Sheltered in His Arms

“But you had a perfect grade point, a future…”

“…that I didn’t want,” Sam finished for her, his jaw firm. Then he smiled, which instantly softened his face. It was as though he’d learned to control the emotions that had once flowed so freely.

When they were young, Sam had been the most passionate man she’d known. Passionate about everything, from kissing her to saving an abandoned dog on the outskirts of town. She’d loved that about him.

“So what’s this pet therapy business?” he asked. “Analyzing neurotic poodles?” He grinned in an obvious attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but his expression sobered when she didn’t respond. “Seriously,” he muttered. “Tell me.”

Mariah’s arm slid up around Sam’s neck, and she lay her head against his chest.

She was too skinny. And quieter than any child Cassie had ever seen. It almost seemed as though something was wrong with her. Her stomach seized at the thought. The little girl was so beautiful.

She couldn’t imagine Sam with a handicapped child. Everything had always come easy to him. Perfection had been his for the taking.

“I, uh, developed a bit of a name for myself by using animals as a way to treat mentally, and sometimes physically, ill patients,” she said slowly, her attention on Sam’s little girl.

There was something heart-wrenching about her. Something pathetic in seeing her tucked so securely in Sam’s arms.

Sam. She couldn’t believe he was here. Sitting in her office. Damn him.

Her life wasn’t ever going to be the same again, with Sam back in town. The memories, the reminders—they’d all be right in front of her. Mocking her. He’d just shot her carefully won peace all to hell.

Sam asked a few more questions—intelligent, thoughtful questions—about pet therapy, which Cassie managed to answer. Somehow, with him sitting there, work wasn’t the first thing on her mind. It was an odd sensation.

A very unwelcome one.

SAM DIDN’T KNOW what he’d been expecting to find that morning, but the woman sitting across from him wasn’t it. Her beauty was still as potent, her figure perfect, her hair still that glorious red. But despite all the similarities, he could hardly believe how much ten years had changed her. Was it just growing up that had made her so self-composed? So unemotional?

Or was it only with him that she was this way?

The thought sickened him. Saddened him. He’d carried the image of his vivacious and tender ex-wife with him every day of the past ten years, used it as a sword to punish himself—and as a reminder of the penance he owed.

“So who’d you end up marrying?” he asked now, forcing himself to confront reality, to see the woman Cassie had become, to not linger on memories of the days when he’d known her as well as she’d known herself. “You are married, right?”

Cassie shook her head, and Sam froze.

“You aren’t married?” he asked, his shock more evident than he would have liked. She had to be married. It was all Cassie had ever wanted. Marriage and a family.

“There are a lot of successful single women these days,” she said, her tone tinged with sharpness. “I would never have been able to accomplish everything I have if I was married. I’ve spent the past couple of years traveling all over the country, setting up pet therapy programs in universities and in hundreds of mental-health facilities.”

Sam stared at her, not understanding. “But you wanted to be a wife and mother more than anything in the world,” he said.

He hadn’t been wrong about that. Had he?

Cassie’s gaze slid away from him, her shoulders stiffening. “People change, Sam.”

Mariah’s fingers dug into Sam’s neck; he rubbed her back reassuringly.

“You never had children?” He just couldn’t take it in. Didn’t want to. Didn’t want to believe he’d had anything to do with her decision. It was one of the reasons he’d left town and never come back. So that Cassie could get on with her life.

Or that was what he’d always told himself. He’d assumed, without question, that she’d meet someone, marry, have kids. He thought briefly of his syndicated comic strip—another secret. The origins of the Borough Bantam were unknown to the people of Shelter Valley and yet it was based on them. Cassie was the gazelle. And in one of last month’s episodes, the gazelle had given birth to twins.

“I don’t have any children,” she said, then stood as though dismissing him. “I’m happy your parents finally have you back, Sam,” she said, then added, “You always were the light of their life.”

Another too-familiar stab of guilt hit its mark. Sam also stood, sliding Mariah down to the floor beside him. The child’s eyes were pleading when he looked down at her. She was ready to go. Now.

Odd. He hadn’t realized that he was learning to communicate with her, to understand her, even without words. The thought brought a strange sort of comfort.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” he said, guiding Mariah back into the hallway. He needed to tell Cassie about Mariah. And he would, as soon as he had a chance to talk to her alone. He needed to tell her the child wasn’t his. Or not biologically, in any case.

Cassie had never married. God, he felt sick. And ashamed. A bone-deep shame.

“Okay” was all she said. So why did he hear, Not if I can help it?

After ten years, she still hated him so much. He deserved it; he knew that. Why had he been foolish enough to hope that the years might have dulled the consequences of his sins?

Mariah walked stoically beside him down the hall, which seemed to have grown a mile longer during his stay in Cassie’s office, and he realized that if he was going to get through this, he had to concentrate solely on his new daughter—her needs, not his own. Just as they reached the door that would lead them back to the waiting room, she turned, looking over her shoulder.

“Cassie’s a nice lady, don’t you think?” he asked gently, his heart rate speeding up.

Mariah didn’t answer him, but for the first time since her parents were killed, she’d shown an interest in something. It might not be much, but it was a start.

At that moment, Sam was willing to settle for anything.

“Let’s go see if Grandma has lunch ready, okay?” he asked, squeezing Mariah’s hand.

He might as well have been talking to himself.

CASSIE DIDN’T SEE Sam again for two days. She was walking home from the clinic on Wednesday evening—since she’d left her car at home that morning—enjoying the balmy Arizona spring day, trying to work up some enthusiasm for the cabbage rolls she’d made over the weekend and was going to have for dinner.

She’d had a good day. Had helped a collie through a difficult birth, managing to save all six puppies and the mother, as well. They’d been so adorable, she hadn’t been able to resist when the collie’s owner had offered Cassie pick of the litter. Now that she wasn’t going to be traveling so much, she’d been planning to get a dog. And she’d always loved collies.

“Can we give you a ride home?”

Still reacting to that familiar voice, even after all these years, Cassie didn’t stop walking. “No, thanks,” she called, barely glancing Sam’s way.

He drove a white truck.

She’d have expected him to drive a Lincoln Continental, or some other expensive car. But the truck seemed to suit him. Not that she really knew anything about Sam, or what would suit him. Nor did she want to.

Back to cabbage rolls. Yes, they’d be good. She’d treat herself to two. That would leave two more meals’ worth in the freezer. It was a good thing they’d only take a few minutes to microwave. She was getting hungry and—

“I have a cousin.”

Sam came up behind her, on foot, Mariah’s bony little legs moving quickly beside him. Glancing back, Cassie saw his truck parked at the curb.

What did he want with her, for God’s sake?

“I know you do,” she said aloud. She realized that the news had to be a shock. When he’d left, he was the sole Montford descendant, the family’s one hope. Now he’d come home to discover that an unknown cousin had shown up.

“You’ve met him?”

“Yes.”

Mariah’s hair was braided today. Cassie could just picture Carol fussing over the little girl. Her ex-mother-in-law must be about the happiest woman in Shelter Valley these days.

Cassie was genuinely thrilled for Carol. She’d always loved the woman like a second mother.

Her own mother didn’t even know Sam was in town. Her parents had left at the end of March for the six-month cruise around the world that they’d been saving half their lives to take. Cassie was glad they were gone. She had no idea how they’d react to Sam’s reappearance. Her father, who’d had four daughters and no sons, had taken Sam’s defection personally.

He’d also been the one who had to tell Cassie that her baby girl had died.

“What’s he like?” Sam asked, slowing his pace now that he was even with her. Mariah walked between them, staring ahead, it seemed, at nothing. “Ben, I mean. My cousin.”

Watching the child, Cassie frowned. “He’s very nice,” she said, wondering what was wrong with Sam’s daughter. Wondering how to ask. “He came to town last fall, fell in love with his English teacher—who wasn’t really a teacher at all, it turned out.” She gave a quick shrug. “It’s a long story. They’re married now.”

“Mom said he’s got a daughter Mariah’s age.”

Cassie nodded, wishing her house wasn’t still two streets away. She couldn’t do this. Walk casually with Sam and the child who’d never be hers, pretending they could be friends. “She’s not actually his, biologically. Did your mom tell you that?”

“Yeah.” Sam nodded, his free hand in the pocket of his jean-shorts. His long legs were more muscled than she remembered. “She said he married a girl his senior year in high school who claimed he was the father of her child.”

“She let him support her for almost eight years before she told him Alex belonged to her boyfriend, who was in prison.”

“Mom said that Ben’s being awarded full and permanent custody of her, though.”

“Her real father beat—” Glancing down at the head bobbing between them, Cassie broke off. “He wasn’t a very good father.”

“I gather Ben is.”

“Obviously you haven’t met him yet,” Cassie said, “or you’d know he was.”

Sam nodded again. “You’re right, I haven’t met him, but Mom’s pushing for a get-together.”

“Ben’s a great guy. Looks a bit like you.” In fact he resembled Sam enough that Cassie had had a hard time liking the man when she’d first met him. But he was Zack’s closest friend. Nowadays Cassie not only liked and respected him, she admired the hell out of him. Ben Sanders was a real man in the true sense of the word.

Too bad Sam didn’t share those particular genes…. Cassie stopped her reaction even as it took shape. She wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to grow old and hard with bitterness, entertaining nasty thoughts. She was okay now. Happy with her life. Surrounded by friends and family who loved her.

“Just seems odd, after a lifetime of being the only Montford heir, to find out that I’m not.”

“It’s not like your inheritance meant a whole lot to you the past ten years.” Damn her tongue. She turned the corner, Sam and Mariah staying in step beside her.

“It doesn’t mean squat to me.”

He’d certainly said so with great frequency. But until he’d left, turning his back on the money, the position, the town, she’d never really thought he believed it. She’d always thought the complaints were just a habit left over from when he was a kid, railing against expectations.

Everyone did that. Complained about what their parents expected of them. It was a normal part of growing up.

“Then what’s the problem with sharing it?” she asked him now, thinking how little Sam appeared to need the Montford fortune, and how much Ben and his new family did.

“He can have it all,” Sam said without bitterness, as though he still meant the words completely. “It just feels odd to have been one thing your entire life, only to find that it’s not what you are at all.”

Cassie nodded, glancing down as Mariah’s arm brushed against her leg. The child, moving silently between them, didn’t seem to notice.

Relieved when they reached her block, Cassie firmly turned her thoughts once again to cabbage rolls. They’d smelled so good when they were baking on Saturday night.

“This is it,” she said, stopping at the bottom of her driveway. If he expected her to ask him in, he was mistaken.

Sam hesitated, looking at the house she’d bought a few years before, in one of the more affluent neighborhoods in Shelter Valley.

“Nice place.”

“I like it.”

“It’s big.”

“Yeah.” She did most of her pet therapy work from an office here at home. And used the rest of the rooms to indulge her amateur interest in interior decorating.

Cassie was beginning to think Sam’s daughter couldn’t hear. The child didn’t even turn toward the house they were discussing. Cassie had heard the adage about children being seen and not heard, but this was too much.

Besides, she’d never figured Sam for that kind of parent.

A familiar pain tore through her at the thought of Sam as a father. She had to stay away from this man, dammit! He could destroy every bit of her hard-won composure, and his very presence threatened the contentment she’d so carefully pieced together.

The child, however, shouldn’t suffer for her father’s sins. Her silence tugged at Cassie. Bending down, face level with the striking little girl, Cassie smiled. “It was nice to see you again, Mariah.”

Mariah didn’t respond. And Sam gave no explanation. Surely if the child was deaf, Sam would have said. And how could she ask, in case the little girl could hear and know they were talking about her?

“Have you had any of your grandma’s cookies yet?” she tried again.

Neither a nod nor a shake of the head. Mariah’s gaze seemed intent on the T-shirt tucked into Sam’s shorts. Her fingers were clutching it. Hard.

Meeting Cassie’s questioning gaze, Sam just shook his head.

“Well, if you haven’t, you’ve got a treat in store,” Cassie continued, simply because she didn’t know what else to do. “They’re the best.”

“I told her.”

Of course. He would have. He’d grown up with them.

They both had.

“Well, good night,” Cassie said awkwardly.

“’Night.”

She didn’t look back as she walked to her door, let herself in and locked it behind her.

But she knew Sam stood there watching her.

CHAPTER FOUR

MARIAH DIDN’T WANT to go back to that house. Sam was driving up the hill, so she knew they were going back there. She didn’t want to. She didn’t belong there.

Sam’s house was for happy kids who didn’t know bad stuff. And grandmas were for happy kids, too. Mariah wasn’t like that anymore. She’d cried, made too much noise when the bad men came. That was why they’d killed her mommy.

Sam’s mouth was all tight, except when he seemed to remember that Mariah was looking at him. Then he smiled a good Sam smile.

She used to think Sam’s smiles made her feel happy. Now she didn’t care whether he smiled or not. Smiles couldn’t really do anything. They couldn’t stop bad stuff. They couldn’t save you from the horrible men.

Sam didn’t have to smile. He just had to stay breathing. Mostly that was what she watched. To make sure he was always breathing.

Mommy had been still holding Mariah’s hand but she hadn’t been breathing—and the men had made Mariah let go of her. That was when they said Mommy wasn’t coming back. But Mommy hadn’t gone anywhere, she’d been right there with Mariah the whole time—so how could she come back, anyway?

Daddy had gone away with them after they hit him so many times and made his face bleed. When Mariah cried out for him, they yelled back at her and told her to shut up. If she made a sound, they were going to hurt Mommy. They said Daddy wasn’t ever coming back, either. Sam said he’d stopped breathing, too. She hadn’t known that about breathing before.

Daddy was put into a hole in the ground—

“You hungry, honey?”

Sam smiled at her now. Mariah didn’t get hungry anymore. She just got tired from watching Sam’s breathing.

Breathing stopped, and then some men shoved you into a hole in the ground. But first, sometimes, they cut you and made you bleed so much that a Band-Aid didn’t work.

They scared you and did other things Mariah couldn’t think about.

So she just thought about breathing. If she stopped breathing, they’d shove her in a hole, too.

SAM’S PENCIL SLID EASILY around the page, making a mark here, another there, until the familiar figures began to take shape. After so many years of drawing this cartoon strip, he was seeing it differently tonight. He was on overload with the past four days of memory and stimulation.

Borough Bantam. Sam’s imaginary world was filled with non-human life, of the animal variety, mostly—each creature representative to Sam of the people he’d known all his life in Shelter Valley. There was the king—a grizzly bear—his father. His mother, the queen, a gentle brown bear. Will Parsons was a lion. His wife, Becca, Sam’s readers knew as a book-reading lioness. There was Nancy Garland, a girl they’d known in high school; she was a gopher. Sam’s parents had told him she was still in town, hostessing at the Valley Diner. Jim Weber, owner of Weber’s Department Store, was a penguin. Hank Harmon was the big friendly skunk everyone in the Borough loved, in spite of his smell. Chuck Taylor was a leopard. And on and on…

Cassie was the gazelle. Graceful. Lovely. And unattainable.

He still hadn’t found a moment away from Mariah—a chance to see Cassie alone. Although the more he thought about the whole damn mess, the more he wondered whether it would make a difference to her whether or not Mariah was his biological daughter. She was still his daughter. He had a child to raise, while Cassie did not.

And yet he couldn’t understand why Cassie had made that choice—to remain unmarried and childless. Nor could he stomach the irrational fear that he was at least partially to blame.

Mariah was finally asleep; Sam had put her in the bed across from the desk at which he sat. His parents had given him a guest suite, as it had two beds and plenty of room for him and Mariah.

Sam hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before Mariah hankered after the princess room down the hall. Its lacy white canopy, yellow walls, and pictures of tea parties were enough to tempt any little girl. Weren’t they? As a teenager, Cassie had always loved his mother’s fanciful guest room. The couple of times her family had been out of town and she’d stayed with them, she’d chosen that room. It had been updated since he left town—with new paint, different pictures, some fancy ladies’ hats on a rack—but his impression was the same. He still felt like a clumsy oaf in ten-pound mountain boots whenever he walked in the door.

Characters appeared on the page in front of Sam, seemingly of their own accord. The pencil moved swiftly, filling in thought bubbles almost faster then he could think them….

The castle was in chaos. There was a stranger in their midst, a wild stallion. He claimed to know them. The king and queen had offered their usual warm-hearted welcome. Always trusting. Seeing good in the visitor although his heart might harbor unclean things.

The half-witted magistrate, so full of his own importance, didn’t know that Borough Bantam had been invaded yet. Sam grinned as the rotund little worm slithered around his circle, certain that he was circling the world. That he controlled the entire globe. His bubble was easiest of all to fill. I am. I am. I am.

It was rumored that the newcomer—the stallion—posed a threat to the magistrate. The worm— Sam’s version of Shelter Valley’s mayor, Junior Smith.

Ten years older than Sam, Junior had just become mayor when Sam’s father retired. That was the year before Sam left town. James Montford had suffered a bout of Crohn’s Disease and needed to lower his stress level; as a result he’d stepped down from the mayoralty. That was when Sam really started to feel the pressure to run for mayor. The fact that he would win was a foregone conclusion. The office of mayor was of course an elected position, but politics in Shelter Valley had more to do with tradition than democracy. The town’s mayor had almost always been a Montford—although, occasionally, a member of the less-reputable Smith branch of the family held office.

The newcomer sat off by himself, watching the confusion, detached. He couldn’t care less about the worm. He was waiting. Though he didn’t know for what. The plan would be made known to him in due time. He just had to be patient.

Sighing, Sam scribbled the finishing touch, the signature of Bantam’s creator, S.N.C., and dropped his pencil. Then he tore off the piece of drawing paper, folding it carefully and sealing it in an envelope for mailing in the morning—on time to meet his deadline. He methodically put all evidence of the work he’d been doing in the battered satchel, which he placed back on the closet shelf. Patience was the lesson of the week—for the comic strip’s new character and for him.

Sam needed to find a truckload of it somewhere.

ON THURSDAY NIGHT, Cassie was getting ready for bed with the eleven o’clock news playing in the background—from the console television in her bedroom, the little portable in her luxurious ensuite bathroom and the nineteen-inch set out in her kitchen—when the doorbell rang.

Assuming the caller was a patient with an emergency, she quickly spit out her toothpaste, wiped her mouth and pulled a pair of jeans on over her nightgown. Grabbing from the hamper the black, short-sleeved cotton shirt she’d worn to work that day, she drew it over her head while she made her way to the front of the house. It never occurred to her to be alarmed, to think anything dangerous might be waiting on her porch. This was Shelter Valley. A lot of people didn’t even lock their doors at night.

She opened the door, and when she saw who was standing there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, her heart started to pound so hard she actually felt sick.

“Why are you here?” she asked. It was too late to go back, to return to the lives they’d once lived. And for her and Sam, there was no going forward.

He shrugged, the dark strands of his hair almost touching the shoulders of his white shirt. His eyes glistened beneath the porch light. “I’m a little lost here, Cass,” he said, giving her a glimpse of the past—a glimpse of who they used to be. Two people who told each other everything.

She couldn’t do that anymore, could no longer be that person. Her hold on happiness was too fragile. Too tenuous.

“Perhaps you should go back where you came from, then,” she said, trying not to cry as she rejected the intimacy he was offering.

“I belong here.”

“Since when?”

He looked down at his tennis shoes and then back up at her. “Can I come in?” he asked softly.

“No!” There was nothing for them. No point. She’d built a life for herself inside this house—a house in which there was not one bit of evidence that Sam Montford had ever existed.

“Please, Cass,” he said, his eyes begging her. “You know if we keep standing out here, everyone’ll have us married again by morning.”

“Which is why you need to leave. Now.”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“I find myself needing a friend tonight, Cass. And you’re the best friend I ever had in this town.”

Why tonight in particular? Why did he need a friend now?

“Then why don’t you go back where you and Mariah came from? You obviously have friends there.” God, she hated what he was doing to her. How she was acting around him. But if she didn’t get defensive, she’d crumble into little pieces at his feet.

She’d needed him so badly for so many years. And had broken down when she’d lost him. She’d learned that breakdown was not an exaggerated or metaphorical description. It was exactly what had happened. And it had taken a lot of years to rebuild herself, to repair all the damage. She just couldn’t afford to allow Sam Montford to enter her life again.