If You Believe

to "Rass" at the age of six. And for a year after that fiasco with Stephen, she didnt call him anything at all. Didnt even speak to him.

Why the hell had he let her retreat so far into herself? Last night hed looked into Jakes eyes—a stranger— and Rass had seen pain. How had he missed so much in his own child?

"Why didnt we see it, Greta?" The words slipped past his chapped lips.

It had never mattered before that Mariah called him Rass; hell, hed been proud of her pride and defiance.

But now, damn it, it mattered. There were many things he wanted to tell her, lessons yet to teach her.

He didnt even know where to begin.

He sighed, disgusted that he knew perfectly well how to reach out to a stranger, but had no idea how to connect with his own daughter.

It should be simple and straightforward.

Im sorry, Mariah. I love you.

Tears stung his eyes again. Not so simple, he thought with an unfamiliar bitterness.

Not with Mariah.

Somehow, he and Greta had created a child who didnt hear those words well, didnt want to hear them.

Had they forgotten to tell her as a child? Had she stood alone in their happy home, waiting for a declaration her parents had taken for granted?

Hed never once told Greta that he loved her. His own parents had never said the words, and yet hed known, just as Greta had known. Hed always thought of love that way, as a look, a touch, a smile. Not a word to be passed from one to another like a Christmas gift.

But now he wondered. What was love to Mariah? Had she waited, lonely and aching and afraid, for the simple words that had never come? Had she run away with the first man who said them to her because she was so starved to hear it?

A dark, sadness filled him. He didnt know, might never know what he and Greta had done wrong. And, perhaps it didnt matter. Perhaps all that mattered was making it right now.

He had to get past the silent wall of her defenses. Maybe then he could figure out a way to say the hundreds of things that needed saying.

Or maybe just the one.

It was almost nightfall when Rass finally came to the barn. Jake heard the old mans voice, calling out to him, and relief rushed through him. Hed been lonely today, tired and sad. He couldnt wait to sit and talk with Rass. When he was with the old man, Jake felt safe and cared-for.

"Hey, Jake," he said from the d

oorway, "come on down. "

Jake frowned. Rass sounded . . . tired.

He crawled to the corner of the loft and peered down. "Hi, Rass. "

Rass smiled weakly. "Hi, Jake. "

Jake got a really bad feeling in his stomach that something was wrong. His frown deepened. "You dont have any food with you. " I Rass shook his head. "Come on down. "

Jake clambered down the ladder and dropped onto the floor. "Whats going on?"

Rass walked toward him, his feet making a shuffling, scuffing sound on the hard-packed dirt floor. There was a sheen of moisture in his rheumy blue eyes. "Ive been thinking, Jake. "

Jake licked his lips, trying to banish a rising sense of apprehension. "Oh. "

Rass glanced sideways, staring hard through the small, dusty window in the barns left side. "Its not right that you hide out here. "

"But—"