A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel)

by Marilyn Pappano

  “But—”

  “Abby tells stories. Jacob tells stories.”

  “Yeah, I get it, everyone tells stories.” He lifted her onto his lap, trying to remember any of the hundred stories his mom had told when he was a kid. There had been one about a muskrat, a bunch with alligators, lots with dogs and cats and brave little boys who looked a lot like him in his imagination, but he couldn’t recall enough details to make a coherent tale. “Okay…”

  “Once upon a time,” she supplied helpfully.

  Sure, that worked for him. “Once upon a time, in a far, faraway land, there lived a princess named—”

  “Mariah!”

  “—and she lived in a big castle and had a pet—”

  “Alligator!”

  “A pet alligator named Chompers.” Pulling her hand to his mouth, he pretended to munch on her fingers, and she giggled with delight. The moment hit him hard: the little girl who’d cried at the sight of him a week and a half ago was now giggling in his lap. How cool was that?

  He went on, his voice husky. “Mariah and Chompers liked to go on adventures in the bayou around the castle. One day—”

  The ring and vibration of his phone in his free hand jerked his gaze to the screen. Disappointment rose when he realized it was his mother instead of Therese. He held the phone to Mariah’s ear and said, “Say hello to Celly.”

  “Hey, Celly!” She slid to her feet and tugged the phone from his hand. “I hold it my own self. Guess what, Celly?” She wandered around the stoop, barely breathing, launching into new topics before she finished the old ones. She talked about Abby, Jacob, and Therese, and just as Keegan was about to tune her out, she mentioned him. “Celly, Daddy’s telling me a story about a princess named Mariah and a pet ’gator.”

  Even from across the small porch, he heard his mother’s voice rise with pleasure. “Daddy?”

  “Uh-huh.” After rambling another couple minutes, Mariah said, “We got you a pretty labender flower for when you get back and— Ooh, kitty!” She set the phone on Keegan’s leg, skipped down the steps, and followed from a distance as a cat stalked along the back wall of the motel office, headed for the Dumpster.

  Drawing a breath, he raised the phone to his ear. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Daddy, huh? Oh, darlin’, I’m so glad you finally came to your senses. I know you were worried about getting hurt and all, but you can’t give away the child who calls you Daddy, now can you?”

  “No,” he agreed quietly. He expected his gut to knot a little—after all, Mariah still wasn’t his daughter—but it didn’t come. Only the same sense of rightness he’d felt practically from the beginning with Therese. “How is Ford?”

  “He’s doing fine. Getting up and about, even talking about going back to work, but Denise isn’t going to let that happen one moment too soon. You know, I might have been wrong about her. She’s handled this pretty well, considering. Right now I’m thinking I’ll head home Sunday, maybe Monday. What about you guys? Should I book a seat for Mariah from Tulsa to Alexandria?”

  He could say yes. God knows, Mariah would be thrilled to see her again, and he would have a little privacy, time to go for a run, to savor some quiet. But the thought of sending her off, of not hearing her snores at night or her laughter during the day, of not shaping his time and activities around her, held zero appeal. Somewhere down the line, sure, but not when this was all so new.

  “Nah, Mom. I extended my leave for another week. I’ll bring her back with me.”

  “Oh.” An interested note came into her voice. “Does this have to do with Therese?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ohhh. Well, if you don’t need me back right away, I might stay a little longer. Ford hasn’t been able to do much talking so far. Now that he’s getting stronger, I’d like to spend a bit more time with him. You give Mariah lots of hugs and kisses from me, and send me a picture of this girl Therese. I want to get an idea what my next grandchild might look like.”

  Before he could respond to that, she laughed and rushed out, “Love you, darlin’. You take care.”

  “Love you, too.” He hung up and double-checked to make sure he hadn’t missed a call-waiting signal.

  It sounded like a hokey line from a song, but waiting really was the hardest part.

  * * *

  The meeting with Catherine hadn’t gone well, not that Therese had expected it to. She’d been awake most of the night, asking hard questions of herself and today of Catherine, and still wasn’t satisfied that she had any answers.

  Paul’s ex had shown up at the coffee shop with the papers in a large envelope, and Therese had scanned them. There were no surprises in the documents. In exchange for one-third of the proceeds of Paul’s life insurance, Catherine would take back custody of Abby. Simple. Easy.

  Except it was neither.

  After Catherine left Java Dave’s in a huff, Therese went home. The house was quiet, welcoming, not the place she’d dreaded for so long. Letting her purse slide to the floor, she walked into the living room and straight to the fireplace and the large photo of Paul. “What do I do?” she whispered. “She’s your little girl. I promised you I would take care of her, and we’re getting to the point that I believe I can do it right. But Catherine’s her mother. That means so much to Abby. But she’s not a very interested mother, and I worry…Oh, Paul, I worry.”

  Sadly, she got no response.

  She wandered the room, looking at photographs, keepsakes, mementos that lined the shelves. She was about to sink into her favorite chair when a stack of boxes on one shelf caught her eye. They were heavy-duty, gaily striped, so much prettier than the shoe boxes Paul had stored his pictures in when she met him. She picked up the top one, sat down, and lifted the lid.

  There was no order to the photos inside. Organizing them was a job he’d been saving for someday, when he would scan them onto the computer, label them, and file them chronologically. The top handful she removed were mostly snapshots taken in the few years before the kids came to live with them, with a few early school photos added.

  Abby and Jacob got progressively younger the deeper she dug into the box: preschool, with wispy blond curls, big brown eyes, missing teeth, big grins. She shuffled through them, smiling at moments she’d missed, back when the original Matheson family was intact and looked so happy. They’d been a beautiful family, the kids small, perfect images of their father, their mother holding them as if she wouldn’t grow tired of them in a few years. The happiness, the sheer perfection, of the family was so real, so alive in those moments captured in time.

  But Therese knew it was a lie. Catherine had had affairs, Paul had delivered ultimatums, and, as Jacob clearly remembered, they’d fought all the time. The happiness and perfection had lasted for the blink of the camera’s eye.

  She’d browsed through most of the box when she came to a photograph that made her go still. A little girl wearing a ribbons-and-lace dress, her curls untamed, her smile so bright a person couldn’t help smiling back. What was a picture of Mariah doing in this box of Matheson family photos? Had Abby taken it and printed a copy on her computer?

  No, Therese had never seen Mariah in that dress. It was far frillier than anything she’d worn since arriving here, a special-occasion dress, Easter or birthday or Christmas.

  Had Abby seen it in Keegan’s wallet and asked for it? Presumptive action, but one she could see Abby taking. When she wanted something, she wanted it.

  But Therese had seen inside Keegan’s wallet when he’d paid for various meals. The card slots held his driver’s license, his military ID, a credit card, and nothing else.

  Besides, the paper was too old, the dress too frilly for current styles.

  Slowly she put everything else back in the box, closed it, and set it aside, then she turned the picture over. In Catherine’s graceful hand on back was written: Abby, age three.

  Therese’s gut knotted, and fluttering started in her chest, like a trapped butterfly frantic to beat its way free
. Her hands trembled so badly that she wrinkled one corner of the paper from gripping it so tightly. Otherwise, it would have fluttered, too.

  Why did Abby, age three, look so much like Mariah, nearly age three? Coincidence? It must be. What else would explain it? Little girls, blond hair, brown eyes, all chubby cheeks and cute and cuddly—of course they looked alike. Their faces hadn’t yet developed the distinctive features that would separate them as adults. They had too much in common not to resemble each other.

  But this was more than a resemblance. This was…It was…

  You knew Paul through the Army? she’d asked the first time she and Keegan met.

  I was in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’d replied. Not Yes, I did. Not We served together in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  The cold that had enveloped her from the moment she’d recognized Catherine in her kitchen last night threatened to turn her blood to ice. Why hadn’t she noticed that he’d avoided giving an answer?

  Because she’d just had to tell a stranger that her husband was dead and she’d been more than a little shaken by it.

  Keegan had gone on to say, I’m at Fort Polk now, and she’d commented that Paul had gone there several times for training. The last had been shortly before his final deployment. That had been…She did the math easily in her head, but it was hard, so damn hard, to give the answer: about three and a half years ago.

  About the time Mariah was conceived.

  No. No no no. Sure, when the battalions went away, some of the men did play, but not Paul. He knew what it was like to be cheated on. He kept his word, honored his marriage vows. He never would have inflicted that kind of hurt—that kind of insult—on her.

  But if he had, if he’d been tempted, if he’d fallen, he would have taken the secret to Afghanistan—to the grave—with him. One infidelity in the years they’d been married, one weak moment? Not enough to risk their marriage, he would have thought, especially if she never knew. And she never would have known if the woman—Sabrina—Keegan’s girlfriend—hadn’t gotten pregnant. If she hadn’t abandoned her daughter with the next best thing to a father. If he hadn’t come looking for Mariah’s real father.

  While her head found the scenario entirely plausible, her heart rebelled. Paul had loved her. She’d trusted him. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—believe he’d been unfaithful to her. Dear God, surely she was wrong.

  But there was one way to find out.

  Not trusting her voice to hold steady, she texted Keegan, asking him to come to the house. He replied with an affirmative answer in less than a minute. Rising from the chair, still clutching the photo of Abby, she paced through the house, front to back, through every room, remembering Paul in every place she looked. How blessed she’d been to have a loving, faithful husband. He’d understood the sanctity of love and trust and marriage, same as she had.

  But while he and Therese had waited for the right time to expand their family, he’d had a daughter with another woman. She didn’t want to believe it, but it was hard to deny when the truth was staring her in the face.

  When the doorbell rang, she was in the kitchen. She walked down the hall with measured steps, delaying the moment when she would have no choice but to ask Keegan, when he would have no choice but to answer, when her heart would break all over again. Finally she opened the door.

  Mariah was sitting on his shoulders, his hands securely holding her thighs, her own hands clutching his forehead. He ducked and she bent forward to clear the door frame, then she leaned down as far as she could to smooch Therese. “Hey, Trace. Where’s Abby?”

  Therese stared at her. How had she missed it? Granted, she hadn’t known Abby when she was this age; by the time they’d met, Abby’s curls had given way to sleek, fine hair, and her happy smile had disappeared, too. But now that she knew to look, she saw Paul in every one of Mariah’s features, just like she did with her own kids.

  After a moment, she stirred. “Abby and Jacob are at school, sweetie.”

  Keegan lifted Mariah to the floor, then wrapped his arms around Therese. For just an instant, she let herself relax as much as she could in his embrace. Then she remembered—Paul, Mariah, Sabrina, and Keegan, who’d known—and she stepped back. Looking away quickly from the concern in his eyes, she turned. “Let’s go out back. Mariah can play, and we can talk.”

  * * *

  We can talk was always a bad sign, Keegan thought as he followed Therese and Mariah down the hall. Therese stopped at the refrigerator to grab a juice box and two bottles of water, then opened the door for Mariah, who skipped onto the patio and went straight to the first pot of flowers, circling around it while sniffing each bloom.

  “Have you made a decision?” Keegan finally asked, unable to stand the quiet any longer. He accepted the water from her and settled in a chair while she stripped plastic from a straw and stabbed it into the juice box.

  “Not yet.” Before she sat down, she slipped something from her pocket, then handed it to him.

  It was a photograph, the paper yellowed on the edges, the colors slightly faded. Except for that, a person could be forgiven for thinking it was a picture of Mariah. The extent of the resemblance was a surprise to him, even though he knew the relationship. He hadn’t imagined that Abby’s hair had been curly when she was little, or her cheeks so fat, or that two girls who shared only a father could look damn near like twins at the same age.

  The paper shook, and he realized his hand was trembling. He rested it on his leg to help stop the tremors. The knots in his gut he’d expected earlier, in the call with his mother, came now, hard cramps of fear, dread, regret, and just a little relief. Some part of him wanted Therese to know—not that her husband had been unfaithful. Never that. But to know Mariah for who she really was. Didn’t the kid deserve that?

  When he gathered the courage to look at Therese, she was watching him. She was working hard to maintain control, to show no emotion, but she couldn’t keep the betrayal from her eyes. Who did she feel betrayed by? Paul? Him? Or both?

  God, he’d never wanted to see her hurt. Damn well never wanted to be the one who hurt her.

  He took a long swallow of water, then a deep breath to force out the words. “I was finishing up a short deployment to Afghanistan—only six months—the last time Paul went to Fort Polk for training.” His voice was hoarse, and he couldn’t seem to raise it to a normal level. But that was okay. Therese could hear him, and Mariah, who’d been drawn to the fence by the snuffle of the dog next door, couldn’t.

  “I got home a month later, and a few weeks after that, Sabrina told me she was pregnant. I wasn’t thrilled. I didn’t want to marry her. I didn’t want to have a family yet. I loved her, but not enough.” Not the way he loved Therese. “But if I was going to be a father, I intended to be a good one. Then she told me I wasn’t the father. She’d met a man while I was gone—a major. Quite a step up for someone living with a specialist at the time. He was stationed at Fort Murphy, at Polk for training before heading to the desert. They met in a club, she took him home…”

  He didn’t need to say more. The color draining from Therese’s face and the muscle twitching in her jaw were proof of that.

  Damn, he hated this.

  “We broke up, she moved out, and I didn’t see her again for a couple years, until I ran into her outside another club in Leesville. Mariah was about one and a half at the time. Sabrina told me she’d tried to contact the major—Paul—but he never answered her e-mails so she’d given up on the idea of him being a part of Mariah’s life.” Sabrina had been disillusioned, as she so often was, and he’d felt sorry for her, but she’d brought it on herself. She’d been involved. The major had been married. Why hadn’t either of them thought, This is wrong, and put a stop to it before it was too late?

  “I never saw her again. I never met Mariah until five, six weeks ago. Social services called me, said Sabrina had abandoned her and they wanted me to take her since I was her father. Turned out, she put me on the birth certificate. I don’t kno
w why, unless she was just hurt or pissed that the father didn’t want anything to do with them or because we were together when she got pregnant or if she thought, I don’t know, that I would step up if needed. Whatever the reason, as far as the state was concerned, I was Mariah’s father, and if I didn’t take her, they would put her in foster care. I couldn’t…I thought maybe I could persuade her real father…It just didn’t seem right to make Mariah go into foster care. Not after the experiences Sabrina had there.”

  Therese clutched the water bottle so tightly that her fingers were splotched red and white. “So you came here to tell Paul that he had another daughter.”

  Keegan nodded. “I had no idea he was…”

  Therese nodded, too, her head bobbing without thought like Mariah’s. “Of course not. How could you know? How could Sabrina? I didn’t know to contact his—his one-night stand—” Her voice broke on the word, a strangled sob escaping her. She regained control quickly, though, one hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes blinking rapidly to clear the tears.

  He set the picture on the ground beneath her chair, placed the two bottles beside it, pulled her hand from her mouth, and drew her out of the chair and into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Therese. I never wanted you to find out. I know it hurts—”

  “I’m not hurt!” she cried, pressing her face to his shoulder, tears soaking his shirt. “I’m furious! He knew how this felt, he lived through it over and over with Catherine, and he still did it. For what? One night of sex? He couldn’t wait a week or two until he got back home to me? What the hell was he thinking?”

  “I don’t know, babe. I don’t know.” He stroked her hair, rubbed her shoulder, patted her back, and slowly the stiffness seeped away, her body relaxing against his. She might claim she wasn’t hurting, but he knew better. She’d loved and trusted Matheson—had been faithful to him through much longer absences than his short stint at Polk. Not only had he betrayed her, he’d tarnished his memory for her.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, the pain in her voice slicing through Keegan. “That means—Mariah is my stepdaughter.” Abruptly, she pulled out of his arms, balancing precariously on his knees, her gaze narrowed on him. “Is that why you stayed? Why you brought her here? To find a new home for her even if her father was dead? So I’d fall in love with her? Did you think because I accepted custody of Paul’s other children, I might take her, too?”