Loving Mariah Read online

  “No. No, it’s not. It’s shoofly pie.” Her words rushed out. She was glad to have something innocuous to discuss, if only for the moment. He would get back to the subject of Bo soon enough, she knew.

  “Whatever,” he answered. “It’s good.”

  “Thank you.”

  He looked up again. “You made it?”

  “Last night.” She had not been able to sleep after all. She’d tried briefly, then had gotten up to bake. Sometimes it helped, and the children loved it. “Coarse batter is easier to cook in a wood stove,” she explained inanely. “It’s far more difficult to do delicate pastries, to moderate the heat properly.”

  He looked at her with an unreadable expression. “That’s very interesting.” Even he realized his voice was too polite. Strained. “So what do you know, Mariah? I’ve got to tell you, I’m running all out of patience here, pie or cake or what have you.”

  “Yes,” she said uncomfortably. “I know.”

  He pushed the plate away. “Well?”

  “Adam, what is the most important thing to you?”

  His jaw hardened. “Do you have to ask?”

  “I need to be sure.”

  “Why?”

  She took a breath, clasping her hands in front of her. “I just do.”

  “Fine. I’ll say it. Bo.” His words were like bullets. “Now where is he? What do you know?”

  Mariah took a deep breath and steeled herself to ignore his questions. “And when he was with you?” she asked. “Was he the most important thing then?”

  Adam opened his mouth and closed it again. Damn her, he thought. He didn’t know if he was angry or amazed. “What are you doing, Mariah?” he snapped finally, disbelievingly. “Trying to ascertain if I deserve to have my son back?”

  It was close enough to the truth to make her skin go pale.

  Adam stood up from the desk. He planted his large palms on the top of it and leaned forward, toward her. He scared her more than a little this time.

  “Let’s clear something up here, lady. The law is on my side in this matter. Do you want me to drag the courts into this? I’ve already done it once, with my ex-wife in absentia, and managed to get custody. Married parents have joint rights to their child. When she disappeared with Bo and didn’t respond to announcements of the hearing, she violated my rights and. proved herself to be an unstable parent. The hell of it is, I don’t have my boy to keep custody of because I can’t find him. But I can tell you this. As soon as I—or the law—catch wind of where he is, they’re going to turn him over to me. So if I take you to court, they’ll make you tell me under oath. They’ll hold you in contempt, if you don’t. They’ll make you tell me what you know, Mariah. And I don’t really give a damn which way we go about it I just want answers, and I don’t care how I get them.”

  He watched her, waiting for her reaction. Then he realized that he should have known that bullying her wouldn’t work.

  She drew herself up. “It’s not necessary to threaten me, Adam.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare start that.”

  “What?” She frowned, confused.

  “That voice. ‘Please, Adam would you go walk on the moon.’ Next thing I know, I’m weightless.”

  She didn’t smile. “You’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with,” she said stiffly.

  “Damned right.”

  “As will I. And I’m not comfortable telling you anything, until I know what you’re going to do with the information.”

  “Damn you!” he snarled.

  Mariah jumped. “I need to rationalize this in my own heart first. That’s all.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? Your heart has no place in this! Your heart doesn’t matter! This isn’t your concern. This is between me and my kid and my ex-wife!”

  She steadied herself again with great effort. “Of course it is,” she answered reasonably. “But you’re wrong, too. It concerns my heart greatly.”

  He stared at her a moment longer, then he finally raked both hands through his hair. He wasn’t sure what was happening here, but he was torn between anger and frustration and shock.

  In all his life, he had never met anyone he couldn’t cow.

  “Please, if you’ll just answer my question,” she went on. “That’s all I ask.”

  “And what if my answer doesn’t measure up?” he snarled.

  “I don’t know,” she answered helplessly.

  “I don’t even remember what your question was!”

  “Your Bo,” she whispered. “Was his happiness the most important thing to you when you were with him?”

  Because he sensed that it mattered more than he could possibly understand, Adam gave it true thought.

  His head hurt.

  “When I was with him, I was a very busy man,” he said finally.

  “You still are, Adam. You drive yourself.”

  “Yeah. But back then I was pursuing something that didn’t end up mattering.”

  “What?”

  He gave a self-deprecating snort. “A ball game. I played baseball.”

  She blinked. “For money?”

  “Yeah. With the Astros.”

  From her eight years outside, she knew a little about the World Series and Super Bowls and the like. Mariah was impressed. “I see.”

  “Was Bo’s happiness the most important thing then?” he repeated almost to himself. “No, Mariah. No, because you never really appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

  Her heart squeezed. She realized, a little dazed, that he could not have given a better answer. It was so honest it hurt.

  “The time he fell out of the apple tree,” Adam went on. He moved away from her desk and began pacing, as she had done the previous night, and Mariah thought he was just as tortured as she had been. “We had some people over for a party. Steaks on the grill, that kind of thing. It was mostly guys from the team and their wives. I’d told Bo to stay away from that damned tree. And I turned my back to get a beer and up he went. Then there was this ungodly squeal and the crack of branches and he was crying, these great big hurt sobs. He broke his arm, too.” He stopped to look at her. “Did I want to shake him? Sure. I could have killed him. And there was blood all over the place and his arm was crooked, and I threw him in my car and drove hell bent for leather to the nearest doctor. And I kept thinking, God, he’s going to bleed to death. And I was too scared to think that it was just a cut on the chin. I thought that if he died, I’d die. And I blamed myself, too. Because I knew that kid, knew there was no way he was going to be able to turn away from what he thought was a nest up in those branches, and I turned my back anyway and gave him the chance to climb. So all I could do was yell, like it was his fault.” He stared at her. “Is that what you wanted to hear, Mariah?”

  “I...yes,” she admitted baldly.

  “I was on the road every summer through the three years I had him. Five games home in Houston, seven away, nine home, seven away. That was the way the season went. And when he was two, I tried to take him with me. Jannel stayed home. What a fiasco. Trying to get luggage off the carousel at the airport, the rest of the team halfway to the bus, and there goes my kid, racing down the concourse just as fast as his short, little legs could carry him. Was I ticked off? You bet I was.”

  He came to stand close to her to look down into her face. Something shook inside her.

  “What do you want me to tell you, Mariah?” he went on more softly. “That if I had him back today I wouldn’t be mad if he did that again? I’d be mad. I’d be furious. Because I was famous, and any crazy fool could have grabbed that boy and taken off with him just for the sheer kick of it, just to kidnap Adam Wallace’s son. And Bo had already gotten far enough away from me that I couldn’t have stopped it from happening. And I hate myself, too, because I swore that day that I’d never take him with me again, not unless Jannel came too, and I never did—even though he begged me. It was too much trouble, and I had my priorities s
crewed up. It was always the game. Everything was the game. I didn’t like distractions before I went out to home plate. But if I had taken Bo with me on that last August road trip, then Jannel wouldn’t have been about to disappear with him, would she?”

  His guilt, his sorrow and remorse, hurt her. Mariah didn’t realize she was crying until Adam’s eyes narrowed. He brought his hand up and caught a tear on his finger. Something shuddered deep inside her.

  She stepped back quickly and scrubbed her hands over her cheeks herself. “I...let’s go.”

  “Go,” he repeated almost dazedly. He was still looking at his finger, frowning as though a million secrets were revealed in that single teardrop.

  “We’ll take your car.”

  “Where?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. All her words were wadded in her throat.

  At least, she thought, at least there was no longer any doubt in her mind about doing the right thing. She knew what it was now. She would do it, then she would pray that Adam’s heart, the heart he had just allowed her to glimpse, would prevail.

  No man could be so honest and yet be cruel, she told herself. Surely not.

  She grabbed her coat and her shawl and hurried outside. He followed her a heartbeat later.

  Adam almost wished she could drive. Suddenly, he didn’t feel capable of it. His pulse was like thunder. He heard the rush of blood in his ears and the dull, erratic thud of his heart underneath it. His legs felt filled with air and his palms sweated in the icy air.

  She knew where Bo was, and she was going to take him to him.

  Adam knew that as certainly as he knew his own name. She had known all along, from the start. And he didn’t know whether to rage at her or hug her or cry.

  She had reached the car and she slid into the passenger seat. He had to force himself to take another step to follow; then he was jogging.

  “Where?” he asked again when he got behind the wheel, and they both understood that this time he wanted directions.

  “Make a U-turn.” Her voice was strangled. “Then go right at the next turn.”

  He turned the key in the ignition with fumbling fingers. He almost missed the turn. Without even realizing it, he pressed down harder and harder on the accelerator. If she hadn’t cried out, he would have flown right past the road.

  He hit the brakes hard and swerved. Neither of them spoke. Adam didn’t trust himself to try.

  “Left,” she said quietly, finally. “You’ll need to turn again in about five hundred feet.” This time she warned him well ahead of time.

  Adam felt light-headed. He took one hand from the steering wheel to drag his sleeve across his eyes. The drive was interminable. The scenery flew past them.

  “Adam,” she said in that near whisper.

  “What?” he croaked.

  “Be kind. Promise me you’ll be kind.”

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to stare at her.

  “Think of him, Adam. No matter what happens, put his happiness first. Please. I’m begging you. This is the only world he knows.”

  He was beginning to understand all her high-and-mighty questions. He hated her for them. Who the hell did she think she was? She had known. She had known all along.

  “Yeah,” he heard himself say. “I promise.”

  Then, suddenly, he slammed on the brakes. The back end of the car fishtailed on a patch of ice, and Mariah gasped and her hand went involuntarily to the dashboard. He didn’t need her to tell him. He knew. Adam’s heart roared now. In the distance, halfway across a field, small black figures zoomed this way and that. Playing...ice hockey.

  His head swam. Black-clothed figures. Amish kids. Bo?

  He stopped the car, pushing frantically and hard at the door. He got out to stand and stare.

  Mariah finally breathed again after the wild, frightening ride. She picked her way over the snow to stand beside him. Adam seemed as frozen as the landscape. She put her hand on his arm and for his sake, for Bo’s sake, steeled herself against whatever she might think she felt there this time.

  “They call him Noah,” she warned softly. “If you ask for Bo, he probably won’t answer.”

  Adam looked at her—uncomprehendingly, she thought He finally started walking again. She hurried to follow. She could only pray that the implications of what she had just said would dawn on him before it was too late.

  And she knew that when they did, it would hurt him unconscionably.

  Adam kept going until he was no more than fifteen paces from the ice. The boys swarmed, shouted, playing as hard and as competitively as boys the world over. In that moment, there was no difference between this crowd and a group of youths in the center of a city somewhere, jostling each other over a basketball. No difference, perhaps, except that these boys were all dressed alike.

  He knew Bo immediately, anyway.

  Adam’s reaction was literally physical. It was a hand wrenching painfully at his heart. He felt tears burn at his eyes. So long, he thought. So damned long. He knew the straight bowl-cut blond hair, streaked with brown, the way his own got in the winter. Four years fell away. Bo was taller now, and more sure of his feet. He’d be able to run even faster down an airport concourse. The boy turned and shouted something to a teammate over his shoulder. Got his words down better, too, Adam thought.

  He opened his mouth. And then Mariah’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. They call him Noah.

  That was when Adam understood what she had been trying to tell him.

  Something unseen pounded him in the chest. The game stopped, with a lot of skidding, sliding. Shavings of ice sprayed. A good half of the boys crowded the edge of the ice to look their way. Bo was among them. His blue-gray eyes bounced off Adam without recognition.

  “No.” He heard his own voice without even realizing he had spoken aloud. “Oh, Lord, no.”

  “Adam...” But there was nothing she could say, nothing she could do to soften the blow. She was stunned by how very deeply she wanted to.

  She barely knew him. She had wanted to protect Bo. She had meant to do that, but now all her intentions veered and she would have done anything to take away this man’s pain, instead.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. There was nothing she could do.

  Adam didn’t answer.

  Four years, he thought. More than half Bo’s life.

  There would be no reunion. No matter how he had imagined this moment might be, Bo didn’t even know him. He had lived for this, had waited for this, had worked toward it, for what seemed like a whole lifetime. And now it was wrenched away from him, even as he grappled to hold the dream back. He couldn’t force himself on the boy, at least not now, not without causing him cruel confusion and panic, not without shaking his world.

  Jannel hadn’t kept his memory alive. She hadn’t bothered to take any photographs with them. That choked him, though it shouldn’t have, until he had an even more staggering thought.

  They call him Noah. She had even changed his name. She had wiped out every trace of the boy he once had been.

  It was too much to take in, to accept. Adam’s brain felt swamped, incapable of clear thought. He made a strangled sound and turned away.

  “Adam!” Mariah cried. But her voice didn’t stop him. She watched helplessly as he jogged back to the red car and drove away, tires squealing.

  Chapter 5

  For three days, Adam prowled the county like a wounded animal looking for a place to die.

  He had never seen it coming, and that made him feel like a fool. He cursed himself for never once waking up and smelling the coffee over the years, for harboring that ridiculous image through all of his search, of a toddler on chubby legs, with apple cheeks and mischievous eyes. He’d been aware of the clock ticking, and had never once considered the implications of those ticks. He’d known Jannel would probably change their names, but hadn’t considered the ramifications of that on a three-year-old.

  He ducked his brother’s c
alls almost helplessly, knowing that if he didn’t get in touch with him then, Jake would almost certainly turn up on the next flight. Adam didn’t want to see him, but he felt incapable of doing anything to prevent it. The dogged hope he’d carried inside him for years was jagged and broken and dying, and he needed to be left alone to come to terms with it. Besides, what the hell could he say?

  I found him. It’s the most amazing thing. He’s seven. They call him Noah. He’s got friends, a life, and I’m not part of it. He doesn’t even know me.

  No, he thought, no.

  A sense of aimlessness stole over him. He could not remember a time in his adult life when he had not had a purpose. Every time he’d gone to bat he’d been thinking World Series. Every day since he’d retired, he’d been looking for Bo. Now he had found him, but he couldn’t touch him, couldn’t reach out to him, and there was nothing left to do, no purpose to anything anymore. at all.

  Finally on Monday night he began winding down. He still had no answers, but there was little ground left to cover. He’d driven blindly through every nook and cranny of the settlement, as though something about it all would tell him how to fix this mess. He finally stopped at the motel, found more frantic messages from Jake, and still couldn’t face them. He stuffed them into his jacket pocket and took off again.

  It was a little past ten. He found a tavern on Route 30, a neighborhood kind of place, small enough to be cozy, long and narrow, with a handful of booths along one wall. The bartender was perfect, friendly without being flirtatious, competent without hovering. Adam thought he’d get drunk. He ordered a double shot of bourbon.

  The first mouthful of alcohol hit his stomach and went sour, and he knew it wasn’t going to work.

  He went back to the car and found himself in front of Mariah’s house, without having any conscious intention of going there. He sat with the engine idling and considered why he had come. He couldn’t talk to Jake because Jake hadn’t seen, he realized. Jake could not possibly understand the enormity of this. But Mariah had been there. She knew.

  He made a decision, turned the ignition off and went up the walk. Even at this hour, she answered his knock much more quickly than he might have expected. The house was dark behind her, and he realized that he had probably woken her, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He needed...something. And he knew instinctively that he’d find it here.