A Different Light Read online

  Fall back in love with the rich, deeply moving novels

  of New York Times bestselling author

  MARIAH STEWART

  “She excels at creating emotionally complex novels that are sure to touch your heart.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Someone to watch and savor for a long time.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “One of the most talented writers of mainstream contemporary fiction. …”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Stewart’s storylines flow like melted chocolate.”

  —America Online Writers Club Romance Group

  A DIFFERENT LIGHT

  “Warm, compassionate, and fulfilling. Great reading.”

  —Romantic Times

  “This is an absolutely delicious book to curl up with … scrumptious … delightful.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  PRICELESS

  “The very talented Ms. Stewart is rapidly building an enviable reputation for providing readers with outstanding stories and characters that are exciting, distinctive, and highly entertaining. Priceless continues to expand on this truly winning storytelling tradition.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

  “Flowing dialogue, wonderfully well-rounded and realistic characters, and beautifully descriptive passages fill the pages of Priceless. … Not to be missed.”

  —RomCom

  “In the style of Nora Roberts, Stewart weaves a powerful romance with suspense for a very compelling read.”

  —Under the Covers Reviews

  MOON DANCE

  “Enchanting … a story filled with surprises!”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “An enjoyable tale … packed with emotion.”

  —Literary Times

  “Exciting … a joy.”

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

  “Stewart hits a home run out of the ball park … a delightful contemporary romance.”

  —The Romance Reader

  WONDERFUL YOU

  “Compares favorably with the best of Barbara Delinsky and Belva Plain.”

  —Amazon.com

  “Wonderful You is delightful—romance, laughter, suspense! Totally charming and enchanting.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  DEVLIN’S LIGHT

  “A magnificent story of mystery, love, and an enchanting town. Splendid!”

  —Bell, Book and Candle

  “With her special brand of rich emotional content and compelling drama, Mariah Stewart is certain to delight readers everywhere.”

  —Romantic Times

  CAROLINA MIST

  “Ms. Stewart has written a touching and compassionate story of life and love that wrapped around me like a cozy quilt.”

  —Old Book Barn Gazette

  “An entertaining read … atmosphere abounds.”

  —Literary Times

  “A wonderful, tender novel.”

  —Rendezvous

  MOMENTS IN TIME

  “Intense and unforgettable … a truly engrossing read.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Cleverly and excellently done—Ms. Stewart is an author to watch.”

  —Rendezvous

  Also by MARIAH STEWART

  Brown-Eyed Girl

  Priceless

  Moon Dance

  Wonderful You

  Devlin’s Light

  Carolina Mist

  Moments in Time

  Pocket Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

  incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,

  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1995 by Marti Robb

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address

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  Cover design by Melody Cassen

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4391-5510-3

  ISBN 978-1-4391-6660-4 (ebook)

  To Lauren, with best wishes

  for your happily ever after

  A

  Different Light

  1

  The first light of day filtered into the room through lace curtains that fluttered in the dawn breeze, a remnant of the storm that passed through in the early morning hours. The soft scent of roses wafted upward, their branches sagging against the brick and stucco house like tired old ladies hunched together on a park bench.

  Athena Moran opened her eyes and stared miserably toward the window through which the pale rays of sunlight had begun to dance. Last night’s forecast for rain to last throughout the morning had raised her hopes that the inclement weather could perhaps even last the entire day. No such luck, apparently. She kicked off the thin blanket and went to the window to look up through the trees. The blue May sky was unblemished and the sun sparkled. It would be a perfect late spring day.

  Damn.

  Athen sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through the cascade of straight black hair that flowed down her back, and sighed. With the passing of the storm, her only excuse to avoid the annual Woodside Heights Memorial Day picnic had passed with it.

  “Mommy! Look! The rain stopped!” Nine-year-old Callie danced into the room and pulled the curtains all the way back. A splash of gold spilled gleefully across the green carpet, mocking Athen with its cheerfulness.

  “So it has.” For Callie’s sake, Athen forced a smile. Her daughter had eagerly looked forward to this day for the same reason she had dreaded it.

  “So what time?” Callie skipped back across the hall to her room. “The picnic starts at eleven. What time can we leave?”

  “Well.” Athen debated the merits of going early and leaving early, or going late and possibly missing some of the people she most wanted to avoid.

  Like, oh, maybe her father’s mistress.

  “Can we go right at eleven?” Callie pleaded.

  “We have a few other things to do today, Callie,” Athen hedged, trying to buy a little time before making a commitment.

  “What other things?” Callie poked her head back into the room, half in and half out of a Hannah Montana T-shirt.

  “Well, we have to go see your grandfather.”

  “We can do that on our way to the park. We can have breakfast right now and then go see Grandpa. Then we can go right to the picnic.”

  Pleased with the agenda, Callie ran off to finish dressing.

  “It’s only a picnic,” Athen muttered under her breath as she grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed and headed to the bathroom. “I’ve gotten through worse days than this over the
past couple of years.”

  She turned on the hot water and watched the shower stall steam, repeating, as if a mantra, “It’s only a picnic.”

  The annual Memorial Day picnic sponsored by the Woodside Heights city fathers at Enid Woods Memorial Park gathered together all past and present city employees and their families for a day of fun and games. As daughter of a former, much-loved city councilman, Athen had attended every year for as long as she could remember. As the wife of a city police officer, she had served willingly on various committees over the past twelve years.

  Her father’s stroke three years ago had been devastating. Paralyzed and deprived of speech, Ari Stavros was confined to a wheelchair at Woodside Manor, a small private nursing home on the grounds of an old mansion. It was never easy for Athen to sit and chat with her father’s old cronies, especially on the one day each year when stories of him in his prime abounded. His old friends always made a special effort to share their favorite recollections with her, as if they needed to remind her of how witty he had been, how devoted to the city, in particular to the Greek community he had served for so long.

  And then, there was that woman, the one her father never discussed with her even before his stroke took away his ability to speak.

  If in the past facing her father’s cohorts had been difficult, this year would be endlessly more painful. This year she would attend as the widow of the town’s only police officer killed in the line of duty in over twenty-two years.

  John Moran had been an enormously popular figure in the Woodside Heights Police Department. Street smart and well educated, handsome and affable, he’d been dubbed “Lucky” by the local press for his daring in the face of the dangers that increased steadily as the drug traffic began to flow from New York City, a mere twenty-five miles away. The new bypass off the interstate made it easy for the runners to slip into this small northern New Jersey city, make their connections, then zip back onto the highway toward New York or Washington. Often, John Moran would be waiting for them when they hit the city limits. He’d made more drug-related arrests than anyone else on the force and, more than once, had been heralded for his bravery.

  One night in January, on the corner of Marshall and Oak, John’s luck ran out. A carefully planned drug bust had been aborted when a small child stepped out of a corner market directly between the undercover officers and the dealer. John had leaped from behind a Dumpster to pull the boy out of the way at the exact moment the dealer pulled his gun and fired. The child dashed away from the scene with no more than a scratch on his elbow and had run home to tell the tale while John Moran lay face down on the concrete, blood seeping from a hole in the back of his head.

  The city had afforded Johnny a hero’s funeral, with representatives from just about every law enforcement department in the state of New Jersey attending. The press had a field day with the story, and for days, Athen could not leave her house without being photographed. The slain officer’s widow had been pure marble, blinking back tears that never fell in public, even when her sobbing daughter had clung to her waist as John’s body had been lowered into the ground. Photographs of a dry-eyed, stony-faced Athena Moran, stoically comforting her in-laws and gently consoling her husband’s partner, were picked up by the national wires and appeared in almost every major newspaper across the country.

  For all her stalwart façade, those closest to Athen had been worried, knowing John’s death had rocked her to her very soul. The once-dancing gray eyes were mirrors now only to the void within her, the dazzling smile only a memory. Her fiery beauty seemed to evaporate, leaving her face drawn and tired, a telltale sign that the tears that were held back in public had been wept in solitude every night for the past five months.

  Athen had cut her ties to all but those most intimate of friends, had gone nowhere she hadn’t needed to go. Her life revolved around her daughter and her father. Messages from worried friends left on her answering machine went unanswered; those left with Callie were never returned. In her heart she knew there was a life to be lived, decisions to be made about her future and her daughter’s, but she was unable to face them. She tried to convince herself that time alone would heal her, as if one day she would wake up and be whole again. She recognized self-deception for what it was, but was powerless to move beyond the spot where she stood.

  Until that cold January day, even Athen’s social life had revolved around John. Her one night out every other Monday had been with the wives of his fellow officers—dinner, gossip, support. Since John’s death she’d only gone one time. It hadn’t taken long for her to figure out that she was a reminder of what could happen to any one of them. Her shattered life was a whisper that their lives could be destroyed just as easily as hers had been. She’d read their minds in an instant: There but for the grace of God . . .

  She went home early that night, and had lain awake for hours cursing John for having left her and taking her life with him. She never went back to the group, and none of her former friends ever called to ask her why, nor had anyone made an effort to urge her to come back.

  Stepping from the shower and reaching for a towel to dry her hair, Athen tried to calm herself. Were it not for Callie, she’d skip today’s event without a second thought. But she knew that her daughter, eager to see the girls and boys she’d known since birth, had been counting the days. Separated by neighborhoods and different schools, Callie always looked forward to Memorial Day and the chance to renew old friendships, play games, and swim in the lake. Athen silently prayed that Callie would not feel set apart from the other children as she herself now felt from their mothers.

  Athen pulled a short pale yellow cotton knit dress over her head, and cinched it at the waist with a wide green belt. She sat on the edge of the bed and tied the multicolored leather thongs of her sandals around her slim ankles. She reached for a straw hat and tied the ribbons under her chin slightly to one side, and stepped back to look critically at herself in the mirror for the first time in months.

  She looked pale, almost haggard, and woefully old-fashioned. She took off the hat and went into the bathroom and turned the light back on. She wound her hair up into a soft twist and secured it with a wide clip. Better, but not great. On a whim, she snapped a piece of dried baby’s breath from the wreath that hung on the bathroom door and tucked the sprig into her hair. She rummaged through a basket of makeup that sat unused for months and found blush, a pale lilac eye shadow, and mascara. When she finished, she stepped back to take a look.

  Passable, but just barely.

  The merry widow I’m not, she told herself, but I’ll be damned if Callie’s going to that picnic with a woman who could pass as her grandmother. She added a little more blush and some lipstick. The extra color was an improvement. She snapped off the light and ran downstairs where Callie waited impatiently.

  ATHEN PARKED AT THE FAR end of the lot where her car would be shaded by the century-old trees. Though not quite eleven, the morning temperature had already risen into the eighties, the humidity rising along with it.

  “Mom, look! Grandpa’s on the patio.” Callie took off toward the back of the white-columned Georgian mansion, running up the grassy slope, all legs in white shorts and sneakers. She waved a greeting to Lilly, the nurse’s aide, a large woman of gentle touch and gentle humor, and came to rest on the bricks at the feet of the old man in the wheelchair.

  Only six when her grandfather suffered the first stroke, Callie had few memories of him as the strong giant of a man he once had been. As Athen neared the place where her father sat silent and imprisoned, her heart ached to see how the once-broad shoulders that had carried her as a child were now so small and slumped, the hands that had lifted her into the air now lifeless and pale.

  “Pateras,” she addressed him formally, with respect, in Greek. “I’ve a letter from Demitri.”

  She kissed the top of his head and pulled a chair closer, taking the thin white pages from the neatly addressed envelope. She read aloud the letter from her fa
ther’s brother, first in Greek, then in English, and couldn’t help but wonder how much he understood. She chatted, first a one-sided conversation with him, then a few words with Lilly. Falling silent, she watched Callie feed the ducks that gathered at the edge of the pond.

  Lilly left them, and Athen confided the day’s fears and anxieties to her father in a tearful whisper. She told him how the emptiness inside her seemed to widen rather than diminish as time passed; how her life had no meaning, no direction, except for her daughter.

  “Did you feel like that when Mama died?” she asked softly. “I don’t remember what it was like for you then, only what it was like for me. I was so little, but I remember you kept going, kept working and going to meetings. How did you have the strength to go back into the world once she’d left it?”

  There would be no response, she knew, nor any recognition that he had heard or understood. The dark brown eyes—so like Callie’s—flickered briefly. If there’d been a message there, its meaning was lost to her. The man who had been both mother and father to her since she was five years old seemed no longer to exist. Her guardian, her champion, who had so carefully and lovingly sheltered her from the world’s dangers, could shelter her no more.

  She watched a black speckled caterpillar inch across the bricks and waited for the enormous lump in her throat to dissolve. Moments later, Lilly appeared to announce lunch, and Athen kissed her father good-bye, promising to return tomorrow to bring him all the news from his old friends.

  Callie greeted her mother’s beckoning call with a loud “Yahoo!” as she dashed from the pond to the parking lot.

  Athen’s stomach churned as she pulled out of the drive, knowing this would be a very long afternoon. The fact that Diana Bennett was the first person she saw upon arriving at the park was a sign that the day was going to be every bit as bad as she thought it would be.

  “Hey, Ms. Bennett. Hi!” Callie called out merrily and jumped out of the car.

  “Is that you, Callie? Good Lord, you’ve grown another two—make that three—inches since the last time I saw you.” Diana smiled. “I’ve missed seeing you out at the academy. Aren’t you taking riding lessons anymore?”