The Thawing of Mara (19 page)

Now that the moment had come, Mara would have preferred walking back to the house alone rather than riding with him. But a little voice dictated that she should accept his offer to prove that his company meant nothing to her, that she could get along without it or simply tolerate it.

"I don't mind waiting," she said. "It's cold outside."

"I'll only be a few minutes," he promised curtly, and walked toward the bedroom.

While he was gone, Mara picked up the poker and scattered the burning logs so the fire would die. But she knew it would never be that easy to put out the fire that burned for him in her heart. The full enormity of her decision was only just beginning to sink into her.

When Sin reappeared, she was able to turn and face him. Her expression was coolly composed, but she was the only one who knew how thin and brittle the ice was.

"Shall we go?" A small weekend suitcase was in his hand, and a hint of steel was in his voice. Mara walked to the door in answer.

Silence hung between them like a heavy curtain during the drive to the house. Its weight pressed on Mara until she wanted to scream away its presence.

Sin pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the red brick house. As Mara quickly stepped out of the car, he said, "Say goodbye to Adam for me."

"I will," she agreed stiffly, and shut the door.

Chapter Ten

THERE WAS A LUMP as big as a Pennsylvania apple in Mara's throat as she entered the house. The sound of Sin's car pulling out of the driveway echoed painfully in her ears. Her eyes smarted with large, unshed tears.

The multicolored fights blinking on the Christmas tree seemed garishly bright. The satin balls and silver tinsel looked ludicrously cheerful when her heart felt as if it were splintering in a million pieces.

The draft from the closing door sent the clump of mistletoe swaying above her head. Mara glanced up and an excruciating pain stabbed her breast as she remembered the way Sin had maneuvered her under it only yesterday.

Shuddering away the memory, she grabbed the nearest chair and pulled it under the mistletoe. Her eyes were so blurred with tears that she could hardly see as she stepped onto the chair seat and tugged the ribboned mistletoe from its place.

"What are you doing, Mara?" Her father wheeled his chair in from the study.

"I'm taking the mistletoe down. What does it look as if I'm doing?" She spoke harshly to keep her voice from trembling. Carefully, she avoided looking at Adam as she pushed the chair to its former place.

"I can see you're taking down the mistletoe. What I wondered was why," he answered, patient yet curious.

"Because we don't need it hanging there. We don't need it hanging anywhere." Mara flung the mistletoe in the living room's wicker wastebasket.

"I think Sin will have a different opinion. He'll want to know what's happened to it when he comes at Christmas," Adam teased.

"He isn't coming at Christmas." A tear slipped out the corner of her eye and Mara hurriedly wiped it away before it trailed too far down her cheek.

But her furtive action was noticed by Adam. He tilted his head to one side to peer at her averted face, and a frown creased his forehead.

"What happened? Did you and Sin have an argument?" he questioned.

"Not exactly." Her voice was tight, choked by the pain clawing at her chest.

"What exactly?" He sat quietly in his wheelchair waiting for her explanation.

An inner war kept her silent for a moment. "I told him it would be best if he didn't come at Christmas," she admitted finally.

"Best for whom?" Adam lifted a dark brow in dry inquiry.

"Best for me—and for him, too, as far as that goes," Mara rushed out the answer in a burst of agitation. "It was hopeless from the beginning, if I'd known or guessed—oh, what does it matter!" She wiped angrily at another tear. "He never cared about me anyway."

"Is that what Sin told you?" her father asked after listening attentively to her declaration.

"Yes," she breathed out, her lungs hurting from the constant constriction of controlled emotion. "All he felt for me was…a sexual attraction." She chose his phrase. "Sooner or later he would have become bored and cast me aside, the same way he did Celene."

"Celene? Who's Celene?" Adam frowned.

"That redhead!" she flashed. "The one he brought along with him when he first came. Celene Taylor, with all her 'Sin, darlings.'" The cattiness of her tone didn't make her feel better.

"So you did the casting aside first?" Adam guessed.

"Yes, I had to before…" Mara swallowed the rest of the sentence. "I told him I was beginning to become bored with him, that whatever I'd felt, it was gone."
 

"Is it?" His gaze narrowed to pierce any shield she might try to use. "Have you stopped caring for him, Mara?"

She lifted her gaze to him, her eyes suddenly brimming over with tears she couldn't check. The anguish was written in every line of her expression for him to see. She couldn't contain her feelings or her heartbreak anymore. Gasping back a sob, she moved uncertainly toward his chair, When she reached his side, Adam took hold of one of her shaky hands, and the comfort and understanding he offered turned loose a storm of tears.

"Daddy, I love him," she sobbed, and collapsed to her knees, burying her head on his lap and hugging his lifeless legs.

One hand gripped her quaking shoulder while the other stroked her hair. "Go ahead, baby," he crooned, his own voice slightly choked with deep emotion. "Cry it all out. It's okay, honey. Believe me, it's okay."

Years of stored grief, pain and bitterness were washed away by the violent tears. Mara sobbed herself into oblivion. The soothing touch of her father's hand and the sound of his voice were her only lifeline to sanity.

Even after her mind had blanked out the pain with unconsciousness, her breath came in hiccuping sobs. Adam took off his sweater and draped it around her shoulders, letting her use his legs for a pillow. A fierce love glistened moistly in his eyes as he gazed down at her tear-streaked face.

"It's all right, daddy's here." He squeezed the words out through the lump in his throat.

It was dark when Mara finally came around. Her muscles were cramped from the unnatural position of rest, but all the pain, physical and emotional, seemed distant. A numbed haze kept it at bay.

"How do you feel?" Adam's quiet voice penetrated the protective mist.

"I…I don't know." As she rose awkwardly to her feet, the sweater slipped from around her shoulders. Mara looked at it blankly, half recognizing that it was his, but the gesture registered only dimly. She did the automatic thing and gave it back to him. "I feel…as if I've been drugged."

"Lie down on the sofa for a while," her father suggested.

Drained and without energy, Mara moved to the sofa. She murmured a halfhearted protest when Adam pulled a quilted comforter over her. She stared sightlessly at the ceiling, her mind seemingly blank.

"You lie there and rest. I'll be back in a moment," Adam promised.

Mara was barely aware of him leaving. She had no conception of how long he was gone; it could have been a minute or an hour. When he returned, he positioned his wheelchair parallel with the sofa.

"Here, take some of this." He held a spoon to her mouth. "I warmed some soup for you."

Indifferent to the appetizing aroma, her mouth remained closed until Adam forced it apart with the spoon and let the warm liquid trickle inside. She stirred under its reviving taste and was less recalcitrant at the second spoonful. Her eyes sought his in silent gratitude.

"How did you manage?" she murmured, briefly curious.

"I'm not such an invalid that I can't manage a can opener and a burner on the stove," he teased gently.

Memory flashed in Mara's mind back to a time when she had cared for her mother like this. She realized that her mother had loved none too wisely, either. Pain twisted through her.

"It hurts," she whispered.

"Yes." Adam didn't deny it. He took the apron away. "Sleep now. Life may not look so bleak in the morning."

Mara doubted it, but she obediently closed her eyes. When she awakened the next morning, Adam was there. She felt like one big throbbing ache. But the realization that he was there, waiting on her, looking after her, made her throw aside the comforter and sit up.

"I'll make some coffee," she offered.

"Good idea." He followed he into the kitchen, not speaking again until she had plugged the coffeepot in. "Isn't there a possibility that you're mistaken about Sin?"

Hope sprang, but Mara quickly squashed it. "I only wish I were." She paused to glance at her father. "I know you like Sin, you did from the beginning, but you have to face the truth the same way I did," she said, still blessedly numbed. "I was merely attractive to him and provided him with some weekend entertainment. He probably even considered me something of a challenge." The first sting of tears since yesterday's torrent burned her eyes, and she turned away, not wanting to start weeping again. "Anyway, it's over. And I don't want to discuss it any more."

IT WAS A REFUSAL that Mara repeated twice more in the next two days whenever Adam attempted to introduce the subject. The tenuous bond between father and daughter had strengthened in the intervening time. Someday she knew she would talk to him about Sin, but not while the hurt was so fresh.

The holiday spirit was sadly lacking in their household. Staying with family tradition, they exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve. There had been two presents under the tree for Sin, one from Mara and the other from her father. Both had disappeared during the last couple of days—Adam's doing, Mara guessed, so she wouldn't be reminded that Sin had been going to celebrate Christmas with them.

Christmas morning seemed no different from recent mornings. After breakfast, Mara washed the dishes while her father retired to the living room to watch the televised Christmas services. Christmas hymns filtered joyfully into the kitchen.

An aching loneliness swept over her. Tears welled in her eyes and she began angrily slamming cupboard doors and clattering pots and pans as she put the dishes away, anything to cover the music from the living room. It didn't work very well. She finally had to stop and wipe her eyes. Sniffling a little, she put a ham roast in the oven and filled the colander with some potatoes to peel and slice for scalloped potatoes.

The singing stopped and the muffled sound of the sermon began. Mara sat in a kitchen chair at the table and began peeling the potatoes. Keeping busy, she had discovered, was therapeutic.

"Mara?" Adam called. "Come in here, will you? Santa Claus has finally delivered your present."

Glancing at the swinging door, Mara breathed out a sigh. There was a temptation to tell him she was busy, but she guessed he had manufactured some kind of surprise to boost her spirits—as if anything could.

Santa Claus. A smile tugged at her mouth. Santa Claus hadn't visited her since she was fifteen, the last Christmas she and her parents had spent together as a family. Santa had never forgotten to leave her a present then, regardless of whether she believed in his existence or not. Perhaps her father had remembered, too.

Either way, his thoughtfulness couldn't be ignored or set aside until she was in the mood to accept it. Setting the partially peeled potato down, Mara wiped her hands on a towel.

"Coming," she answered.

As she pushed the swinging door open, she heard the front door close. Delivered had been the term Adam used. A curious frown drew her brows together as she wondered who would make deliveries on Christmas Day.

Her father was practically beaming when she entered the living room. His gaze swung toward the entryway and Mara's followed. She stopped short when she saw Sin framed in the opening. Dressed in a suit and tie and navy blue topcoat, he looked stern and unyielding. The hoary chill of winter seemed to sweep around him. Her heart somersaulted and leaped in unbounded joy, but fear kept her from voicing it.

"Sin!" Mara breathed his name at last. Confusion raced through her. "What are you doing here?"

His jaw hardened in savage grimness. "Adam told me you were lying. That you really want to see me."

"How…when…" She glanced at her father, her pained expression accusing him of betraying her. Was this his vengeance? To see her brought tumbling down from her pedestal?

"I telephoned him yesterday." Adam volunteered the information.

"How could you?" she demanded tightly.

"What the hell difference does it make how I found out?" Sin demanded. "All I want to know is whether he's telling me the truth. Were you lying?"

Trapped as she was, Mara was forced to admit, "Yes."

Her answer didn't seem to please him. Sin continued to glare at her across the distance of the room, intimidating her with the anger barely held in check.

"Why? Why, Mara, why?" he repeated the demand in a low growl.

"Because…I could tell you were getting tired of me," she replied defensively.

"I—what?!" It was an explosive reaction, disbelief and anger ringing together.