Sheltered in His Arms

“Mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.” He glanced over again and decided to feel encouraged by the fact that Mariah was still watching him. Even if that was about all she ever did.

Maybe she was listening, too.

“Sometimes, when I was a kid, I’d sneak down from my bed at night, just to have another one of those cookies. I tried really hard to be as quiet as a mouse so I wouldn’t get caught,” Sam said. The smile he’d plastered on his face, became real as he remembered those days. “Every time a step creaked, my stomach would jump and I’d stand still and not breathe until I was sure my mom hadn’t heard me.”

Mariah blinked, her sad little face turned up toward his. Shelter Valley was going to be good for her. It had to be. If the answers weren’t there, if the love in Shelter Valley wasn’t enough to heal her, nothing would.

“The cookie jar was this big glass thing and the lid was really heavy and I’d have to lift it really carefully…”

The approaching sign said Shelter Valley, One Mile. The sign was new.

At least, it hadn’t been there ten years ago.

Sam wiped his palm along his denim shorts.

“…the hardest part, though, was putting the lid back without making a noise. Especially because by that time I was always afraid I’d get caught and have to put the cookie back.”

Sam slowed, approaching the exit. Mariah’s gaze never left his face. She didn’t look around, didn’t show any interest at all in the place that was going to be home to her. He wondered how it was possible for someone with her naturally dark complexion to look so pale.

“I’d creep slowly back up the stairs, the smell of that cookie in my hand teasing me the whole way.”

There was a new gas station at the Shelter Valley exit. And the huge old tree was still shading the east side of the road.

“It was sure a lot of work, but boy, when I finally made it back to my room and sank my teeth into that cookie, mmm.” Sam grinned at Mariah. “It was worth it. Just for that one bite.”

He passed the road that led out to the cactus jelly plant. The street sign still had those familiar BB gun dents put there by some guy who’d gone to high school with Sam’s parents. No one had ever told Sam which guy, just “some guy.”

A few scattered houses came into view, then disappeared as he drove past. He wondered what Mariah thought of them, as he tried to see Shelter Valley through her eyes. Through fresh eyes.

Not that she’d have any opinion of those houses. She wasn’t seeing them. She was still staring at Sam.

“You want to know the funniest thing about my cookie escapades?” he asked, glancing over at her.

She blinked. A regular occurrence, but Sam chose to take this particular time as a yes.

“When I was in high school, my mom told me that she’d known all along I was stealing those cookies. She and my dad would sit in the family room and listen for me to come down the stairs…”

They’d smiled at each other, sharing their joy in their only son. She hadn’t told Sam that, but he’d known. No parents had ever delighted in their child more than Sam’s parents had.

Until the day he’d hurt them beyond belief.

“…all that work was for nothing.” Sam finished his story as he slowed, entering the town proper.

Sunday afternoon had always been a sleepy time in Shelter Valley. It still was. Sam was relieved. He welcomed the comfort born of knowing this place. Craved its predictability.

Yearning for a drive through these remembered streets, for reassurance as he reacquainted himself with the place he’d always called home, for even a glimpse of the woman who still held such a place in his heart, Sam turned his truck and headed up the mountain, instead.

To the home he’d grown up in. He and Mariah had been driving for three days. His little girl needed to get those legs on solid ground—and since it had been two hours since their last stop, probably needed to go to the bathroom, too.

She didn’t need a trip down her father’s memory lane. Her father of only a few months…

“There it is, honey,” he said, his throat tight as the huge house became visible, off in the distance. “See, it’s just like I told you. A big beautiful castle up on the mountain.”

Montford Mansion. The place he’d loved and hated with equal fervor.

Mariah had been staring at the insignia on his glove compartment, but when Sam spoke, her eyes turned toward him again.

“Look, Mariah, the orange trees are filled with blossoms.”

Damn, it felt good to be home, in spite of all the resurrected pain the old sights were bringing him. The regrets.

The knowledge that he was going to have to see his Cassie with another man, married to another man. After all this time, she would’ve found someone to love. Someone who wouldn’t betray her faith in him, her loyalty. She’d probably have several kids by now. She’d wanted at least four.

Reaching out, he stroked a couple of fingers lightly down Mariah’s cheek. “You’re the princess of the castle now, remember, sweetie?” he said, trying his damndest to help his daughter feel a little magic again, to believe in the fairy tales that thrilled most seven-year-old girls. He fingered one of the waist-length black braids he’d painstakingly tied when they were back in their hotel room in Albuquerque this morning. “That’s why we did the braids, remember?” he coaxed. “So you can wear your crown like a real princess.”

He’d bought the crown more than a week ago, before they’d left Wilmington, Delaware. With its glittering glass jewels, it had cost him almost a hundred dollars—no plastic piece of junk for his little girl. He’d have paid ten times that amount if it would make Mariah smile again.

Slowing the truck, overwhelmed by unexpected emotion, Sam wound around the curves that would take him up the mountain to his parents’ driveway. His driveway, really. He was the only living heir to Montford Mansion.

Not that any of it meant a whole lot to Sam. He was the fourth-generation descendant of Shelter Valley’s founder, but his heritage had been far more of a burden to him than a blessing.

That burden wasn’t going to stop him from coming home. Shelter Valley was Mariah’s only hope.

And maybe Sam’s, too.

THE HOUSE LOOKED exactly as he’d left it. Driving slowly, Sam approached the circular drive, heart pounding in spite of his admonitions to the contrary. This wasn’t going to be easy. He knew that. He’d come fully prepared to accept the hostility that was his due. Prepared to make amends as far as was humanly possible for destroying the hopes and dreams of those who’d loved him so faithfully.

Parking in front of the house, Sam sat and stared, taking in the heavy double doors, the stucco walls, the shrubbery under the huge picture windows. As a little kid, he’d been paid a buck an hour to clean up behind the gardener who trimmed those shrubs.

A buck an hour. To a kid who was a millionaire in his own right. But what had he known? He’d wanted to grow up and be a gardener someday. To make some of the dingy houses in town look as beautiful as his did. Even then, working with his hands had been all Sam cared about.

Sam’s finger itched now, for the drawing pencil that was never far away these days. His mind was reeling with stories for next week’s strip.

Mariah’s small brown hand slid across the seat and stole into Sam’s. Turning, he met the frightened eyes of his little girl—and felt traces of the heartache that would never ease.

“You’re going to love it here, honey. See all the pretty flowers your grandma has growing in the yard?”

Mariah continued to gaze at him, unblinking now, and suddenly Sam wasn’t at all sure about what he was doing. Unbuckling Mariah’s belt, he pulled her across the seat and onto his lap, cradling her protectively in his arms.

Shelter Valley was her only hope. He knew that. The people in this town, with their huge hearts and warm smiles, would coax his little girl out of the silent world of terror into which she’d sunk. They’d teach her to smile again. To play. They’d make her laugh. Forget.

Maybe, someday, she’d even find the courage to love.

He wondered if his parents still had Muffy, the cocker spaniel he and Cassie had bought them shortly after Sam had left home to marry Cassie. The dog would be almost twelve years old.

Best not get Mariah’s hopes up on that one. Or Sam’s, either. He’d been very partial to that dog.

“It’s going to be okay, baby, it’s going to be okay.”