Loving Mariah by Bird Beverly

Author:Bird, Beverly [Bird, Beverly]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-09-24T01:08:42+00:00

Chapter 12

The peace and pleasure of the evening lasted until they were back in the buggy and heading for home. Joe had invited them for Sunday supper, as well. It was the settlement’s off-week from church. He and Mariah would go in the afternoon and just enjoy... family. And Mariah had smiled a little tremulously at being included again, and Adam had felt damned good at that, that he was somehow instrumental in giving her pleasure again, especially now that her job seemed in doubt.

That was one worm in the apple, he thought—her job. She’d told him this could happen, and she seemed accepting of the blow. And that left a rancid taste in his mouth.

“Adam, could you get the blankets?”

He looked over at her abruptly. She was shivering a little as the horse clop-clopped along. It was beginning to snow again. tiny, gentle flurries drifting down.

Adam reached to the floor and got one for her, opening it onto her lap. He ignored the urge to tuck it around her legs, even as the idea occurred to him.

“I wonder if he’d remember Jannel,” he said suddenly, looking out his side window.

Mariah’s silence was long. “A young child’s memory is an iffy thing, Adam,” she said finally. “I don’t think there’s any way to know that.”

“Jannel was with him all the time,” he went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “She was a big part of his first three years.”

“So were you.”

“No.”

He fell quiet again, digesting the truth of that as it occurred to him. Then more words burst out of him, anguished and confused. “Would he remember me if I had been there all the time? Every day? Would he remember me if I’d taken the time to tuck him in at night once in a while when I was home?”

“You had to work. You had to make a living.”

“I should have taken him with me more.” There was that, always that.

“He’ll remember, Adam. Sooner or later, he’ll begin to remember. You can almost see it happening already, the way he was watching you, asking you questions.”

“Yeah,” he said shortly, unsure why that made his heart ache. “I’ll do better this time.”

Mariah nodded. She doubted if he had ever been a bad father to begin with.

“He’s going to miss Matt,” Adam went on finally, hoarsely.

“Maybe you could bring him back to visit him.”

“That’s what Sarah said.” What he would probably do was promise to, he thought, then pray to God that Bo never took him up on the offer.

“But you won’t,” Mariah said quietly.

His heart slammed as she read his mind. “I can’t.”

He didn’t know he had spoken aloud, and then he realized that he’d said more than he’d intended to. But maybe it was better to get it all out now. Before she could look at him again the way she had tonight, he thought, with her eyes both luminous and pained as she spoke words to close the gap between him and his son’s memory. Because he had to go, and she had to know it, before either of them could pretend or dream or get in too deeply.

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