Paula Graves - Chickasaw County Captive

Except she was the disease, not motherhood. She was the one with insanity in her genes and a maternal role model wretched enough to make the very notion of having children an unbearably bad risk.

“Miss Kristen, do you know any songs?” Maddy’s sleepy voice pulled her out of her bleak thoughts.

She pasted on a smile. “I’m not much of a singer. Why don’t you start, and if I know the song, I’ll sing along.”

“Okay!” Maddy smiled and propped herself up against Kristen’s arm. She thought a moment, then started singing “Old McDonald Had a Farm.” By the time they got to the sillier farm animals, Kristen found herself laughing as hard as Maddy.

“Okay, next one’s gotta be a lullaby, bug,” she told Maddy as the little girl’s giggles finally subsided. She put her arm around Maddy and tucked her close. A tune from the distant past drifted into her mind, a reminder of a simpler, sweeter time. As Maddy snuggled against her, she started singing.

“River rolls closer, near the green hills. Reaches for the moon, but the moon stands still. Moon stands still while the river runs, waiting in the dark for Mr. Sun.”

Maddy’s eyes closed as Kristen repeated the same verse, the only one she could remember. It had been a silly song she’d made up to sing Julie to sleep. She’d forgotten it until just now, maybe because she’d spent so much time trying to forget the horrors of that last day with her brothers and sisters that she’d buried the good memories, too.

Maddy drifted off to sleep just as a flood of emotions started to break through the fortifications Kristen had built up in her mind over the last fifteen years. A hundred images swam through her thoughts, for the first time in a long time more sweet than bitter. Blinking back tears, she picked up Maddy and carried her back to her room, settling her under the covers.

Maddy turned over, her sweet face burrowing into her pillow. Kristen felt a smile breaking through her sadness as she slipped from the room, closing the door behind her.

“She asleep?”

Sam’s voice, emerging from the darkness of the hallway, was a shock to her system. She pressed her hand over her chest, acutely aware that she hadn’t even bothered to throw on a robe over the tank top and silk shorts she’d worn to bed.

“Yes,” she answered, starting to sidle past him to her room. But he caught her arm, keeping her in place. Sparks ignited along her spine, radiating out from where his big, warm hand closed over her bare arm.

“Good,” he said. “Because we need to talk.”

She eyed him warily. “About what?”

“About where you went this afternoon.” Sam caught her chin, forcing her gaze up to meet his. “You went to see your mother, didn’t you?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What makes you think that?”

“Carl Madison called to check on you while you were in the shower. He was worried he couldn’t get you on your cell phone and wondered if seeing your mother again had been too much for you.” Sam ran his thumb over the curve of her chin. “Was it?”

Kristen glanced at Maddy’s bedroom door. “Do we have to talk about this tonight?”

He dropped his hand. “Not if you don’t want to.”

She threw him an exasperated look, hating how much she wanted to tell him everything she’d been through that day. Right now, a pair of warm, strong arms wrapped around her seemed like the most necessary thing in the world.

She settled for admitting, “I didn’t think I wanted to.”

“But now you do?”

She made a growling noise deep in her throat and walked away, heading for the darkened living room. Her shin made contact with the end table by the sofa, sending pain shooting up her leg. She uttered a quiet, heartfelt curse and fumbled for the lamp switch. A twist of the knob later, lamplight flooded half the room, illuminating the sofa.

With a sigh of surrender, Kristen turned to look at Sam. “A couple of days ago, my mother’s doctor called Carl, asking for me. He told Carl my mother wanted to see me.”

“And Carl called you,” Sam guessed correctly. “That was the call you took the day Norah arrived, right? The one that had you so upset.”

She briefly considered arguing with him about his assessment of her mood that day, but he was right. The call had scared the hell out of her, among other things.

She slumped onto the nearest sofa cushion, wrapping her arms around herself. “I told Carl I didn’t want to see her.”

“I remember.”

She licked her lips. “But the doctor called me today.”

Sam sat beside her, careful to leave her plenty of space, she noticed bleakly. Apparently she was giving off major “don’t touch” vibes.

“Is it the first time you’ve seen her since she was committed?” he asked gently.

She met his curious gaze, her lips twisting in a wry smile. “Yeah. Probably the last, too.”

“Why did you decide to see her after all this time?”

She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to tell him about Bryant Thompson. She reached for the jacket she’d left draped over the arm of the sofa and pulled the clipping from the pocket. “Because of this.”

Sam frowned as he took in the article. “I thought you said it wasn’t related to the attempted kidnapping.”

“I don’t think it is. Someone visited my mother yesterday, out of the blue. He brought her this photo.”

Sam looked puzzled. “Who would do that? And why?”

“That’s what I’m going to have to find out.” She took back the clipping and put it in her pocket. “But that’s my mystery, not yours.” The last thing she wanted to do was involve Sam in her life any more than he was already, not when she was on the verge of walking away for good.

A clean break would be better for everyone, right?

“You helped me with mine. Maybe I could help you with yours,” he offered.

She had to smile at the offer. “How do you plan to do that, Sherlock?”

He brushed a lock of hair away from her cheek. Her smile faded, replaced by a tremble in her lips that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the crackling heat simmering low in her belly. “Maybe we could start with why seeing your mother after all this time bothered you so much,” he murmured.

She grimaced, trying not to lean any closer to him. “That’s not really a mystery, is it?”

“Do you ever talk about what happened to you?”

She shook her head. “Not if I can help it.”

“But you still think about it.”

“Every day.” She sighed. “Look, Sam, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. But there are some things I can’t-” She broke off with a wince, unable to find the words.

In his eyes, she saw his internal struggle. He wanted to help her-she saw the urge so clearly that she found herself feeling sorry for him. Poor Sam, trying to break through a decade and a half of walls she’d built to protect herself, she thought. She loved him a little bit for it, even though she wasn’t sure she’d ever let those walls fall completely.

Silence stretched between them, taut and uncomfortable. Kristen closed her fingers around her knees, squeezing tightly as she struggled against the tears burning behind her eyes. She felt words hammering the back of her throat, struggling to find a voice, but she had no idea what to say.

When she finally opened her mouth and let the words spill out, they were the last thing she expected. “My mother asked me to bring Maddy to see her.”

“What?”

She turned to look at him, hating herself for putting that look of horror on his face. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to see her again.”

“Why did she want to see Maddy? Why did she think you’d ever do such a thing?”