Sheltered in His Arms. Tara Quinn Taylor

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      She might someday be able to forgive him. Had been aiming toward that goal for the past several years. But even if the day came when she could be truly free of the pain he’d caused her, the trust was gone. Once trust was broken, it couldn’t be restored. It simply ceased to exist. How could you believe in someone you couldn’t believe?

      “Moira’s parents were still alive back then, though they’re both gone now.” He shook his head grimly. “I’m glad they weren’t around to know what happened to their daughter. They died of a viral infection in Africa, within a week of each other. Even when they were alive, they were always in service somewhere obscure. She saw them once a year if she was lucky. And Brian was an orphan.”

      Sam didn’t bother to explain about his own aloneness. Perhaps there wasn’t any point.

      He gave a sudden laugh, and Cassie sensed sadness there as well as mirth. “I was the one who proposed,” he said.

      “To Moira, you mean?” So he and Brian had both been in love with the woman?

      “No.” He steepled his fingers in front of his chest. “They were such blind fools. Even after they were expecting Mariah, they couldn’t figure out that they were crazy about each other. I had to point out the obvious and then drag them off to Atlantic City to tie the knot before they could talk themselves out of it.”

      Cassie had never had a friendship that close. Not since Sam. She envied him.

      She had Zack, though. And Randi now, too. Zack had pulled her through some rough times in those first days after she’d made the decision to get on with her life and reenter college. At Arizona State, not Montford University. There was no way she could have gone back to Montford.

      “When Mariah was born, I had to do most of the coaching because poor Brian was so scared seeing Moira in pain, it made him sick.”

      Sam had witnessed a birth, had coached another woman through those hours of pain. Another woman… This was why she couldn’t be with him, why she couldn’t spend any more time with him. Everything he said hurt too much.

      “Tell me about Mariah,” she said now, needing to get him back to the only thing that could matter.

      Her life’s work involved helping emotionally devastated people. And she hadn’t been able to get that little girl out of her mind. Couldn’t bear to have the child living so close, to run the risk of running into her over and over, without finding out if there was something she could do to help.

      She wasn’t interested for Sam’s sake. Never for Sam. But because this was what Cassie did. What made her feel good about herself. What gave her a reason to get up in the morning.

      Sam sat forward, his hands hanging helplessly. “Only she could tell us what’s on her mind at this point. There were reports of the things that happened during the twelve hours the plane was held captive, but they varied depending on who was talking, where they were sitting. Every report was clouded by the witness’s own terror. Not a lot of people noticed the mother and little girl sitting in the back of the plane—”