Sheltered in His Arms

“I was afraid you wouldn’t see me,” he murmured.

“You were probably right.”

Was the child his? With her obvious coloring and that coal-black hair, the girl didn’t look anything like him. Yet her white heritage was noticeable in those striking blue eyes.

Sam had green eyes.

“This is Mariah,” Sam said, sounding less sure of himself as she continued to watch the silent little girl. “She’s my daughter.”

The knife sliced a second time. Lips trembling, Cassie nodded. And tried to smile at the child. After all, it wasn’t Mariah’s fault her father had hurt Cassie so badly.

“Hello, Mariah.”

The little girl stared wordlessly at her father’s waistline. Which, now that Cassie noticed it, looked as firm and solid as it always had. Clearly, Sam was still in remarkably good shape.

“You’re looking great, Cass,” Sam said, an old familiar warmth enlivening the words.

“Thanks.” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Cassie forced herself to look up, to meet Sam’s gaze.

And then looked away again almost immediately. His eyes were exactly the same. They met hers— and touched her all the way inside.

Without waiting for an invitation, Sam sat in one of the leather chairs facing her desk, pulling Mariah onto his lap.

“How old is she?” she asked. Morbid curiosity.

“Seven.”

Cassie’s daughter would have been ten this year.

“So how’ve you been, Cass?” Sam asked, glancing around her office at the degrees on the wall behind her, the thick texts lining her shelves. “You’ve accomplished a lot.”

Cassie stared at the little television in the corner. Wishing she hadn’t turned it off after the news ended half an hour ago. It would have given her something to focus on. Taken her thoughts off the bitter pain that had already seized her.

Off the man in front of her.

“Your parents told you about the pet therapy program, I imagine,” she said. It was the sum total of her life’s accomplishments. Had they told him that, as well?

If this was just a guilt-induced duty call, he could leave now. She didn’t need his polite compliments. Or his pity.

The flood of anger felt good.

“They haven’t mentioned you at all,” he said quietly. “I don’t know the first thing about a pet therapy program. I’m just impressed with this office, the clinic, your degrees.”

Cassie shrugged. “I imagine you went on to greater things. You’re probably a lawyer by now.”

Not that she cared. She just figured he’d finished college and pursued postgraduate work. Entered some highly regarded profession. Sam had been the more intelligent of the two of them. He hadn’t particularly liked to hit the books, hadn’t enjoyed learning as much as she had, but it had all come so naturally to him. Even in high school he could ace a test with a five-minute look over his notes, while Cassie would study for an entire evening to get the same grade.

“I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree.”

Shocked, Cassie frowned at him. His hair was longer, his face lined with experiences she knew nothing about. “Why not?”

“I never went back to school after I left here.” There was no apology in the words. No excuse, either.

“But you had a perfect grade point, a future…”

“…that I didn’t want,” Sam finished for her, his jaw firm. Then he smiled, which instantly softened his face. It was as though he’d learned to control the emotions that had once flowed so freely.

When they were young, Sam had been the most passionate man she’d known. Passionate about everything, from kissing her to saving an abandoned dog on the outskirts of town. She’d loved that about him.

“So what’s this pet therapy business?” he asked. “Analyzing neurotic poodles?” He grinned in an obvious attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but his expression sobered when she didn’t respond. “Seriously,” he muttered. “Tell me.”

Mariah’s arm slid up around Sam’s neck, and she lay her head against his chest.

She was too skinny. And quieter than any child Cassie had ever seen. It almost seemed as though something was wrong with her. Her stomach seized at the thought. The little girl was so beautiful.

She couldn’t imagine Sam with a handicapped child. Everything had always come easy to him. Perfection had been his for the taking.

“I, uh, developed a bit of a name for myself by using animals as a way to treat mentally, and sometimes physically, ill patients,” she said slowly, her attention on Sam’s little girl.

There was something heart-wrenching about her. Something pathetic in seeing her tucked so securely in Sam’s arms.

Sam. She couldn’t believe he was here. Sitting in her office. Damn him.

Her life wasn’t ever going to be the same again, with Sam back in town. The memories, the reminders—they’d all be right in front of her. Mocking her. He’d just shot her carefully won peace all to hell.

Sam asked a few more questions—intelligent, thoughtful questions—about pet therapy, which Cassie managed to answer. Somehow, with him sitting there, work wasn’t the first thing on her mind. It was an odd sensation.

A very unwelcome one.

SAM DIDN’T KNOW what he’d been expecting to find that morning, but the woman sitting across from him wasn’t it. Her beauty was still as potent, her figure perfect, her hair still that glorious red. But despite all the similarities, he could hardly believe how much ten years had changed her. Was it just growing up that had made her so self-composed? So unemotional?

Or was it only with him that she was this way?

The thought sickened him. Saddened him. He’d carried the image of his vivacious and tender ex-wife with him every day of the past ten years, used it as a sword to punish himself—and as a reminder of the penance he owed.

“So who’d you end up marrying?” he asked now, forcing himself to confront reality, to see the woman Cassie had become, to not linger on memories of the days when he’d known her as well as she’d known herself. “You are married, right?”

Cassie shook her head, and Sam froze.

“You aren’t married?” he asked, his shock more evident than he would have liked. She had to be married. It was all Cassie had ever wanted. Marriage and a family.

“There are a lot of successful single women these days,” she said, her tone tinged with sharpness. “I would never have been able to accomplish everything I have if I was married. I’ve spent the past couple of years traveling all over the country, setting up pet therapy programs in universities and in hundreds of mental-health facilities.”

Sam stared at her, not understanding. “But you wanted to be a wife and mother more than anything in the world,” he said.

He hadn’t been wrong about that. Had he?

Cassie’s gaze slid away from him, her shoulders stiffening. “People change, Sam.”