Strangers in Paradise (33 page)

“Because I chose to love you, to give you every single part of me. I held nothing back, had nothing in reserve to see me through without you. I had nothing left because I'd given it all to you.” She exhaled shakily. “That's why I can't trust myself in another relationship. I can't trust my judgment, can't trust myself to see when something isn't right. I can't trust myself not to give away everything I have—again. I just can't risk it. That's what I mean by letting myself down.”

Sam straightened immediately, his back rigid. “That's
not
letting yourself down!” His voice was loud. “That's the purest form of love, Cassie, the kind God must have intended for all of us to share. And by offering that, you opened yourself up to the purest form of joy.”

“I must've missed that part,” she said wryly.

“No.” He shook his head. “I missed it. Or rather, I let my own inadequacies get in the way. It's not your fault, Cassie. I blew it.”

“Of course you did.” She glanced at him, and then away. He was too damn close. “But before then, I blew it, too. I made the choice. I turned myself over to you lock, stock and barrel. I made a bad judgment call.” She paused, wet her dry lips. “My instincts told me I could trust you completely, Sam. They were wrong, and it cost me dearly. I can't afford to give them a second chance.”

They sat silently for a while, each looking out into the night. Some detached part of Cassie wondered which of them would get up first. Wondered why she wasn't already home, getting some much-needed rest. She had a long day tomorrow.

Church.
Which would be hard with all the tongues wagging due to Sam's return. People were going to be watching her. Wondering. Some good-hearted souls who still believed in happily-ever-after would be looking for signs that she and Sam had found their way back to each other.

Others would be waiting to help if it looked as if she was going to fall apart again.

With her family on their extended trip, she'd been sitting with the Montfords at church. She'd have to sit alone tomorrow.

And then, after church, she'd have a full day at the clinic, still playing catch-up because of her time away. This next week she was supposed to submit an article to a worldwide professional journal, and she couldn't afford to pass up the opportunity. It wasn't a veterinary journal, but a psychology one. She'd been invited to write an analysis of pet therapy as an accepted form of trauma counseling.

Sam broke the silence. “You know, after I left Shelter Valley, I wandered around the country for a little while, doing odd jobs.”

She didn't want to know.

“When I first started out, I was determined to make it on my own, not to use one dime of Montford money. But that was too easy. It didn't take me long to figure out that life had to be about more than I'd realized. Somehow, I was missing the big picture, but I had no idea where or how to find it. Soon after that, I signed up for the Peace Corps. And that's where things started to become clear to me.”

In spite of herself, Cassie listened, hearing far more than his words were telling her. She could feel his struggle. Was there, struggling with him.

“Some of the things I saw would make you physically ill.

“The deprivation, the filth and disease, the atrocities. The children whose bones protruded due to malnutrition. The barbaric medical practices.”

He paused, rubbing his hands together as though washing them.

Washing away disturbing visions?

“Those things taught me very quickly to measure life on a different scale. When you're standing in the middle of a town that's little more than dirt paths and falling-down shacks and you're among people clothed in things we wouldn't consider good enough for rags, and you watch the joy on their faces as they witness a marriage between two of their own, you know that all the wealth in the world can't buy what matters most.”

His voice slid across the cool night air. Touched her. This was her friend. The man she'd grown up with, the man she'd once known as well as she knew herself. She was nineteen again, soaking up his every word.

Every time Sam had talked to her like this, she'd felt more complete. Right with her world. She couldn't let herself feel that now. She just
couldn't.

“But according to you, we had that kind of love,” Cassie said. She had to freeze up inside. It was either that, or crumple.

She started to cry, and looked away.

“That was only the beginning of my journey,” he told her slowly. “I helped rebuild that village before I left. And although I missed you constantly, for the first time I went to bed at night feeling
good
inside. I'd done something worthwhile.”

“You did worthwhile things here.”

He shook his head. “I ran for student council, fought for better food in our high-school cafeteria. I visited a few nursing homes, participated in fund-raisers like that leukemia foundation thing, and got good grades. None of that compares to saving lives. To providing a decent way of life where there is none—digging proper wells for clean water, building a school or medical clinic, planting crops. It was
real,
Cassie. Not like what I did at home.”

“You were just a kid here, Sam,” she said. She had no idea why it was so important to fight him on this. “Had you lived in Shelter Valley as an adult, you'd have accomplished a lot more than cafeteria food and fundraising.”

“But I wouldn't have gone to bed at night bone-weary from a day's labor. I never would have experienced the feeling of lying down, knowing I'd done what I was meant to do. Knowing, for that one day, I'd done all I could.”

Threatened but not sure why, Cassie didn't argue with him anymore.

“Anyway,” he continued after a few minutes, “when I got back to the States with Moira and Brian, we signed up as volunteers for a national disaster relief organization. Any time of the day or night, any time of the year, we'd get calls, and within hours we'd be on a plane to someplace where a tragedy or disaster had occurred. We'd attempt to fix things. To save people. To clean up. To put lives back together. Years of that teaches you many things, Cass—and one of them is that as long as there's breath, there's hope for a second chance.”

He'd caught her, and she hadn't even seen it coming.

“I'm leaving.” Rigid, frightened, crying, she walked quickly away.

But she wasn't quick enough. His “I can't give up on us, Cass” hit her before she made it to the safety of her car.

And stayed with her all the way home.

* * *

Mariah watched Sam as they drove to church on Sunday morning, but she wasn't thinking about breathing right then. Sam had said the church was God's house. She'd never been there before. Sam said he didn't go much, either, but that if they went, it would make Grandma and Grandpa happy.

She didn't know about that. Seemed kind of mean to make them happy because that would make the sadness worse. The way she figured it, if you didn't know happy, you couldn't know sad. Seemed kind of dumb of Sam not to have figured that out yet. But he would. He was a smart man.

As smart as her daddy had been. And her daddy hadn't been able to make the bad men stop. Hadn't been able to keep the sad things from happening. He couldn't tell Mariah to be quiet so they wouldn't hurt him anymore, or hurt her mommy. She hadn't meant to cry out loud like that....

She wasn't too sure about going to this house that belonged to God. Except that the lady Sam called Grandma said it was a place to talk to God, who lived in heaven. Mommy lived in heaven, too, and she really, really wanted to talk to Mommy again. To see if she was breathing and...and if her throat had stopped bleeding. It was okay if Mommy didn't want to live with Mariah anymore. Heaven must be very nice, and someone would want to stay there. Mariah understood about that. She just wanted to see Mommy breathing.

And Daddy, too.

Everyone kept saying Sam was her daddy now. Even Sam. And that her name was Montford, not Glory.

She liked Sam a lot—but he was Sam. And her daddy wasn't breathing. And she didn't want Sam to stop breathing, either.

“Why are you frowning, honey?”

Mariah waited. Okay. It was all right. He'd breathed again. She hated it when Sam talked. She couldn't see breaths when he talked, and that scared her. If Sam ever quit breathing, if he went away...

For just a second, she thought about Sammie. The dog. Could he be at God's house, too?

Sammie was the best dog Mariah had ever known.

She thought about Sam's friend, Cassie, who had a nice voice. And told a story about Sam that Mariah was still guessing about.

Maybe Sammie would be at God's house and would sit next to Mariah. That wouldn't be bad.

Sam was still breathing....

Chapter 9

“H
ey, you two mind the interruption?” Sam asked his parents Sunday night. They were in bed, reading, as they'd done every Sunday night of his boyhood.

It was reassuring to find them still doing so.

“No, son, come on in.” James laid down the book he'd been reading.
Standing For Something.
Sam read the title as he settled on the end of their four-poster bed, pulling his foot underneath him.

“Good book?”

“So far,” James said. “I picked it up because the forward's by Mike Wallace from
Sixty Minutes
. I figured anything he was endorsing had to be interesting reading.”

His mother closed her book of poetry, setting it on the nightstand along with her reading glasses. “What's on your mind, Sam?”

Sam shrugged. He'd rather talk about his father's book another minute or two. “Did you read on Sunday nights all the time you were in Europe, too?”

“You can't have come in here just to ask us that,” Carol said.

And James followed with, “Of course we did. Anytime we were in for the evening.”

Sam nodded, tracing the quilted pattern on the white bedspread with his index finger. They were both watching him, waiting. Carol was frowning, James withholding obvious concern until he'd heard what Sam had to say.

He looked up at them. “I've been starting to make some plans and I wanted to keep you apprised.”

Burrowing out from under the covers, Muffy shook her head, tags jangling. Her entire body quivered, and Carol pulled the dog onto her lap.

“So what are they?” James asked.

It had been so easy when he'd tried out this conversation in the shower that morning. He'd come home ready to be the man he really was. So why did he suddenly feel like a little boy again? A Montford boy, with all the responsibilities and expectations the name entailed.

“I have to be here pretty constantly right now, for Mariah's sake, but I can't just sit around and do nothing all day.”

Tears sprang to Carol's eyes. “You aren't leaving.”

“No.” Sam wished he could ease the fears he'd planted so deeply inside her. “Not unless you're kicking us out,” he said.

James quietly took his wife's hand. “The house may be ours to live in as long as we're alive, but you know darn well it's yours, Sam. Yours and Ben's. We couldn't kick you out if we wanted to.”

“Not that we ever would,” Carol assured him swiftly, wrapping her fingers around James's.

Envy of their closeness, their intimacy, coursed through Sam. But so did contentment. It felt good to come home from a world gone crazy, to find his parents still very much a team. Very much in love.

“You want to start going down to the office?” James asked. “I turned everything over to Lyle Simmons before your mother and I left for Europe, but I'm sure he'd be glad to have you taking an active interest in the business.”

Lyle had been his father's righthand man for most of Sam's growing-up years. He ran Montford, Inc., one of the nation's most prestigious investment firms, and he probably ran it better than Sam could ever have done. That was partly because Lyle loved doing it, and Sam never would.

The old trapped feeling started to emerge, but Sam shoved it away. “I'm not joining the business and I'm not going back to school, Dad,” he said firmly. There wouldn't be any discussion about this.

“Okay.” James nodded. Carol looked from one to the other. With her free hand she was slowly petting Muffy.

“I have no intention of being a lawyer.” Even though two previous generations of Montfords had gone into the legal profession. Including his father, who hadn't even wanted to practice law. He'd opened Montford, Inc. shortly after passing the bar exam.

“I think, after all that's happened, your mother and I have already figured that out,” James said, a hint of a grin on his lips.

Okay, so maybe he was coming on a little strong. Rather like the know-it-all fifteen-year-old he was trying not to be.

“What
do
you want to do?” Carol asked softly, her eyes filled with concern.

He looked closely, but didn't see any disappointment there. Maybe the years had changed them, too. Or shown them alternatives that hadn't been clear all those years ago.

He could tell them about Borough Bantam. Perhaps he should. Only that morning, he'd seen his mother reading the strip in the Sunday edition of the Phoenix paper. But it was too important that they accept the man he'd found himself to be. The man who would rather fix cars in a garage than count money in a bank. The success of Borough Bantam was a fluke. It was great. But he'd been just as happy building roads in Illinois before he'd ever begun to even think about marketing the comic strip.

That, actually, had been Moira's idea.

And once the strip had become successful, she'd urged him to take advantage of all the attention the press wanted to give its creator. Sam had adamantly refused. He'd carefully avoided any mention of himself at all. His publisher, accepting that he wasn't going to budge, had decided to play on the mystery element, instead. No one knew who S.N.C. was.

“I'd like to open a business renovating homes,” he said. “It would have to be on a part-time basis to begin with, until Mariah recovers, but I'd like to start with some of those old homes down by the cactus jelly plant. They've become awfully rundown in the time I've been away.”

“People started moving closer to town,” James said. “The value of the houses dropped, but that allowed some of the farm workers in the area—cotton-pickers and field laborers—to buy them. Gives these people a solid base from which to raise their kids, send them to school.”

“But they can't afford to keep the places up as well as they'd like,” Carol said.

“So I'll help them.”

“They can't afford to renovate, Sam.”

“I'll work cheap,” he said. “I wouldn't charge them anything if I thought they'd let me get away with that.”

“They've got their pride.”

“So let's give them something else to be proud of.” Sam was eager to get started. And delighted to see that his parents weren't falling all over themselves to talk him out of his new venture.

Or into a different one.

“I can set them up on payment plans, ten dollars a month if need be. And I'll enlist their help as much as possible—work
with
them, not for them.” There would be real satisfaction in that, as there'd been in his Peace Corps assignments and in disaster relief. He didn't need these people's money. What would he do with it, anyway? Except donate it someplace.

His share of the ever-growing Montford fortune aside, he made enough off the now nationally syndicated Borough Bantam to keep them all quite comfortably.

“You know how to do all this?” James asked. “The plumbing, electrical, woodworking, everything?”

His dad sounded impressed. Sam had never even considered that possibility.

“I do.” He nodded, almost embarrassed. “I told you about renovating those homes in New Jersey, but I also spent a winter learning the plumbing trade. Another eighteen months with an electrician. Another eighteen months in total doing mechanic's jobs. I've got certification in all of those trades. Oh, and I built roads, too.”

Carol still seemed bemused. “Why, Sam?”

He met her gaze. “Because it felt right.”

They talked a while longer, his parents asking questions that Sam was happy to answer. He'd liked the renovating work best of all—finding the perfect fixtures to match the time period of whatever house he was working on. Discovering the exact trim for an old wooden farmhouse, or a claw-foot tub to fit a Victorian-era bathroom. It had been like putting together a big puzzle full of history and family memories.

“So you're really home to stay?” Carol asked, when the conversation finally wound down.

“Yes.” Sam had never been more sure of anything.

The pattern in the bedspread interested him again. A lot. “I have something else to tell you,” he said.

“About Mariah? Or her poor parents?” Carol had already put pictures of Moira and Brian in the Montford family photo album. She'd tried to get Mariah to help her, and when the child had simply sat, staring at Sam, she'd kept up a steady monologue, describing every photo so Mariah could share in the event, anyway. Assuming Mariah was listening....

Sam shook his head. “About Cassie.”

“What about her?” Carol's voice was suddenly sharper.

“You haven't done anything to her, have you?” James asked gruffly.

“Hey.” Sam held up both hands. “I surrender!”

“We're sorry, Sam,” James said, sharing a sideways glance with his wife. “That girl's had some pretty rough times. She doesn't need any more.”

Sam's parents felt responsible for what he'd done. He had no idea why that fact hadn't occurred to him before. He'd always known he'd hurt them, disappointed them. He hadn't realized he'd also shamed them.

But he
should
have known. He knew them.

“I have no intention of hurting her,” Sam assured them.

Carol leaned forward, touching his face with one gentle hand. “Your presence here has got to hurt her, Sam. But she's a strong woman, and she'll be able to deal with that. All I'm asking is that you be sensitive and stay out of her way as much as you can. Make things easy on her.”

Sam felt the muscle in his jaw twitch. “I told her last night that I intend to try to get her back.”

Carol gasped.

“No!” James said immediately.

Carol glanced over at him, and though Sam couldn't translate the quick conversation that took place, he had a feeling his mother was begging his father for a chance to hope.

He felt better already, knowing he'd have her on his side.

“Promise me you'll stay away from her, Sam,” James said. He looked older as he leaned back against the headboard. Old and tired. As though he'd aged in the past five minutes.

Sam swallowed. How did a man forgive himself for all the damage he'd done? The anguish he'd caused to those he loved?

How did he ever make restitution? Was it even possible?

“I can't do that, Dad.”

Carol wrapped both arms around Muffy, watching Sam and his father.

“You owe it to her, to all of us—”

“I owe it to her to try to bring back the person I know is still living inside of her,” Sam said fiercely. He'd felt their connection last night. Only briefly. But it had been there.

And Cassie had felt it, too.

Carol's eyes were wide. Worried.

Swinging his feet to the floor, James sat on the edge of the bed, a hand on either side of him. He was staring at the wall. “There are things you don't know, Sam. Things that make it impossible for you and Cassie to ever go back.”

“I know she's sworn off relationships,” Sam told him. “We had a long talk last night, and she told me about her inability to trust. I believe trust is something we can reestablish.”

“Sam...” Carol began.

“It's okay, Mom,” he said, standing, one hand on the cherry-wood post at the end of their bed. “I know I have my work cut out for me, but who better than the person who betrayed her trust, to give it back?”

“There are some things you can't give back, Sam. Some things that can't be fixed.” James stood, too.

“Maybe, but this isn't one of them.”

“You don't know everything.”

“I know what I have to know.”

“Did she tell you anything else, Sam?” Carol asked softly, both hands buried in Muffy's fur. “Anything about that time after you left?”

“I know it was really hard for a while.”

“Specifically,” Carol said. “Did she say anything specific?”

Sam thought back to the night before, trying to remember exactly what Cassie had said. And realized that it had been relatively little.

It was what she
hadn't
said that had spoken to him the most. He'd sensed that the only way she'd ever be healed was to find what she'd lost. And he was the only one who could help her do that.

No matter where life took them, no matter what they suffered, they needed each other. They always had.

“I guess not,” he finally admitted. “Nothing specific.”

“Well, there are things you don't know,” James said again. His eyes were sad, almost...pitying.

Sam's heart beat faster. “What things?”

James shook his head. “They aren't for us to tell you, Sam. If and when she wants you to know, she'll tell you herself.”

His head swung toward his mother. He couldn't accept that. She had to tell him.

“I'm sorry, Sam.” Carol shook her head, too. “It has to come from Cassie.”

“Is she ill?” he asked, his voice tense. “Has she got some kind of disease?” She couldn't have. She looked healthy and fit. But tired. Alarm shot through him. Was there a reason for that fatigue other than overwork?

“No disease,” James said, dispelling that particular fear. “And we're not saying anything more. Just forget about the two of you ever getting back together. It's no longer possible.”

His father's warning came too late. Sam had already made up his mind.

* * *

Cassie and Sammie saw Mariah in the park twice more that next week. Although there was no new progress—and that in itself was a step backward—Cassie still believed they were on the right track. That they had a chance of reaching the child. Mariah always stood beneath the palo verde tree and stared after Sam. She didn't speak or show any sign that she was listening to Cassie.

But Cassie couldn't give up hope. She continued to talk to the child. Telling her about Sam when he was a boy. About some of the escapades the two of them had gotten into. Like the time they'd ditched school to dig for gold, and she'd fallen in the stream and caught a cold, which turned into pneumonia. They'd only been about ten. Sam had gotten his hide tanned.