The Thawing of Mara

by Janet Dailey

  The Thawing Of Mara

  The Americana Series: Pennsylvania

  Janet Dailey

  Janet Dailey's Americana Series

  Dangerous Masquerade (Alabama)

  Northern Magic (Alaska)

  Sonora Sundown (Arizona)

  Valley Of the Vapours (Arkansas)

  Fire And Ice (California)

  After the Storm (Colorado)

  Difficult Decision (Connecticut)

  The Matchmakers (Delaware)

  Southern Nights (Florida)

  Night Of The Cotillion (Georgia)

  Kona Winds (Hawaii)

  The Travelling Kind (Idaho)

  A Lyon's Share (Illinois)

  The Indy Man (Indiana)

  The Homeplace (Iowa)

  The Mating Season (Kansas)

  Bluegrass King (Kentucky)

  The Bride Of The Delta Queen (Louisiana)

  Summer Mahogany (Maine)

  Bed Of Grass (Maryland)

  That Boston Man (Massachusetts)

  Enemy In Camp (Michigan)

  Giant Of Mesabi (Minnesota)

  A Tradition Of Pride (Mississippi)

  Show Me (Missouri)

  Big Sky Country (Montana)

  Boss Man From Ogallala (Nebraska)

  Reilly's Woman (Nevada)

  Heart Of Stone (New Hampshire)

  One Of The Boys (New Jersey)

  Land Of Enchantment (New Mexico)

  Beware Of The Stranger (New York)

  That Carolina Summer (North Carolina)

  Lord Of the High Lonesome (North Dakota)

  The Widow And The Wastrel (Ohio)

  Six White Horses (Oklahoma)

  To Tell The Truth (Oregon)

  The Thawing Of Mara (Pennsylvania)

  Strange Bedfellow (Rhode Island)

  Low Country Liar (South Carolina)

  Dakota Dreamin' (South Dakota)

  Sentimental Journey (Tennessee)

  Savage Land (Texas)

  A Land Called Deseret (Utah)

  Green Mountain Man (Vermont)

  Tidewater Lover (Virginia)

  For Mike's Sake (Washington)

  Wild And Wonderful (West Virginia)

  With A Little Luck (Wisconsin)

  Darling Jenny (Wyoming)

  Other Janet Dailey Titles You Might Enjoy

  American Dreams

  Aspen Gold

  Fiesta San Antonio

  For Bitter Or Worse

  The Great Alone

  Heiress

  The Ivory Cane

  Legacies

  Masquerade

  The Master Fiddler

  No Quarter Asked

  Rivals

  Something Extra

  Sweet Promise

  Tangled Vines

  Introduction

  Introducing JANET DAILEY AMERICANA. Every novel in this collection is your passport to a romantic tour of the United States through time-honored favorites by America's First Lady of romance fiction. Each of the fifty novels is set in a different state, researched by Janet and her husband, Bill. For the Daileys it was an odyssey of discovery. For you, it's the journey of a lifetime.

  Preface

  When I first started writing back in the Seventies, my husband Bill and I were retired and traveling all over the States with our home—a 34' travel trailer—in tow. That's when Bill came up with the great idea of my writing a romance novel set in each one of our fifty states. It was an idea I ultimately accomplished before switching to mainstream fiction and hitting all the international bestseller lists.

  As we were preparing to reissue these early titles, I initially planned to update them all—modernize them, so to speak, and bring them into the new high-tech age. Then I realized I couldn't do that successfully any more than I could take a dress from the Seventies and redesign it into one that would look as if it were made yesterday. That's when I saw that the true charm of these novels is their look back on another time and another age. Over the years, they have become historical novels, however recent the history. When you read them yourself, I know you will feel the same.

  So, enjoy, and happy reading to all!

  Chapter One

  "MARA?"

  Over the whine of the electric mixer, Mara heard her name called, but she didn't bother to acknowledge it. Instead she added more sugar to the egg whites and continued to beat them until they formed stiff peaks. She was spooning the meringue onto the pie filling when she heard the hum of the wheelchair approaching the kitchen.

  "Mara, the mailman just drove by." The chair rolled to a stop inside the room. "I'm expecting some correspondence from Fitzgerald. Will you see if it's come?"

  Mara didn't turn around. "I'm busy at the moment, Adam." She continued to spread the meringue thickly over the pie, ignoring the instant of tense silence.

  "Will you please stop calling me that?" The request sliced tersely through the air. "I am your father and you will address me as such."

  Over her shoulder, Mara glanced at the man whose surname of Prentiss she had rightfully carried since birth. Her heart turned to stone at the sight of the handsome man imprisoned in the wheelchair.

  His hair was as black as her own, except at the temple where wisps of silver gave him a distinguished air. They shared the same deep color of eyes. There was enough similarity in their sculpted features that there was no mistaking they were father and daughter.

  "I'm not denying my parentage, Adam." Her voice was as cool as her attitude.

  He whitened at her continued usage of his given name, his fingers tightening on the armrest of his chair. Mara noted his reaction with indifferent satisfaction and let her attention return to the pie. After swirling the white top into decorative peaks, she opened the door to the preheated oven and set the pie inside to brown the meringue. All the while the man in the wheelchair remained silent.

  "It looks good." Her father forced the words out, striving for lightness and a degree of familiarity. "What kind is it? Chocolate, I hope."

  "It's lemon," Mara retorted, not changing the temperature of her voice.

  "You should make some chocolate cream pie sometime," he suggested.

  "I loathe chocolate pie." She set the beaters and bowl in the sink and ran the water from the tap.

  "You didn't always hate it." It was almost a challenge. Then his voice became warm and reminiscent. "When you were growing up, we used to argue over who got the last slice of chocolate pie. We usually ended up splitting it."

  "That was a long time ago." Her curtness dismissed the idea that the past had anything to do with today.

  "Your mother made the best chocolate cream pies I've ever tasted." Adam Prentiss went on. "I don't know where Rosemary got the recipe, but—"

  Mara pivoted. Anger blazed in her dark eyes, burning off the frigid aloofness that usually encased her. It consumed her with an all-enraging hatred.

  "How dare you speak my mother's name!" she accused in a seething breath.

  "She was my wife," he stated, levelly meeting her glare.

  "Was she?" The taunting challenge was drawn through tightly clenched teeth as years of bitterness trembled through Mara. "You conveniently forgot about that when you ran off with that little tramp, didn't you?"

  "I didn't forget it," Adam Prentiss denied.

  "You had a wife and child." Her voice was rising in volume. You abandoned us without so much as a backward glance!"

  "You were only fifteen at the time, Mara," he attempted to reason. "You couldn't know—"

  "I was there!" she flared. "I know what happened. When you walked out on my mother for another woman, it killed her. It just took a few years before she literally died. She adored you, she worshipped you. She ate, breathed and slept
for you. You were the only thing that mattered to her."

  "Do you think I wasn't sorry?" her father retaliated. "Do you honestly believe I didn't wish there was another way? Do you think I didn't care?"

  "All you cared about was that young blonde," Mara retorted, and turned away in disgust. "My God, she was only a few years older than I was!"

  "I was in love with Jocelyn and I won't apologize for that," he said quietly. "But as strange as it sounds, it is possible to care about two women at the same time. I did care about your mother."

  "I don't believe you. I saw the callous way you treated her," she reminded him. "Even before that blonde, you flirted with everything in skirts."

  "For God's sake, Mara, those incidents were perfectly harmless." His impatient reply was angry.

  "Harmless?" A bitterly amused sound came from her throat. "Yes, mother always used to laugh them off, but I could see the hurt in her eyes. You must have seen it, too. But it never bothered you, did it?"

  "I don't have to justify my behavior to you. I've never pretended to be perfect." He was coldly indignant.

  "But you managed to convince mother you were," Mara continued her attack with vindictive zeal. "She used to think she was the luckiest woman on earth because she was your wife."

  "I was in love with someone else. Do you honestly believe I should have stayed married to your mother when I knew that?" her father challenged. "Both of us would have been miserable if I'd done that."

  "So you walked out on her. That way she was the only one who was miserable," she pointed out spitefully.

  "All right, I hurt your mother. I admit that," he declared in agitation. "But give me credit for providing for her financially. I turned everything over to her—the house, the land, money, everything I owned except my clothes. I had nothing. I still have nothing. You got it all when she died."

  "Did you think she'd leave it to you?" Mara jeered.

  "No." It was a sighing answer, a mixture of defeat and exasperation. "Haven't I paid enough, Mara? Jocelyn was killed in the crash that did this to me. I'm permanently crippled. The doctors have even warned that as I grow older, my condition may deteriorate to the point where I won't even be able to get around in a wheelchair."

  As the fight went out of his voice, Mara's fiery anger left, too. An icy calm stole through her, cooling her features into a frozen mask and freezing her senses to his plight. She walked to the oven where the curling peaks of the pie's meringue were the color of golden toast.

  "If you're attempting to arouse my pity—" with a pot holder, Mara took the pie from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool "—you're wasting your time."

  "I'm attempting to understand you," her father replied wearily. "Why am I here? After my accident you went to the doctors and told them that you were bringing me here and you would take care of me. At the time I thought you'd finally forgiven me. But you haven't. So why am I here?"

  "Unlike you, I felt a sense of family obligation." Mara returned the pot holder to its drawer. "Regardless of how I feel about you, you are my father. It's my duty to take care of you."

  "And that's why I'm here. Because you consider it's your duty." He studied her, brown eyes measuring brown eyes. "Are you sure I'm not a convenient excuse to shut yourself off from the rest of the world?"

  A smile twisted her mouth. "It's my responsibility to take care of you. But I'm sure you don't understand that since you don't know the meaning of the word."

  "You're so righteous, Mara, that I sometimes expect to see a halo circling your head," Adam Prentiss commented dryly. "Yet you have few friends. Whenever people invite you somewhere, you always turn them down because you have to stay here to take care of me. Hardly anyone calls anymore."

  "It doesn't bother me." Mara lifted her shoulders in an uncaring shrug.

  "You rarely went out when your mother was alive, either, did you? You spent most of your time with her." There was a shrewd gleam in his look.

  "Mother was very lonely after you deserted her." The flatness of her statement was calculated to lash at him. "She needed me."

  "You used her as an excuse the same way that you're using me," her father accused in a low, quiet voice. "You like to look down on the rest of us from your lofty position of piety. What are you afraid of, Mara? Are you afraid that if you step down from your pedestal, you'll discover you're as imperfect as the rest of us?"

  "Believe whatever you wish, Adam. I couldn't care less what you think." With a mildly arrogant smile, she turned from him and walked to the coat rack. Taking her wool plaid jacket from an iron hook, she put it on. "I'll go and see if the mailman left anything in our box."

  "Go ahead and run from the conversation, Mara," he interposed. "It's as ineffective as shutting yourself away."

  At first she made no response as she paused at the back door. When she turned, her gaze sought the man in the wheelchair.

  "You're only trying to rationalize your own feelings of guilt, Adam," she said. "You know you need someone to take care of you, but you prefer to pretend that I'm doing it for some other reason because it makes you feel better."

  "Oh, Mara!" He shook his head sadly.

  Her gaze strayed from him to wander over the old, cozy kitchen. The oak cupboards and cabinets had been installed over a century ago, but time hadn't dulled the rich luster of the wood. The walls were papered in a cheerful yellow and white check design to match the tieback curtains at the windows.

  An aging oak table and spindle-backed chairs stood in the middle of the room. The tabletop was covered with a bright yellow cloth, a small wicker basket of red apples and oranges at its center. The floor was covered with a continuous length of white linoleum, speckled with red, yellow and green.

  "I know it bothers you that this is my home," Mara said. "You're only here at my sufferance. Knowing how you abandoned us, it probably irritates you to be so dependent upon me. But you're really very lucky, Adam. Here you have a comfortable place to live and you can continue your work. Plus, you not only have me as nurse and housekeeper, but also as a typist and researcher. Why don't you think about that instead of seeking an ulterior motive for something that I'm only doing out of a sense of family duty?"

  When she was answered with silence, Mara turned and opened the back door. "Don't let the wind blow your halo off," came her father's biting words of caution.

  Her lips thinned as she pushed open the second door, its screen replaced with storm-glass panes. She closed the inner door while stepping outside. The second door swung shut on its own when she released it.

  A brick path circled the house to the front entrance then continued out to the gravel road. There was an autumn chill in the air, September's breath. A few leaves were scattered around on the green lawn even though there hadn't been a killing frost yet. The trees were still full and green, but soon they would be painted with autumn colors. Then the Pennsylvania countryside around Gettysburg would be arrayed in hues of gold and scarlet and rust.

  With her hands in her pockets, Mara held her jacket front together and followed the brick walk out to the road. The carriage of her head was naturally high, but after her father's biting rejoinder she held her head even higher. She despised him. The force of the emotion clenched her hands into fists in the pockets of her jacket.

  How typical of him to try to make someone else feel guilty! Mara remembered how her mother had anguished over what she had done wrong when he'd run off with that other woman. Mara had insisted it wasn't her fault. The only blame she placed on her mother was for being such a fool over him.

  A squirrel scurried around, busily stashing his winter supply of food. Overhead there was a flash of scarlet as a cardinal flitted among the tree branches. But the wildlife didn't draw even a passing interest from Mara.

  At the mailbox, she pulled down the door and removed the letters inside. Pausing, she glanced through them. Most were addressed to her father, although there were a couple of bills for her, typically she received no personal correspondence.


  It was true that she had few friends, but she had never felt any great sense of loss at her lack of companionship. In fact, Mara often felt sorry for those who had to constantly be with others. She was content to be alone, not depending on someone else to entertain her. She viewed it as a trait of strength.

  Mara's independence was something that had developed over her twenty-two years. Part of it came from her environment, being raised in the country with none of the close neighbors having children her age, and with no brothers or sisters. Part came from the circumstances of her life. Her schoolmates had sympathized with her at her father's sudden departure, but they hadn't understood the sense of betrayal Mara felt.

  His desertion of her and her mother for another, younger woman wasn't something that could be kept quiet. Adam Prentiss was a noted Civil War historian, an authority on the Battle of Gettysburg. Everyone in the area knew what had happened and why.

  Mara had been in her first month of college when her mother took sick. She had left college and cared for her mother until she died six weeks later. Then there had been the arrangements for the funeral and all the legal business of settling the estate. Finally there had been her father's accident two years ago. All of it had contributed to Mara's unconscious decision to rely on no one but herself.

  She closed the mailbox and turned to retrace her steps to the two-story red brick farmhouse with its white windows and door. A car came down the country road. It slowed as it approached and honked its horn. She recognized Harve Bennett, the dark-haired driver.

  "I have some good news for you!" he shouted out of the opened car window, and turned into the driveway that ran parallel with the brick walk.

  Mara lifted an eyebrow in fleeting curiosity before she started toward the house. His message obviously had something to do with the cottage on the far corner of the property. Harve Bennett was a young real estate man with whom Mara had become acquainted while ironing out some title questions during the settling of her mother's property and estate.

  The cottage had once provided rental income. After her father had left, it had become neglected and too run-down to be rented. A few months ago, Harve had finally succeeded in persuading Mara to make the necessary repairs and fix it up. Mara had agreed, partly because her father had advised against it, insisting that she wouldn't be able to recoup the cost through the nominal rent she could charge for the small one-bedroom cottage.