A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel)

by Marilyn Pappano

  “And sometimes like a ghost?” Ilena’s look made it clear she found that odd. That was okay. A lot about Jessy was odd, but they hadn’t stopped loving her because of it yet.

  She found her purse on the dining table instead of hanging from its usual hook near the door and slung the strap over her shoulder, then went to help Ilena up from the too-comfy couch. “What does Junior want for lunch?”

  “My boy may be here by way of Guadalajara, but we need some pasta and cheese today. How about Luca’s?”

  “Sounds good.” Comfort food, and she definitely needed comfort.

  * * *

  “You should take her with you.”

  Keegan Logan secured the duffel that held his clothes, then rummaged through an olive-drab backpack to check its contents: laptop computer, power cords, paperwork, a handful of CDs. After zipping it, he finally met his mother’s gaze. “It’s a nine-hour drive.”

  “You can stop every few hours to give her a break.”

  “That would make it an eleven- or twelve-hour drive.” When that didn’t faze Ercella, he made another excuse. “She’s not comfortable alone with me.”

  Ercella gave him a dry look. “You mean you’re not comfortable alone with her. You could fix that if you just tried. Get down on the floor with her. Play with her. Talk to her. Bounce her on your knee. Lord, Keegan, you know how to act with babies. I’ve seen you with your sisters’ kids.”

  “Yeah, you saw me ignore their existence until they were old enough to be fun. Besides, they’re boys.” Both his sisters lived in Shreveport, so he didn’t see their kids that often. And he was good at doing boy things. And his nephews didn’t look at him like they’d summed him up and found him lacking. They didn’t narrow their eyes into little squints and let out shrieks that could shear metal.

  They didn’t look lost and alone, the way Mariah sometimes did.

  “Besides,” he went on before Ercella could speak. “I want to check this guy out. I want to see…”

  His mother’s eyes narrowed into little squints, and she held the baby a little tighter. “Are you sure…Have you really thought about this?”

  Hell, he’d done nothing but think about it for the last month. He woke up wondering what to do about Mariah, and he fell asleep considering the same thing. He’d been going into work late and taking off early, talking to social workers and a lawyer and the chaplain in his unit at Fort Polk. He hadn’t done a damn thing besides think about Mariah.

  And regret the day he’d ever met her mother, Sabrina.

  He’d loved her, he’d hated her, and since she’d abandoned Mariah with him, he’d been furious with her. Not that she knew or cared, since he hadn’t heard from her for more than a year before she’d decided to take a vacation from being a mother. He hadn’t even seen the nearly three-year-old Mariah until the day the social worker had led her by the hand to him and performed the introductions.

  If he could get his hands on Sabrina…

  He risked a look at the little girl, settled into his mother’s arms as if she belonged there, blond hair curling delicately around her chubby-cherub face. Her brown eyes watched him with a seriousness no two-year-old should ever know, and he wondered for the hundredth time what was going through that little brain of hers. Faultfinding? Her mother had certainly excelled at that. Disillusionment? Sabrina had that in spades, too. Wariness that, like her mother, one day he and Ercella would disappear from her life without notice?

  Guilt prickled his neck because that was exactly what he planned. If everything checked out in Oklahoma, she would be going to another family. Another man would get on the floor and play with her, talk to her, and bounce her on his knee. Another man would fall in love with her and do his best to protect her and keep her safe.

  Keegan wasn’t meant for that role. He wasn’t father material. Especially for another man’s daughter.

  Deliberately he shifted his attention from Mariah and that line of thought. “When are you guys going home?” Home for Ercella was Natchitoches, fifty miles from Leesville, half that again from Shreveport. She had more or less moved in with him when Mariah had come, but with him out of town, she was happy to be returning to her own place.

  “Soon as I get her stuff packed. I’m going to show her all the places my other grandkids—I mean, my grandkids—love and all the places you knew growing up.” Regret pinched the corners of her mouth. He’d warned her before she’d come here that Mariah’s presence in their lives was short-term, and she’d insisted that she understood. Still, it hadn’t taken her more than about five minutes to get totally charmed by the kid. Left to her, he would be Mariah’s father, despite proof to the contrary, and Sabrina’s daughter would be a Logan forever.

  But it wasn’t just for himself that he was heading off to track down her father. She deserved to be with real family. She deserved to know who her people were, and they weren’t Logans.

  “Okay. Well. Guess I’ll take off.” He circled the dining table and hugged his mother, inhaling the scents of bacon lingering from breakfast, perfume, and clean laundry and recently bathed baby.

  Ercella squeezed him tightly, then forced a big smile for Mariah. “Sweetie, want to give Keegan a hug good-bye?”

  As usual, the girl studied him, fingers stuffed in her mouth, as if he were an alien creature. She wasn’t going to give him a hug, say good-bye, or do anything but look at him and judge him, and he and his mom both knew it.

  This time, she surprised them both. Just as he started to step back, she pitched forward, tumbling out of his mother’s arms and landing in his, her arms wrapping around his neck.

  Keegan froze, not quite sure what to do. Her solid little body felt foreign—too soft, sweet, innocent. He’d never held her, not once, because she hadn’t allowed it, because he hadn’t wanted it. She’d never spoken to him, never touched him, never done anything but watch him warily, and now she was holding on as if she might never let go.

  It felt…nice.

  Aw, hell, he really needed to get on the road.

  He was about to tug loose and return her to Ercella when she reversed her earlier move, leaping into his mother’s more familiar embrace. His throat tight, he forced a smile. “Gotta go.”

  “You call me as soon as you get to Tallgrass. And be careful.”

  He nodded, picked up his bags, and left the apartment.

  His destination was programmed into the Garmin: 718 Cheyenne, Tallgrass, Oklahoma. He felt bad about leaving Mariah, though she was happier with his mom than she was with him. It was necessary, though. Since Sabrina had named him as father on Mariah’s birth certificate, no one else was much interested in finding her real father. Besides, like he’d told his mother, he wanted to check the guy out. He wanted to make sure he was a good fit for Mariah. Wanted to be sure she would be welcomed into his family.

  And if he decided she didn’t belong there? she had asked. Then what?

  “I’m not her father.”

  Too bad that didn’t solve the problem.

  And way too bad that saying the words didn’t ease the guilt still prickling at the back of his neck.

  * * *

  On the hour’s drive northwest to Tallgrass, Therese asked the kids if they wanted to stop for lunch. Jacob declined, and Abby ignored her. She asked if they’d taken lots of pictures. Jacob said no, and Abby ignored her. She asked how their mother was. Jacob grunted, and Abby ignored her.

  Once they got home and she told Abby that she wouldn’t be wearing those clothes or that makeup for at least another few years, Abby would no longer pretend Therese didn’t exist. Therese half-wished she could do the ignoring and just close her eyes to what the girl did, but there was no way any child in her care was going to leave the house looking like that.

  Tallgrass was a small and lovely old town, dating back to Oklahoma’s pre-statehood days. Its early purpose had been to provide for the area ranches and the settlers brought there by the land run. Later it had supported the oil-field workers, as well,
and for the last sixty years, it had been home to Fort Murphy, which tripled its population.

  Paul had been transferred there four years ago, and she’d fallen in love with the place. They’d bought a house big enough for his kids and the babies they’d intended to have together, with a manicured front lawn and a big backyard for play and family cookouts. But there hadn’t been any babies, his kids weren’t interested in outdoor play, except for Jacob’s football and baseball teams, and Abby never missed a chance to remind her that they weren’t a family.

  Someday the kids would be gone. Either their mother would take them back, or her parents, or maybe Paul’s parents. Or maybe Abby would miraculously start behaving like a human being, or Therese would find peace with the idea of putting her in foster care. Failing all that, if she could hold herself together for five more years of misery, then she could be free.

  Freedom had never sounded so good…or seemed so impossible.

  As she shut off the engine in the driveway, she said, “Abby, put the phone away, take your stuff inside, and unpack.”

  Abby either didn’t think Therese saw the face she made or simply didn’t care, but she tucked the phone into her tiny purse before sliding to the ground and stalking to the back of the van. The high school boys sitting on the porch across the street came to sudden attention, eyes popping, mouths gaping.

  Oh, Lord, please not that. Therese had enough worries without adding males to the list.

  Abby dragged her pink bags into the house, leaving the door standing open, and the boys slowly sank back into lethargy. Therese wanted to yell at them, She’s thirteen! She wanted to go upstairs to her room and march back down with the .40 caliber handgun locked in Paul’s gun safe and warn them what would happen if they even thought about his baby in that way.

  She settled for scowling at them, then jerking the black bag out, slamming the hatch, and following Jacob inside. He went to the laundry room off the kitchen, unzipped his backpack, and dumped the contents into the hamper there. After grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, he headed past her with a grunt on his way upstairs. Within minutes he would be on the computer, headset on, jumping with both feet into the game he’d last played six days ago. He wouldn’t make another appearance until hunger drove him to it.

  Therese put her purse and keys in the kitchen, blew out a breath, and much more slowly climbed the stairs. Abby’s door was open, and she was reclining on the bed, one sandaled foot on the white spread, the other stretched high so she could admire the shoe. As usual, she was talking on the phone to Nicole, her BFF and, until very recently, the coolest kid in town. No doubt, Abby now felt that title belonged to her.

  “—so much fun,” she was saying when Therese stopped in the doorway. “I can’t wait till you see my hair and all the clothes she bought me. And the shoes! They make me taller than you. We spent a whole day at the spa, and I’ve got the best tan ever, and the cutest outfits! It was the best week of my life.”

  Therese waited, hands hanging limply at her sides. She really wanted to fold her arms across her chest and scowl as hard as she had at the boys outside, but there was no reason to start off openly aggressive. They would get there quickly enough.

  Tiring of admiring her right foot, Abby lowered it to the mattress and raised the left one, twisting her ankle this way and that. It was a pretty ankle, a pretty leg, all bronzed and lean and leading to a compact lean body. She was more assured at thirteen than Therese had been at thirty, more aware of the attention she received from others. The teenage girl Therese had once been envied her; the woman charged with overseeing her welfare was cringing in the corner with her hands over her eyes.

  Trying to feel more like the woman, she moved into the room and picked up the larger of the suitcases, set it on the foot of the bed, and unzipped it.

  Frowning at her, Abby said, “Gotta go, Nicole. See you tomorrow.” She set the phone on the nightstand, then sat up, arms folded over her middle. “Those are my bags. They’re private.”

  “You live in this house. Nothing is private beyond your journal, if you keep one, your purse, and, to some extent, your room, so long as you don’t give me a reason to reconsider that.” She flipped open the suitcase and saw nothing but unfamiliar clothes inside. She shook out the top garment. “Is this a dress or a shirt?”

  Abby rolled her eyes. “A dress. Duh.”

  With a nod, Therese laid it to one side. Next came a pair of jeans so skinny that only through the miracle of stretch fibers could they possibly fit her stepdaughter. They were the start of a second pile. The tiny shorts that measured the width of Therese’s hand from waistband to crotch joined the dress, along with a couple of tops too fitted and too revealing for any child.

  “What are you doing?” Abby finally demanded.

  “Sorting out what you can wear and what’s going into storage.”

  Abby surged from the bed and nearly lost her footing. She wasn’t quite as accustomed to those four-inch heels as she’d thought. “You can’t do that! They’re mine! My mother bought them for me.”

  Therese reached the bottom of the suitcase and picked up a handful of undergarments. No, not undergarments. Lingerie. Matched sets. Bikinis. Thongs. Push-up bras. Black, royal blue, red, purple. They were prettier, sexier, and more revealing than anything she owned, including the lingerie she’d bought for her honeymoon.

  Struggling to keep her hand steady, she began repacking them in the suitcase. Out of the twelve garments and the lingerie, she left only two or three pieces on the bed.

  “You can’t do that!” Abby repeated, grabbing for the bra in Therese’s hand.

  Therese shot her a look so hard that Abby should have fallen backward from the impact. Sullenly, she let her hand drop, then took a few steps away, her bottom lip poked out.

  After a moment’s stare, Therese looked at the bra. Catherine hadn’t bothered with Victoria’s Secret, judging from the padded cups, red lace edging black satin, and breakaway front clasp. She’d gone straight to Frederick’s of Hollywood. For her thirteen-year-old daughter! She dropped it into the suitcase, closed the flap, and zipped it before reaching for the smaller bag.

  Quivering with anger, Abby went to the closet. “You have to let me wear them.” She threw open both bi-fold doors, then clenched her fists. “I have nothing else. I left all my other clothes there because I knew you would do this. I told Mom so.”

  She wasn’t exaggerating by much. Except for her school uniforms and the dresses she wore to church, her closet was practically empty. A few pairs of jeans, a couple of old T-shirts that had sentimental value but no fashion sense, two hoodies. There were gym shorts and underwear in her dresser, but she’d taken practically everything else with her.

  “You’d better call your mom and ask her to ship them back, then, or you’re going to get awfully tired of wearing the same things all the time.” Therese sorted through the second bag, confiscating three more pairs of ridiculous heels, two more bags of cosmetics, and—she gulped silently—two of the skimpiest swimsuits she’d ever seen. She was surprised thunder didn’t roll across the plains from Paul’s roar of disapproval.

  “I can’t do that, because we threw them away.”

  Therese hoped she was lying, but it sounded like exactly what she and Catherine would do. Catherine might be Abby’s mother, but she didn’t want to be. Occasional friendship without real responsibility better suited her nature, and conspiring with Abby to thwart Therese would be an easy way to cement that friendship.

  “If that’s the case, you’ll have to buy new clothes from your allowance.”

  She expected another roar, but the girl just stared at her. In that moment, there was nothing of Paul’s baby in her, just quiet fury. Malevolence. Sheer hatred. Her eyes were like chocolate ice, her rage unflinching, but when she spoke, her voice was far calmer than the shriek Therese was used to.

  “You know, I don’t pray very much because I don’t think God really listens, but I do pray for one thing every
night. I pray for you to die.”

  Chapter 2

  All his life, Dalton Smith had found comfort in the Double D Ranch. He lived alone, worked too hard, and didn’t make much more than a living wage, but it didn’t matter. This was where he was born. Where he was raised. Where he was meant to be.

  His parents had left it. Once they’d been sure the ranch was in capable hands, they’d invested in an RV and had been seeing the country ever since, winters down south, summers up north, stopping off at any place that caught their fancy and had hookups.

  His little brother, Noah, would probably leave, too. A sophomore at Oklahoma State, Noah had decided he wanted to be a vet. While he said of course it would be around Tallgrass, Dalton knew his brother liked a lot of things, and small-town living wasn’t one of them. Besides, Tallgrass already had enough vets.

  His other brother, Dillon, was gone, too, but what was the saying? Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  And what was that other saying? A bad penny always comes back.

  Nah, Dillon would never return, and if he did, Dalton would meet him at the property line with a shotgun. More likely, he would just beat the tar out of him and throw his worthless carcass into the bar ditch on the other side of the road. It would be easier than explaining to his mother why he’d shot his twin brother.

  With a brother like that, he didn’t need enemies.

  He rocked back, the creaking noise an accompaniment to the breeze blowing from the northwest and the soft snoring of the dog on the floor beside him. The Australian shepherd had wandered down the road yesterday morning, burrs in all four paws, flea-bit and tick-bit and twenty pounds underweight. Dalton didn’t want a dog; he had enough four-legged creatures depending on him already, plus one two-legged, since he was paying for Noah’s schooling. But the dog didn’t understand he wasn’t wanted, or just didn’t care.

  So it appeared Dalton had a dog.

  The floorboards inside the house creaked, too, a moment before the screen door was shoved open and Noah stepped out. He was home from college for the weekend and had done more than his share of the work today. Unlike Dalton, who’d sunk down in the rocker afterward with a bottle of cold water and hardly moved, Noah had showered and changed into clean, pressed indigo jeans and a pearl-snapped shirt. He wore a rodeo championship buckle on his belt and his good boots and carried his good hat.