Strangers in Paradise (25 page)
Read Strangers in Paradise Online
Authors: Heather Graham
Sheltered in His Arms
Tara Taylor Quinn
Books by Tara Taylor Quinn
Harlequin Superromance
Where Secrets are Safe
Wife by Design
Once a Family
Husband by Choice
Child by Chance
Mother by Fate
The Good Father
Love by Association
Shelter Valley Stories
Sophie's Secret
Full Contact
It's Never Too Late
Second Time's the Charm
The Moment of Truth
It Happened in Comfort Cove
A Son's Tale
A Daughter's Story
The Truth About Comfort Cove
HARLEQUIN HEARTWARMING
The Historic Arapahoe
Once Upon a Friendship
Once Upon a Marriage
MIRA Books
Street Smart
In Plain Sight
The Second Lie
The Third Secret
The Fourth Victim
The Friendship Pact
Visit the Author Profile page at
Harlequin.com
for more titles.
For Jeanine Lynn Clayton (1960â2000).
My childhoood soul mate. An integral part of my life that transcends the tragedy this temporal existence handed us. Your life was and always will be a part of me. With me. Sitting on my shoulder.
Chapter 1
H
er high-heeled evening sandals hadn't been made for sprinting across gravel. And the Montfords' desert landscaping was full of it. The darkness made things even worse.
But she had to get awayâget out. She had to handle this news alone.
There was an old gnarled pepper tree in the corner of the yard and she hurried toward it. One branch had grown sideways, forming a natural bench with the other branches hanging down around it. Because of the balmy late-March weather they'd been enjoying in Shelter Valley, the tree was thickly covered with leaves. She could safely hide there.
For the moment. Until someone decided to turn on the outside lights.
“Ouch!” Cassie Tate's headlong rush from the house halted abruptly.
Damn!
She bent to pull a cactus needle from her shin. One quick jerkâa stingâand it was gone. When had her ex-in-laws gotten that cholla plant? It hadn't been there a few months ago, when she'd been over for a Christmas drink and gift exchange with them.
Unmindful of her new silk dress, Cassie slid onto the rough bark of the branch, its horizontal shape familiar to her. The first time Sam had ever kissed her had been right here...
Cassie looked around, her hands poised on the trunk as though she were ready to push off. Maybe it had been a mistake to come out here.
But where else could she go? The backyard was enclosed with an eight-foot-high stucco wall. She couldn't get out frontâand to her carâwithout walking through the house.
Breathe,
she reminded herself. She filled her lungs as much as her tight chest muscles would allow.
She had to be calm. To assimilate what she'd just heard. And what she was going to do about it.
One thing was for certain. She
wasn't
going to cry. She'd cried enough tears for Samuel Montford.
Glancing through the leaves surrounding her, toward the house where strains of piano music wafted from the living room, Cassie could see the lights of the party twinkling merrily. As though everything was normal.
And maybe for all those people in there, things were just fine.
Maybe all of
them
could welcome Sam home after his ten-year desertion. Maybe they could forgive. Forget.
Maybe she could, too. If she had a million years to try.
Sitting out here, on their tree, her mind wandered back to the boy she'd known and loved with all her heart. She thought of the passionate dreams he'd poured out to her beneath these branches. He'd wanted to save the world back in those days. Get rid of poverty, pain, injustice.
He'd promised to love her forever.
“Oh, God, Sam. Why?”
Her words sounded shockingly loud in the night. Cassie took a long, shuddering breath. How many times had she asked the same question over the past ten years?
“Can't you at least just leave me in peace?” she whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.
She used to dream of great things. Of love and family and children. Of happiness and warmth. Now all she hoped for was peace. It was the only option left.
“Cassie? You out here?”
It was Zack. Her partner. Her friend. He'd know how she was feeling. Without her saying a word, he'd know.
His footsteps were getting closer. Cassie pulled herself in, hardly daring to breathe as she waited for him to pass. She couldn't face him yet. Couldn't face anyone.
Not until she was sure she wouldn't fall apart. She'd done that once, back then, suffered a debilitating breakdown, and emotional collapse.
She'd done it after Sam had left her, after her baby girl had died, after she'd been told she'd probably never be able to conceive again.
But those dark days had helped her find the strength and awareness she needed. She'd gone on to finish college, to become a nationally renowned doctor of veterinary science. She was successful. She wasn't going to fall apart again just because her adulterous ex-husband had decided to return to town.
Though she couldn't help wondering why he was coming back. The way she remembered it, he hadn't been able to leave fast enough. And he hadn't been in touch with any of them sinceâother than infrequent calls to his parents to let them know he was okay. And to make certain that they were.
What had he been doing all these years? And with whom?
These were questions Cassie had tried so hard never to ask.
What had the years done to him? Another question she'd shied away from. But one that was apparently to be answered soon.
Were his eyes still that deep green? Did they still have that penetrating directness? Her stomach tightened just thinking about them. About what a look from him used to do to her.
One time, she'd been looking for him in the high-school cafeteria. Her class right before lunch had gotten out late and she hadn't seen him in line. She'd gone through, anyway. Bought a salad and a soda, and was standing there with her tray, wondering what to do when she'd seen him come in through the door at the back of the room. He'd been frowningâuntil he saw her. And then his eyes had lighted with such familiar, knowing warmth that her belly had fluttered, her knees had flutteredâand she'd dropped her tray.
Sam had always been a looker. Was he still?
Was his dark hair still as soft as the finest silk, still as thick?
Did he have any of the wrinkles she'd been noticing around her own eyes lately? Had he gained any weight?
Sniffling, Cassie wiped the tears from her cheeks. God, she missed him.
Missed the boy she'd loved since she was twelve years old. The man she'd marriedâand lostâmore than a decade ago.
She missed the dreams. And the dreaming.
“Damn you, Sam Montford,” she whispered, sniffling again. “Damn you for what you did. And for coming back now...”
The man might return to Shelter Valley, but as far as Cassie was concerned, he'd lost the right to call this town home.
* * *
Mariah was still asleep. Sam's heart swelled with loveâand worryâas he glanced over at the child on the reclining passenger seat beside him. He should have sold the truck, bought a car. Something she could get into without climbing up on hands and knees.
Something that felt more like it belonged to a family than a roaming man.
Mariah might not know it, might not believe him when he told her, but they were almost home. At last.
In all the years he'd lived in Shelter Valley, the place had never felt as much like home as it did now. This journey back was so important. So life-changing. So right.
And so damn scary.
But he was ready.
The little girl stirred, her skinny legs stiffening as she stretched. Their boniness, visible beneath her new denim shorts, scared him. She'd been wearing pants all winter, and her loss of weight hadn't been as noticeable. Or maybe he'd just been too afraid to acknowledge that she was wasting away.
He had to get her to eat more. To eat, period. He wasn't going to let her die. He wasn't going to lose her, too.
“Good afternoon, sleepyhead,” Sam said cheerfully, smiling at the little girl who'd stolen his heart in the delivery room seven years before. Her parents, his closest friends in the world, had insisted he be there with them. “How's my girl?”
Mariah looked at him.
That was all. Just looked. It was all she ever did anymore.
Heart heavy, Sam continued with cheerful chatter. Keep talking to her, the doctors had told him. Surround her with love. She'll never forget the tragedy, but she can recover.
He'd been talking for six months.
And Mariah had yet to say a word.
“You just wait until you meet your new grandparents,” Sam told the child. “I was an only child, too, just like you. And my mom and dad were the greatest. You'll love them, but they'll love you more. Not that you need to let that worry you. That's just the way they are.”
The landscape was painfully, blissfully familiar. Yet different.
“Mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.” He glanced over again and decided to feel encouraged by the fact that Mariah was still watching him. Even if that was about all she ever did.
Maybe she was listening, too.
“Sometimes, when I was a kid, I'd sneak down from my bed at night, just to have another one of those cookies. I tried really hard to be as quiet as a mouse so I wouldn't get caught,” Sam said. The smile he'd plastered on his face, became real as he remembered those days. “Every time a step creaked, my stomach would jump and I'd stand still and not breathe until I was sure my mom hadn't heard me.”
Mariah blinked, her sad little face turned up toward his. Shelter Valley was going to be good for her. It had to be. If the answers weren't there, if the love in Shelter Valley wasn't enough to heal her, nothing would.
“The cookie jar was this big glass thing and the lid was really heavy and I'd have to lift it really carefully...”
The approaching sign said Shelter Valley, One Mile. The sign was new.
At least, it hadn't been there ten years ago.
Sam wiped his palm along his denim shorts.
“...the hardest part, though, was putting the lid back without making a noise. Especially because by that time I was always afraid I'd get caught and have to put the cookie back.”
Sam slowed, approaching the exit. Mariah's gaze never left his face. She didn't look around, didn't show any interest at all in the place that was going to be home to her. He wondered how it was possible for someone with her naturally dark complexion to look so pale.
“I'd creep slowly back up the stairs, the smell of that cookie in my hand teasing me the whole way.”
There was a new gas station at the Shelter Valley exit. And the huge old tree was still shading the east side of the road.
“It was sure a lot of work, but boy, when I finally made it back to my room and sank my teeth into that cookie, mmm.” Sam grinned at Mariah. “It was worth it. Just for that one bite.”
He passed the road that led out to the cactus jelly plant. The street sign still had those familiar BB gun dents put there by some guy who'd gone to high school with Sam's parents. No one had ever told Sam
which
guy, just “some guy.”
A few scattered houses came into view, then disappeared as he drove past. He wondered what Mariah thought of them, as he tried to see Shelter Valley through her eyes. Through fresh eyes.
Not that she'd have any opinion of those houses. She wasn't seeing them. She was still staring at Sam.
“You want to know the funniest thing about my cookie escapades?” he asked, glancing over at her.
She blinked. A regular occurrence, but Sam chose to take this particular time as a yes.
“When I was in high school, my mom told me that she'd known all along I was stealing those cookies. She and my dad would sit in the family room and listen for me to come down the stairs...”
They'd smiled at each other, sharing their joy in their only son. She hadn't told Sam that, but he'd known. No parents had ever delighted in their child more than Sam's parents had.
Until the day he'd hurt them beyond belief.
“...all that work was for nothing.” Sam finished his story as he slowed, entering the town proper.
Sunday afternoon had always been a sleepy time in Shelter Valley. It still was. Sam was relieved. He welcomed the comfort born of knowing this place. Craved its predictability.
Yearning for a drive through these remembered streets, for reassurance as he reacquainted himself with the place he'd always called home, for even a glimpse of the woman who still held such a place in his heart, Sam turned his truck and headed up the mountain, instead.
To the home he'd grown up in. He and Mariah had been driving for three days. His little girl needed to get those legs on solid groundâand since it had been two hours since their last stop, probably needed to go to the bathroom, too.
She didn't need a trip down her father's memory lane. Her father of only a few months...
“There it is, honey,” he said, his throat tight as the huge house became visible, off in the distance. “See, it's just like I told you. A big beautiful castle up on the mountain.”
Montford Mansion. The place he'd loved and hated with equal fervor.
Mariah had been staring at the insignia on his glove compartment, but when Sam spoke, her eyes turned toward him again.
“Look, Mariah, the orange trees are filled with blossoms.”
Damn, it felt good to be home, in spite of all the resurrected pain the old sights were bringing him. The regrets.
The knowledge that he was going to have to see his Cassie with another man, married to another man. After all this time, she would've found someone to love. Someone who wouldn't betray her faith in him, her loyalty. She'd probably have several kids by now. She'd wanted at least four.
Reaching out, he stroked a couple of fingers lightly down Mariah's cheek. “You're the princess of the castle now, remember, sweetie?” he said, trying his damndest to help his daughter feel a little magic again, to believe in the fairy tales that thrilled most seven-year-old girls. He fingered one of the waist-length black braids he'd painstakingly tied when they were back in their hotel room in Albuquerque this morning. “That's why we did the braids, remember?” he coaxed. “So you can wear your crown like a real princess.”
He'd bought the crown more than a week ago, before they'd left Wilmington, Delaware. With its glittering glass jewels, it had cost him almost a hundred dollarsâno plastic piece of junk for his little girl. He'd have paid ten times that amount if it would make Mariah smile again.
Slowing the truck, overwhelmed by unexpected emotion, Sam wound around the curves that would take him up the mountain to his parents' driveway. His driveway, really. He was the only living heir to Montford Mansion.
Not that any of it meant a whole lot to Sam. He was the fourth-generation descendant of Shelter Valley's founder, but his heritage had been far more of a burden to him than a blessing.