Keeping Katie (A Mother's Heart #1) (11 page)

Ms. Anderson was a nurse at …

The room dimmed around her.

She saw nothing but the words blurring in front of her eyes. She felt nothing but a tight, choking pain in her chest. She closed her eyes. The words screamed at her. She tried to breathe deeply, but her lungs refused air. In that moment, she didn’t know how she could endure this.

Minutes passed, or was it hours, before her reflexes took over, doing what needed to be done. Her eyes opened. With trembling hands, she logged off the newspaper’s site, and then shut down the computer. She took a deep breath.

Time to stand up.

At first she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her, yet somewhere, deep down, she knew her body would not fail. Survival. She would survive this. She stood and somehow managed to walk. Back outside. Back to where things were as they had been when she’d entered the building.

Dropping onto a stone bench, she let the pain engulf her. She sat, she couldn’t have said for how long, lost, her mind oblivious to everything but fear.

Eventually, her turmoil gave way to numbness, and small things broke through. The low drone of an insect carrying out its business in the bushes behind her. The bench, hard and unyielding beneath her. The midafternoon sun, hot on her bare head. People walking briskly to and from the flat, featureless building that was the library. A small boy, absorbed in his make-believe world, flying a model airplane.

You knew this would happen,
she told herself.

She couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t known the consequences of what she had done. Kidnapping. A federal offense. She dropped her head into her hands and, for a moment, let the pain overwhelm her again. Behind closed eyelids, she saw her daughter’s face, that sweet, cherub face she loved so dearly.

It wasn’t fair!

She
was Katie’s mother! The only mother she’d ever known. Katie needed her. The thought gave her strength.

It wasn’t right!

She wouldn’t allow them to take Katie away and give her to a stranger—even if that stranger had given her life. Where had that woman been for the past three years?

No,
Maureen thought,
I’m not wrong.
She’d done the right thing, the only thing possible. She’d protected her daughter.

With an effort, she pulled herself together. For Katie. It was all for Katie. Glancing at her watch, she was surprised to see it was time to go. How long had she been sitting here? She needed to start walking. Alan would be waiting, and somehow, she had to face him.

Alan propped a foot on the dashboard of his Jeep, pulled his hat down over his eyes and rested his head back against the seat. He was pleased with himself. Something had finally gone right today.

He had told Rita he’d have a talk with Bud Simmons, but even as he’d made the promise, he had known it wouldn’t do any good. Bud needed more than a talking-to—hadn’t the way he’d warned them off his property proved that? Bud needed to get off the bottle.

After dropping Maureen off, Alan had headed out of town to an alcohol rehabilitation center he’d read about. He’d mentioned the center to Bud this morning. That, like everything else, had only served to make Bud angry. But Alan had planted the seed, and this afternoon, he’d gathered the information to go along with it. Now it was up to Bud.

Alan glanced at his watch and realized it was getting late. Maureen should be along anytime now. He shifted sideways in his seat and adjusted his hat so he could watch the street for her. He spotted her when she was still a block away. She walked quickly, head held high, arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

Something was wrong.

It was in the way she moved and the furtive glances she threw at the people around her. Alan climbed out of the Jeep, all his senses alert. He scanned the crowd but couldn’t spot anyone trailing her.

She crossed the street, heading for the Jeep. No one followed. As she got closer, she dropped her arms, but her hands fluttered nervously. They moved to grab her purse strap, shifted to the pockets of her jeans and then back to her purse again.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when she was within earshot.

She acknowledged him with a slight lift of one hand but didn’t answer. Then she got into the Jeep without looking at him. Perplexed, Alan climbed in next to her.

“Maureen?” he said. Again she didn’t answer. He touched her shoulder. “What is it?”

She turned to him then, a little too quickly, her smile a little too bright. His mind registered these things, but it was her eyes he saw. Deeper blue than he remembered, they stared at him: wide, dry, and brimming with pain. He suppressed the urge to pull her into his arms.

“What’s wrong?” He searched her face for further clues, wondering what or who had brought that haunted look to her eyes.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Maureen …” He slid his hand to her face, laying his palm against her cheek. “Let me help?”

To his surprise, she turned her face into his palm and closed her eyes. Time stopped. Suddenly, nothing mattered but this woman and his own need to hold her, to comfort her. Shifting sideways, he moved to pull her into his arms.

She stopped him.

Opening her eyes, she turned away, effectively removing his hand from her face. “I’m okay,” she said. He could hear the effort the words cost her.

“Tell me.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s all right.” She looked back at him with another forced smile. “It’s nothing, really. I had a bit of a shock, but I’m all right now.”

He moved to touch her again, but she brushed his hand aside before it made contact. “Maureen,” he said. “Whatever it is, I can help.”

Leaning her arm against the door, she toyed with the ends of her hair. It struck him again, the way her hair seemed ill-suited to the rest of her—its color, lifeless and flat, like …

“There’s nothing to help,” she said, pulling him back from his musings. He started to protest, but she stopped him again. Putting two fingers to his lips, she beseeched him with her blue eyes. “Please, Alan,” she said. “Let it be.”

He sat for a moment, torn. All the questions he had about this woman, all the things he didn’t know, flooded his mind. From the very beginning he’d felt—no, he’d known—she held secrets. He’d wanted to know what they were. For weeks, he’d told himself he was only doing his job.

Somewhere along the line, his motives had changed. She’d stirred his blood and refused to acknowledge it. He’d watched her straighten her spine and deny—even to herself—the chemistry between them. She’d become a challenge. A game he’d indulged in because of the way she affected him. Maureen Adams made him want. And it had been a long time since any woman had done that.

Now things had shifted again, and he wasn’t even sure why. It was no longer a game. Suddenly, he didn’t care who she was or why she’d stopped in Wyattville. Even the way his body responded every time he was near her meant nothing. It only mattered that she was here, and she needed him. She might not know it yet, but she did.

Patience,
he said to himself.
Give her time.
“Okay,” he said aloud. “Let’s go home.”

As they left the city behind, the mountains rose to greet them. Once again, the sun was at their backs, this time casting shades of mauve and violet across the deep green. The quiet beauty of their surroundings calmed Maureen’s frayed nerves, soothing the pain deep inside her.

“It’s pretty special out here,” Alan said, as if reading her thoughts.

“Yes.” She’d ridden a Greyhound bus across the country, viewing miles of spectacular scenery. She couldn’t remember any of it being more beautiful than these mountains. “It’s almost magical,” she added, more to herself than Alan.

“My father used to say these mountains held the answer to all of life’s questions.” Alan spoke absently, as if he, too, were speaking to himself. “If only one knew how to listen.”

“Sounds like a very wise man.” Maureen felt she understood exactly what Alan’s father meant. There was serenity here and an untouched peace that urged one toward openness. She thought how sweet it would feel to be lost here, with nothing but the sight and sounds of the mountains surrounding her. Then she glanced sideways at Alan, embarrassed by her mental wanderings.

He didn’t seem to notice. “He was quite the philosopher—or so my mother used to say.” He chuckled. “It always seemed like a strange combination to me. Town sheriff and weekend philosopher.”

That surprised her. “He was a sheriff, too?”

“Yeah.” This time, Alan glanced at her and smiled. “I’m sure he would have had something profound to say about that, too. You know, life coming full circle or some such thing. Man makes his living as a small-town sheriff. His only son vehemently declares he’ll be anything but. Then son follows in father’s footsteps after all.”

Maureen had to grin. She understood about parents wanting their children to be reflections of themselves. How many years had she struggled against her father’s will? “That sounds familiar.”

“You, too?”

“Sure. My father’s a lawyer. You know, the rich, sleazy kind.” She was a bit surprised that she could joke about it after all the anguish he’d put her through. “He couldn’t understand why his daughter didn’t want to join his practice.”

Alan laughed. “Well, at least one of us succeeded in breaking the mold.”

“I broke the mold, all right.” Maureen had a brief flash of just how dramatically she’d gone against her father’s wishes. What would he say about kidnapping? She pushed the thought aside. She’d done enough thinking for one day.

“What about your mother?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“My mother?”

“Yeah. What did she want you to be?”

Maureen shook her head. She hadn’t thought about her mother for a long time. “I never really knew her. She and my father were divorced when I was young. Father got custody.”

“That’s unusual.”

“Father’s a bit unusual.” She had to smile at the thought of their father-daughter battles. Then the memory of their last encounter wiped all mirth away. “He’s used to getting his own way.”

Alan threw her a sympathetic look. “But didn’t you ever see your mother?”

“Not much. I vaguely remember a couple of times when I was small, but that’s about it.”

He didn’t question her further about her mother, and she was glad. She didn’t want to start thinking about her. After all, she’d put that part of her childhood away a long time ago.

Instead, she turned her musing toward Alan and what Rita had told her about his family. Glancing at him, she tried to imagine the kind of child he’d been, how he would have handled his father’s death. She could almost picture him as a ten-year-old, his copper eyes stoically refusing to shed a tear, standing rigidly next to a woman dressed in black. A woman who, according to Rita, was unable to stand on her own.

She considered asking Alan about his father, how he died, but she decided against it. The day had held too much sadness, too much emotion already. She needed to think and talk of lighter things, things without the power to cause pain.

“Hungry?” Alan asked abruptly, breaking into her thoughts.

“A little.”

“One of my favorite places is only a few miles from here. Want to stop?”

“Shouldn’t we be getting back?” she asked.

Alan shot her a quick glance. “What’s the hurry? It won’t be dark for hours.”

“Well, Katie …”

“Don’t worry. Rita loves having Katie to herself. She’ll probably be upset if we show up too early. Besides, we’ve got another couple of hours to drive yet, and I’m starving.”

Maureen was hungry, too. What could it hurt? Spending a little extra time with Alan wasn’t an unpleasant thought. Maybe she could get him to tell her a little more about the Simmons boys and their father. Besides, she rationalized, after the day she’d had, she could use a little diversion.

“Sure, why not?” she finally answered.

“Good. You’ll like this place. Nothing fancy, just good food and a great view. I make a point to stop there every time I’m within fifty miles.”