That night had changed her life forever. And now his.
He went back to the photos, riffling through the stiff school portraits, the group shots of tee-shirt clad soccer and baseball teams, the snapshots of Matt on a bicycle with training wheels. There was Matt beside a dinosaur skeleton in a museum, Matt on the beach at various ages, Matt grinning as he held up a chess trophy. One of the last photos was of Maggie in a hospital bed, holding a swaddled newborn, her face radiant with love. Next were the hospital portraits of the infant Matt, his hands hidden in mitts, his eyes sleepy, his head already covered with a dark fuzz of hair.
The gut-twisting regret walloped Adam, and he shoved the pictures away. He hadn’t been present for the birth of his child. Maggie had suffered through the agony and awe of that miracle alone. Anger and a sense of loss slashed through him, but he knew he had only himself to blame.
Looking down again, he discovered Matt’s art work next in the pile: hand-drawn Mother’s Day cards, Valentine’s Day cards, Christmas cards, and various other crayoned masterpieces. The common theme was how much the child loved his mother. A fist closed around Adam’s heart, squeezing at the enormity of Matt’s loss when Maggie died.
He moved the drawings aside to reveal an unsealed, gray business envelope with his first name written on it. Inside were magazine clippings and internet printouts tracing Adam’s career in the restaurant business. Had she shown these to Matt, telling him this was his father? Matt had never let on about such a conversation, so it seemed unlikely. Why had she bothered to collect these if she wasn’t going to share her child with him? He thumbed through them to find they included several articles about The Aerie and its success.
So she knew he had money, yet she’d never approached him for the financial help he gladly would have given.
He picked up the gray envelope to stuff the clippings back inside and felt something thick lodged in the bottom. Turning it upside down, he shook it hard. A smaller envelope fell facedown onto his desk. The flap was sealed, so he flipped it over. The front was blank.
Adam stared down at it. There was something ominous about its lack of address.
He steeled himself and tore open the envelope with a single twist of his wrist. Inside were a couple of handwritten sheets of notebook paper, the writing Maggie’s. Unfolding the top sheet, he felt a nearly physical blow in his chest.
The letter was to him.
Dear Adam,
I’ll never mail this to you, so you’ll never read it and you probably shouldn’t, but sometimes I feel so alone I need someone to talk to. Since you’re Matt’s father, I ought to be able to talk to you.
You might want to know why I didn’t tell you I was pregnant. I came close a few times, but it just didn’t seem right to upend your life because I was stupid and careless. You were so young and beautiful—beautiful as sin, my mother would say—and so driven. I knew you would be a great chef or a great something one day. If the drink didn’t ruin you.
He felt a hot sear of anger at being cut out of his son’s life without being given any choice.
That’s the real reason I kept it from you. We Irish know too much about liquor, so I worried about how you were damaging yourself. About how you might hurt me and our child even. Not that there was an ounce of malice in you, but the drink makes people do things they wouldn’t otherwise. I couldn’t have borne to watch you destroy yourself and us.
The anger died as abruptly as it had flared to life, leaving cold, dry ashes in his gut. He couldn’t argue with Maggie’s reasons.
So, as frightened as I was, I didn’t tell you. Instead I told my mother and father back in Dublin. A mistake. I thought they would support my decision not to end the pregnancy, good Catholics that they claimed to be. Instead they condemned me because I wasn’t married and wanted me to put Matt up for adoption. I told them they were unchristian, which didn’t help my case. So there I was, an unwed mother in a foreign country with no health insurance and no one to hold my hand through labor.
But you know, there are good people in the world, and God helped me find them. Someday I hope to repay them. Dr. Nagy, who did my pregnancy checkups for free and found a midwife to deliver Matt at home so I wouldn’t have to pay for a hospital room. Mr. Grossman, the pharmacist who finagled a way to get me neonatal vitamins for next to nothing. Kathy Arnold, at my job, who put me on the company’s health insurance plan six months early so Matt could have well-baby care. My neighbors, Josephine and Manuela, who clipped all the coupons they could find and gave them to me; if there was a deal on baby care products, they tracked it down. Betty Gallagher, at the Goodwill down the block, who let me trade in old baby clothes for new ones, free of charge. Oh, I could go on, but these kindnesses are what kept me from despair.
And the thought of you. I knew if I truly needed help I could go to you.
He put the paper down and scrubbed his hands over his face to wipe away the unfamiliar burn of tears in his eyes. His life then had been all about cooking and drinking, while Maggie had struggled to buy diapers. And she had found the thought of him a comfort. A groan, welling up from low in his ribcage, tore from him.
He forced himself to read on.
But for all the times I wake up in the night in a cold sweat of terror at the thought of my responsibilities, you gave me the greatest gift I’ve ever received. Matt is the light of my life, the center of my universe, the proof that love is the most powerful force in the world. I didn’t understand love until I held Matt in my arms that first time, and the way I feel about him has grown stronger and more glorious every day.
I hope someday I find the courage to tell you about our son. I hope you will want to meet him because he is the most amazing person.
For now, I thank you every day for him.
Fondest regards,
Maggie
The paper rattled in his hands. He dropped it and pressed his spread fingers against the wood of the desk to stop their shaking. Maggie had thanked him for getting her pregnant. Thanked him. He deserved curses and he got gratitude.
She considered Matt a gift, one she had involuntarily passed on to him. Now he was trying to give that gift away. Because he didn’t deserve it.
He pushed down harder on the desk as the craving for a drink grabbed him by the throat. He could almost feel the fire of one of the fine brandies in The Aerie’s cellar as it spread through his body, washing away the guilt and the corrosive sense of unworthiness. If ever there was a time he could justify breaking his AA vows, this was it.
He used his hands to lever himself to his feet and stood with his head bowed, leaning on the solid wood under his palms. He held himself very still, trying to quell the battle raging inside him.
He could feel himself losing the fight, surrendering to the need for oblivion.
He closed his eyes, trying one last time to find an anchor to hold onto, and Hannah’s image formed in his mind.
He didn’t think; he just reached for his cell phone and found her contact information, hoping the number she’d given him was one she’d answer even at midnight.
Chapter 11
HANNAH REACHED ACROSS Ginger, one of her rescue dogs, who was curled up on the covers beside her, grabbing the cell phone vibrating and chiming on her bedside table. She’d crawled into bed early, wrung out from the stress of doing Satchmo’s spinal tap. Since Tim was away she was on emergency call 24/7, so she’d left the phone’s ringer on full volume.
She cleared her throat and hit “answer.” “Hello, this is Dr. Linden.”
“Hannah! You’re there.” It was Adam’s voice, but distorted.
She shoved herself up to a sitting position. “Adam? What’s wrong? Did Trace get out again?”
“It’s not Trace.” There was a long pause, and she was trying to clear her sleep-fogged brain to ask another question when he said, “I have to get away from here. I’d like to
see you.”
“At the office?” She was confused.
“Wherever you are now.”
“Well, I’m at home, so I guess you could come here.”
“Thank you.” She heard him exhale as if he’d been holding his breath. “Where do you live?”
She gave him her address. He muttered “thank you” again and disconnected so fast she didn’t have time to ask anything further.
She frowned down at the phone, trying to remember exactly what he’d said. Something about he had to get out of there. Had he had a fight with Matt? She shook her head. The boy would be asleep by now. Since Adam spent even his days off at the restaurant, it couldn’t be that he was tired of work. Unless something had gone terribly wrong at The Aerie. But why would he want to talk to her about that?
Giving up on her useless speculations, she threw back the covers, earning her a disgruntled stare from Ginger, who retreated to the foot of the bed. It would probably take Adam about twenty minutes to get down from his mountain lair, assuming that’s where he was. Dragging on a pair of jeans and a pale-blue, long-sleeved tee shirt, she shifted into speed clean-up mode.
She’d whipped the dog quilts off the sofa and chairs, scrubbed out the dirty pasta pot, and hurled all the chew toys into a floor basket before she remembered to run a brush through her hair and twist it into a loose bun at the back of her head with a plastic clip.
The doorbell rang and the dogs set up their usual chorus of greeting. Hannah put them in a sit-stay, smoothed down her shirt, and opened the door.
Adam stood on the front porch, his hair picking up glints from the yellow bulb of the porch sconce. The light was too dim to see much other than his usual color scheme of a black leather jacket over black trousers. “Come in,” she said.
He hesitated. “I shouldn’t be bothering you.”
She swung the door open wide. “You wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”
When he stepped into the illuminated foyer she nearly gasped. The lines around his mouth were etched so sharply he seemed to be in physical pain. The leather jacket had been thrown on over what she recognized as his work suit, minus the tie. His hair looked as though he had repeatedly worried it with his fingers.
“Let me get you some tea,” she said, closing the door behind him.
He shrugged out of his outer jacket with a travesty of a smile. “Tea sounds great.”
She hung his coat in the closet by the door and led the way into the kitchen, releasing the dogs from their “stay.” “Herbal or Earl Grey? Those are my only offerings.”
He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned against the doorframe. “Earl Grey, thanks.”
Three dogs filed past him and took up stations around Hannah, hoping a treat was in store.
“May I be introduced?” Adam said, squatting and offering the back of his hand for sniffing.
“Pardon my lack of manners. Ginger, Annabelle, and Floyd,” Hannah said, smiling when the dogs abandoned her for the intriguing stranger who knew all the best places to scratch. As she boiled water and dropped teabags into mugs, she snuck glances at her unexpected guest, happy to note the tension in his jaw easing. Dogs had that effect on people.
“They’re all rescues?” Adam asked, rubbing Floyd’s exposed tummy.
“Why do you think that?”
He switched to stroking Annabelle’s long, multicolored coat and lifted his gaze to Hannah’s. “Because that’s what you do.”
His eyes were haunted and intense, making Hannah shift uncomfortably. “Mm, yes, Anabelle is a purebred collie with epilepsy. Her owner couldn’t afford the meds. Floyd is pure street mutt. One of our vet techs found him lying on the sidewalk near her apartment in Chicago with multiple fractures. Probably got hit by a car. Ginger, well, she adopted me. She lived in my neighborhood, and when her original owner moved, he left her behind. So she followed me home.”
She poured the boiling water into the mugs. “Sugar? Honey? Lemon juice?” She remembered he was used to gourmet beverages. “The juice is from a bottle, though.”
“Black,” he said, straightening to take the mug from her. He wrapped his big hands around the handmade pottery, making it look as though the thick crockery had shrunk.
She picked up her own tea and waved toward the living room. “I’ll turn on the fire.” She was embarrassed that the fireplace was one of those gas imposters which required only the flick of a switch to ignite. It was like her lemon juice—convenient but not real.
She hit the switch and settled on the couch, joined immediately by Ginger and Floyd while Annabelle laid herself elegantly at Hannah’s feet. The two cats had fled at the sound of the doorbell, but now Blanche strolled into the room and began rubbing against Adam’s ankles, leaving a trail of white cat hair on his expensive trousers.
“Oh heavens, Blanche, stop!” Hannah exclaimed, plunking her mug down on the coffee table and starting to rise.
“I like cats,” Adam said, waving her back and settling into one of the armchairs before he leaned forward to scratch under the cat’s chin.
“Yes, but your suit will have Blanche hairs woven into it for the rest of your life.”
“When you wear black, you have to be prepared for that.”
Again she wanted to ask why he always wore the same dark color, but decided this was not the time.
“I owe you an explanation,” he said, cradling his mug in his hands, while Blanche stalked off in a huff at the withdrawal of his attention.
“You said you needed to get away from something.”
“Myself,” he said. “A hard thing to do.” He sat back in the chair and blew out a breath. “I didn’t know I had a son until Matt’s mother died four months ago. And now I hate that I missed all those years I could have known him.”
“That seems like a normal reaction.” Hannah was out of her depth here.
He looked straight at her. “I have no right to feel that way.”
“Oh.” Way out of her depth. She took a gulp of hot tea, scalding her tongue.
“I’m an alcoholic. Adam’s mother knew that and decided to keep him away from me.”
“But I thought…don’t you sponsor, er, people at AA?” Hannah wasn’t sure she was supposed to know about Paul’s brother being mentored by Adam.
He propelled himself out of his chair and paced over to the weak flicker of the gas fire, staring into it for a long moment before he turned back to her. “I’ve been sober for nine years, but I will always be an alcoholic. It’s not something you can be cured of.”
“But you control it,” she said. “Isn’t that all you can ask of yourself?”
“Tonight I saw a photo of Matt as a newborn, and I was overwhelmed by a gaping sense of loss. You know what I wanted to do with that?” His mug rattled as he set it down on the mantel. “I wanted to flood it with liquor.”
She understood. He’d needed to get away from the craving. He’d reached out to her for help because he couldn’t fight it alone.
When she looked at him, she saw not a world-famous chef but a creature in pain. Suffering was something she couldn’t bear, whether it was a dog, a horse, or a man.
She put her mug down and stood up, quickly crossing the room to wrap her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she said.
For a moment, he stood motionless, and she wondered if she’d done the wrong thing. Then his arms came around her shoulders, moving her in against the solid wall of his body.
She let out a relieved sigh. When she drew in the next breath, it came laden with his distinctive aroma of spices and warm male. No words came to her so she did what she would do with a distraught patient. She slid her palms up and down his back in long, soothing strokes.
His grip on her tightened.
She was pressed so closely against him she was having trouble filling her lungs. But she didn�
��t want to pull away for fear he would think she was withdrawing her comfort. She closed her eyes and listened to his heart thump against her ear, taking small sips of air.
“Hannah.” His voice was low.
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Yes?”
He shifted, putting one finger under her chin so he could tip her face up to meet his gaze.
What she saw made her gasp for an entirely different reason. His eyelids were half-closed, and his eyes were intent on her lips. His touch slid from her chin and along her jawline until his fingers tangled in the hair clipped at the nape of her neck.
He stopped and waited, looking at her with an intensity that set off flares of heat deep inside her. She felt his hand at the back of her head, and the clip clattered onto the hearth while her hair spilled down her back. He combed his fingers through it, sending delicious shivers dancing over her scalp and down her spine.
Still he gazed down at her, the space between them snapping with a strange, unexpected awareness.
Nervousness caught in her throat as she realized he was waiting for her to decide. She froze, balanced between her yearning to feel his big, calloused hands against her skin and her fear of losing herself to another man who might be using her. She searched his face, finding suffering even as his eyes glittered with the fever of arousal.
He was beautiful and troubled and in pain. She rose onto her tiptoes and brought her mouth against his.
There was no hesitation from him this time. He angled her head back farther so he could drag his mouth from her lips to her throat and back again. Breathing no longer seemed important as his other arm came around her like an iron band, locking her against him from thigh to shoulder, her breasts crushed against his chest. Between kisses, he murmured her name like an incantation, as though it could ward off the demons clawing at him.
She kneaded the fine cotton stretched across his back, trying to hold on as he sent waves of sensation shuddering through her. It wasn’t enough. She yanked at his shirt, pulling the tail free so she could slide her hands up under it against his bare skin. His hands might be calloused and crisscrossed with welts but his back was pure satin. She skimmed her palms up to the muscles of his shoulders before tracing back down along his spine.
The Place I Belong Page 13
