except for that, a person could be forgiven for thinking it was a picture of Mariah. The extent of the resemblance was a surprise to him, even though he knew the relationship. He hadn’t imagined that Abby’s hair had been curly when she was little, or her cheeks so fat, or that two girls who shared only a father could look damn near like twins at the same age.

The paper shook, and he realized his hand was trembling. He rested it on his leg to help stop the tremors. The knots in his gut he’d expected earlier, in the call with his mother, came now, hard cramps of fear, dread, regret, and just a little relief. Some part of him wanted Therese to know—not that her husband had been unfaithful. Never that. But to know Mariah for who she really was. Didn’t the kid deserve that?

When he gathered the courage to look at Therese, she was watching him. She was working hard to maintain control, to show no emotion, but she couldn’t keep the betrayal from her eyes. Who did she feel betrayed by? Paul? Him? Or both?

God, he’d never wanted to see her hurt. Damn well never wanted to be the one who hurt her.

He took a long swallow of water, then a deep breath to force out the words. “I was finishing up a short deployment to Afghanistan—only six months—the last time Paul went to Fort Polk for training.” His voice was hoarse, and he couldn’t seem to raise it to a normal level. But that was okay. Therese could hear him, and Mariah, who’d been drawn to the fence by the snuffle of the dog next door, couldn’t.

“I got home a month later, and a few weeks after that, Sabrina told me she was pregnant. I wasn’t thrilled. I didn’t want to marry her. I didn’t want to have a family yet. I loved her, but not enough.” Not the way he loved Therese. “But if I was going to be a father, I intended to be a good one. Then she told me I wasn’t the father. She’d met a man while I was gone—a major. Quite a step up for someone living with a specialist at the time. He was stationed at Fort Murphy, at Polk for training before heading to the desert. They met in a club, she took him home…”

He didn’t need to say more. The color draining from Therese’s face and the muscle twitching in her jaw were proof of that.

Damn, he hated this.

“We broke up, she moved out, and I didn’t see her again for a couple years, until I ran into her outside another club in Leesville. Mariah was about one and a half at the time. Sabrina told me she’d tried to contact the major—Paul—but he never answered her e-mails so she’d given up on the idea of him being a part of Mariah’s life.” Sabrina had been disillusioned, as she so often was, and he’d felt sorry for her, but she’d brought it on herself. She’d been involved. The major had been married. Why hadn’t either of them thought,
This is wrong,
and put a stop to it before it was too late?

“I never saw her again. I never met Mariah until five, six weeks ago. Social services called me, said Sabrina had abandoned her and they wanted me to take her since I was her father. Turned out, she put me on the birth certificate. I don’t know why, unless she was just hurt or pissed that the father didn’t want anything to do with them or because we were together when she got pregnant or if she thought, I don’t know, that I would step up if needed. Whatever the reason, as far as the state was concerned, I was Mariah’s father, and if I didn’t take her, they would put her in foster care. I couldn’t…I thought maybe I could persuade her real father…It just didn’t seem right to make Mariah go into foster care. Not after the experiences Sabrina had there.”

Therese clutched the water bottle so tightly that her fingers were splotched red and white. “So you came here to tell Paul that he had another daughter.”

Keegan nodded. “I had no idea he was…”

Therese nodded, too, her head bobbing without thought like Mariah’s. “Of course not. How could you know? How could Sabrina? I didn’t know to contact his—his one-night stand—” Her voice broke on the word, a strangled sob escaping her. She regained control quickly, though, one hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes blinking rapidly to clear the tears.

He set the picture on the ground beneath her chair, placed the two bottles beside it, pulled her hand from her mouth, and drew her out of the chair and into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Therese. I never wanted you to find out. I know it hurts—”

“I’m not hurt!” she cried, pressing her face to his shoulder, tears soaking his shirt. “I’m furious! He knew how this felt, he lived through it over and over with Catherine, and he still did it. For what? One night of sex? He couldn’t wait a week or two until he got back home to me? What the hell was he thinking?”

“I don’t know, babe. I don’t know.” He stroked her hair, rubbed her shoulder, patted her back, and slowly the stiffness seeped away, her body relaxing against his. She might claim she wasn’t hurting, but he knew better. She’d loved and trusted Matheson—had been faithful to him through much longer absences than his short stint at Polk. Not only had he betrayed her, he’d tarnished his memory for her.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, the pain in her voice slicing through Keegan. “That means—Mariah is my stepdaughter.” Abruptly, she pulled out of his arms, balancing precariously on his knees, her gaze narrowed on him. “Is that why you stayed? Why you brought her here? To find a new home for her even if her father was dead? So I’d fall in love with her? Did you think because I accepted custody of Paul’s other children, I might take her, too?”

He could lie and make her believe it. Hadn’t he been willing to hide the truth for the rest of their lives to protect Therese? But that was the coward’s way out. Though he’d been willing to do it, he wasn’t a coward.

“I brought her here because Mom had to go to Arizona. There was no one else to take care of her. But…yeah, I thought maybe the major had some other family, or maybe you’d be willing to take her since she’s Abby and Jacob’s sister. I thought that for about a day.” He grabbed her hands when she would have gotten to her feet. “For about a day, Therese. That’s all. I stayed because of you. Because I’ve never met a woman like you. Because I felt something for you right from the start. Because I liked you and respected you and wanted to know you better. Because—”

He had to swallow over the lump in his throat, and it made his voice huskier. “Because I was falling in love with you.”

For a long time she stared at him, her eyes damp, round and wide and aching…and disbelieving. That stirred his own ache. “How convenient.” The snideness in her voice echoed Abby in a bad moment. “If you’re going to fall in love, it might as well be with the stepmother of the child you got saddled with. I’m sorry—that your
mother
got saddled with.”

This time when she pulled away, he let her go. Her actions jerky and graceless, she stalked to the edge of the patio and stood with her back to him, spine straight, shoulders erect. He stood, too, and walked to the opposite end of the patio, staring out into the yard as she was. “Maybe I was wrong to put all her care on Mom. Maybe I was wrong to even take her, I don’t know. But legally she’s mine, and I’m not giving her up. Not to her mother, not to her grandmother, not to her stepmother.”

“Well, good, because I don’t—” She cut off the words, and heat flooded her face.

I don’t want her.
That was what she’d meant to say. That was okay. He and his family could take care of Mariah. They could give her everything she needed. Just as he hadn’t missed his father’s presence in his life, Mariah wouldn’t miss having a mother.

Though, God help him, he wasn’t sure
he
could live without Therese.

Slowly he turned to face her. The three flowerpots stood between them, like giant hurdles they couldn’t find their way around. Was it only yesterday afternoon that they’d planted them? That life had seemed so good and perfect?

“Therese, I’m sorry.” He raked his fingers through his hair, then practically had to pry the next words from his mouth. “I think Mariah and I should go. Give you some time to think.” He barely breathed, hoping she would say,
No, we need to talk this out
, but she didn’t respond other than to fold her arms over her middle. Deep inside he hurt with disappointment.

“Mariah, come on, monster. Time to go.”

She was kneeling next to the fence, her fingers wriggled into the space between two boards, and talking softly to the dog on the other side. “I gotta go,” she said before climbing to her feet and running across the yard. She headed for Therese instead of him, and though he could have intercepted her, he didn’t. Therese might not want to raise Mariah, but she could use a hug from her.