A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) (4 page)

It was two stories, white wood, dark shutters, redbrick steps and foundation. The porch ran the length of the house, but it wasn’t very wide, not like the porch on his mom’s house that functioned as an outdoor living room. There was a swing and a wicker chair at one end, two wooden rockers at the other, with big pots of red flowers evenly spaced along the porch.

In the dim light, a piece of metal gleamed dully on the supporting post at the left of the steps, an anchor for hanging a flag. Flower beds lined the porch and the sidewalk that led to the driveway, where a silver minivan was parked in front of the garage. There were no toys visible—no three-wheelers or bikes, no basketball hoop, no abandoned skateboards. Inside, lights shone through sheer curtains in various rooms downstairs and were muted by blinds in one upstairs room.

So this was where Mariah’s father lived. Keegan didn’t know much about him beyond his name, and what he did know wasn’t encouraging. The guy had been married when he’d gone to Fort Polk for training and hooked up with Sabrina. Then he’d come back home to Fort Murphy, and she’d never heard from him again. He hadn’t even had the decency to respond when she told him she was pregnant. One e-mail going astray, maybe, but four? All going to his army.mil account? Not likely.

The house was nice, one Keegan couldn’t afford on his salary. Of course, majors made significantly more than sergeants, and the major’s wife probably had a job of her own. And kids of their own, judging by the size of the place. He’d guess four, maybe five bedrooms.

His chest tightened, and he shifted the air-conditioning to high, turning the vents so they blew straight at his face. There had to be room in a house like that for Mariah. Her father might have ignored her existence until now, and his wife might not know a thing about her, but things were about to change. Things
had
changed, the day Sabrina dropped her off and kept going.

Guilt settled in his gut, and he would have cursed his mother for putting it there if he hadn’t been afraid God would smack him down for it. He wasn’t Mariah’s father. He’d dated her mother for two years, lived with her for one before she confessed to her affair with the major. That didn’t make him responsible for her child. It wasn’t his job to find her real family. It was just something he needed to do.

He was going to talk to her father, scope out the situation with his family, to make sure they would provide a good home for her. He wasn’t abandoning her, because she wasn’t his to abandon.

Now, if he could just get those damned big, solemn brown eyes out of his mind…

He’d sat there long enough to see everything and learn nothing. Shifting into drive again, he eased from the curb and headed back to Main Street. After a stop at a drive-in for a cheeseburger and onion rings, he drove a few more blocks to a motel on the west end of town. It was a genuine old-fashioned motor court, or at least made to look like one, with tiny individual structures for each room. A metal lawn chair in familiar faded green occupied each stoop, and neon buzzed and perfumed the air.

The metal key to Room 9 was bent. Getting it into the lock required a little jiggling, but soon enough the tumblers fell and he opened the door. Nothing luxurious—he’d known that from seeing the outside. But the room wasn’t shabby. The vinyl floor was clean, the area rug showed marks from being recently vacuumed, and the bed was neatly made. Instead of stale-motel, it smelled like something baking—his mother’s sticky buns, maybe.

The window air conditioner cooled with a hum instead of the deafening racket he’d expected, and the sofa was comfortable. With a tiny kitchenette—dorm fridge, two-burner cooktop, sink—he’d do fine for however long he had to be here. Best hope: a day. Realistic hope: a week or more.

That was okay. He had forty-five days’ leave on the books. If it took every one of them to get Mariah settled elsewhere, so be it.

After eating dinner, he brought in his bag, then pulled out the phone to call his mother. She’d already let him know, not long after he’d hit the interstate, that she and Mariah were back home in Natchitoches.
Call me when you get to Tallgrass,
she’d instructed him again. He grinned at the thought of all the times she’d told him that.
Call me when you get to basic training. Call me when you get back from leave. Call me when you get to Iraq. Call me when you get to Afghanistan.

He had four brothers and sisters to prove there’d been a father in his life, but not one that had mattered much. Ercella was twice the man Max Logan was, mother and father to her own kids, now to Mariah.
Isn’t it possible she’s yours?
she’d asked more than once.
I think I see your eyes in hers.

It wasn’t possible. Not unless Sabrina had had the longest pregnancy on record, or the shortest with a healthy, full-term baby.

“I’m in Tallgrass,” he said when his mother answered the phone.

The television sounded in the background, along with kids’ voices. It didn’t matter where Ercella went, she always attracted kids. With her own grown and her grandkids living an hour or more away, she entertained the neighborhood kids on Saturday nights and most any other time they wandered over. “Is it nice?” she asked over the noise.

“Well, it’s no Natchitoches,” he said drily.

“Naturally. Have you decided how you’re going to…”

He silently finished the question for her: give away the grandbaby who wasn’t her grandbaby in any place except her heart. “I thought I’d go by and meet the guy tomorrow afternoon.”

“What? And just say, ‘Hey, remember when you had an affair with my girlfriend? Well, here’s a cigar, it’s a girl’?”

His scowl fixed on the silent television. “I haven’t exactly figured that out.”

“Be up front. ‘You got a two-year-old daughter and her mama doesn’t want her and I don’t want her and—’”

Keegan heard a sob before Ercella clamped off the words. It both pained and frustrated him. “Mom, I’m sorry—”

“I know.” Sniffly noises, as if she was wiping her nose. “You don’t wanna raise a kid who’s not yours. I understand that. It’s expensive. Lots of responsibility for a lot of years. It’s not your job. I get it, Keegan.”

But in her heart, Keegan knew, she really didn’t. She might have in the very beginning, when he’d first told her the situation with Mariah, when he’d asked for her help. But now that she’d gotten to know the little girl, of course she’d fallen in love with her. How could she not? She was a mother deep in her bones, to any kids who needed mothering.

God help her, Mariah needed mothering. She’d had so little of it in her life.

“I’ll call you as soon as I talk to the major, okay?”

“Make sure you do.” Ercella breathed deeply and made an effort to sound normal. “I’ve got to shoo these kids home and get Mariah bathed and ready for bed. You want to say good night to her?”

Before Keegan could say no—he was ashamed of it, but there it was—his mom’s voice distantly said, “She’s listening. Say something.”

“Hey, Mariah.” He cleared his throat. “Sounds like you’re having a good time. Good night and…sleep tight and…” Before he could remember the rest of his mother’s nightly routine with her kids, the phone hit the floor with a thud.

A moment later, Ercella came on again. “She was listening. She recognized your voice. I could see it in her little eyes.”

Of course she recognized his voice. She’d heard it talking around and about her every day for the past month. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Mom. Love you.”

After her
love you, too,
he laid the phone aside and stretched back on the bed. Best hope: a day. Realistic: a week. Worst: having to turn to the authorities to get Mariah’s father to accept responsibility for her. Even though it would break his mom’s heart, he didn’t have a choice.

Because he wasn’t Mariah’s father.

Sunday morning services were one of the highlights of Therese’s week. The church she attended occupied an entire block on the fringe between the business district and the houses that edged downtown. Broad concrete steps led to an old sandstone building with classrooms and a gym on the lower level and a sanctuary with arched stained glass windows filling the upper level. Her regular seat was a pew about a third from the back on the left, which she shared most Sundays with Carly, while Abby and Jacob sat elsewhere with their friends.

She wasn’t surprised this morning that Carly was absent. Still floating somewhere in the stratosphere with Dane, she supposed as she settled on the bench alone.

The solitude didn’t last long. She’d just set her purse aside when the cushions gave slightly and a familiar voice greeted her. “Hello, Therese. How are you?”

Loretta Baxter was a major and one of the few people in Therese’s life who created incredibly bittersweet feelings just by existing. LoLo had been the CNO—casualty notification officer—who had notified Therese of Paul’s death, so she was associated with the worst moment of Therese’s life. Afterward, though, she’d provided counseling, support, and friendship that had helped Therese keep her sanity on more than one occasion.

She was also one of the rare people outside of the margarita club to whom Therese didn’t have to lie. “Things could be better. I’m not sure they could be worse.”

“I noticed Abby’s new hairstyle. And color. And the tan.” LoLo glanced at her hands, folded in her lap. “And her manicure looks better than mine.”

“Did you also notice the rage in her eyes?”

“I thought she looked a little testy when we passed in the aisle. So the visit with her mother wasn’t a success.”

“The visit was fine. The coming home sucked pond water.” Therese gazed at an arch of Jesus with the children.
Suffer the little children…to come unto me
, He’d said.
Suffer
seemed such an appropriate word at the moment.

“Have you made any decisions?”

Therese’s fingers tightened on her Bible. While the kids were in California, she’d had an appointment with the Judge Advocate General’s office—the legal office—on post, and she’d talked with LoLo. It seemed everyone knew of her desire to reclaim her life by giving up custody of Paul’s kids. Except the kids.

“Not yet. I actually feel like I’m making a bit of progress with Jacob. It—it would be okay having him.” She stared harder at the image, the colors so vibrant, the love so obvious even in glass. Such serenity.

When was the last time she’d felt serene? Long before Paul’s death. Being a military wife wasn’t ever easy. The moves, the training, the deployments, the forced independence, the loneliness, the ever-present fear of loss. Her last moments of serenity had likely been when they’d moved to Tallgrass: a new post, a new town they both loved immediately, new opportunities, and plans to get pregnant as soon as they settled in.

Then had come custody of the kids.

Then the deployment.

Then his death.

“But you can’t stop thinking about how that would make Abby feel,” LoLo said quietly.

Abandoned by everyone. Rejected while Jacob was accepted. Even more unwanted and unloved than she already felt.

Therese sighed heavily as the choir filed onto the stage and the pastor moved into place behind the pulpit. “It’s a hard decision.”

LoLo squeezed her hand. “You’ll make the right one. I have faith in you.”

Though she dutifully bowed her head as the pastor requested, inside she was silently scoffing. Faith? In her? She didn’t even have that herself anymore. Once she’d thought she could rule the world, but truth was, she hadn’t faced any real complications in that world. Life as she’d known it was easy.

Lord, I’m not asking for easy again. Just bearable. I can live with bearable. Please.

After prayers and songs, the congregation split up for Sunday school, kids and young adults streaming out the side doors, mothers taking their little ones to the nursery, singles and seniors heading for their own classes. Therese remained where she was, her gaze following Abby as she shuffled along behind Nicole, head down, full lower lip stuck out. She looked miserable, so at odds with her delicate beauty. An angel whose burdens had become unbearable.

The Sunday school class was interesting, the sermon inspiring, the singing the best part of the service. Old hymns spoke to her soul, and this morning they were all old. They gave her peace, at least, until the closing prayer was echoed with
Amens
around the room.

LoLo hugged her when they stood. “If you ever need anything…”

“I’ve got your number.” Therese returned the hug.

“And I’ve got your back.”

LoLo wandered away to visit with other members. The congregation was a nice mix of civilian and military, families who’d lived there a hundred years and families who would move on in three years. Therese and Paul would have moved on by now if things had been different. She would have been teaching in a new school, the kids adjusting to their own new schools and the knowledge that, in a few more years, they would move on again. Nomads, gypsies. She thought Jacob was well suited for the life.

Abby, not so much.

After speaking with the minister and his wife, along with the youth minister, Therese located the kids outside and motioned them toward the car. About halfway there, they fell into step, a silent group. Therese knew how the next few minutes would go: she would ask,
What do you want for dinner?
Jacob would grunt, and Abby would ignore her. She would throw out some suggestions; Jacob would grunt, and Abby would ignore her. She would finally make a choice, and Jacob would say nothing, and Abby would sniff scornfully.

Since Carly was usually with them, the routine hadn’t bothered Therese so much, but Carly wasn’t there today. She might stop going to church completely, or she might go elsewhere with Dane. She might prefer to develop her own family’s Sunday routine over being a part of the dysfunctional Mathesons’.

The possibility hurt somewhere deep inside Therese. Carly was her best friend, and nothing could end that. But Carly being in love and happy with Dane could change it.